Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen:
Here are the following closes for gold and silver today:
Gold: $1178.80 down $1.10 (comex closing time)
Silver $15.82 down 13 cents.
In the access market 5:15 pm
Gold $1181.50
Silver: $15.98
Gold/Silver trading: see kitco charts on the right side of the commentary
Following is a brief outline on gold and silver comex figures for today:
At the gold comex today, we had a poor delivery day, registering 6 notices serviced for 600 oz. Silver comex filed with 2 notices for 10,000 oz.
Several months ago the comex had 303 tonnes of total gold. Today, the total inventory rests at 251.09 tonnes for a loss of 52 tonnes over that period.
In silver, the open interest rose by another 1993 contracts even though Thursday’s silver price was unchanged. The total silver OI continues to remain extremely high with today’s reading at 191,663 contracts now at multi-year highs despite a record low price. In ounces, the OI is represented by 958 million oz or 136% of annual global silver production (ex Russia ex China). This dichotomy has been happening now for quite a while and defies logic. There is no doubt that the silver situation is scaring our bankers to no end as they continue to raid as basically they have no other alternative.
In silver we had 2 notices served upon for 10,000 oz.
In gold, the total comex gold OI rests tonight at 404,169 for a loss of 2682 contracts as gold was down $6.20 yesterday. We had 6 notices filed for 600 oz.
Late last night, we had another withdrawal, (although this time it is quite small )in gold inventory at the GLD to the tune of .24 tonnes. Thus the inventory rests tonight at 703.98 tonnes. The appetite for gold coming from China is depleting not only gold from the LBMA and GLD but also the comex is bleeding gold.
In silver, /we had another huge addition of 1.126 million oz in silver inventory at the SLV/Inventory rests at 326.918 million oz
We have a few important stories to bring to your attention today…
1. Today, we had the open interest in silver rise by 1993 contracts to 191,663 despite the fact that silver was unchanged in price. The OI for gold fell by 2682 contracts down to 404,169 contracts despite the fact that the price of gold was down by $6.20 on Thursday.
(report Harvey)
2. An unbelievable COT report
(report Harvey)
3. Today, 7 important commentaries on Greece
zero hedge, Bloomberg)
4. Dave Kranzler and Craig Hemke talk about the manipulation of the metals
(Dave Kranzler/IRD/TFMetals/)
5. Bill Holter’s paper tonight is entitled:
“Zimbabwe to make you think..”
6. We now have our 3rd mining company issue a complaint to the CFTC on silver manipulation
(GATA)
7. Alasdair Macleod discusses calculations and meaning of GDP!
(Alasdair Macleod)
8. Grant Williams of HMMM fame talks with Andrew Maguire: two great minds discuss the precious metals and what is really going on underneath the surface
(Grant Williams/Andrew Maguire)
9. Is Deutsche bank the next Lehman
(NOTQUANT.com)
10. Precious metals trading overnight from Asia/Europe
(Goldcore)
11. Trading from Asia and Europe overnight
(zero hedge)
12. Trading of equities/ New York
(zero hedge)
13. Another big story on the huge shortage of collateral in the uSA namely the use of USA treasuries. You must pay an additional 2.2% in order to obtain a treasury. Why the huge cost? The derivatives must have blown up and thus the huge need for additional collateral.
(zero hedge)
14. Beef prices up significantly these past two years
(zero hedge)
we have these plus other stories to bring your way tonight. But first……..
let us now head over to the comex and assess trading over there today.
Here are today’s comex results:
The total gold comex open interest fell by 2682 contracts from 406,851 down to 404,169 as gold was down $6.20 yesterday (at the comex close). We are now in the big active delivery contract month of June. Here the OI fell by 40 contracts down to 748. We had 26 notices served upon yesterday. Thus we lost 14 contracts or an additional 1,400 oz will not stand for delivery. No doubt, again, we had a huge number of cash settlements and the farce continues. The next contract month is July and here the OI fell by 146 contracts down to 669. The next big delivery month after June will be August and here the OI fell slightly by 2882 contracts to 264,561. No doubt that the cash settled June contracts, having been bought out for fiat, rolled into August. The estimated volume today (which is just comex sales during regular business hours of 8:20 until 1:30 pm est) was poor at 47,665. The confirmed volume on Thursday (which includes the volume during regular business hours + access market sales the previous day) was poor at 120,486 contracts. Today we had 6 notices filed for 600 oz.
