02 April 2016 — Saturday
YESTERDAY in GOLD, SILVER, PLATINUM and PALLADIUM
The gold price wandered around in a five dollar price range all through Far East and most of London trading—and was back to unchanged when the job numbers hit the tape at 8:30 a.m. in New York. The HFT traders spun their algorithms—and the low tick of the day [within a buck or so of its 50-day moving average] came shortly after 10 a.m. EDT, the exact same time as it hit its high tick on Thursday. The price rallied a decent amount into the COMEX close—and then didn’t do much after that.
The high and low ticks were reported by the CME Group as $1,237.20 and $1,210.30 in the June contract.
Gold finished the Friday session at $1,221.90 spot, down $10.30 from Thursday’s close. Net volume was pretty heavy at 172,000 contracts.
Here’s the 5-minute gold tick chart courtesy of Brad Robertson once again—and it’s easy to see that the only volume that mattered occurred during the COMEX trading session, which extends from 6:30 to 11:30 a.m. Denver time on the chart below. After the COMEX close, it dropped back to background levels once again. The vertical gray line is midnight in New York—and add two hours for EDT.
The ‘click to enlarge‘ feature still doesn’t work with Internet Explorer, but a right mouse click with Google Chrome or the Firefox browsers should allow you to view this chart full-screen size.
It was more or less the same chart pattern in silver, except the low tick of the day came right at 11:30 a.m. on the dot—and the subsequent rally lasted until shortly after the COMEX close. It was sold down a few pennies from there, before trading sideways for the rest of the Friday session.
The high and low ticks in this precious metal were reported as $15.48 and $14.785 in the May contract.
Silver closed in New York yesterday at $15.05 spot, down 40 cents on the day. Net volume was very heavy at a hair over 59,500 contracts. Silver broke through both its 50 and 200-day moving averages—and closed below its 50-day. I’ll have more about all this in The Wrap.
Platinum traded flat until shortly after 12:30 p.m. HKT on their Friday afternoon—and the subsequent rally took it as high as $985 spot. That event occurred very shortly after the Zurich open. It got sold down into the COMEX open by about 7 bucks—and then ‘da boyz’ spun their algos. The $950 low came a few minutes after 12 o’clock noon in New York—and it rallied a bit into the COMEX close before trading sideways for the rest of the day. Platinum closed at $957 spot on Friday, down 18 bucks on the day.
Palladium began to rally in mid-morning trading in the Far East—and then traded flat until its $573 high tick came just after 11 a.m. Zurich time. It sold off a bunch into the job numbers—and the powers-that-be dropped the price 12 dollars to its $556 low in less than thirty minutes. Then just after noon EDT it rallied until the COMEX close—and didn’t do much after that. Palladium finished the Friday session at $565 spot, up 2 dollars from Thursday.
The dollar index closed late on Thursday afternoon in New York at 94.63. It rallied to around 94.73 shortly before 10:30 a.m. HKT—and then began to slide. The 94.33 low tick came shortly before 8:30 a.m. in New York—and it rallied [with what appeared to be lots of help] until it’s 95.11 high tick which came at the London p.m. gold fix. By 12:25 p.m. EDT the dollar index was back to unchanged on the day—and it chopped sideways into the close, finishing the Friday session at 94.61—down 2 basis points.
And here’s the 6-month U.S. dollar chart so you can keep an eye on its medium-term antics.
The low tick in the gold stocks came minutes after the 9:30 a.m. EDT open of the equity markets in New York. After a brief rally, the previous low was retested at the London p.m. gold fix/U.S. dollar index low—and then they rallied solidly for the rest of the Friday session. The HUI actually closed up 0.94 percent on the day—and nobody was more amazed about that than yours truly.
The silver equities traded in an identical pattern, as they closed in positive territory as well. Nick Laird’s Intraday Silver Sentiment Index closed higher to the tune of 0.22 percent.
For the week, the HUI closed up 4.96 percent—and the ISSI by 1.58 percent.
The CME Daily Delivery Report for Day 3 of the April delivery month showed that 153 gold and zero silver contracts were posted for delivery within the COMEX-approved depositories on Tuesday. International F.C. Stone, ABN Amro and ADM were the principal short/issuers. JPMorgan stopped 39 for its own account—and another 36 for its clients. The list of Issuers and Stoppers is bigger than that, but I just hit the highlights—and you can see the rest here.
If you check the Issuers and Stoppers Report you should also note that JPMorgan issued 154 platinum contracts out of its client account—and stopped 121 of those for its own account.
