British Pound

JP Morgan Chase & Co won their case of a nationwide investors' lawsuit accusing them of conspiring to drive down silver prices. U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson in Manhattan said the investors, who bought and sold COMEX silver futures and options contracts, failed to show that JPMorgan manipulated prices, by creating long short positions that were not in synch with market events at the time period. The judge acknowledged that the firm could influence prices, but said that it was not proven that the bank "intended to cause artificial prices to exist" and acted accordingly.  The plaintiffs had nearly 43 complaints filed from 2010-2011, which accused banks of profiteering in over $100,000,000 by illegally manipulating silver prices. The lawsuits against major Wall Street firms were consolidated, naming JPMorgan and 20 unnamed individuals as defendants. The complaint had sought triple damages for what it saw as antitrust violations in jiggering silver prices from 2007-2010, including through alleged "fake" trades during low market volumes.

Can't get enough of Cyprus? Then here is yet another post-post-mortem from Goldman's Jernej Omahen, once more trying to put some very silvery lining on this particular mushroom cloud, and providing some useful facts in the process. "As part of its rescue package, Cyprus introduced a one-off tax on deposits. This “tax” can be viewed as both (1) a depositor bail-in, and/or (2) a wealth tax. Cyprus aims to capture €5.8 bn of tax revenue in this way, which compares to the total bailout package of €10 bn. In absolute terms, the amounts are low; regardless, the market focus on potential read-across will be high, in our view. The tax on depositors is setting a precedent, which is likely to have an impact beyond the immediate term, in our view. Resilience of, in particular, retail deposits was an important element of stability during crisis peaks (e.g., Spain). Post the Cyprus precedent, however, it is reasonable to expect that the deposit volatility in stressed sovereigns could rise, for two reasons: firstly, perceived risk of deposit bail-in will have increased; secondly (independent of failing bank issues), perceiving savings as a potential tax-base – for wealth taxes – is new."

Four months after we made our call to short the living daylights out of Cable following the announcement that Goldman's Mark Carney is coming and is getting ready to crucify the BOE's balance sheet, we were confused: +1400 pips in our favor, it appeared the profit bonanza could never end and yet we didn't want to get too greedy. And then came none other than the most invaluable analyst on Wall Street, Goldman's Tom Stolper, who made our decision easy. Last Monday, the man who bats between 0.000 and 0.050 boldly went where he had been so many times before, and said to go long EURGBP on "monetary policy and current account differentials" with a stop loss of 85.70. Naturally, we read between the lines. Sure enough, as of this posting, EURGBP is now 85.38, well below the designated stop loss, and over 200 pips in favor of those who, as usual, faded perhaps the worst FX "strategist" of all time. Which, incidentally, is why Stolper may well be the most valuable of his breed on Wall Street: rarely has there been man whose calls have made so much money for so many.

As Citi's Steven Englander suggested earlier, the developments in Cyprus will lead to EUR selling and USD, CHF, GBP, NOK and SEK  buying (in that order). He adds, the issue is whether to believe that the Cyprus levy on depositors is one-off, but depositors and investors elsewhere could easily see this as another in a string of ‘one-offs’ and react badly. The risk-return to depositors in countries with weak banking systems may not favor taking the risk that Cypriot banking system was so unique that such a levy would never be considered elsewhere. The levy on deposits ostensibly covered by deposit insurance may also undermine confidence in weak banks. The question is whether this becomes a full-blown crisis or a mini-crisis. For now, as FX markets open, it appears EURJPY is getting hammered (from 124.47 close to 121.6) implying S&P futures will open down around 30 points. We are sure Abe is watching closely...

The streak is dead - long live the streak - for the first losing Friday of the year. A sad day among the media though Maria B did proclaim "today was a victory even though we were down," so we can rest assured that all is well. While equities ending off their highs, the week was still positive 1-2% - especially for the Trannies - but rather oddly (well not really anymore) Treasuries are going out at the low yields of the week - down 7bps. The USD lost 0.7% with AUD and GBP strength weighing most and a decent surge higher in JPY today's day session. Oil prices jumped 1.7% on the week back over $93.50 (as RBOB and retail prices start to rise once again). Gold and Silver diverged with the former up 0.8% and the latter -0.7%. Volume today was very heavy (and it was a down day) but the quad-witching is to blame as opening an closing trading was huge as S&P 500 futures tagged new highs overnight but couldn't escape the lows of VWAP at the close. So far 2013 has been a perfect replay of 2012 - Is this it?

Retail investors are piling into the stock market again in the false belief that the worst of the economic crisis is over. Alas, those who are not properly diversified may again be in for a rude awakening.

If it's a day of the week ending in 'y' then sure enough the Dow is green - 10 days in a row - best run since Nov 1996. The cash S&P's all-time high remains a day or two away at 1576.1 but today's late-day ubiquitous idiocy (first via VIX and then via HYG) took it within a point of the all-time closing high of 1565.15. Volume - take a guess! Trannies outperformed as 4 different stocks were short-squeezed this time to drive half the index's performance (CNW, R, KSU, and UNP). VIX daggered lower to new cycle lows ending at 11.05% at its lows. Away from that tom-foolery, stocks were 'supported' by USD weakness as GBP ramped higher on pre-budget excitement and EUR just because why not; Treasury yields ended the day near the lows of the week - entirely in keeping with the highs of the week in stocks... USD weakness helped WTI rise on the day - now best performer on the week among the commodities with Silver lagging on the week (while gold limps higher). Just another day in dystopia... ahead of the CCAR Part 2.

