Precious Metals

What we need to understand is that we are in one of the most dangerous phases of this crisis at the moment. The priests of fiat are being attacked from all sides. People have awoken to the Fed and how criminal and deceitful this organization is and the existential threat it poses to economic freedom and hence human liberty. The arguments against the Fed are blistering and the only rebuttal the Fed has is to spout the same old nonsense like “we saved the world” or some trite derivative of this fallacy. The only thing they saved are untalented speculators from their bad bets. What the Fed has systematically done is literally transfer all of the bad debts and bets from the banks to the taxpayer. We are living this reality to this day. This fact is becoming increasingly understood throughout society, hence the emergence of the tea party and then last year’s Occupy Wall Street movement. So the thing I want my readers to really internalize is that the Fed and indeed TPTB generally are getting slaughtered in the intellectual arena and they know it. As a result, they feel cornered and will thus act increasingly aggressive to prove they are right and everyone else is wrong.

For all those who have long been curious what the precious metals "queen" thinks about allegations involving her and her fimr in gold and silver manipulation, how JPMorgan is positioned in the precious metals market, and how she views the fringe elements of media, as well as JPMorgan's ethical limitations to engaging in 'wrong' behavior, the answers are all here.

There are a nine prevalent myths and false arguments that bankers and their puppet commercial investment firms have used to precent people from buying physical gold and physical silver over the years

On Thursday morning, President Hu Jintao of China, President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia , President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India shook hands at the start of the one day meeting in New Delhi. Top of the agenda was the creation of the grouping's first institution, a so-called "BRICS Bank" that would fund development projects and infrastructure in developing nations. Less noticed and commented upon is the aspirations of the BRIC nations to become less dependent on the global reserve currency, the dollar and to position their own currencies as internationally traded currencies. The leaders of BRIC nations and other emerging market nations have adopted the idea of conducting trade between the five nations in their own currencies. Two agreements, signed among the development banks of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, say that local currency loans will be made available for trade between these countries. The five fast growing nations participating in local currency trade will allow participants to diversify their foreign exchange reserves, hedging against the growing risk of a euro or dollar crisis. The BRICS want to have easy convertibility of currency to make it easier to use the real, ruble, rupee, renminbi and rand amongst themselves without having to always use the US dollar. Higher intra-Brics trade, conducted in their own currencies would shield their economies from economic dislocations in the west. Left unsaid so far is the possibility that one of the BRICs or the BRICs in unison might peg the value of their respective currencies to the ultimate store of value and money - gold.

The nine bankster propagated myths about gold (and silver) that everyone needs to know.

Silver remains the best performer YTD and the Long Bond the worst performer but what is most notable is the quiet serenity of the equity rally continued through March as Commodities, Precious Metals, Treasuries, and Corporate Bonds all lost notable ground post LTRO2. Is equity keeping the dream alive as the liquidity spigot has slowed to a drop (for now)? AAPL had it largest 2-day drop for almost 4 months into quarter-end - ending under $600 - and the broad S&P 500 pulled away once again from credit yesterday and today as IG, HY, and HYG close practically unchanged from last Friday's low but the ES up 15-20pts. Of the S&P sectors, Energy was the only one to fall appreciably post LTRO2 with Utilities the only sector in the red YTD -2.6% as Financials +21.5% and Tech +18.5% dominate.

In the not quite 100 years since the founding of your institution, America has exchanged central banking for a kind of central planning and the gold standard for what I will call the Ph.D. standard. I regret the changes and will propose reforms, or, I suppose, re-reforms, as my program is very much in accord with that of the founders of this institution. Have you ever read the Federal Reserve Act? The authorizing legislation projected a body “to provide for the establishment of the Federal Reserve banks, to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper and to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes.” By now can we identify the operative phrase? Of course: “for other purposes.” As you prepare to mark the Fed’s centenary, may I urge you to reflect on just how far you have wandered from the intentions of the founders? The institution they envisioned would operate passively, through the discount window. It would not create credit but rather liquefy the existing stock of credit by turning good-quality commercial bills into cash— temporarily. This it would do according to the demands of the seasons and the cycle. The Fed would respond to the community, not try to anticipate or lead it. It would not override the price mechanism— as today’s Fed seems to do at every available opportunity—but yield to it.

All you need to read and more.

For every semi-positive data point the bulls have emphasized since the market rally began, there's a counter-point that makes us question what all the fuss is about. The bulls will cite expanding US GDP in late 2011, while the bears can cite US food stamp participation reaching an all-time record of 46,514,238 in December 2011, up 227,922 participantsfrom the month before, and up 6% year-over-year. The bulls can praise February's 15.7% year-over-year increase in US auto sales, while the bears can cite Europe's 9.7% year-over-year decrease in auto sales, led by a 20.2% slump in France. The bulls can exclaim somewhat firmer housing starts in February (as if the US needs more new houses), while the bears can cite the unexpected 100bp drop in the March consumer confidence index five consecutive months of manufacturing contraction in China, and more recently, a 0.9% drop in US February existing home sales. Give us a half-baked bullish indicator and we can provide at least two bearish indicators of equal or greater significance. It has become fairly evident over the past several months that most new jobs created in the US tend to be low-paying, while the jobs lost are generally higher-paying. This seems to be confirmed by the monthly US Treasury Tax Receipts, which are lower so far this year despite the seeming improvement in unemployment. Take February 2012, for example, where the Treasury reported $103.4 billion in tax receipts, versus $110.6 billion in February 2011. BLS had unemployment running at 9% in February 2011, versus 8.3% in February 2012. Barring some major tax break we've missed, the only way these numbers balance out is if the new jobs created produce less income to tax, because they're lower paying, OR, if the unemployment numbers are wrong. The bulls won't dwell on these details, but they cannot be ignored.