The CME Preliminary Report for the Friday trading session showed that gold open interest fell by 924 contracts in April, leaving 4,872 open—minus the 153 mentioned above. April silver o.i. dropped by 119 contracts, leaving just 84 left.
There was another small withdrawal from GLD yesterday, as an authorized participant took out 38,170 troy ounces. And as of 7:31 p.m. EDT yesterday evening, there were no reported changes in SLV.
There was a sales report from the U.S. Mint yesterday. They sold 1,000 troy ounces of gold eagles—and 115,000 silver eagles.
For the week, the mint sold just below their weekly production quota of one million silver eagles, as they reported selling 957,500 of them.
They didn’t change their March 31 sales figures, so the monthly sales numbers that I reported in yesterday’s column stand as written.
Here are the monthly gold and silver coin sales from the U.S. Mint going back five years. The gold coin sales are gold eagles and buffaloes combined—and the silver coin sales are silver eagles only. The charts are courtesy of Nick Laird, of course.
There was very little activity in gold over at the COMEX-approved depositories on Thursday. Nothing was reported received—and only 132 troy ounces were shipped out of the Manfra, Tordella & Brookes, Inc. depository. I shan’t bother linking this activity.
It was somewhat busier in silver. Nothing was reported received there, either—but 604,062 troy ounces were shipped out. All of that amount, with the exception of four good delivery bars, came out of JPMorgan’s vault—and the link to that activity is here.
There was decent activity over at the COMEX-approved gold kilobar depositories in Hong Kong on their Thursday, as 311 kilobars were reported received—and 3,139 were shipped out. All of the activity was at Brink’s, Inc. as per usual—and the link to that, in troy ounces, is here.
The Commitment of Traders Report for positions held at the close of COMEX trading on Tuesday was a surprise—a negative surprise in gold, but a positive one in silver. I was expecting both metals to show smallish declines in their Commercial net short positions, with more in silver than in gold. But gold was way up—and silver was down much more than I expected.
In silver, the Commercial net short position fell by a very chunky 9,138 contracts, or 45.7 million troy ounces. The Commercial traders sold 68 long contracts, but they covered a 9,206 short contracts. According to Ted, the Big 4 decreased their short position by around 2,500 contracts, the ‘5 through 8’ traders covered about 600 short contracts—and Ted’s raptors, the commercial traders other than the Big 8, added about 6,000 contracts to their long positions. It was “all for one, and one for all” as Ted likes to say. The Commercial net short position is now down to 68,104 contracts, or 340 million troy ounces of paper silver, still a grotesque figure any way you care to look at it. Ted pegs JPMorgan’s short position around 21,000 contracts, a drop of 3,000 from last week’s report—and he’ll be be able to recalibrate that number more accurately when we get the new Bank Participation Report in conjunction with the next COT Report on Friday, April 8.
Under the hood in the Disaggregated Report, it was all Managed Money—and then some. They sold 3,996 long contracts, but also added a very chunky 6,285 short contracts, for a total of 10,281 contracts. The surprise for me was the big addition to their short positions. Normally at this stage of the ‘wash, rinse, spin and repeat’ portion of the engineered price decline, they only pitch longs—and the vast majority of the short contracts are placed at the end of that cycle. Not this time—and I’m wondering out loud what that means. Are some of the Managed Money traders now onto this scam and are positioning themselves for the JPMorgan axe to fall?
In gold, the Commercial net short position blew out by an eye-watering 7,970 contracts, which may not seem like a big number, but the price pattern of the reporting week suggested a tiny decline—and this was the farthest thing from. The Commercial traders/bullion banks sold 3,854 of their long contracts, plus they added 4,116 contracts to their already monstrous short position. Ted was surprised to see that the Big 4 traders actually covered around 2,600 of their short contracts during the reporting week. The heavy lifting was done by the ‘5 through 8’ big traders, plus the raptors, as they added about 6,300 and 4,300 contracts to their respective short positions. The Commercial net short position is now up to 20.8 million troy ounces. One has to go back a long time to find an uglier Commercial net short position in gold than this—and I know that Ted will have that date, plus more details in his weekly review later today.
Under the hood in the Disaggregated COT Report it was the same story as in silver, as it was all Managed Money traders, as they added 9,679 long contracts, plus they added 372 contracts to their short positions, for a total position change of 9,678-372=9,306 contracts.
Its reports like this that cast in stone the obvious collusion of the Commercial traders as they run the Managed Money traders through the moving averages for fun, profit and price management purposes.
I would expect that the Commercial net short position has improved in both gold and silver since the Tuesday cut-off, especially in silver now that the key moving averages are in play—and we’ve still got two more days left in the current reporting week. I’ll have more on all this in The Wrap.