And now for the wild silver comex results. Silver OI rose by contracts from 189,670 up to 191,663 despite the fact that the price of silver was unchanged, with respect to Thursday’s trading. The front non active delivery month of June saw it’s OI fall by 0 contracts and remaining at 28. We had 0 contracts delivered upon yesterday. Thus we neither gained nor lost any silver ounces that will stand for delivery in this non active June contract month. The estimated volume today was poor at 14,504 contracts (just comex sales during regular business hours. The confirmed volume on Thursday (regular plus access market) came in at 65,861 contracts which is very good in volume. We had 2 notices filed for 10,000 oz today.
June initial standing
June 12.2015
Gold
Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory in oz
nil
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory in oz
37,281.049 oz (Scotia)
Deposits to the Dealer Inventory in oz
nil
Deposits to the Customer Inventory, in oz
51,061.329 oz (HSBC, Manfra)includes 300 kilobars Manfra
No of oz served (contracts) today
6 contracts (600 oz)
No of oz to be served (notices)
742 contracts (74,200 oz)
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month
2631 contracts(263,100 oz)
Total accumulative withdrawals of gold from the Dealers inventory this month
nil
Total accumulative withdrawal of gold from the Customer inventory this month
134,450.3 oz
Today, we had 0 dealer transaction
total Dealer withdrawals: nil oz
we had 0 dealer deposit
total dealer deposit: nil oz
we had 1 customer withdrawals
i) Out of Scotia: 37,281.049 oz
total customer withdrawal: 37,281.049 oz
We had 2 customer deposits:
i) Into HSBC: 50,096.829 oz
ii) Into Manfra: 964.50 oz
Total customer deposit: 51,061.329 oz
We had 0 adjustments:
Today, 0 notices was issued from JPMorgan dealer account and 10 notices were issued from their client or customer account. The total of all issuance by all participants equates to 6 contracts of which 0 notices were stopped (received) by JPMorgan dealer and 2 notices were stopped (received) by JPMorgan customer account
To calculate the total number of gold ounces standing for the June contract month, we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (2631) x 100 oz or 263,100 oz , to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of June (748) and the number of notices served upon today (6) x 100 oz equals the number of ounces standing.
Thus the initial standings for gold for the June contract month:
No of notices served so far (2631) x 100 oz or ounces + {OI for the front month (748) – the number of notices served upon today (6) x 100 oz which equals 337,300 oz standing so far in this month of June (10.49 tonnes of gold). Thus we have 10.49 tonnes of gold standing and only 17.07 tonnes of registered or for sale gold is available:
Total dealer inventory 548,644.134 or 17.06 tonnes
Total gold inventory (dealer and customer) = 8,072,671.523 (251.09 tonnes)
Several months ago the comex had 303 tonnes of total gold. Today the total inventory rests at 251.09 tonnes for a loss of 52 tonnes over that period.
end
And now for silver
June silver initial standings
June 12 2015:
Silver
Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory
nil
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory
486,170.271 oz (CNT,Scotia,Delaware)
Deposits to the Dealer Inventory
nil
Deposits to the Customer Inventory
629,129.010 oz (Delaware,JPM)
No of oz served (contracts)
2 contracts (10,000 oz)
No of oz to be served (notices)
26 contracts(130,000 oz)
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts)
222 contracts (11,010,000 oz)
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Dealers inventory this month
526,732.4 oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Customer inventory this month
4,405,865.7 oz
Today, we had 0 deposits into the dealer account:
total dealer deposit: nil oz
we had 0 dealer withdrawals:
total dealer withdrawal: nil oz
We had 2 customer deposits:
i) Into Delaware: 17,810.48 oz
ii) Into JPMorgan: 611,318.53 oz*** (7th straight day of an above 500,000 oz silver deposit)
total customer deposit: 629,129.01 oz
We had 3 customer withdrawal:
i) Out of Scotia: 60.261.78 oz
ii) Out of CNT: 382,754.65 oz
iii) Out of Delaware: 43,153.921 oz
total withdrawals from customer; 486,170.271 oz
we had 0 adjustment
Total dealer inventory: 57.845 million oz
Total of all silver inventory (dealer and customer) 179.855 million oz
The total number of notices filed today is represented by 2 contracts for 10,000 oz. To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in June, we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at (222) x 5,000 oz = 11,010,000 oz to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of June (28) and the number of notices served upon today (2) x 5000 oz equals the number of ounces standing.
