Australia

All you need to read.

And now for some pure irony, we have a member of the Fed, granted a gold bug, but a Fed member nonetheless, one of the same people who not only enacted ZIRP, but encourage easy money every time there is a downtick in the market, complaining about, get this, Wall Street's "continued preoccupation, bordering upon fetish" with QE3. The irony continues: "Trillions of dollars are lying fallow, not being employed in the real economy. Yet financial market operators keep looking and hoping for more. Why? I think it may be because they have become hooked on the monetary morphine we provided when we performed massive reconstructive surgery, rescuing the economy from the Financial Panic of 2008–09, and then kept the medication in the financial bloodstream to ensure recovery....I believe adding to the accommodative doses we have applied rather than beginning to wean the patient might be the equivalent of medical malpractice." So let's get this straight: these academic titans, who for one reason or another, are given free rein to determine the fate of the once free world with their secret decisions every two or three months, are completely unaware of classical conditioning, discovered by Pavlov nearly 90 years ago, also known as a salivation response. The same Fed is shocked, shocked, that every time the market dips, the red light goes off, and the "balls to the wall" crowd scream for more, more, more free money. Really Fisher? Really? Oh, and let us guess what happens the next time the S&P slides into the tripple digits: will the Fed a) do nothing, thereby letting the market slide to its fair value in the 400 point range, or b) print. Our money, in the form of hard yellow metal, is on the latter, just like we predicted, correctly, back in March 2009 in " Bailoutspotting (Or The Search For The Great Financial Methadone Clinic" that nothing will ever change vis-a-vis the great market junkie until it all comes crashing down.

Central banks are printing money all over the world. New names have been given to what is really an age old phenomenon. Desperate governments have traditionally debased their currencies when they have no other way of financing their deficits. So far the world’s central banks have been “lucky”. Thanks to the prior global bubble ending in 2008 and the realization that the so-called advanced countries are reaching the end of their borrowing capacity, the world is in a massive deleveraging mode which tends to be deflationary. For the moment the central banks can get away with printing all the money they want without massive increases in consumer price indexes. The public doesn’t connect increases in prices of commodities like gold or oil with the current bout of money printing. But if history is any guide, this money printing will matter and the age of deflation and deleveraging will be followed by an age of inflation.The coming battles over solving the problems of the bankrupt American government will not be pretty. It will be a bit more difficult for an American president to preach patriotism to the affluent in these circumstances. Although, if there is a war with Iran, he might try.

Citigroup have said that they believe that gold will rise to $2,400/oz in 2012 and by $3,400/oz in “the coming years”. However, Citi’s Tom Fitzpatrick warned of price weakness in the short term and said there is a “real danger” that there may be a correction to $1,600/oz which would provide an even better buying opportunity. Citi are also cautious near term on oil and silver. Production of gold in Australia slid again last year, despite gold fetching higher nominal prices than ever before. According to gold experts, Surbiton Associates, 264 tonnes of gold were produced last year, two tonnes less than in 2010. The 264 tonnes equated to about 8.5 million ounces and ensures that Australia remains a major player in gold, with only China producing more last year. The United States was the world's third-biggest producer with 240 tonnes. Australia's gold production was well below the nation's production peak in the late 1990s.  This further suggests the possibility of peak gold production. Of the world’s four biggest gold producers (China, Australia, the U.S. and South Africa), only China has managed to increase gold production in recent years and this Chinese gold is used in China to meet the rapidly growing demand for gold jewellery and coins and bars as stores of value in China.

American investor (and longtime CM.com member) Erik Townsend has spent the past several years living internationally, with an eye to which countries may be good alternatives if economic crisis and/or Peak Oil start to materially impact life in the US.  His main observation as an expat? Through its misguided policies, the US has been exporting inflation to the rest of the world, raising prices all over the globe (as an example, he cites a $57 chicken pot pie from the menu at a 'working class' restaurant in Australia).  This inflation is affecting the rest of the world harshly, but is not yet being felt in the US due to our ability to export it as the issuer of the world's reserve currency. Our immunity will not last forever though, and when it ends, a massive upwards spike in prices is going to hit US markets.