Here’s Nick Laird’s “Days to Cover” chart updated with yesterday’s COT data. It shows the days of world production that it would take to cover the short positions of the Big 4 and Big 8 traders in each physically traded commodity on the COMEX.
As I say in every Saturday column—the short positions of the Big 4 and 8 traders in silver continues to redefine the meaning of the words ‘obscene’ and ‘grotesque.’ This week the Big 4 are short 136 days of world silver production—and the ‘5 through 8’ traders are short 53 days of world silver production—for a total of 189 days, over 6 months of world silver production, or 435 million troy ounces of paper silver.
In last week’s chart, the Big 8 were short 196 days of world silver production.
And as an aside, the two largest silver shorts on Planet Earth—JPMorgan and Canada’s Scotiabank—are short about 95 days of world silver production between the two of them—and that 95 days represents about 70 percent of the length of the red bar in silver on Nick’s chart above. The other two traders in the Big 4 category are short, on average, about 20 days of world silver production apiece.
Here’s a chart that Nick Laird passed around in the wee hours of Friday morning, but because my ISP was having huge issues, I just could not be bothered to post it, as it was all I could manage to get my Friday column posted on the website in time. The chart headline tells you all you need to know. However, when I posted a similar chart several weeks back, I made the comment that on an engineered price decline, this spike can disappear in a New York minute.
I have a decent number of stories for a Saturday column—and more than a few of them are ones that I’ve been saving for length and/or content reasons, so I hope you have the time in what’s left of your weekend to read/watch/listen to the ones that interest you.
CRITICAL READS
Job Cuts Pile up: and it’s reaching far beyond energy
Turning points in the vast U.S. labor market rarely come with a big drum roll that no one can miss. Instead, they wedge themselves into the rosy scenario bit by bit, here and there, posing contradictions where none are expected. And today, we got one of those contradictions: unemployment claims v. job-cut announcements.
The number of people who applied for unemployment insurance during the week of March 20 to 26 rose by 11,000 to 276,000, the Labor Department reported today. While up, these initial claims are still near the low of 253,000 established on March 5, which had been the lowest level since the late 1960s!
So even at 276,000, initial unemployment claims are still very low by historical standards. Red flags go up when claims jump well above 300,000. Serious fretting begins when claims hit 400,000. That’s a sign that laid-off people can’t find new jobs and are filing for unemployment insurance to tide them over. It’s a sign that layoffs by one company can no longer be absorbed by other companies.
Companies have already started laying off people. The announcements and rumors bubble up on a daily basis. And today, the Challenger Job Cut Report confirms it in a chilling way.
This commentary put in an appearance on the wolfstreet.com Internet site on Thursday—and it’s certainly worth reading. It’s the first contribution of the day from Roy Stephens—and another link to this article is here.
Cutting Through the BLS Bull
The BLS just reported their monthly seasonally adjusted, birth death adjusted, bulls hit guess of employment, designed to keep the sheeple in the dark. Amazingly, it wasn’t too bad or too good. The MSM says it was just right. The ongoing mantra is the job market has been strong and growing for years. Meanwhile, consumers don’t have money to spend. Maybe it’s the 2.3% annual wage increases when their living expenses go up by 5% or more.
Here are a few data points you won’t see on CNBC:
The establishment survey says 215,000 jobs were added in March. The good old birth death adjustment threw 65,000 new phantom jobs into that calculation for all the new small businesses opening up. Anyone with half a brain knows there have been more small businesses closing than opening for the last 4 years. The plus 65,000 is more likely minus 65,000. That would change the headline. Wouldn’t it?
The household survey shows 246,000 more people employed. What you won’t hear on CNBC is that it also shows 151,000 more people unemployed. It seems 206,000 people who were supposedly not in the labor force in February are suddenly back in. I thought the MSM said it was Boomers retiring creating the surge in people not in the labor force. I guess that was another false storyline.
This worthwhile commentary was posted on The Burning Platform website yesterday sometime—and it was subsequently posted on David Stockman’s website. A ‘PITHY LANGUAGE‘ warning is in effect for this article—and I found it all by myself. Another link to this commentary is here.
The Fretting Among Wall Street Gurus Has Begun: Something has to give
A stock market that has rallied sharply to ludicrous valuations is normally accompanied by a booming IPO market. They’re like twins. The S&P 500 jumped 13.5% in seven weeks – to bring it back up to flat year-to-date, a lofty perch, though down a smidgen from its all-time high in May 2015. But year-to-date, the IPO market is in the worst shape since 2009.
Something has to give.
“Either the IPO market is going to pick up, or the stock market is going to pull back, but it’s hard to envision both conditions peacefully coexisting,” Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank told The Wall Street Journal.