Thus the initial standings for silver for the June contract month:
222 (notices served so far) + { OI for front month of June (28) -number of notices served upon today (2} x 5000 oz ,= 11,140,000 oz of silver standing for the June contract month.
we neither gained nor lost any silver ounces standing for this no active delivery month of June.
for those wishing to see the rest of data today see:
http://www.harveyorgan.wordpress.com orhttp://www.harveyorganblog.com
end
The two ETF’s that I follow are the GLD and SLV. You must be very careful in trading these vehicles as these funds do not have any beneficial gold or silver behind them. They probably have only paper claims and when the dust settles, on a collapse, there will be countless class action lawsuits trying to recover your lost investment.
There is now evidence that the GLD and SLV are paper settling on the comex.
***I do not think that the GLD will head to zero as we still have some GLD shareholders who think that gold is the right vehicle to be in even though they do not understand the difference between paper gold and physical gold. I can visualize demand coming to the buyers side:
i) demand from paper gold shareholders
ii) demand from the bankers who then redeem for gold to send this gold onto China
vs no sellers of GLD paper.
And now the Gold inventory at the GLD:
June 12/we had a small withdrawal of .24 tonnes of gold from the GLD/Inventory rests this weekend at 703.98 tonnes.
June 11/we had another huge withdrawal of 1.5 tonnes of gold from the GLD/Inventory rests tonight at 704.22 tonnes
June 10/ we had a huge withdrawal of 2.98 tonnes of gold from the GLD/inventory rests at 705.72
June 9/ no change in gold inventory at the GLD/Inventory rests at 708.70 tonnes
June 8/ a big withdrawal of 1.19 tonnes of gold from the GLD/Inventory rests at 708.70 tonnes
June 5/no change in gold inventory at the GLD/Inventory rests at 709.89 tonnes
June 4/ no change in gold inventory at the GLD/Inventory rests at 709.89 tonnes
June 3/late last night: a huge withdrawal of 4.18 tonnes. Tonight’s inventory rests at 709.89
June 2/no change in gold inventory at the GLD/Inventory rests at 714.07 tonnes
June 12 GLD : 703.98 tonnes.
end
And now for silver (SLV) Please note the difference between GLD and SLV. GLD has been depleting of gold/SLV has been adding to its inventory.
June 12/we had another addition to the tune of 956,000 oz/Inventory rests this weekend at 327.918. Please note that there has been an addition on each of the past 5 days.
June 11.2015: we had another monster of an addition to the tune of 2.791 million oz/Inventory rests at 326.918
June 10/another monster of an addition to the tune of 1.126 million oz/Inventory rests at 324.127
June 9/ a monster of an addition to the tune of 3.393 million oz/inventory rests at 323.001 million oz.
June 8/no change in inventory/SLV inventory rests at 319.608 milion oz.
June 5 a huge addition of 1.433 million oz of silver added to the SLV/Inventory at 319.608 million oz
June 4/no change in silver inventory/rests tonight at 318.175 million oz
June 3/ we had a small withdrawal of 138,000 oz of silver inventory/Inventory rests at 318.175 million oz
June 2/ we had a huge addition of 1.243 million oz of silver inventory at the SLV./Inventory rests at 318.313 million oz
June 1/no change in inventory at the SLV/Inventory rests at 317.07 million oz
May 29/no changes in inventory at the SLV/Inventory rests at 317.07 million oz
June 12/2015:a small addition of 956,000 oz of silver/ inventory at the SLV now rests at 327.874 million oz/ lately silver inventories have been rising at the SLV with a constant price of silver!!
end
And now for our premiums to NAV for the funds I follow:
Sprott and Central Fund of Canada.
(both of these funds have 100% physical metal behind them and unencumbered and I can vouch for that)
1. Central Fund of Canada: traded at Negative 7.6% percent to NAV in usa funds and Negative 7.6% to NAV for Cdn funds!!!!!!!
