Precious Metals

In the aftermath of the Cyprus deposit confiscation, everyone can be excused about feeling a little bit concerned about their deposits held at a European (or any other) bank. Everyone can certainly be excused about feeling concerned about their (rehypothecated) precious metals holdings, Cyprus or not, with any financial counterparty anywhere in the world (because in matters such as those, we don't need Diesel-BOOM to tell us that Executive Order 6102 is "the template"). Recently one reader put two and two together, and in the aftermath of the Zero Hedge expose of JPM's London gold vault and the Cypriot deposit confiscation, decided to express his concern to Blackrock about the safety of his ishares physical gold ETF backed by gold held in the abovementioned vault. To his comfort, Blackrock promptly replied that there is "no risk" (perhaps this too means there is "no plan B"), and that the gold in the vault, unlike the cash in assorted European banks, is safe. Why? Read on...

Since the Financial Crisis erupted in 2007, the US Federal Reserve has engaged in dozens of interventions/ bailouts to try and prop up the financial system. Now, I realize that everyone knows the Fed is “printing money.” However, when you look at the list of bailouts/ money pumps it’s absolutely staggering how much money the Fed has thrown around.

The CEO of Unicredit Federico Ghizzoni said yesterday that uninsured deposits could be used In future bank failures. He said that the savings which are not guaranteed by any protection or insurance could be used in the future to contribute to the rescue of banks who fail and that uninsured deposits could be used in future bank failures provided global policy makers agree on a common approach.

• Deutsche Bank 160K
• HSBC 174K
• Goldman Sachs 175K
• Citi 175K
• Barclays Capital 175K
• UBS 190K
• Bank of America 200K
• JP Morgan 210K

Whenever discussion over North Korea arises in Western circles, it always seems to be accompanied by a strange mixture of sensationalism and indifference. The mainstream media consistently presents the communist nation as an immediate threat to U.S. national security, conjuring an endless number of hypothetical scenarios as to how they could join forces with Al-Qaeda and attack with a terroristic strategy. In the midst of the latest tensions with the North Koreans, I have found that most people are barely tracking developments and that, when confronted by the idea of war, they shrug it off as if it is a laughable concept. “Surely” they claim, “The North is just posturing as they always have," creating a social and political atmosphere surrounding our relations with the Asian nation that places both sides of the Pacific in great danger. The skeptics argue that we will never get to this point, though, because North Korea has brandished and blustered many times before, all resulting in nothing. We see recent events being far different and more urgent than in the past. All that is needed to instigate an event on the Korean Peninsula are tightened sanctions.

The old 'new normal' precious metals smackdown has made a few appearances since the Cyprus debacle started but this morning's drop is impressive (given the lack of movement elsewhere) as gold drops back below pre-Cyprus levels. There is one 'currency' that is surgung in value though - Bitcoin is now trading at $107.36, up from $46 pre-Cyprus...

I disagree with the “addiction” metaphor because it implies that the markets/ addict could potentially become healthy if the dealer stopped dishing out the drugs. This ties in with Bernanke’s claims that everything is under control and that he can remove the excess liquidity anytime he wants to.

"All this money printing, massive debt, and reckless deficit spending – and we have 2% inflation? I'm beginning to believe that either the deflationists are right, or the Fed's interventions are working." While a low CPI may be puzzling in the midst of massive, global currency abuse, there are three realities about inflation that convince us it's not only coming, but will catch an unsuspecting citizenry off guard. Let's take a look at why we're convinced inflation will be one of the next big catalysts for the gold price...

In summary:

Total US Currency in circulation (i.e., all US Dollars out there): $1,102 billion (source)
Total Deposits in US Commercial Banks: $9,294 billion (source)

Which means that if (and we are not saying it will) a Cyprus-style fiasco were to occur in the US, and those $9.3 trillion in total deposits seek to obtain
"physical representation" in the form of actual currency (i.e., a systemic bank run), just as all those lining up in front of Cypriot ATMs are desperate to do each and every day when they have a €300 limit on physical cash withdrawals, there will be a roughly 88% haircut for every single dollar that US savers believe is "safe" in the bank.