In the U.S., only 8 IPOs made it through the window in the first quarter, according to Renaissance Capital’s Quarterly IPO Review, dated March 31. They were all early-stage medical device or biotech companies. Two from China. Not a single one has a product or revenues.
This news item appeared on the wolfstreet.com Internet site yesterday—and it’s worth skimming. It was originally headlined “The chilling thing the dead IPO market say about stocks“—and I thank Roy Stephens for his second offering of the day. Another link to this story is here.
Walmart’s first-ever revenue drop: end of an era?
Not every milestone is worth celebrating.
For the first time ever – or at least since the company went public some 45 years ago – Walmart’s revenues shrank from the year before, according to its annual financial filing released Wednesday.
Walmart is clearly having trouble adapting its gigantic stores to the Internet age. To be sure, it is a retail juggernaut that brings in half a trillion dollars (that’s right, trillion) in sales every year. And with more than 11,500 stores in 28 countries,there’s no way it will disappear anytime soon.
Still, Walmart might have just hit its growth limit.
This Bloomberg article was picked up by the charlotteobserver.com Internet site at 4:37 p.m. EDT on Thursday afternoon—and I it’s the first of two stories that I borrowed from yesterday’s edition of the King Report. Another link to this news item is here.
Condo Bust 2.0—-Miami Sales Down 20% and Dropping Fast
Miami is facing a condo bust—again.
Developers have started canceling projects, slashing prices and offering incentives such as private-jet access to spur sales, an ominous echo of the housing crash that pounded South Florida especially hard.
Easy financing and rising prices prompted developers to build about 21,000 condos in the downtown Miami area from 2004 to 2008. Many of those units sat empty for years.
Developers say this time they have insulated themselves by requiring buyers to put down 50% deposits by the time buildings break ground and by canceling projects instead of moving forward as the market slows.
Still, it may not be easy for some to sidestep the damage. In the fourth quarter of 2015, the number of Miami Beach condo transactions declined nearly 20% from a year earlier, while inventory jumped by nearly a third, according to a report from appraisal firm Miller Samuel Inc. The median sales price slipped 6.6%, according to the report.
This Wall Street Journal article was posted in the clear over at David Stockman’s website yesterday—and it’s courtesy of Roy Stephens as well. Another link to this new item is here.
If Hillary Isn’t Indicted, the Rule of Law and the Republic Are Dead — Charles Hugh Smith
To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway: How did you lose your Republic? Two ways, gradually and then suddenly. The Romans experienced this when their Republic was extinguished by Empire.
The erosion of the Republic was gradual: slowly but surely, the lower classes’ representation in governance was curtailed; the Oligarchy of the wealthy and powerful cemented their privileges at the expense of the many; Oligarchs rose above the laws that were supposed to apply to all, and executive power was consolidated in top administrators and the wealthy at the expense of the Senate.
When Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army to seize control of Rome, the Roman Republic ceased to exist. Gradually and then suddenly: this is how Republics become Empires.
We find ourselves in a parallel moment in history: the American Republic has been hollowed into a shell that is maintained for PR purposes. Beneath the propaganda, the Establishment runs the nation for its own benefit. The people are ignored, because they are powerless in this hollow shell of democracy: their only role is to provide bodies, talent and blood for the Imperial armed forces, pay taxes if they have any money, and be content with their food stamps if they don’t.
This must read commentary was posted on the oftwominds.com Internet site back on March 21—and I thank Doug Clark for pointing it out yesterday. Another link to this Charles Hugh Smith article is here.
Days of Revolt: Junk Economics and the Future — Chris Hedges interviews Michael Hudson
Today we’re going to carry out part two of my discussion about where we’re headed economically, with economist Michael Hudson. He’’s worked on Wall Street, taught economics, and is the author of Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy. Welcome, Michael.
MICHAEL HUDSON: It’s good to be here.
CHRIS HEDGES: So, we spoke in the first segment about the parasitic quality of the banks, hedge funds and the speculative class that has in essence cannibalized the country – including, interestingly, industry itself, and forced down the throats of the American public an unsustainable debt peonage, whether that’s through student loans, predatory credit card interest rates where it’s that bait and switch – where you get zero percent interest and next thing you know, you’re paying as high as 26 percent, 23 percent.
…HUDSON: If you miss a payment.
This 25:22 minute video interview, complete with transcript, between Michael Hudson and Chris Hedges is certainly worth watching. It was posted on therealnews.com Internet site on March 29—and I thank ‘Kim in Nova Scotia’ for bringing it to my attention—and now to yours. It’s one of those articles that had to wait for my Saturday column. Another link to this interview is here.