The spectre of stagflation threatens the UK economy due to concerns that sterling weakness will contribute to even higher inflation amid very weak economic growth and the likelihood of a recession – likely a severe one.

Markets are pricing in a jump in inflation as inflation expectations, as measured by the difference between nominal and inflation-linked bond yields, ticked up to near 3.3% yesterday.

Recent poor economic data and the appalling UK fiscal position are rightly leading to concerns of stagflation as was seen in the 1970s. Conditions that make owning gold and silver vitally important to own in order to protect and grow wealth.

If there is one firm that would know what the arrival of a Goldmanite at the head of the BOE means for the GBP, and specifically EURGBP, it would be Goldman. Moments ago Goldman's Tom Stolper just poured more gas into the EURGBP "parity" fire, sending the EUR spiking. That said, the logical Stolper-contrarians in us say this is precisely the time to fade the relentless move higher in the EURGBP: history is on our side about 93% of the time. After all, Goldman's prop flow desk is now selling the pair to its clients. This is even as we said to short the GBP with both hands and feet in late November when Carney's appointment was announced: a move that has resulted in nearly a +1400 pip gain in the GBPUSD short. Oh well, time to take profits.

Average daily trading combined volumes on the three main gold contracts on the Shanghai Gold Exchange in the first two months of the year jumped 24% on the year, according to Reuter’s calculations.  "The strong physical demand in China is the main reason behind gold's resilience," a Beijing-based trader told Reuters. Physical demand prospects out of China remain positive in the weeks ahead, UBS AG said  according to Bloomberg. China is very vulnerable to a property crash and its own economic crisis. The Chinese stock market has performed very poorly in recent years and Chinese people realise the importance of gold as a store of value.

Just like yesterday, it will be up to the US session to provide the perfectly expected, VIXterminating, volumeless ramp as the rest of the world just did not have it in i to take the S&P to all time highs in overnight trading. To summarize: currency talkfare out of Asia, hope springs eternal out of Europe despite the usual spate of ugly numbers, PIIGS bond auctions backstopped by the ECB and always "that much better" than the expected, a UK economy that is just imploding to provide an alibi for more open-ended QE and a crushed pound, and with the US due to make everything better by sending the SP to its all time high (just 9 points away) on the one week anniversary of the record high DJIA, as the NY Fed clobbers the VIX to a 10 handle or lower on even more ugly, unadjusted economic data.

Speculative long gold positions, or bets prices will rise, outnumbered short positions by 107,587 contracts on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the CFTC said. Net-long positions fell by 9,012 contracts, or 8%, from a week earlier.  Speculative long silver positions, or bets prices will rise, outnumbered short positions by 18,603 contracts on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the CFTC reported. Net-long positions fell by 3,134 contracts, or 14%, from a week earlier.  Miners, producers, jewelers and other commercial users were net-short 29,183 contracts, down 1,703 contracts, or 6%, from the previous week.

The US dollar rose to new multi-month highs against several of the major currencies, including the euro, Swiss franc, British pound and the Japanese yen.  The BOJ, BOE and ECB meet last week and none changed policy.  The Swiss National Bank meets on March 14 and is also unlikely to change policy.  The Federal Reserve meets the following week and is widely expected to stay its course.  It is not monetary policy then providing the new trading incentives. 

Nor can the dollar's gains be attributed to political uncertainty in Europe stemming from the inconclusive Italian elections, as was the case previously.   The immediate shock has worn off and Italian stocks and bonds have recovered the lion's share of those initial losses. 

The Bloomberg Chart of the Day shows silver tonnage in exchange- traded funds backed by the metal rose for four straight months, while holdings for gold ETPs dropped in January and February. Silver futures may jump 20 percent this year to $34.50 an ounce from yesterday’s settlement of $28.808 in New York on investment demand and industrial use, said Rohit Savant, a senior commodity analyst at the New York-based research company. Holdings in silver ETPs rose 3.6 percent in the two months ended Feb. 28, reaching a record 19,699 metric tons on Jan. 18, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Last month, assets in gold ETPs fell 4.1%. Sales of American Eagle silver coins by the U.S. Mint jumped to a record in January and more than doubled in February from a year earlier, the Mint’s website showed. China’s imports of the metal surged 14% in January, the biggest monthly gain since July.

With Europe once more unfixed, its economy mired deep in a double, and in some cases, triple-dip recession, Italian elections leading to many months of political uncertainty (and according to a new Corriere poll, Beppe Grillo now has 28.7% of the vote, his popularity soaring +3.1% since the election, ostensibly making him the biggest party in Italy), the French finmin saying the outlook for Euro area growth outlook is "very worrying" a few hours ago, and otherwise every indication that the European "fixing" has thoroughly failed once more, following the massive miss in German Factory Orders which printed at -1.9% on expectation of a +0.6% January number, many will be looking to today's ECB meeting to see if Draghi will cut European rates further. The EUR has tumbled 700 pips in a month (with Goldman having shorted it all the way on the way up) on fears the Italian may do just that, although the sell-side consensus is less confident. Of all the banks polled, only JPM and to a lesser extent Rabobank believe Draghi will announce another 25 bps cut today. What will Europe do today, and will it proceed to take some of its interest rates negative for the first time ever, proving once and for all its economy is the worst its ever been? Find out in just over an hour.