Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Free Corzine!!!  Hasn't he already served enough time?

See For Yourself ...

Derivatives like credit default swaps turned a mere bubble in the US housing market into a global financial catastrophe... 

One year ago, the two most crowded trades going into 2015 were being long the USD and short US Treasurys. While the former trade had questionable success, the latter most certainly did not work and while hedge-fund managers and other large speculators spent December 2014 setting the biggest bets against Treasuries in four years, fast-forwarding 12 months later we find that the smartest money in the room has fully abandoned those massive short Treasury bets.

Goldman, Decembert 20, 2015: "We think the BoJ is closer to easing further to attempt to achieve a successful reflation than it is to giving up altogether, and so we continue to expect $/JPY higher. We recommend being long $/JPY as part of our 2016 top trade recommendation (along with short EUR/$) and forecast $/JPY at 130 in 12 months"... Three days later, the USDJPY is 100 pips lower.

Despite these economic dynamics that are automatic in any legitimate market, there has been no price discovery in the silver market for three decades.

Overnight Hillary Clinton, in her latest populist push to present herself as "one of the people" wrote a NYT op-ed explaining "How I'd Rein In Wall Street", we were wondering if it would include draining Wall Street balance sheets with mandatory and far greater donations to her campaign by Wall Street firms - a strategy that may actually work as it hits banks where it hurts the most: their money. To our disappointment, this was not included.

After the worst monthly performance since 2013 and the weakest close since February 2010, it appears "managed money" has piled in to the momentum trade. According to CFTC, hedge funds have never been more short gold (slashing long bets and increasing short beta by around 11 million ounces net in the last week). But gold is not alone as 15 of the 24 commodities tracked by CFTC showed sentiment swinging more bearish last week (with Brent and WTI also at their most-bearish positioning on record). And this is happening as November US Mint gold coin sales rose 86% YoY.

"This is a disaster. Only the stupid Americans could have produced such a disaster. Does Putin need to do anything? We’re doing it all for him. So he doesn’t need to do anything. He’s not going to attack anybody. What does he need to attack anybody for? The idiot Americans are destroying themselves and their allies. This is an amazing fiasco.”

CFTC meets this morning to propose a registration standard applying to as many as 100 firms that have changed markets by trading their own money using complex algorithms and advanced technology. As Bloomberg notes, this proposal follows more than 5 yrs of debate about market disruptions, such as the May 2010 flash crash. Crucially, as is well known now, high-speed, automated trading in recent years has surged to account for almost three-quarters of certain derivatives markets which means any regulatory crackdowns will no doubt have impacts on markets; as former CFTC chief Chilton noted “Clearly some of the rules are antiquated.”

If the government’s official statistics are to be believed the U.S. economy is moving full steam ahead. Consumer are spending, the job market is expanding, real estate has recovered, stocks are soaring and the U.S. dollar is stronger than it has been in a decade. But if you have yet to realize it, billionaire investor Eric Sprott says "it’s all a lie." The manipulation of precious metals, coupled with the supply and demand fundamentals which Sprott says will lead to shortages over the next few years as mining companies reduce output or close up shop, will leave many investors who think their gold holdings are easily convertible to physical assets with nothing more than depreciating Yellen Bucks at exactly the moment they’ll need precious metals in their possession.

Who would have thought terrorism is so good for stocks.

That Hillary Clinton is owned by Wall Street is such an indisputable fact at this point, there’s no point in her even trying to squirm her way out of it. As such, it appears she took on a different tact at last night’s Democratic debate, straight out of the George W. Bush playbook. When asked about her Wall Street donors (her top career contributors are essentially all TBTF banks), she shamelessly replied: "We were attacked in downtown Manhattan where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York. It was good for the economy, and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country."

"I do believe that markets ultimately prevail. I do believe that supply and demand will ultimately prevail. I’m confident that we will see that occur... The fact there are some very substantial new players coming into the sector and taking positions in gold and silver... I think that’s showing that things will change and I think things are in the works as we speak."

The idea here is that since it costs relatively little to store physical cash (the cost of buying a safe), the Fed should be permitted to “tax” physical cash to force cash holders to spend it (put it back into the banking system) or invest it.