Wall Street Journal

Just days after China bans Citadel (and its high frequency trading) from trading Chinese markets, US Treasury and Federal Reserve officials have been forced to admit they "need to consider whether the race for speed, at this already advanced stage, helps or hurts market functioning." As WSJ reports, Fed governor Jerome Powell and Antonio Weiss, a senior counselor to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, said Monday that the government should re-evaluate the structure of U.S. markets in light of recent events. They are growing more concerned about signs that financial markets have grown more volatile with the growth of fast trading. As Weiss concludes, "the constant pursuit to save one more millisecond not only consumes resources potentially better invested elsewhere, but increases the pressure on the plumbing of the system to handle ever-increasing speeds and messaging traffic." The pre-emptive blame-mongery is beginning...

"Priced in?" Atlanta Fed's Lockhart is the un-Bullard as he proclaims that September would be "appropriate time" for rate hikes to begin... Stocks have roundtripped from initial excitement to lows of the day, short-end bonds are ugly as the curve flattens dramatically and the USD index is surging...

We've ALWAYS Been at War with Eastasia!

• Unhappy Voters Shake Up Presidential Race (WSJ)
• China stock exchanges step up crackdown on short-selling (Reuters)
• China Dethroned as World’s Most Liquid Stock Market After Curbs (BBG)
• Xiaomi retakes the smartphone lead in China as Apple slips (Engadget)
• Impact of EPA’s Emissions Rule on Industry to Vary (WSJ)
• Citadel’s Ken Griffin Leaves 2008 Tumble Far Behind (WSJ)
• Greece says expects bailout deal by Aug 18 (Reuters)

Another weekend of glad-handing and Sunday talk-shows and still The Donald dominates the GOP Presidential nominee race. With all eyes firmly glued on this week's debate, Trump had a few choice words for those who attended the Koch brothers' biannual conference (which he was not invited to), tweeting "I wish good luck to all the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc. from the Koch Brothers... Puppets?" As WSJ reports, Mr. Trump poses a more delicate short-term challenge for the GOP, thanks to high name recognition, celebrity appeal and a populist message that taps a powerful anti-Washington vein.  "I don’t think you should underestimate how frustrated people are," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Sunday during a lunch at the Koch gathering. "Mr. Trump has tapped into some of that."

Amid the collapse in coal prices, not helped by the 'China situation' and President Obama's nudge, WSJ reports that the ailing US coal just got another black eye as Alpha Natural Resources is expected to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early Monday to cut its more than $3 billion debt load. After four straight annual losses, Alpha - one of America's largest coal producers - has secured $692mm in DIP financing as it prepares its restructuring plan expected to sell some of the best mines and shutter others. It appears the Arch Coal's CEO's ominous words last week were prophetic - “Coal markets are as difficult as I’ve seen them during my 30 years in the industry."

Back in the 1960s, Alan Greenspan wrote a well-known essay that to this day is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand the present-day monetary and economic system (which is a kind of “fascism lite” type of statism, masquerading as capitalism) and especially the almost visceral hate etatistes harbor toward gold. Greenspan’s essay is entitled “Gold and Economic Freedom”, and as the title already suggests, the two are intimately connected.

... FIGHTING ISIS (Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine Confirm What Zero Hedge Has Been Saying)

We’re always interested in alternative economic frameworks that can help address the sizable gaps left open by classical approaches. Behavioral economics can fill part of that void, of course, as it describes some basic shortfalls in the assumption that we’re all superhuman welfare maximizing individuals. One step beyond that is evolutionary economics, which borrows from biology rather than psychology to form models about economic behavior.

How many more blind eyes can the press (or "we, the people") turn?

Religious imagery... peak condescension... everyone proclaiming "gold is dead"... In a nutshell, sentiment has plunged to negative levels not seen in years, if not more than a decade. Here are four mainstream media articles that provide some evidence we may be approaching a sentiment low. Some of them we're sure you’ve seen, others perhaps not. What amazes us is how they’ve all come out within the last two weeks.

The bear market in bullion is an artificial creation. This artificial, indeed fraudulent, increase in the supply of paper bullion contracts drives down the price in the futures market despite high demand for bullion in the physical market and constrained supply. 

When we first exposed the shockingly dire lack of breadth in US equity markets, it was shrugged off by the mainstream media as yet another 'worry' in the wall to climb. It seems, however, that facts inevitably force their way to the surface and so both Bloomberg (more than 100% of this year’s increase in the S&P 500 Index is attributable to two sectors, health-care and retail. That’s the tightest clustering for an advancing year since at least 2000) and The Wall Street Journal (Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook, Gilead and Walt Disney Co. account for more than all of the $199 billion in market-capitalization gains in the S&P 500) have been forced to expose the ugly truth about US equities... it is not a stock market - it's a market of 6 tail-chasing momentum stocks.

For those who are speculating on the dollar—i.e. most people—there was good news. The dollar rose to 28.3mg gold. It’s a big gain, and welcome news for those who keep all of their eggs in the one dollar basket.