Precious Metals

"Ever heard of SB3341?" is Rick Santelli's opening salvo in today's rantless discussion of the concerns he has with Illinois' 'Precious Metal Purchasing Act'. While passed in the Illinois Senate last year, and moth-balled in the House since, Rick notes that "the long and short of it is is they want an audit trail to any precious metals, whether you're talking coins or bullion." It does not seem too much of a stretch to this Chicagoan to the 1933 Executive Order #6102 that confiscated gold and cleared the way eventually for Nixon's 1971 disconnect of the dollar from gold. As Liberty Blitzkrieg's Mike Krieger notes: "So let me get this straight.  First they want gun registration and now precious metal registration?  I’m sure the government would only use such information in our best interests, because as we all know: Your Government Loves You.  Sounds reasonable, after all, only 'terrorists' buy guns and gold anyway."

New Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s pledge to spur inflation to 2 percent at the end of the yen’s appreciation means Japanese pension funds now have to hedge against rising prices and a currency decline after two decades of stagnation. Japanese pension funds are set to diversify some of their massive holdings, worth nearly $3.4 trillion into gold bullion. Corporate pension funds in Japan will diversify 72 trillion yen in assets after domestic stocks produced little return in the past two decades, according to Daiwa Institute of Research. “Bullion’s role as an inflation hedge, long ignored by Japanese fund operators, has come under the spotlight thanks to Abe’s economic policy,” Toshima, who now works as an adviser to pension-fund operators, said in an interview today in Tokyo. “Gold may be a standard asset-class in the portfolio of Japanese pension funds as Abe’s target is realized.”

Despite the vol-compressing efforts, the S&P 500 closed down for the second day in a row as the last 30 minutes or so saw a totally normal +/-5point roller-coaster around VWAP in its very 'human' way. The afternoon's dips and rips as VIX melted down further (now recoupled with SPX) had the feel of hedged longs unwinding both legs and for sure VWAP was the focus as Treasury yields fell and the USD rose on the day. Despite USD strength, precious metals rose into the green for the week. Risk assets in general saw correlations rise as the day progressed but the very narrow 10 point or so range that ES has traded in since the initial gap-open on Jan 2nd seems vulnerable here - and perhaps explains the urgency to compress the front-end vol to keep us up. Interestingly S&P 500 futures closed today at almost exactly the VWAP for the year (around 1452) so far. HY credit dumped into the close but overall it was a normal day of two halves - selling into the European close and buying after...

So you want a trillion dollar platinum coin? Ok: here are some facts...

Gold fell $20.20 or 1.2% in New York yesterday and closed at $1,664.50/oz. Silver slipped to as low as $29.972 and finished with a loss of 2.55%.

Gold in US Dollars (1 Month) – (Bloomberg)

FX markets and precious metals are continuing to trade weaker after hours along with Treasury yields (in some very gappy and unhappy ways) - but the S&P 500 futures are flatlining for now (as NKY futures push higher - merely playing catch up to ES since New Year's Eve). Odder and odderer...

Though the banking elite are now increasingly being exposed for their criminal activities against humanity in their theft of citizens’ wealth, rarely is another one of their greatest transgressions, their theft of citizens’ minds and the process by which they target and transform young adults into docile, obedient creatures through institutional academia, ever discussed.

• Introduction – Gold’s Gains In All Fiat Currencies in 2012

• Much of Gold’s Gains in 2012 On 11% Price Gain in January 2012

• Japanese Yen Shows How Gold Protects From FX Devaluations

• Food Inflation Risk As Wheat and Soybeans Surge in Price

• Currency Wars and Competitive Currency Devaluations

• Gold Remains Historically and Academically Proven Safe Haven

• Conclusion – Gold in 2013

The recent fiscal cliff negotiations were almost a textbook case of the game theory's Prisoner's Dilemma... resulting in the same sub-optimal outcome. All the posturing and political strutting were more about trying to obtain personal advantage over the other players, not actually fixing anything. The fiscal cliff, in fact, stopped being about the US economy a long, long time ago. The uncomfortable truth that nobody in officialdom wants to admit (save outgoing Congressman Ron Paul) is that the fiscal situation is unfixable. Meanwhile, the debt ceiling has already been breached, and the Obama administration is scurrying to seize federal pensions as a temporary fix. Seriously, how long will it be before they start seizing private pensions, IRAs, etc.? How long before mutual funds and banks are required to hold a percentage of their assets in the 'safety and security' of US Treasuries? How long until everyone is involuntarily financing Uncle Sam?

