Hong Kong

• JPMorgan provided rescue financing to Knight (WSJ)
• HSBC hands U.S. more staff names in tax evasion probe (Reuters), HSBC, Credit Suisse Sacrifice Employees to U.S., Lawyers Say (BBG)
• Hong Kong shares slide to two-week closing low, China weak (Reuters)
• Israel Would Strike Iran to Gain a Delay, Oren Says (Businessweek)
• Britain 'threatened to storm Ecuador's London embassy' to arrest Julian Assange (AP)
• You have now entered the collateral-free zone: Spain Said to Speed EU Bank Bailout on Collateral Limits (BBG)
• China Can Meet Growth Target on Positive Signs, Wen Says (BBG)
• Risk Builds as Junk Bonds Boom (NYT)
• Berlin maintains firm line on Greece (FT)
• Brazil unveils $66bn stimulus plan (FT)

While the highly "sophisticated" traders that make up the gold market continue to buy or sell the precious metal based on whether the Fed will or will not do the NEW QE tomorrow (or just because, like Bruno Iskil, they have a massive balance sheet, and can create margin position out of thin air with impunity), China continues to do one thing. Buy. Because while earlier today we were wondering (rhetorically, of course) what China is doing with all that excess trade surplus if it is not recycling it back into Treasurys, now we once again find out that instead of purchasing US paper, Beijing continues to buy non-US gold, in the form of 68 tons in imports from Hong Kong in the month of June. The year to date total (6 months)? 383 tons. In other words, in half a year China, whose official total tally is still a massively underrepresented 1054 tons, has imported more gold than the official gold reserves of Portugal, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and so on, and whose YTD imports alone make it the 14th largest holder of gold in the world. Realistically, by now China, which hasn't provided an honest gold reserve holdings update to the IMF in years, most certainly has more gold than the IMF, and its 2814 tons, itself. Of course, the moment the PBOC does announce its official updated gold stash, a gold price in the mid-$1000 range will be a long gone memory.

Think the US has it bad with its "soaring" gas price, which is now back to $3.75 per gallon? Think again. Here, courtesy of Bloomberg, is a list of the countries whose gasoline cost puts what Americans pay at the pump to shame. In order of descending gas prices, below are the 20 places in the world where one does not want to "fill 'er up."

Think the attempted fake suicide by Bayou Capital's Sam Israel which dominated the headlines for a few days in 2008 was strange? You ain't seen nothing yet: as the following excerpt of Octopus, The Secret Market And The World’s Wildest Con by Guy Lawson via the Daily Mail explains, that was merely the anticlimatic culmination of an amazing tale of bogus London traders, 'secret' Bond markets, frontrunning the Fed, fake CIA and MI6 spies, ponzi schemes and staged murders.

Over the past month America's ever vigilant law enforcers have taken to task not one but two foreign (domestic bank lobbies are sufficiently large to make Congress muppets perfectly eager to look the other way as noted previously) banks: HSBC and now Standard Chartered, for money laundering. Yet, when it comes to the true elephant in the room, which is not foreign and is fully domestic, they continue to ignore events such as this one just described by the Wall Street Journal: "A Florida home that originally listed for $60 million has sold for $47 million, a record for a single-family house in Miami-Dade County. The home, in Indian Creek Village, had been on the market since early 2011, when construction was still being completed. The asking price was reduced to $52 million this year." And the punchline: "The identity of the buyer, a foreigner who purchased the home in the name of a U.S.-based limited-liability company, couldn't be learned." In other words a foreigner who may or may not have engaged in massive criminal activity and/or dealt with Iran, Afghanistan, or any other bogeyman du jour at some point in their past, and is using US real estate merely as a money-laundering front perhaps? Sadly, we will never know. Why? As explained before, it is all thanks to the National Association of Realtors - those wonderful people who bring you the existing home sales update every month (with a documented upward bias every single time) - which just so happens is the only organization that actively lobbied for and received an exemption from AML regulation compliance. In other words, unlike HSBC, the NAR is untouchable, even if it were to sell a triplex to Ahmedinejad on West 57th street.

Market players are watching for any details on the ECB’s bond purchasing plans, after bank chief Mario Draghi said last week that the ECB would target short-term debt, fuelling optimism in the bond markets. A Reuter’s poll of economists on Friday highlighted that they expect the Fed to start QE3 in September, but a top Fed official said that a stimulus package so close to a presidential election would not be prudent. Since the ECB conditioned it would buy more government debt from Spain & Italy if they agreed to strict austerity packages, this has decreased pressure on either country to act quickly. The Financial Times interviewed Ken Wattret, a BNP Paribas economist who said: “If people think this will all be sorted in a matter of days, or weeks, then they will be disappointed. We could be in limbo for months.”

