Brazil

Central bank gold demand remains robust as central banks continue to diversify out of the euro and the dollar. Further central bank demand is confirmed in the news this morning that Kazakhstan plans to raise the share of gold in its international reserves from 12% to 15%. So announced central bank Deputy Chairman Bisengaly Tadzhiyakov to reporters today in the capital, Astana. “We’ve already signed contracts for 22 tons,” Tadzhiyakov said. Bloomberg report that immediate-delivery gold was little changed at $1.620.41 an ounce at 10:50 a.m. in Moscow, valuing 22 metric tons of gold at about $1.2 billion. “The bank is ready to buy when suppliers are ready to sell,” Tadzhiyakov said. Kazakhstan said yesterday it will cut its holdings in the euro by a sixth. It was reported in the Reuters Global Gold Forum that the central bank buys all the gold produced in Kazakhstan and owned 98.19T at the end of April, according to the IMF's most recent international finance statistics report. Meanwhile, supply issues remain and South African gold production continues to plummet. South African gold production fell 12.8% in April from a year earlier, Juan -Pierre Terblanche, a spokesman for Statistics South Africa, told Bloomberg.

• China Cuts Interest Rates for First Time Since 2008 (Bloomberg)
• New Risk to Europe's Growth: Banks Cut Lending to Cities (WSJ)
• Labor Faces New Challenge - Losses in Wisconsin, California Come as Ranks of Government Unions Decline (WSJ)
• Yellen argues for more Fed easing amid Europe risk (Reuters)
• Americans Cling to Jobs as U.S. Workforce Dynamism Fades (Bloomberg)
• Japan’s LDP Agrees to Talks With Noda’s DPJ on Sales Tax (Bloomberg)
• Korean Buying Spree Boosts Brent Price (FT)
• China Delays Bank Capital Rule Tightening as Economy Slows (Bloomberg)
• China CIC Chief Sees Rising Risk of Euro Breakup (WSJ)

All you need to read.

All you need to read and some more.

All you need to read.

Short of the complete destruction of a fiat currency, there is nothing that can demonstrate beyond doubt the shallowness of the promise to protect purchasing power that is being made on any day. There is no bright line separating performance from talk. With a gold standard, deception is much more difficult. Creating too much money will lead to redemptions that drain away the official gold stockpile. Everyone can see the inventory shrinking. If it shrinks to zero, then the managers of the system have failed, period. There is no ambiguity about it, and the politicians in charge at the time have little room for denial. The formal adoption of a gold standard holds no magic. It's just another promise. But it is a promise that carries an assured potential for egg-on-face political embarrassment if it is broken, and the only way for the people in charge to avoid that embarrassment is to refrain from recklessly expanding the supply of cash. That's why a gold standard protects the value of a currency, and that is why the politicians don't want it.

The global monetary system which has evolved and morphed over the past century but always in the direction of easier, cheaper and more abundant credit, may have reached a point at which it can no longer operate efficiently and equitably to promote economic growth and the fair distribution of its benefits. Future changes, which lie on a visible horizon, may not be so beneficial for our ocean’s oversized creatures. Both the lower quality and lower yields of previously sacrosanct debt therefore represent a potential breaking point in our now 40-year-old global monetary system. Neither condition was considered feasible as recently as five years ago. Now, however, with even the United States suffering a credit downgrade to AA+ and offering negative 200 basis point real policy rates for the privilege of investing in Treasury bills, the willingness of creditor whales – as opposed to debtors – to support the existing system may soon descend. Such a transition occurs because lenders either perceive too much risk or refuse to accept near zero-based returns on their investments. “There she blows,” screamed Captain Ahab and similarly intentioned debt holders may soon follow suit, presenting the possibility of a new global monetary system in future years, or if not, one which is stagnant, dysfunctional and ill-equipped to facilitate the process of productive investment.

We know the U.S. is a big and liquid (though not really very transparent) market. We know that the rest of the world — led by Europe’s myriad issues, and China’s bursting housing bubble — is teetering on the edge of a precipice, and without a miracle will fall (perhaps sooner, rather than later). But we also know that America is inextricably interconnected to this mess. If Europe (or China or both) disintegrates, triggering (another) global default cascade, America will be stung by its European banking exposures, its exposures to global energy markets and global trade flows. Simply, there cannot be financial decoupling, not in this hyper-connected, hyper-leveraged world.

All of this suggests a global crash or proto-crash will be followed by a huge global money printing operation, probably spearheaded by the Fed. Don’t let the Europeans fool anyone, either — Germany will not let the Euro crumble for fear of money printing. When push comes to shove they will print and fiscally consolidate to save their pet project (though perhaps demanding gold as collateral, and perhaps kicking out some delinquents). China will spew trillions of stimulus money into more and deeper malinvestment (why have ten ghost cities when you can have fifty? Good news for aggregate demand!).

