Hong Kong

The EU’s financial watchdog, the European Securities and Markets Authority, will look at whether automated trading adds fake, or ghost, liquidity to markets, said Steven Maijoor, the regulator’s chairman. “There has been a suggestion that the liquidity they are providing is not real liquidity because once you would like to go into the trade and accept an order the offer disappears,” Maijoor said in an interview in Hong Kong on Jan. 20. “We are looking now into the specific issue of what is called ghost liquidity.”

• Obama Targets Income Gap in Address That Shapes 2016 Election (BBG)
• Republicans Reject Obama’s Main Economic Proposals (WSJ)
• Senate’s Shelby Says White House Bank Tax Is Dead on Arrival (BBG)
• Is Dollar Next? Investors Reassess After Swiss Shock: Currencies (BBG)
• Bank of Japan Cuts Price Forecast, Maintains Record Stimulus (BBG)
• Pound Weakens After BOE Policy Makers Drop Call to Raise Rates (BBG)
• Putin not flinching on Ukraine despite economic crisis (Reuters)
• Indonesia will not make public full preliminary AirAsia crash report (Reuters)
• Party Hasn't Stopped for Russians at Davos Even With Ukraine Sanctions (BBG)

The Bundesbank, Germany’s powerful central bank, announced very publicly this morning the further repatriation of some of it’s gold being held in foreign locations – namely in Paris and New York with the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve.

UPDATE: *SHANGHAI COMPOSITE HEADS FOR BIGGEST LOSS SINCE FEBRUARY 2007, CSI 300 INDEX FUTURES FALL BY 10% LIMIT

Who could have seen this coming? Having tried and failed once to stem the speculative frenzy in Chinese stocks, regulators took more direct action tonight and suspended three of the biggest securities firms from adding margin-finance and securities lending accounts for three months following rule violations. As Bloomberg reports, Citic Securities, Haitong Securities, and Guotai Junan Securities shares plunged dragguing the entire Shanghai Composite down almost 7% and negative year-to-date.

In 2013 when he started dumping his Chinese property holdings he was being ridiculed and criticized. Everyone was bullish on China’s real estate market... and we know what happened next. It turns out you don’t want to bet against a man with a track record like Li Ka-shing's - the richest man in Asia. So when Li gets a second passport and creates a Plan B by restructuring his investment companies, moving his money and his assets far away to safe, stable locations so that no single government has control over him, it is perhaps time to pay attention.

My conclusion is that the SNB deliberately screwed the market, and in the process shot itself in the foot for 30-50 billion dollars. What were they thinking?

Simple cogent analysis of the price action in the capital markets.  Take it or leave it.  

At the moment, the US dollar is choice. This isn’t necessarily a vote of confidence for the dollar. It’s more like a vote against all the others. If big institutional investors must choose between bankrupt America and bankrupt Europe, right now they choose America. But this is a decision that can and will be changed in an instant. Just look at the Swiss franc...

What we see now is the recovery of price discovery, and therefore the functioning economy, and it shouldn’t be a big surprise that it doesn’t come in a smooth transition. Six years is a long time. Moreover, it was never just QE that distorted the markets, there was – and is – the ultra-low interest rate policy developed nations’ central banks adhere to like it was the gospel, and there’s always been the narrative of economic recovery just around the corner that the politico/media system incessantly drowned the world in. That the QE madness ended with the decapitation of the price of oil seems only fitting.

• U.S. Index Futures Decline on Commodities Slump, Growth Concerns (BBG)
• Al Qaeda claims French attack, derides Paris rally (Reuters)
• Charlie Hebdo With Muhammad Cover on Sale With Heavy Security Precautions (BBG)
• How an Obscure Tax Loophole Brought Down Obama's Treasury Nominee  (BBG)
• ECB’s bond plan is legal ‘in principle’ (FT)
• Charlie Hebdo fallout: Specter of fascist past haunts European nationalism (Reuters)
• DRW to acquire smaller rival Chopper Trading (FT)
• Oil fall could lead to capex collapse: DoubleLine's Gundlach (Reuters)

COMEX Copper crashed to as low as $242.35 (from $261.70 before China's open). The catalyst for the move is unclear but between technical level breaks at $250 (and support at 2010 lows), World Bank global growth forecast cuts, and capitulation on CCFD rehypothecation deal hedges... massive volume is pushing through futures markets...  LME prices are as low as $5,500/mt... Crude prices are also tumbling (WTI back below $46)

... things like a 50%+ drop in oil prices happen. Which at some point will lead more people to wonder what the real numbers are. For emerging nations, those numbers will not be pretty for 2015. They’re going to feel like they’re being thrown right back into the Stone Age. And they’re not going to like that one bit, and look for ways to express their frustration. Volatility is not just on the rise in the world of finance. It also is in the real world that finance fails to reflect. At some point, the two will meet again, and Wall Street will mirror Main Street. It will make neither any happier. But it’ll be honest.

• Global Debt Crisis II – Total Global Debt to GDP Ratio Over 300% - Risk of Bail-Ins in 2015 and Beyond - Currency and Gold Wars - $1 Quadrillion “Weapons of Mass Destruction” Derivatives - Cold War II and New World Order as China and Russia Flex Geopolitical Muscles - Enter The Dragon – Paradigm Shift of China Gold Demand - Forecast 2015: None. Forecast 2020: Gold $2,500/oz and Silver $150/oz

While the trading world, or at least the kneejerk reaction algos, is focused on today's US nonfarm payrolls due out in just 2 hours (consensus expects 240K, with unemployment declining from 5.8% to 5.7%) the key event overnight came out of China, (where inflation printed at just 1.5% while PPI has imploded from -1.8% in September to -2.2% in October to -2.7% in November to a whopping -3.3% in December because as per BofA "soft domestic demand over-capacity issue have kept inflation pressures low") and Europe, after a Bloomberg report that as recently as Wednesday, ECB staff "presented policy makers with models for buying as much as 500 billion euros ($591 billion) of investment-grade assets... options included buying only AAA-rated debt or bonds rated at least BBB-, the euro-area central bank official said. Governors took no decision on the design or implementation of any package after the presentation." In other words less than two weeks before the fateful ECB meeting and Mario Draghi not only still hasn't decided on which of three public QE version he will adopt, but the ECB has reverted back to a private QE plan. Not surprisingly the EURUSD jumped back over 1.18 on the news (and USDJPY and stock markets dropped) on the news that Europe still is completely unsure how to proceed with QE despite the endless jawboning.

If we review the events of 2014, it seems the situation has intensified: governments are still overwhelmed with debt, our fiat money system is unsupported, our central banks insist on accumulating debt and making money valueless. Will someone realize we have to pull the plug? And when we do, because it will happen whether we want it or not, how can we hedge against the damage that we will all be exposed to? Owning physical precious metals stored outside the banking system is a proven and essential form of monetary insurance against the uncertainties and negative surprises we see in our world today.