While 9/11 was far more traumatic for many Americans than for myself, it really messed me up emotionally for a while. I thought about joining the armed forces or the newly created Department of Homeland Security. I almost quit my job to get a graduate degree in something I could do to help fight the “war on terror.” The city of my birth was attacked and two great symbols I had seen repeatedly growing up had suddenly vanished. I never once questioned anything about 9/11 for many, many years. I was emotionally reprogrammed. I now realize that was the intent and I am not happy about it. Look, I will be the first to say I have no idea what really happened on that day, but I can tell you one thing. I am 100% convinced that it wasn’t 19 cave dwelling Al Qaeda members who hate us for our “freedoms.” I can also tell you that two planes didn’t take down three buildings. The real reason I am writing this piece today is because of a very, very important article from the NY Times, parts of which I have quoted at the top. The article shows how two former Senators have said in sworn statements that they believe the government of Saudi Arabia was directly involved in the attacks. Now, such speculation is not new; however, let’s not forget the very close relationships that many of the elite in the U.S. have with the Saudi government. Furthermore, let’s analyze some of the passages in the article in a little more detail.

Could Sweden or Finland be the scene of the next European financial crisis? It is actually far likelier than most people realize. While the world has been laser-focused on the woes of the heavily-indebted PIIGS nations for the last couple of years, property markets in Northern and Western European countries have been bubbling up to dizzying new heights in a repeat performance of the very property bubbles that caused the global financial crisis in the first place. Nordic and Western European countries such as Norway and Switzerland have attracted strong investment inflows due to their perceived economic safe-haven statuses, serving to further inflate these countries’ preexisting property bubbles that had expanded from the mid-1990s until 2008. With their overheated economies and ballooning property bubbles, today’s safe-haven European countries may very well be tomorrow’s Greeces and Italys.

Last week saw dramatic dispersion among the major FX pairs as global and local influences caused significant moves in most of the key crosses. Goldman takes a look back at the key drivers of that volatility and then focuses on the week ahead as the EU Summit at the latter end is the main event risk while ongoing macro developments will be focused on the incessant rise in Crude oil prices and whether we start seeing knock-on impacts in the real economy.

In his most recent quarterly letter titled appropriately enough "The Longest Quarterly Letter Ever" GMO's Jeremy Grantham literally kills it. Well, maybe not literally but certainly metaphorically.

An explicit contagion path chart, since you probably won't get info like this anywhere else... 

It was one short week ago that both Australia surprised with hotter than expected inflation (and no rate cut), and a Chinese CPI print that was far above expectations. Yet in confirmation of Dylan Grice's point that when it comes to "inflation targeting" central planners are merely the biggest "fools", this morning we woke to find that the PBOC has cut the Required Reserve Ratio (RRR) by another largely theatrical 50 bps. As a reminder, RRR cuts have very little if any impact, compared to the brute force adjustment that is the interest rate itself. As to what may have precipitated this, the answer is obvious - a collapsing housing market (which fell for the fourth month in a row) as the below chart from Michael McDonough shows, and a Shanghai Composite that just refuses to do anything (see China M1 Hits Bottom, Digs). What will this action do? Hardly much if anything, as this is purely a demonstrative attempt to rekindle animal spirits. However as was noted previously, "The last time they stimulated their CPI was close to 2%. It's 4.5% now, and blipping up." As such, expect the latent pockets of inflation where the fast money still has not even withdrawn from to bubble up promptly. That these "pockets" happen to be food and gold is not unexpected. And speaking of the latter, it is about time China got back into the gold trade prim and proper. At least China has stopped beating around the bush and has now joined the rest of the world in creating the world's biggest shadow liquidity tsunami.