Dumbfounded. That’s the only way to describe the reaction that future historians will have when they look back and study the utter perversion that is our global financial system. We live in a time when a tiny handful of people have their fingers on a button that can conjure trillions of dollars, euro, yen, and renminbi out of thin air. In the United States, it comes down to one man. Just one. With a single decision, he controls the lever that dominates the entire economy. When you control the money, you control everything– financial markets, consumer prices, risk perceptions, investment habits, savings rates, hiring decisions, pay raises, sovereign debt, housing starts, etc.  One man.

Gold managed a 1.8% surge today (back above $1690 and its 200- and 100-DMAs and its largest jump in 2 months) from Friday's close thanks to the combination of the ECB on Friday and Merkel and Bernanke today assuring the world that anything more than a 2% dip in stocks will not be tolerated. While Silver outperformed Gold from Friday's close, based on its 2-3x beta of the last year this was a notable 'underperformance' as Gold outpaced everything (beta adjusted). Perhaps importantly, the S&P 500 when priced in gold met and rejected resistance at a key level today - even with its nominal 30pt rally off of Friday's S&P lows. Volumes were abysmal with stocks well below YTD average and the S&P futures 20% below average and among the lowest few days' volumes of the year. Credit markets did not participate as exuberantly (though HY outperformed IG as you would expect) but the day seemed split into 4 segments: pre-Bernanke (quiet/sideways), Bernanke to US Open (rampfest, Gold outperforms, TSY rally), US Open to EU Close (TSY selloff notably, equities sideways, Gold rips), and then from EU Close to US Close (Equity/Gold/TSY rally as USD leaked lower). In FX, JPY was relatively stable at its lows after Bernanke's speech as the rest of the majors strengthened versus the USD (as EUR broke above 1.3350 once again). Oil managed a small rally on the day but underperformed the USD's 0.5% weakness from Friday as Treasuries were very flip-floppy today - ending the day with a small twist around 7Y (30Y +3bps). VIX made new lows and closed there as the term structure flattened further to its flattest in almost 4 months (with the largest six-day flatttening in 8 months).

In Don Coxe's latest and typically excellent letter, "All Clear?", he highlights the opportunity in precious metals mining companies: "If there were one over-arching theme at the BMO Global Metals & Mining Conference, it was that the gold miners are upset and even embarrassed that their shares have so dramatically underperformed bullion...  "On the one hand, they were delighted in 2011 when it was reported that since Nixon closed the gold window, a bar of bullion had delivered higher investment returns than the S&P 500 for forty years-- with dividends reinvested. But some gold mining CEOs find it an insult that what they mine is more respected than their companies' shares...  "In our view, we have entered the most favourable era for gold prices in our lifetime, and the share prices of the great mining companies will eventually outperform bullion prices." As Don Coxe makes clear, governments are running deficits "beyond the forecasts of all but the hardiest goldbugs five years ago; central banks are printing money and creating liquidity beyond the forecasts of all but the most paranoid goldbugs a year ago." The choice for the saver is essentially binary: hold money in ever-depreciating paper, or in a tangible vehicle that has the potential to rise dramatically as expressed in paper money terms.

Short term, the bulls will probably remain in control. 

The initial reaction to the release of Bernanke's speech this morning was 'QE3 is on' and this was borne out perfectly in the data. TSYs rallied (with the short-end performing best), the USD dropped and with it commodities soared (though Oil stayed much more in sync with it than we have seen historically) and the nominal price of stocks jumped handsomely. What was most notable though was Gold's outperformance (and Silver given its high-beta juice) compared to other asset classes. Then as the US day session opened, Treasuries turned around with the whole curve rising in yield and the long-end steepening as the correlation-algos stepped in to pull the TSY complex back into a twist around the 10Y (10Y unch from 8amET, 30Y +2bps, 5Y -2bps and Mortgage spreads - which widened initially - are now back to unch from 8amET and well down on the day). Oil and the USD have tracked sideways from the open and aside from a gap up around 10amET (on dismal data we assume locking in more QE hope), stocks have leaked back a little as volume faded. Gold (and Silver), however, have continued to surge - now over $1685 and at near two-week highs as once again the cleanest and largest impact of Bernanke's hint at further debasement is exemplified in the price of precious metals.

Curious why futures and PMs both soared out of the gate at 8am? Look no further than the Chairman of the Federal CTRL-Preserve who is speaking at the National Association for Business Economics and just made a very strong hint that the New QE (or is that the NEWER QE) is coming. And there are those mocking Bill Gross for saying the April FOMC would lead to the next QE announcement (something we expounded on extensively yesterday). And here is the most idiotic statement uttered by the Fed: "If this hypothesis is wrong and structural factors are in fact explaining much of the increase in long-term unemployment, then the scope for countercyclical policies to address this problem will be more limited.  Even if that proves to be the case, however, we should not conclude that nothing can be done." Recall what JPM said about central planning breaking the virtuous cycle just two days ago. The Fed has just admitted it... but it does not mean that the Fed will be forced to print print print infinitely more. After all, it's all there is.