Percentage of fund in gold 61.8%
Percentage of fund in silver:37.8%
cash .4%
( June 12/2015)
2. Sprott silver fund (PSLV): Premium to NAV falls to -.05%!!!!! NAV (June 12/2015)
3. Sprott gold fund (PHYS): premium to NAV rises to – .34% to NAV(June 12/2015
Note: Sprott silver trust back into negative territory at -.05%.
Sprott physical gold trust is back into negative territory at -.34%
Central fund of Canada’s is still in jail.
Sprott formally launches its offer for Central Trust gold and Silver Bullion trust:
SII.CN Sprott formally launches previously announced offers to Central GoldTrust (GTU.UT.CN) and Silver Bullion Trust (SBT.UT.CN) unitholders (C$2.64)
Sprott Asset Management has formally commenced its offers to acquire all of the outstanding units of Central GoldTrust and Silver Bullion Trust, respectively, on a NAV to NAV exchange basis.
Note company announced its intent to make the offer on 23-Apr-15 Based on the NAV per unit of Sprott Physical Gold Trust $9.98 and Central GoldTrust $44.36 on 22-May, a unitholder would receive 4.45 Sprott Physical Gold Trust units for each Central GoldTrust unit tendered in the Offer.
Based on the NAV per unit of Sprott Physical Silver Trust $6.66 and Silver Bullion Trust $10.00 on 22-May, a unitholder would receive 1.50 Sprott Physical Silver Trust units for each Silver Bullion Trust unit tendered in the Offer.
* * * * *
end
At 3:30 the CME sends down the COT report which gives position levels of our major players. They are now giving out purple hearts to those players wishing to take on the criminal bankers;
First the Gold COT
Gold COT Report – Futures
Large Speculators
Commercial
Total
Long
Short
Spreading
Long
Short
Long
Short
186,813
111,723
33,742
150,277
228,866
370,832
374,331
Change from Prior Reporting Period
-7,486
21,834
944
11,854
-17,707
5,312
5,071
Traders
129
102
71
54
51
220
195
Small Speculators
Long
Short
Open Interest
35,237
31,738
406,069
2,033
2,274
7,345
non reportable positions
Change from the previous reporting period
COT Gold Report – Positions as of
Tuesday, June 09, 2015
The bankers fleeced our speculators again.
Our large specs;
Those large specs that have been long in gold pitched 7486 contracts from their long side.
Those large specs that have been short in gold added a monstrous 21,834 contracts to their short side???
Our commercials;
Those commercials that have been long in gold added 11,854 contracts to their long side.
Those commercials that have been short in gold covered a monstrous 17,707 contracts from their short side.
Our small specs;
Those small specs that have been long in gold added 2033 contracts to their long side in total contrast to their larger older brother, the large specs.
Those small specs that have been short in gold added 2274 contracts to their short side, also in total contrast to the large specs.
Conclusion; I am tired of this crap.
And now the Silver COT:
Silver COT Report: Futures
Large Speculators
Commercial
Long
Short
Spreading
Long
Short
65,881
43,335
24,291
71,347
107,288
2,308
26,607
-640
4,154
-17,474
Traders
96
57
50
46
41
Small Speculators
Open Interest
Total
Long
Short
189,524
Long
Short
28,005
14,610
161,519
174,914
5,359
2,688
11,181
5,822
8,493
non reportable positions
Positions as of:
167
130
Tuesday, June 09, 2015
Our large specs; unbelievable!!
Those large specs that have been long silver added 2308 contracts to their long side.
Those large specs that have been short in silver added an unheard of 26,607 contracts to their short side!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our commercials:
Those commercials that have been long in silver added 4154 contracts to their long side.
Those commercials that have been short in silver, covered a monstrous 17,474 contracts from their short side
Our small specs
Those small specs that have been long in silver added a monstrous 5359 contracts.
Those small specs that have been short in silver added another 2688 contracts to their short side.