Doug Noland: Another Coin in the Fuse Box
I side with the Roaring Twenties “coins in the fuse box.” Repeatedly, the inexperienced Fed backstopped the boom. The perception that the Fed could abrogate financial and economic crises became paramount. Confidence was certainly bolstered by momentous technological advancement coupled with unmatched gains in national wealth. And throughout the decade, securities speculation and leveraging proliferated. After awhile it seemed normal.
Securities leveraging had surreptitiously evolved into the prevailing source of system Credit and leveraging that was fueling a highly imbalanced “Bubble Economy.” By the late-twenties, “Wall Street” had essentially become a massive financial scheme, reliant on ever increasing amounts of securities Credit and speculative excess. Intense speculation, liquidity abundance and booming securities markets had financed scores of enterprises that were viable only so long as the Bubble continued to inflate. The financial scheme collapsed with the 1929 stock market crash, ushering in a period of acute instability for both the financial system and real economy. The Great Depression was fundamentally the system’s response to the deep systemic structural impairment that had compounded throughout the Bubble period.
Long ago it was well understood that central banks should not be in the Credit allocation business. There needed to be an intense debate when the Greenspan Fed bailed out the stock market in 1987, slashed rates and manipulated the yield curve in the early-nineties, and then became intensely involved in various bailouts throughout the nineties. There needed to be an intense debate about the role of the GSEs. There needed to be an intense debate about the radical notions of Dr. Bernanke. There needed to be an intense debate about the Fed’s ploy to use mortgage Credit to reflate. There needed to be an intense debate about the Fed targeting securities market inflation and all the QEs. Policies were accepted without serious discussion in 1987 because of the fear of another Great Depression; in the early-nineties because of fear of deflation, ditto the nineties as well as the new Millennium.
Doug’s weekly Credit Bubble Bulletin showed up on his Internet site late last night—and it’s always a must read for me. Another link to his weekly commentary is here.
No Global Warming For 58 Years: What the Government is Hiding
NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration seemed eager in January to declare that 2015 was the hottest year on record. But they left out data that tell a somewhat different story.
When comparing temperatures, it would seem instructive to include a lengthy timeline. That’s not what happened, though, when NASA and NOAA came together to scare the public with their announcement, according to a skeptical website.
“In their ‘hottest year ever’ press briefing, NOAA included this graph, which stated that they have a 58-year-long radiosonde temperature record. But they only showed the last 37 years in the graph,” says Real Science.
Why would NOAA do such a thing? Because the fuller story contradicts the man-made global warming narrative. The government was “hiding the rest of the data,” says Real Science, which “showed as much pre-1979 cooling as the post-1979 warming.”
I posted this must read editorial commentary in my Tuesday column, but thought I’d post it one more time in my Saturday missive in case you missed it. The embedded Real Science link is a must read as well. As I said, it’s a must read, as it’s another undeniable data point that proves the global warming issues is a total scam. It showed up in Monday’s edition of the King Report. Another link to this article is here.
Britain courts fate on Brexit with worst external deficit in history
Britain’s current account deficit is the worst ever recorded in peace-time since the Bank of England started collecting records in 1772 under the reign of George III.
Even during the grimmest moments of the First World War it only slightly exceeded the eye-watering figure of 7pc of GDP racked up in the fourth quarter of last year. No other country in the OECD club is close to this. It has been getting worse for the last four years in a row.
Excuses are running thin. The Government can no longer blame the double-dip recession in the eurozone, our biggest export market. Europe has been recovering for three years and is currently enjoying as much growth as it is ever likely to see.
The U.K. deficit is prima facie evidence of a nation living beyond its means, reliant on foreign capital to fund consumption. Global investors have so far chosen to overlook this chronic deterioration, accepting the stock assurance from London that it is a temporary blip caused by declines in investment income.
This Ambrose Evans-Pritchard commentary was posted on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site at 8:02 p.m. BST on Thursday evening, which was 3:02 p.m. in New York—EDT plus 5 hours. I saw it on their website a day ago, but it was shortly before I filed Friday’s column—and Internet access was my only concern at the time, so I had to pass on it. Here it is now—and another link to this story is here.
Russian President Vladimir Putin Skips Washington Nuclear Summit
“Russia, which has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and a sprawling military and civilian nuclear industry, has refused to take part in this week’s nuclear security summit in Washington over the lack of cooperation with partners on this issue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on March 30 – the day before the top level meeting kicks off on March 31.
“The nuclear security issue is rather topical. At the same time Moscow considers that working on issues linked to nuclear security demands common and joint efforts and mutually taking into account interests and positions“, the spokesman told reporters.
