Bank of England

A week ago, we penned "The Real Reason Why Germany Halted Its Gold Repatriation From The NY Fed", in which we got, for the first time ever, an admission by an official source, namely the bank that knows everything that takes place in Germany - Deutsche Bank - what the real reason was for Germany's gold repatriation halt after procuring a meager 5 tons from the NY Fed. Some took offense with this pointing out, correctly, that the gold held at the NY Fed in deposit form for foreign institutions had continued to decline into 2014 even despite the alleged German halt. Well, today we finally know the answer: it wasn't Germany who was secretly withdrawing gold from the NYFed, contrary to what it had publicly disclosed. It was the Netherlands.  Why did the DNB decided it was time to cut its gold held at the NY Fed by 122 tons? "It is no longer wise to keep half of our gold in one part of the world," a DNB spokesman said.

• Banks Had Unfair Advantage From Commodity Units (Bloomberg)
• Report Notes Deals Between Goldman, Deutsche and Others Drove Up Aluminum Prices (WSJ)
• Goldman, Morgan Stanley Commodity Heyday Gone as Units Faulted (BBG) - because when you can no longer manipulate, you move on...
• Lenders Shift to Help Struggling Student Borrowers (WSJ)
• Immigrants face major hurdles in signing up to new Obama plan (Reuters)
• Distressed Debt in China? Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, Buyers Say (BBG)
• Banking culture breeds dishonesty, scientific study finds (Reuters)
• Amazon Robots Get Ready for Christmas (WSJ)

Once again all eyes are on the carry-trade driving Yen, whose avalance into oblivion is picking up speed, and where the formerly unimaginable USDJPY level of 120 as presented here in September, is now looking like this week's business, with the only question how long until Albert Edwards' next target of 145 is hit leading to nuclear currency warfare between Japan, Korea, China and ultimately, the US and Europe. Unfortunately, for Japan, at this point the terminal currency collapse will do nothing to incrementally boost exports or its economy, and the former Japan finmin was on the tape warning again that the Japanese recession will persist as USDJPY over 115 is now hurting Japan, something which should by now have been clear to most.

David Cameron warned last night that the global economy risked another crash and said in an article that 'red warning lights' were 'flashing on the dashboard of the global economy' and the eurozone was 'teetering on the brink' of another recession.

Perhaps the biggest shock following last night's completely expected and very predictable (previewed here over a month ago) Japanese slide into triple- (actually make that quadruple) dip recession, is that it took the BTFTripleDip recession algos as long as they did to recover most of the overnight futures losses. Because after surging to 107 on a confused short squeeze kneejerk reaction, the USDJPY subsequently tumbled 150 pips to 105.50 as rationality briefly emerged, and the market wondered for a few brief hours if rewaring the destruction of one's economy is actually a prudent thing. Then, however, when European traders started walking into work, the now default USDJPY levitation on no volume came right back, and with that the correlation algo buying of E-mini futures, no doubt helped by the Bank of Japan itself taking advantage of the CME's ES liquidity rebate program. Because without confidence as expressed by the lowest and only common denominator left - global equities - there is nothing else.

"... the gold community paid great attention to the decision of the German Bundesbank to “bring German gold home”. At the beginning of 2013, the Bundesbank announced it would repatriate 300 tonnes of gold stored in the US by 2020. It is well behind schedule, citing logistical difficulties. Yet diplomatic difficulties are more likely to be the chief cause of the delay, especially seeing as the Bundesbank has proven its capacity to organise large-scale gold transports. In the early 2000s, the Bundesbank incrementally repatriated 930 tonnes of German gold held by the Bank of England."

For anyone curious how banks "represent and warrant" that they have thousands of tons of physical gold when in reality they have far less if not zero physical in storage and all in "synthetic" form, here is the blow by blow.

• Moar central banks! Asian Stocks Rise Amid Stimulus Speculation; Topix Jumps (BBG)
• Syria rebels in south emerge as West's last hope as moderates crushed elsewhere (Reuters)
• Bufett's Berkshire to Buy Duracell Business From Procter & Gamble in $3B Deal (AP)
• Weak Demand, Real-Estate Slump Signal Headwinds for China (WSJ)
• China Slowdown Deepens as Leaders Said to Mull Cutting Target (BBG)
• Saudis Reject Talk of OPEC Market Share War as Oil Slides (BBG)
• Oil Tankers Stream Toward China as Price Drop Sparks Boom (BBG)

Putting Things In Context ...

Further proof of manipulation of gold and silver prices - if any were needed - came overnight as  Switzerland’s financial regulator (FINMA) found “serious misconduct” and a “clear attempt to manipulate precious metals benchmarks” by UBS employees in precious metals trading, particularly with silver.

As expected, the stench in market rigging, be it Libor, FX, gold or anything else, goes to the very top...

• No Sign of Thaw in Obama’s Brief Encounters With Putin (BBG)
• Japan Lawmakers Prepare for Snap Elections as Abe Mulls Tax (BBG)
• Global stocks rise, Brent crude hits four-year low (Reuters)
• U.S., China to Drop Tariffs on Range of Tech Products (WSJ)
• ‘Too-Big-to-Fail’ Rule Would Raise Bar for Bank Capital (WSJ) ... and mean even bigger taxpayer bailouts
• Pot in New York: $100 Ticket. No Charges. No Record. No Nothing (BBG)
• Microsoft unveils first Lumia smartphone without Nokia name (Reuters)
• Davos-Man Ackermann Lured to Cyprus Bank by Billionaires (BBG)
• Alibaba, Apple Talks on Payments Tie-Up Focused on China (WSJ)

"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard." - Who Said It?

Non-bombastic overview of the forces influencing the capital markets in the week ahead.  

"Sample issues: we aren’t controlling for changes in the quality of job growth when measuring average hourly earnings"