It's the last trading day of the year, nothing has been resolved on the Cliff, the perpetually wrong media has now decided to change its tune and is spin the Wile E. Coyote plunge as a "good thing" (just as we expected), Congress is nowhere, the Senate failed to reach any resolution last night and is resuming the "negotiations" farce at the bright and early hour of 11 am, and yet somehow, in spite of everything, the strong bid under the futures refuses to go away (thank you Kevin Henry). This despite what is becoming clear to even this broken market (InTrade odds of a debt ceiling deal by the end of today are still a substantial 2.3%) that there will likely be no deal until some time in February or March when the debt ceiling extensions expire by which point the only question is how deep the US recession will be. And still everyone will be shocked, shocked, when nothing is done today either. Why? Because the market continues to price in an outcome which demands that it crash for it to be achieved. That so few grasp this is frankly, disturbing. Also, everything else is perfectly enjoyable theatrical noise. And just to keep the excitement factor really high, most rates and FX markets close early today, with rates and FX futures markets close at 1pm New York time while cash bond trading at 2pm.

In the spirit of the holidays and hope for a more prosperous 2013, we thought readers might appreciate a little humor to partially offset the relentless 'cliff' doom and gloom. So please, don’t take this too seriously. But if you happen to stumble across a ‘paperbug’ or two over the holidays, perhaps you could share some of the points made here. Humor sometimes helps people realize just how hopelessly misguided they are... Quantitative easing changes nothing. Remember, the PhDs are in charge of our economies and they know exactly how much our money should be worth. Those of us concerned that our money might lose purchasing power are just being paranoid. Choice is dangerous. Think Adam and Eve and you’ll get my point. Those arguing in favour of monetary freedom, of choice in money, of repealing legal tender laws, they’re just like that nasty snake Lillith in the Garden of Eden, the source of all trouble I tell you. ‘Tis the season to borrow and spend folks, as indeed it has been since 1971.

For the time being, the silver price is essentially set in the paper market where the daily average trade on the Comex is approximately 300 million ounces. An outrageous number when you compare it to the daily mine production of about 2 million ounces. As Bart Chilton, Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission stated on October 26, 2010, “I believe there have been repeated attempts to influence prices in silver markets. There have been fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control that price. Based on what I have been told and reviewed in publicly available documents, I believe violations to the Commodity Exchange Act have taken place in the silver market and any such violation of the law in this regard should be prosecuted.” Which brings us back to the phrase “Follow the money.” In our view, it is almost inconceivable that investors would allocate as many dollars to silver as they would to gold, but that is what the data shows. The silver investment market is very small. While the dollar value of gold in the world approaches $9 trillion, the value of silver in the forms of jewelry, coins, bars and silverware is estimated at around $150 billion (5 billion ounces at $30 per ounce). This is a ratio of 60:1 in dollar terms. How long can investors continue to buy silver at the current ratios when the availability for investment is only 3:1? We are surprised that the price of silver has remained at such a depressed level compared to gold. Historically, the price ratio between gold and silver has been 16:1, when both were currencies. Today the ratio is 55:1, so what are the numbers telling us? We believe this is one of those times when smart investors will be well rewarded to “Follow the money.”

Presenting Dave Collum's now ubiquitous and all-encompassing annual review of markets and much, much more. From Baptists, Bankers, and Bootleggers to Capitalism, Corporate Debt, Government Corruption, and the Constitution, Dave provides a one-stop-shop summary of everything relevant this year (and how it will affect next year and beyond).

How does one of the best strategists view the world as we close the page on 2012, and look toward 2013? Find out with the help of these 35 charts.

With the liquidation driven collapse in the precious metals one of the most discussed events in the past two days, some are wondering: is the era of sound money over? Is the world suddenly a better place, and does infinite money dilution - the only source of nominal, not real, stability in the world - mean paper money will soon be seen as a safe haven once more? No, no and no.... So what do these central bankers propose as an alternative to sound money? The chart below shows precisely that, by projecting where the balance sheets of the final backstops of the modern financial world will be in one year. In short: far higher - driven by what? Why even more paper money dilution of course. Which is precisely the issue at hand - in a closed loop world in which relative currency devaluation does nothing to raise absolute global value, and merely shifts relative benefits from one actor to another, the only way the world can "grow" now that it has reached maximum leverage capacity is to devalue currencies but not against one another, but in a coordinated fashion against a hard asset(s). Which is precisely what will eventually happen. And that hard assets will be gold, silver and/or anything else that historically has had monetary equivalency. That daytraders seem to ignore or forget this fact is, well, expected.