“We faced a certain lack of cooperation during the preliminary stage of working on issues and topics of the summit. That’s why in this case there is no participation of the Russian side,” he explained.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said as far back as January that the summits interfered with international organizations like the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, and imposed on them the “opinions of a limited group of states“.
This news item is certainly worth your while if you have the interest. It appeared on the strategic-culture.org Internet site yesterday—and I thank Larry Galearis for sharing it with us. Another link to this story is here.
‘Empty words’: Senior Russian MP denounces Obama’s proposal on nuclear talks
U.S. calls for Russia to join nuclear disarmament talks would remain useless until normal relations between the two nations are restored, the head of the State Duma Committee for International Relations has stated.
“The USA must first restore its relations with Russia destroyed by Obama and only after this they can offer us talks on nuclear weapons. Right now his calls are empty,” MP Aleksey Pushkov (United Russia) tweeted.
The post came as a reply to a Barack Obama article published by The Washington Post newspaper. In it, the U.S. president urged the United States and Russia to negotiate a reduction in the stockpiles of nuclear weapons and to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, as well as sign a new treaty to end the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.
This Russia Today story is similar in most respects to the previous news item on this issue, but there’s a different spin on it—and for that reason I’m including it as stand-alone story. It’s another contribution from Roy Stephens—and another link to this article is here.
The Syrian, Ukraine, Turkey, Russia Imbroglio: John Batchelor Interviews Stephen F. Cohen
Syria takes the lead in the discussion this week as there has been a major military defeat of ISIL that may mean more than just a turning point in the war. The defeat was the capture of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of Archaeological importance, saved by the Syrian Army and its allies, including Hezbollah, and supported by Russian air power. For Cohen this is a stunning victory, perhaps the most important for Russia and Syrian forces of the whole campaign, as it may have brought about a change in discourse between Wash and Putin. Washington now cannot deny Russian successes and its motives in the Syrian War, and perhaps Western cooperation with Russia against international terrorism is now possible. Cohen sees a “subtle but meaningful shift now in how Russia American relations are proceeding”. Russia even emerges as “the savior of Palmyra” in a few stories in the MSM.
Elsewhere in both Europe and the United states viewpoints are much more schizophrenic. Russia “weaponizing refugees” is again heard with stories about Russia even pushing Muslims across border from Russia. This is echoed by NATO spokespeople like Breedlove, and is clearly preposterous as refugees directly affect Russia too. Cohen also notes that in spite of the freeing of Palmyra, no congratulations were given by Obama to Putin or to the Syrian Army. Clearly, in the past (and supported by the West’s inept efforts against ISIS) it did not appear that Damascus being taken by ISIS was of much concern to Washington. Quite recently Russia was seen and stated to be United State’s main strategic enemy.
The main question here for Cohen is if Palmyra is the military turning point in the war, and it is admittedly seen as such by Washington, will the Russian component change the relationship politically between Moscow and Washington? For Cohen how we got to this point is necessary for answering the question. And the answer is that we got this far over a kind of détente with Kerry over Syria, and Putin backs this policy. Does Palmyra give impetus to furthering cooperation? This cooperation could change the complexion of whom Washington considers the strategic threat to the USA. Cohen goes on to speculate that the Washington policy about strategic regime changes may be in flux too.
On to Kiev and a government in turmoil there. Natalia Yaresko is a strong prime minister candidate for a bankrupted Kiev but is she more a controller for Washington? She wants to be P.M. of Ukraine and threatens to leave if she doesn’t win, but maintains, as a positive policy, only to appoint technocrats of her choosing – to be, in all likelihood with a strong foreign component. Cohen looks at this as a pattern of continuing colonization by the West that did not work in Russia in the 1990s and is likely not viable in Ukraine either. Perhaps this will be true although it has been a winning formula for Washington in the West. But what the government in Kiev may end up necessarily being something beyond a puppet….
The theme throughout the broadcast is Western deceit and manipulative media campaigns against all positive outcomes by Moscow. It is deeply disturbing to this writer that the anti-Russian lies perpetrated in the West have become so poisonous and preposterous and yet will affect the lives of whole populations in serious and fundamental ways. That the campaign is based on the ugly motives of the Wolfowitz Doctrine in Washington is clearly a pornographic obscenity. That the citizens gradually learn to distrust all public policies seems to be ignored by governments in the West, and the damage done is to the Fourth Estate, and to the ruling political institutions; it is a factor in the rise of opposition parties in Europe that will eventually change policies there against Washington or force Washington to intervene to prevent their coming to power – and hence to further degrade those societies. It is a cycle of instability building upon instability and a way of watching how the West destroys itself with its own corrupted values and institutions. But for the citizen how does one regain trust lost in governments and media who have joined forces in betraying their citizens in perpetual escalation?