With Europe now seemingly in exile from even the bravest knife-catcher value-manager, and, despite media protestation, US equities facing weak macro data and a fiscal cliff of epic proportions; it is no surprise that everyone and their mom thinks emerging markets are the place to be. However, as UBS notes today, not all EM balance sheets (whether government, corporate, or private) are the same and they break down the low, medium, and high risk balance sheets across Asia, LatAm, and EMEA. As is evident in Europe, high debt levels are detrimental to economic growth and equity returns. Solid government accounts generally reward policymakers in such markets with valuable policy flexibility, while healthy consumer balance sheets allow credit growth to be a strong domestic growth driver. In a slow and uncertain global growth environment, pillars to support growth are crucial and are market differentiators - especially if global contagion spreads as we suspect

At this point it is no longer interesting to recap the ever-growing list of problems facing Spain - we all know the country needs billions and billions in aid to merely contain its implosion, let alone grow. And while as of as of minutes ago we just got another rumor of "Accelerated Kinetic Action In Close Proximity To Cash Dispensing Machines" which is the proper nomenclature, as the B-R word is not in good form these days it appears, the real news is that as the ECB fiddles, and Madrid burns guess who is buying? Why China of course.

All you need to read

• JPMorgan dips into cookie jar to offset "London Whale" losses: firm has sold $25 billion to offset CIO losses (Reuters)
• Storied Law Firm Dewey Files Chapter 11 (WSJ)
• The European "Wire Run" - Southern Europeans wire cash to safer north (Reuters)
• Bankia Tapping Depositors for Bonds Leaves Spain on Bailout Hook (Bloomberg)
• Glitches halt new Goldman trade platform (FT) such as reporting prices and seeing trading spreads collapse?
• Japan, China To Launch Yen-Yuan Direct Trading June 1 (WSJ)
• Another fault line? Italy Quake Kills Nine in North of Country (Bloomberg) shortly following another Italian quake
• RIM Writedown Risked With $1 Billion Inventory (Bloomberg)
• China’s Wage Costs Threaten Foreign Investment, EU Chamber Says (Bloomberg)
• Dollar Scarce as Top-Quality Assets Shrink 42% (Bloomberg)

Despite closed US stock markets today, FaceBook stock still managed to decline, while Europe dipped yet once again on all the same fears: Greece, Spain, bank runs, contagion, etc. Shortly Europe will reopen, this time to be followed by the US stock market as well. While in turn will direct market participants' attention to a shortened week full of economic data, which as Goldman says, will likely shape the direction of markets for the near future. US payrolls and global PMI/ISM numbers are expected to show a mixed picture with some additional weakness already fully anticipated outside the US. On the other hand, consensus does expect a moderate improvement in most US numbers in the upcoming week, including labour market data and business surveys. As a reminder, should the Fed wish to ease policy at its regular June meeting, this Friday's NFP print will be the last chance for an aggressive data-driven push for more QE. As such to Zero Hedge it is far more likely that we will see a big disappointment in this week's consensus NFP print of +150,000. Otherwise the Fed and other central banks will have to scramble with an impromptu multi-trillion coordinated intervention a la November 30, 2011 as things in Europe spiral out of control over the next several weeks. Either way, risk volatility is most likely to spike in the coming days.

We all know that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed by President Obama on New Year’s Eve contained a now-struck-down provision to authorise the indefinite detention of American citizens on US soil. But did you know that the NDAA also paves the way for war with Iran? From Dennis Kucinich:

Section (6) rejects any United States policy that would rely on efforts to contain a nuclear weapons-capable Iran. Section (7) urges the President to reaffirm the unacceptability of an Iran with nuclear-weapons capability and opposition to any policy that would rely on containment as an option in response to Iranian enrichment. This language represents a significant shift in U.S. policy and would guarantee that talks with Iran, currently scheduled for May 23, would fail. Current U.S. policy is that Iran cannot acquire nuclear weapons. Instead, H. Res. 568 draws the “redline” for military action at Iran achieving a nuclear weapons “capability,” a nebulous and undefined term that could include a civilian nuclear program. Indeed, it is likely that a negotiated deal to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran and to prevent war would provide for Iranian enrichment for peaceful purposes under the framework of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty with strict safeguards and inspections. This language makes such a negotiated solution impossible. At the same time, the language lowers the threshold for attacking Iran. Countries with nuclear weapons “capability” could include many other countries like Japan or Brazil. It is an unrealistic threshold.

The notion of a “nuclear weapons capability” seems like a dangerously low standard. Let us not forget that Mossad, the CIA and the IAEA agree  that Iran does not have a bomb, is not building one, has no plans to build one.

Europe continues to fight the wrong battle, and continues to spread contagion risk. It is clear that Greece has had a solvency issue now for over 2 years.  The ECB and Troika chose to treat it as a liquidity problem.  Maybe, they could have argued that in early 2010, but by the summer of 2011 it was obvious to any credit observer that the problem was solvency, yet they continued to treat it as one of liquidity.  That is scary because if they fail to see the problem correctly now, they will fail miserably.  Not only is the problem clearly solvency, but now forced currency conversion has been added to the mix. Any "solution" from the EU must now address that risk, and it is not the same as solvency.  Programs that can protect against solvency may do nothing for the redenomination risk. We keep playing with scenarios and find it hard to find out where a Greek exit doesn't result in a steep sharp decline in the market.  We could go through more ideas of ECB intervention, but in the end most will have flaws.  Dealing with currency conversion risk is huge.  Dealing with the contagion risk that has been created by the EFSF is huge. Will Europe force Greece out thinking they have a plan; that fails miserably and sparks the miserable series of consequences we’ve outlined?  Sadly, yes.