On the surface, it may seem innocuous for Germany to move some pallets of gold closer to home. The Bundesbank said the purpose of the move was to "build trust and confidence domestically, and the ability to exchange gold for foreign currencies at gold-trading centers abroad within a short space of time." It's just satisfying the worries of the commoners. What your friendly government economist doesn't reveal and the mainstream journalist doesn't report (or doesn't understand) is that in the event of a US bankruptcy, euro implosion, or similar financial catastrophe, access to gold would almost certainly be limited. If other countries follow Germany's path or the mistrust between central bankers grows, the next logical step would be to clamp down on gold exports. It would be the beginning of the kind of stringent capital controls Doug Casey and a few others have warned about for years. Think about it: is it really so far-fetched to think politicians wouldn't somehow restrict the movement of gold if their currencies and/or economies were failing? Remember, India keeps tinkering with ideas like this already. What this means for you and me is that moving gold outside your country – especially if you're a US citizen – could be banned.

"The Order finds that the Respondents’ customers thus never owned, possessed, or received title to the physical commodities that they believed they purchased."

It has been a recurrent joke that in addition to Germany (see chart), the only winners out of the slow-motion trainwreck that is the Eurozone, are the Belgian caterers who in 2010, 2011 and 2012 had an absolute record profit year following what was a weekly summit after summit in which we learned, without fail, that Europe is fine, couldn't be finer, and to "believe" Draghi that he would crush and mangle anyone who dared to short the EURUSD (ironic when every other central bank is literally paying FX traders to short their currency). But while caterers were literally swimming in money in the past three years, charging European taxpayers hundreds of thousands of euros per hour for either sturgeon eggs and pâté, or boxed lunches depending on the amount of austerity imposed, so far 2013 has been rather dry. All that of course is about to change, following the epic fiasco with the Cyprus "bail-in", which courtesy of Diesel-BOOM's subsequent clarification, is a unique template that will never be repeated... until the next PIIG finds itself in the same trough, which now that the dominoes are dropping once more, shouldn't be too long. Which is why the best levered derivative trade on the European "positive contagion" mutating back into its "negative" wilde-type is to go long European caterers. However, to offset as much non-catering risk as possible, it would be ideal to have a pair trade opportunity, whereby to go short an offsetting catering exposure. Luckily, we have found just that. Luckily we have just the trade.

Reclaiming the Founding Fathers' Vision of Prosperity

Central Banks remain aggressive accumulators of the precious metal as we noted last night, as their actions outweigh their words; but as CNBC's Rick Santelli notes today, there is a big difference between the physical bullion they are buying and the 'gold bug' trading currently going on in our markets:

I don't even look at gold as gold anymore since they securitized it. If things [went] badly in the world that I used to observe (as a gold bug); the gold would end up in the hands of the gold bugs. If things go badly now, they're going to end up with checks from ETFs! Sorry, it's not the same. The reign of [paper] gold as the Ayn Rand endgame, to me, that's over. Game, Set, Match.

Which likely explains the incessant demand for precious metals from the US Mint over the past few months - as the other great rotation (from paper to physical) proceeds.

Russia and South Africa, which together control about 80% of the world’s reserves of platinum group metals, plan to create a trading bloc similar to OPEC to control the flow of exports according to Bloomberg. “Our goal is to coordinate our actions accordingly to expand the markets for realization of these metals,” Russian Natural Resources Minister Sergey Donskoy said yesterday in an interview at a summit of leaders from Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa in Durban. “The price depends on the structure of the market, and we will form the structure of the market.” South Africa mines about 70 percent of the world’s platinum, while Russia leads in palladium, a platinum group metal used in autocatalysts, with about 40% of output, according to a 2012 report by Johnson Matthey Plc. Palladium rose 0.8% yesterday to $763.50 after Donskoy’s comments, reversing declines to reach the highest level since March 18. Platinum, used to make jewelry and autocatalysts, has risen 2.3% this year because of increased demand from the auto industry and after supply disruptions at mines. The price jumped yesterday in the hour after Donskoy’s comments, narrowing yesterday’s decline. South African Mines Minister Susan Shabangu confirmed that the two countries aimed to counter oversupply of platinum, and said possible measures could include taxes and incentives. “We’re not really controlling the market,” she said in an interview in Durban. “We want to contribute without creating a cartel, but we want to influence the markets.”