Renminbi

A little followed development is revealing about the emerging financial architecture and the role of the dollar.  A dispassionate discussion.  

Chinese demand may once again stem the decline in gold prices. Chinese buyers eagerly scooped up gold at bargain prices overnight after the 4% price fall. Gold volumes for the benchmark cash contract on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), China’s biggest spot bullion market, climbed to a 10 week high as lower prices led to increased buying.

Yesterday it was the US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network that tightened its grip on businesses that accept Bitcoin. Today, it is China, where the world's largest Bitcoin exchange by trading volume, BTCChina announced that he had received word from "above" that his platform would no longer be able to accept renminbi from BTC buyers. "As of right now, we have received notice from our third-party payment company that they will disallow customers from making deposits into our exchange," Bobby Lee, a former Yahoo developer who co-founded BTCChina this year, told the Financial Times.  The result, not surprisingly, is an overnight crash in BTC, which crashed by 50% from $900 two days ago to just $455 hours ago.

Two years ago, the CME announced USD/CNH futures trading enabling speculation (and hedging or risk transfer) of offshore Chinese Renminbi and the writing on the wall of the dollar's demise grew clearer. On the other side of the world this week, a couple of gentlemen that few people have ever heard of signed an agreement that has massive consequences for the global financial system. It was a Memorandum of Understanding signed by representatives of the Singapore Exchange and Hong Kong Exchange. Their aim – to combine their forces in rolling out more financial products denominated in Chinese renminbi. This is huge...

"Just be long. Pretty much anything. So here’s how I understand things now that I am no longer the last bear standing. You should buy equities if you believe many European banks and their sovereign paymasters are insolvent. You should buy shares if you put a higher probability than your peers on the odds of a European democracy rejecting the euro over the course of the next few years. You should be long risk assets if you believe China will have lowered its growth rate from 7% to nearer 5% over the course of the next two years. You should be long US equities if you are worried about the failure of Washington to address its fiscal deficits. And you should buy Japanese assets if you fear that Abenomics will fail to restore the fortunes of Japan (which it probably won’t). Hey this is easy… And then it crashed"

- Hugh Hendry

In every organization, including the Chinese Communist Party, there are forces of movement and forces of order.  The forces of movement have moved into ascendancy in China and this was signaled by establishment of the special economic zone in Shanghai and the program emerging from recent Third Plenary Session.  However, the uncertainty over implementation kept domestic and foreign investors cautious.

Overview of the week's economic and poltiical calendar in the context of the investment climate.  

Even we were shocked when we ran the numbers on this one...

A dispassionate analysis of Bitcoins, their function and implications.

With the US shale revolution set to make America the largest exporter of crude, however briefly, the influence of Saudi oil is rapidly declining. This has been felt most recently in the cold shoulder the US gave Saudi Arabia and Qatar first over the Syrian debacle, and subsequently in its overtures to break the ice with Iran over the stern objections of Israel and the Saudi lobby (for a good example of this the most recent soundbites by Prince bin Talal ). But despite the shifting commodity winds and the superficial political jawboning, the reality is that nothing threatens the US dollar's hegemony in what many claim is the biggest pillar of the currency's reserve status - the petrodollar, which literally makes the USD the only currency in which energy-strapped countries can transact in to purchase energy. This may be changing soon following news that the Shanghai Futures Exchange could price its crude oil futures contract in yuan, its chairman said on Thursday, adding that the bourse is speeding up preparatory work to secure regulatory approvals.

Five years ago it was worth $0. Then, a month and a half ago it went to $150 a piece. On Monday it shot to over $600.

Many observers believe the U.S. dollar (USD) will lose its status as the world's reserve currency sooner rather than later. Proponents of this view often mention China's agreements with various trading partners to settle trade in their own currencies rather than the dollar as evidence of this trend. More substantial evidence can be found in the diversification of reserves held by many nations. One set of observers has long held that the ideal replacement for the dollar is a hybrid currency issued by the IMF called SDRs. However, since the SDR is just an aggregate of fiat currencies, it cannot really change the fundamentals of the current status quo. Boiled down to its essence, the SDR is presented as a shortcut solution to deeply seated problems. The reserve currency problem cannot be fixed by a basket of fiat currencies, as fiat currencies (and the trade imbalances they generate) are the problem.

"U.S. objectives for world monetary system—a durable, stable system, with the SDR as a strong reserve asset at its center — are incompatible with a continued important role for gold as a reserve asset.... It is the U.S. concern that any substantial increase now in the price at which official gold transactions are made would strengthen the position of gold in the system, and cripple the SDR... Countries could give up their gold holdings to the IMF in exchange for SDRs. The gold could then be sold gradually, over time, by the IMF to the private market.... There is a belief among certain Europeans that a higher price of gold for settlement purposes would facilitate financing of oil imports... From the Arab point of view [gold] would have the advantages of being protected from exchange-rate changes and inflation, and subject to absolute national control. "

"We’re seeing a new era of currency wars," Neil Mellor, a foreign-exchange strategist at Bank of New York Mellon in London. This is what Bloomberg reported today in a piece titled "Race to Bottom Resumes as Central Bankers Ease Anew." For the most part Bloomberg's account is accurate, although it has one fundamental flaw: currency wars never left, but were merely put on hiatus as the liquidity tsunami resulting from the BOJ's mega easing lifted all boats for a few months. And now that the world has habituated to nearly $200 billion in new flow every month (and much more when adding China's monthly new loan creation), the time to extract marginal gains from a world in which global trade continues to contract despite the ongoing surge in global liquidity, central banks are back to doing the one thing they can - printing more. So what should one watch for now that even the MSM admits the currency wars are "back"? Goldman lists the 5 key areas to watch as central banks resume beggar thy neighbor policies with never before seen vigor.

President Obama, the US federal government shutdown, the omnipotence of the National Security Agency and the anger of the world at just how much the USA flouts the laws that we thought we might have lived by.