This 40-minute audio interview appeared on the audioboom.com Internet site on Tuesday—and for obvious reasons it had to wait for today’s column. I thank Ken Hurt for the link, but the biggest THANK YOU goes out to Larry Galearis for the above executive summary—and another link to this audio interview is here.
Turkey’s Erdogan openly embraces his naked ambition
The War Colleges Command in Istanbul is the highest training and education institution of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). After a stiff examination and selection process, about a hundred staff officer candidates are selected from among thousands of applicants. They assemble in Istanbul every March to mark the beginning of their academic year.
It is a tradition for the president to make the opening speech to these selected officers, who are likely to constitute the Turkish military’s future command. The speeches usually focus on national, global and regional security environments, and foreign relations. But this year and last, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s speeches deviated from this template.
Last year, Erdogan’s speech was dominated by the anguish he felt about the mistreatment of hundreds of officers arrested on charges of involvement in the Sledgehammer and Ergenekon coup conspiracies. Prominent in his speech was his allegation that illegal branches of the Gulenist movement were behind these plots against the military. Erdogan was quoted as saying, “We, too, were deceived. I never approved the detention of soldiers, but there wasn’t anything we could do because of our respect for the word of the law.” In that speech, which was interpreted by the media as Erdogan’s apology to the military, he also expressed his faith in the “solution process” with the Kurds, asked for the TSK’s support for the process and called on the military to show “some patience with the PKK.”
This year, however, his 45-minute speech on March 28 focused on the determined armed struggle against the PKK. Erdogan noted that since operations were launched in July against the PKK, Turkey had suffered 355 casualties, of which 215 were soldiers, 133 were police and seven were village guards. “In the same period, [Turkey] took out 5,359 terrorists — they were killed, wounded or captured. But this situation does not change the reality that the pain we feel for our martyrs will continue,” he said.
This news story put in an appearance on the al-monitor.com Internet site on Thursday—and it’s the final offering of the day from Roy Stephens. I thank him on your behalf. Another link to this news item is here.
All Quiet in the Eurasian Front — Pepe Escobar
So now Iran is back to being demonized by the West as “provocative” and “destabilizing”. How come? Wasn’t the nuclear deal supposed to have brought Iran back to the Western-concocted “concert of nations”?
Iran will once again be discussed at the U.N. Security Council. The reason: recent ballistic missile tests, which according to the West, are “capable of delivering nuclear weapons” – an alleged violation of the 2015 U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231.
ballistic missiles in early March. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei stressed missiles were key to Iran’s future defense. Ballistic missiles have nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear program; and yet Washington kept bringing it to the table during the manufactured nuclear crisis.
Russia knows it, of course. The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, Mikhail Ulyanov, once again had to go on the record saying the ballistic missile tests did not breach the UNSC resolution.
This worthwhile opinion piece by Pepe was posted on the Russia Today website at 5:32 p.m. Moscow time on their Thursday afternoon—and was updated about twenty minutes later. This was 9:32 a.m. in New York—EDT plus 8 hours. I thank Larry Galearis for his third and final offering of the day. Another link to this commentary is here.
Gold Newsletter’s Lundin chides market manipulation by big commercial shorts
Gold futures settled higher Thursday, scoring their best quarterly performance since 1986 — a year when “Top Gun” was the most popular movie.
“Gold’s early-year rally began to lose momentum as March wore on, primarily due to profit-taking and a very large accumulation of short positions by the large commercials segment of paper-gold traders on Comex,” said Brien Lundin, editor of Gold Newsletter.
That “massive” commercial short position — a wager that prices will fall — is currently the “primary impediment” for the gold market, he said. Commercial traders use futures to hedge price against risk tied to their businesses.
“If past form holds true, some of the large entities in the commercial category will hit the market hard with sell orders to drive the price down and collect on their short positions,” said Lundin.
It took Brien a while to fully embrace the price management scheme, but he does so with open arms now—and he’s obviously a serious student of the COT Report as well. Ted will be pleased with that, because he’s been a champion of it for thirty years—and now it’s catching on like wildfire everywhere. This marketwatch.com gold-related story appeared on their Internet site at 2:48 p.m. EDT—and it’s real headline reads “Gold Scores Biggest Quarterly Gain in Nearly 30 Years“. I found all of this in a GATA release—and another link to this story is here.
