Italy

After yesterday's latest drop in stocks driven by "old economy" companies such as CAT, which sent the Dow Jones back to red for the year and the S&P fractionally unchanged, today has been a glaring example of the "new" vs "old" economy contrast, with futures propped up thanks to strong tech company earnings after the close, chief among which Amazon, which gained $40 billion in after hours trading and has now surpassed Walmart as the largest US retailer. As a result Brent crude is little changed near 2-wk low after disappointing Chinese manufacturing data fueled demand concerns, adding to bearish sentiment in an oversupplied mkt. WTI up ~26c, trimming losses after yday falling to lowest since March 31 to close in bear mkt. Both Brent and WTI are set for 4th consecutive week of declines; this is the longest losing streak for Brent since Jan., for WTI since March.

If itsy bitsy pie slice – Greece (.33%) – can create this much worldwide economic havoc because of their unpayble level of debt, imagine what will happen when the truth is revealed about France (3.81%), Italy (2.88%), and Spain (1.88%).

Schäuble seems to have foresaw the crisis back in 1994, distinguishing between core members and non-core members. Therefore, his thinking is quite different from that of France. Behind the curtain, the federalization of Europe is the ultimate goal, although politicians always denied that in front of the curtain. The curtain is starting to be drawn, but the equal federalization of Europe was never part of the German mindset.

There has been a lot of chatter in recent days about the plunge in commodity prices - capped off by this week’s slide of the Bloomberg commodity index to levels not seen since 2002. That epochal development is captured in the chart below, but most of the media gumming about the rapidly accelerating “commodity crunch” misses the essential point. To wit, the central banks of the world have shot their wad.  The Bloomberg Commodity index is a slow motion screen shot depicting the massive intrusion of worldwide central bankers into the global economic and financial system. Their unprecedented spree of money printing took the aggregate global central bank balance sheet from $3 trillion to $22 trillion over the last 15 years. The consequence was a deep and systematic falsification of financial prices on a planet-wide scale.

A slow week devoid of virtually any macro news - last night the biggest weekly geopolitical event concluded as expected, when Greece voted to pass the bailout bill which "the government does not believe in" just so the ECB's ELA support for Greek depositors can continue - is slowly coming to a close, as is the busiest week of the second quarter earnings season which so far has been largely disappointing despite aggressive consensus estimate cuts, especially for some of the marquee names, and unlike Q1 when a quarterly drop in EPS was avoided in the last minute, this time we won't be so lucky, and the only question is on what side of -3.5% Y/Y change in EPS will the quarter end.

The Centralized Powers have declared a War on Cash... and it is spreading throughout the globe.

All eyes may be on Greece right now, but in reality, the economic malaise is widespread across the continent.  It’s clear that Greece is not the problem. It’s a symptom of the problem. The real problem is that every one of these nations has violated the universal law of prosperity: produce more than you consume. This is the way it works in nature, and for individuals.

Clearly, Russia puts great strategic importance on its gold reserves. Both President Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev have been photographed on  numerous occasions holding gold bars and coins as a display of economic stability and strength. Since early 2007 Russia has sold gold only twice, in 2012, in small amounts.

While this week has been, and continues to be, devoid of macro updates, yesterday's flurry of mostly disappointing earnings releases both before and after the open, including some of the biggest DJIA companies as well as the current and previously biggest and most important companies in the world, AAPL and MSFT, both of which came crashing down following earnings and forecasts that were well short of market expectations, came as a jolt to a market that was artificially priced by central bank liquidity and HFT momo algos beyond perfection. Add to that yesterday's downward revision to historical industrial production which confirmed the US economy is a step away from recession, as well as last night's Crude API inventory build which is once again pressuring WTI lower and on the verge of a 49 handle, and perhaps the biggest question is why are futures not much lower.

Since yesterday there has been another of wave of negative, misleading and almost triumphalist commentary on gold most of which studiously ignores the clear evidence of manipulation of the price on Sunday night.

If yesterday's market action was boring, today has been a virtual carbon copy which started with the usual early Chinese selloff levitating into a mildly positive close, with the SHCOMP closing just above the psychological 4,000 level: the next big hurdle will be 4058, the 38.2% Fib correction of the recent fall. In the US equity futures are currently unchanged ahead of a day in which there is no macro economic data but lots of corporate earnings led by Microsoft, Verizon, UTX and of course Apple. Most importantly, some modest USD weakness overnight (DXY -0.1%) has helped the commodity complex, with gold rebounding from overnight lows, while crude has at least stopped the recent carnage which sent WTI below $50.

Capital controls imposed by the Greek government are taking a heavy toll on Greek businesses, according to a new report from Endeavour Greece. With over two-thirds of respondents reporting a "significant drop in revenues," and 1 in 9 firms forced to suspend production due to shortages of raw materials (unable to buy due to capital controls), the problems created by The Greek government's action seem asymmetric as almost a quarter (23%) of firms are now "planning to transfer their headquarters abroad for security, cashflow, and stability reasons."

Many analysts believe the officially reported 1,660 tonnes to be an understatement given the enormous volumes of gold that have been passing through Hong Kong - and through Shanghai in more recent years - and the large amounts that have been produced and bought domestically.

It is important to remember that as we have long pointed out two other entities, besides the PBOC, have also been buying gold - the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) and the China Investment Corporation (CIC).

"While the hardcore of Podemos voters will read the outcome as an even stronger need to change the economic and political order in Europe, the more undecided voters will probably look twice at the Greek economy — held in stasis by bank holidays and capital controls — before risking voting for Podemos," Bloomberg says.