Last week, there were relatively few US data releases, but Initial Jobless Claims continued to surprise on the positive side, while U of Michigan Consumer Sentiment saw a small decline. This week, the FOMC minutes on Wednesday with guidance on the Fed's balance sheet will be the key event. Aside from the Fed, there will be many key releases in the US with IP, CPI, and the regional business surveys. The market expects an increase of 0.6%mom in IP, 0.3%mom in CPI, and small gains in the surveys. ?In Greece, negative headlines over the new austerity package on Friday caused some reversal of the rally in the first part of the week, and as a result, we were stopped out of our short $/CAD recommendation (for a small potential gain). However, the Greek cabinet agreed on the new austerity measures late on Friday, and parliament appears to be on track for a positive vote. The Eurogroup meeting scheduled this coming week will be important to watch as well, and Greek GDP will give a sense of the cyclical damage caused by austerity.

Members of the RIAA, Department of Homeland Security, Sony, Universal and Fox may have illegally downloaded files from BitTorrent ... And Lamar Smith – the Congressman sponsoring SOPA – used a pirated photograph on his official campaign website ...

Yesterday when we discussed the surprising non-cut in the Australia cash rate, we asked "is China re-exporting the lagging US inflation it imported over 2011? " and said that "It means that Chinese inflation continues to be far higher than what is represented... and wonder: did the RBA just catch the PBOC lying about its subdued inflation?" Lastly, we concluded: "Furthermore, the PBOC did 26 billion yuan in repos, meaning it is set to conduct a net liquidity withdrawal for this week according to Credit Agricole. Withdrawing liquidity when the market expects RRR cuts?" Sure enough, as usually happens when assuming sentiment manipulation by a centrally planned powerhouse such as the US, and in far lesser degree these days, China, we were right. The news just out of China is that January inflation soared far beyond expectations, with CPI printing at 4.5% Y/Y, compared to estimates of a decline to 4% from December's 4.1%. This was the highest inflation since October. We will simply repeat our conclusion from yesterday, which while speculation then is now confirmed: "Chinese easing is a long way off... and in a market defined solely by hopes for central bank intervention this is not good." Practically, this means that the PBOC just told the world that no easing will come from China in a long time, and that the Fed and the ECB are alone in reliquifying the market. It also means that one can kiss the Chinese growth dynamo story goodbye, and once the US finally recouples with the rest of the world, the only hope will be a new announcement of QE in March so it hits its maximum efficiency in time for Obama's reelection campaign.

When all else fails, pretend it's all good. Like what Australia did, following the just released announcement by the RBA that it is keeping the cash rate unchanged at 4.25% on expectations of a 25 bps rate cut. Which begs the question: is China re-exporting the lagging US inflation it imported over 2011? So it appears to Glenn Stevens, who just said that "Commodity prices declined for some months to be noticeably off their peaks, but over the past couple of months have risen somewhat and remain at quite high levels." Or maybe they are not pretending and inflation is still alive and very much real? It also means that Chinese inflation continues to be far higher than what is represented, but we probably will just take the PBoC's word for that. Or not, and wonder: did the RBA just catch the PBOC lying about its subdued inflation? And if that is the case, does anyone really wonder why that very elusive RRR-cut is coming with the same certainty as the Greek creditor deal? Either way, the AUDJPY spikes by 80 pips on the news, however briefly, and if the traditional linkage between the AUDJPY and the market is preserved, it should have a favorable impact on risk as it means at least one hotbed of inflation remains. On the other hand, it also means that Chinese easing is a long way off... and in a market defined solely by hopes for central bank intervention this is not good. And amusingly, just as we write this, Bloomberg release a note that the PBOC is draining funds: "China’s money market rates rose after PBOC resumed fund drain via a repo operation, showing it remained cautious toward policy easing." Translation: "Hopes for a near-term RRR cut could be dashed, Credit Agricole CIB strategist Frances Cheung writes in note to clients." Oops. Furthermore, the PBOC did 26 billion yuan in repos, meaning it is set to conduct a net liquidity withdrawal for this week according to Credit Agricole. Withrawing liquidity when the market expects RRR cuts? Fughetaboutit. (and reread the Grice piece on why only idiots define inflation by the CPI or the PCE).