Conclusion: an accident waiting to happen.
end
Early morning trading from Asia and Europe last night:
Gold and silver trading from Europe overnight/and important physical
stories
(courtesy Mark O’Byrne/Goldcore)
Cyberwarfare Threat To Nuclear, Banking and Financial System
By Mark O’ByrneJune 12, 20150 Comments
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– Legacy of stuxnet is risk posed to technology dependent world
– 20 countries have launched cyberwarfare programmes since exposure of stuxnet in 2010
– Stuxnet virus targeted safety mechanisms in Iran’s nuclear reactors in 2010
– Virus launched to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program was also used for mass spying
– All types of digital systems at risk, including financial, banking and gold providers
– Direct ownership of physical gold, unlike digital currency, not vulnerable to cyber warfare
A new book detailing the development, operation and ramifications of the deployment of the notorious Stuxnet virus shows that it has created a far more risky world.
The book, Countdown to Zero Day, by Wired magazine writer Kim Zetter, shows that – apart from being an extremely irresponsible and dangerous act of sabotage – the deployment of Stuxnet against Iran has led to an acceleration in development of cyberwarfare.
In a must read article in the Irish Times, respected technology journalist, Karlin Lillington reviews the book which presents some fascinating insights into the whole Stuxnet affair which she describes as “the world’s first digital weapon”.
Most unnerving is the fact that twenty different countries have announced digital warfare programmes since the exposure of Stuxnet in 2010.
The U.S. had been demanding that other countries refrain from engaging in cyber warfare techniques until it emerged that the U.S. itself, along with Israel, had deployed the extremely destructive virus against Iran. The NSA had been authorised to launch Computer Network Attacks (CNA’s) for over a decade.
Zetter’s book gives a fascinating insight into how the virus operates. It was launched via a USB key rather than via the internet. The developers had identified glitches in Microsoft’s operating systems which were not publicly known and used these flaws against their target.
The virus secretly collected data on the operation of centrifuges in nuclear reactors for thirty days. Then it began interfering with the operation of the centrifuges in such a way that it would damage the reactors while reporting back the data of the previous thirty days so that engineers could not identify any problem.
Normally, Iranian engineers would need to decommission around 800 centrifuges in a year. Stuxnet caused such havoc that they were forced to change 2000 in a two month period.
The virus then spread rapidly into the systems of contractors working in the power stations who unwittingly infected systems all around the world. In all, over 100,000 computers were infected which Zetter says laid the groundwork for a mass espionage program.
Lillington writes
“Zetter says the attackers also failed to eventually kill the code and stop log files in Stuxnet from communicating back to the command and control server, even after it was apparent the worm had spread beyond Iran. She argues this was to keep the backdoors into millions of computers globally that were obtained in this way, which would form the basis for subsequent mass surveillance programmes.”
Zetter believes that the launch of Stuxnet by the U.S. and Israel was particularly foolish because its
“development also meant the US lost moral ground for demanding other countries not use cyberwarfare techniques … And, inevitably, it launched many more digital warfare programmes across the world.”
She warns that it
“ignores the fact that our systems are just as vulnerable, because U.S. systems are the most connected systems in the world.”
Indeed, our modern western financial and banking system with its massive dependency on single interface websites, servers and the internet faces serious risks that few analysts have yet to appreciate and evaluate.
We previously referred to Russian Prime Minister Medvedev’s allusion to cyber warfare when he stated the Russia’s response to U.S. attempts to have it locked out of the SWIFT system that the Russian response “economically and otherwise – will know no limits.”
Dormant malware, apparently of Russian origin had previously been discovered buried in the software that runs the Nasdaq stock exchange according to Bloomberg.
Given that a military confrontation is not desired by Russia it is likely that cyber-warfare will be part of Russian arsenal in any confrontation with the U.S. and NATO countries.
Hacking is becoming more common and recent months have seen the hacking of Sony Pictures, allegedly by North Korea, and the hacking of Instagram, Tinder and Facebook.
Banks have been hacked, stock exchanges have been hacked and critical infrastructure, including nuclear have been hacked in recent years. It is likely that many of these small scale attacks have been merely testing of defenses.
Even one of the largest and most powerful banks in the world, JP Morgan has been hacked.
Exactly a year ago, in June 2014, JP Morgan Chase were hacked by unknown parties who stole the personal details of 83 million customers.