Rumors are circulating that reports of the demise of the Chinese auto market may be exaggerated now that even David Einhorn is forced to defend his GM long (because it "has a strong cash position" - sure, and stuffs channels like no other) however stripped of stereotypes and hype, the reality is that even the one time impregnable ultra luxury car market in China is now faltering at an ever faster pace. BusinessWeek reports: "Waiting lists for ultra-luxury cars in Hong Kong are getting shorter and used-car lots are cutting prices on Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Bentleys in the latest sign of China’s slowdown. At first glance, the numbers are deceiving: Sales of very expensive new autos surged 47 percent in the first six months, according to industry analyst IHS Automotive. Look more deeply, however, and another picture emerges, especially in the city’s used-car lots." The picture is ugly: "“The more expensive the car, the more dry the business,” said Tommy Siu at the Causeway Bay showroom of Vin’s Motors Co., the used-car dealership he founded two decades ago. Sales of ultra-luxury cars have halved in the past two or three months, he said. “A lot of bankers don’t want to spend too much money for a car now. At this moment, they don’t know if they’ll have a big bonus.”" Sad: they should all just go to Singapore and manipulate Libor. Oh wait, too soon?

• Hilsenrath: Heat Rises on Central Banks (WSJ)
• Some at Fed Are Urging Pre-Emptive Stimulus (NYT)
• Obama Warns of Headwinds in Europe; Urges European Leaders to Take Decisive Action on Euro (WSJ) - also needs reelection
• ECB thinks the unthinkable, action likely weeks away (Reuters)
• Games Turn London Into ‘Ghost Town.’ (FT)
• Greek Leaders Seek to Defer Austerity Cuts (FT)
• Hong Kong Builders Unload Properties to Raise Cash for Land Rush (Bloomberg)
• North India Crippled by Power Cuts (FT)
• Euro-Area Unemployment Rate Reaches Record 11.2% on Crisis (Bloomberg)
• Italy's Monti sees hope of end to euro crisis (Reuters)

GDP Growth More Strongly Correlated with Rule of Law than Anything Else ...

Did you know that, according to Capgemini and the Royal Bank of Canada’s latest World Wealth Report, there are now more millionaires in Asia than North America…? An estimated 3.37 million individuals in the Asia-Pacific region have a liquid net worth of over US$1 million. That compares to 3.35 million in North America. The same trend is evident in the gold market. While the current world hubs for gold trading and storage are London, Zurich, and New York, stores of physical metal are also beginning to migrate east. Gold storage facilities are springing up all over Asia like mushrooms after a summer rain. Back in 2009, the Hong Kong Airport Authority set up the first secure gold storage facility inside the confines of the Hong Kong Airport. This September, Malca-Amit, the Tel Aviv-based diamonds and precious metals company is opening a second state of the art facility at the airport, which will have capacity for 1,000 metric tons of gold. That compares to the 4,582 tons that the US government claims is in Fort Knox, and the record 2,414 million tons that the world’s exchange traded gold funds collectively held – mostly in London– as of July 5th.

In Hong Kong they are completing work on its largest gold vault due to open in September which can hold 22% of the gold that is in the US facility Fort Knox.   The new secure storage facility will compete with services set up by the Airport Authority Hong Kong in 2009 that serviced governments, commodity exchanges, bullion banks, refiners, wealthy individuals and exchange-traded funds. The new facility is within the international airport compound and its capacity is 1,000 metric tons. This signals the growing interest from China currently the world’s second largest consumer of gold in owning physical gold bullion.  

Russia and the southeast Asian countries are analogs for Greece, Spain, and Cyprus, with no particular association between their references within the timeline.  The timeline runs through the Russian pain; things begin to turn around after the timeline ends. This is meant to serve as a reference point: In retrospect it was clear throughout the late-90s that Russia would default on its debt and spark financial pandemonium, yet there were cheers at many of the fake-out "solution" pivot points.  The Russian issues were structural and therefore immune to halfhearted solutions--the Euro Crisis is no different.  This timeline analog serves as a guide to illustrate to what extent world leaders can delay the inevitable and just how significant "black swan event" probabilities are in times of structural crisis.  It seems that the next step in the unfolding Euro Crisis is for sovereigns to begin to default on their loan payments.  To that effect, Greece must pay its next round of bond redemptions on August 20, and over the weekend the IMF stated that they are suspending Greece's future aid tranches due to lack of reform.  August 20 might be the most important day of the entire summer and very well could turn into the credit event that breaks the camel's back.

The World Gold Council have just published their commentary on gold’s price performance in various currencies, its volatility statistics and correlation to other assets in the quarter - Gold Q2, 2012 - Investment Statistics and Commentary. It provides macroeconomic context to the investment statistics published at the end of each quarter and highlights emerging themes relevant to gold’s future development. One of their key findings is that gold will act as hedge against possible coming dollar weakness and gold will act as a "currency hedge in the international monetary system." The key findings of the World Gold Council’s report are presented inside.

The sharp losses in the gold mining sector Friday and last week could presage further weakness today but the higher weekly closes for gold and silver were constructive from a technical perspective.

After initial gains in Asia, gold fell early in Asian trading prior to recovering and then weakening again bang on 0800 GMT as Europe opened (see chart below).

Gold is higher in euro and Swiss franc terms but slightly lower in dollars and pounds.

There are those who say gold may go to $10,000 or to $0, or somewhere in between; in a different universe, they would be the people furiously staring at the trees. For a quick look at the forest, we suggest readers have a glance at the chart below. It shows that just in the first five months of 2012 alone, China has imported more gold, a total of 315 tons, than all the official gold holdings of the UK, at 310.3 according to the WGC/IMF (a country which infamously sold 400 tons of gold by Gordon Brown at ~$275/ounce).