50,000-watt Toronto radio station airs interview with GATA’s Chris Powell
GATA’s secretary/treasurer was interviewed March 19 on “The Real Money Show” broadcast on Toronto radio station CFMJ-AM640, discussing the extensive documentation of gold market manipulation by governments and central banks.
CFMJ is a 50,000-watt station, the strongest signal allowed in North American radio, and it was unusual for GATA to be offered that much of a broadcast audience, the mainstream news media in Canada being just as determined as the mainstream news media in the United States to avoid the issue of market rigging by government.
The interview was conducted by Darren Long of Guildhall Wealth Management, is 45 minutes long, and begins at the 7:50 mark at the show’s Internet site.
This interview with Chris showed up in a GATA release on Wednesday, but for obvious length reasons, had to wait for my Saturday column—and here it is. It’s definitely worth your time—and another link to this audio interview is here.
As interest rates turn negative, gold becomes the high-yield asset, Rickards says
Wall Street for Main Street‘s Jason Burack gets some interesting observations out of financial writer and geopolitical strategist James G. Rickards in an interview posted this week. Among other things, Rickards remarks:
As interest rates increasingly become negative, gold becomes the high-yield asset even as it may pay no interest at all.
Governments can’t reliably dump U.S. government debt instruments to protect themselves against dollar devaluation, since the president can freeze any threatening financial transaction, none more easily than government bond transactions. But governments can hedge their dollar exposure by buying gold, and many indeed are doing so.
A major Swiss gold refinery can’t keep up with orders, especially from China.
China’s government wants a lower gold price at the moment because the government is still pursuing acquiring at least another 3,000 tonnes, so the Shanghai Gold Exchange is not likely to be permitted to boost the gold price for a while.
This is another lengthy must watch audio interview [38 minutes] that had to wait for today’s column. It was posted on the youtube.com Internet site on Tuesday—and I thank Chris Powell for the above preamble. Another link to this interview is here.
Gold Mint at Europe’s Heart Says Sub-Zero Rates Buoy Sales
Europeans grappling with a refugee crisis and negative interest rates are buying gold as a haven investment, according to the Austrian Mint’s Andrea Lang, who expects demand in the region to stay strong in 2016.
“Interest rates are negative at the moment and people don’t see any benefit of keeping their money anywhere, but at the same time they feel a little bit concerned about the future,” Lang, director of marketing and sales, said in an interview in Singapore. “They want to invest, they want to have a safe haven for their money,” she said Friday.
Muenze Oesterreich AG, which makes Philharmonic coins, saw sales of gold bars and coins jump about 45 percent to 1.32 million ounces in 2015 from a year earlier, while silver sales rose to 7.3 million ounces from 4.6 million ounces, Lang said.
“People are concerned about the stability of the economy,” Lang said. “All European countries are struggling. We have a very high rate of unemployment in the southern parts of Europe. Austria is fine on that level, but still we can see what’s happening around us. And interest rates are negative, so it all speaks for gold.”
This Bloomberg story appeared on their Internet site at 12:55 a.m. Denver time on Friday—and it’s something I found on the Sharps Pixley website. Another link to this gold-related news item is here.
The PHOTOS and the FUNNIES
The first photo is of pipefish, with one of their close cousins, a sea horse, hitching a ride on one of them. There are three different species in this photo. They are common reef fish in tropical waters—and I’ve seen lots of them. The second is a Nile crocodile—and a face like that should put the fear of God into anyone. I can tell from the amount of depth of field in the photo that this was taken from point blank range—and it’s a very safe bet that there was a fence between it and the photographer, or he would have never have lived to talk about it. But then again, maybe there wasn’t—and that was just the last photo they found in his camera!
The WRAP
JPMorgan also knows that more are becoming aware of the silver (and gold) price manipulation daily and that can be seen in the growing commentary about the COTs and COMEX positioning. JPMorgan also knows that this isn’t a good development for it, as it would have much preferred not even being mentioned in terms of silver. In some ways, the sooner the silver manipulation ends, the better it may be for JPMorgan, now that its name is being more widely associated with accumulating silver and the manipulation. Let’s face it – JPMorgan has already accomplished the hardest part of its $100 billion silver profit potential in its massive acquisition of metal to date. By comparison, the eventual liquidation of the metal is much easier – all JPM has to do is stop capping prices on the next rally and that will guarantee soaring silver prices.
I did not intend for this to be the final word on JPMorgan’s accumulation of silver and would solicit any comments, particularly disagreements, concerning my contentions. By focusing on the evolving flow of data, JPMorgan’s role becomes clearer and more bullish for silver daily. My whole premise has come from the flow of data and it is that flow that I continue to rely upon.
Perhaps the bes