A concerted attack on the western financial system would likely include attempts at disabling various exchanges including stock markets and foreign exchange markets. Banks could be attacked in such a way that bank balances, which are merely digital figures, could be erased.
Should banks be hacked and customers deposit accounts compromised then the vista of potential bail ins becomes a real one.
The vulnerability of investment providers, banks and the global banking system – reliant as they have become on single interface websites, servers, computer systems, information technology and the internet – is very slowly being realised.
Academic and independent research and indeed the modern and historical record shows how physical gold is a safe haven asset – provided you have direct ownership of coins and bars and are not dependent on single websites and technology.
An allocation of some of one’s portfolio to physical gold is insurance against technological and systemic risks posed to all virtual wealth today – whether that be digital bitcoin and gold or electronic currencies in deposit accounts.
These risks have never been seen before and are largely unappreciated and ignored by brokers, financial advisors, bankers and the majority of people.
Having all your eggs in a deposit account or with one single investment, or indeed gold broker or storage provider, is no longer prudent.
Must Read Guide: 7 Key Gold Must Haves
MARKET UPDATE
Today’s AM LBMA Gold Price was USD 1,179.25, EUR 1,055.68 and GBP 761.27 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM LBMA Gold Price was USD 1,180.50, EUR 1,049.19 and GBP 763.51 per ounce.
Gold fell $4.70 or 0.4 percent yesterday to $1,181.50 an ounce. Silver climbed $0.01 or 0.06 percent to $16.04 an ounce. Gold is on track for a 1% gain in dollar terms, is flat in euro terms and is lower in sterling terms.
Gold in Singapore for immediate delivery was steady at at $1,183.03 an ounce near the end of the day, while gold bullion in Switzerland was again marginally lower.
Even though gold declined yesterday on the back of positive U.S. retail figures, it is still on track for a 1 percent weekly gain due to a weaker U.S. dollar.
Gold is not seeing a boost from safe haven buyers due to the Greek financial crisis, which may or may not include an exit from the euro. European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker said today that stalled debt talks between Athens and its creditors would restart but put the ball firmly in the Greek government’s court to come up with an acceptable deal.
The question is whether this is due to quite poor sentiment in the gold market or are banks that have been found rigging most markets, manipulating the gold market?
Poor sentiment towards gold is seen in liquidations of the gold ETF’s such as the SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest. It has seen its holdings fall again this week to the lowest levels since 2008.
With sentiment poor and prices depressed or suppressed, depending on your point of view, gold looks gold value at these levels and is over due a bounce. The possibility of a Greek financial debacle should support gold and potentially push it higher before the important June end deadline.
The psychological price level of round number $1,200 per ounce will offer resistance but should gold rise above it, we would expect a move to $1,250 in short order.
The sharp bond market selloff is bullish for gold as it is starting to pinch American consumers and companies, causing a mild economic tightening that will raise alarms at the Fed and will likely delay the expected hike of interest rates in coming months.
U.S. mortgage rates have reached their highest level in 18 months, auto loans are getting more expensive, and corporations across the board have seen their borrowing costs jump as U.S. and European debt retrenched in recent weeks.
Asia’s demand has faltered a bit with monsoon season in India and China’s surging stock market has softened buying of the yellow metal but demand remains quite high as seen in the premiums on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE).
In late morning European trading gold is down 0.13 percent at $1,180.14 an ounce. Silver is off 0.44 percent at $15.95 an ounce, and platinum is also down 0.81 percent at $1,098.90 an ounce.
end
As I pointed out to you yesterday, Rhodesia was a very rich nation twenty five years ago. Today everybody is impoverished:
(courtesy Agence France-Presse/GATA)
All they had to do was monetize the gold from their own mines
Submitted by cpowell on Thu, 2015-06-11 18:24. Section: Daily Dispatches
Another rich country insisting on being poor.
* * *
Zimbabwe to Phase Out Worthless Local Dollar
From Agence France-Presse
via Raidio Teilifis Eireann, Dublin
Thursday, June 11, 2015
http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2015/0611/707434-zimbabwe-dollar/
The Zimbabwean dollar will officially be taken out of circulation, officials said today, six years after hyper-inflation rendered it worthless and US dollars became the most widely-used currency.
The government effectively abandoned the local currency in 2009 and adopted a multiple-currency system that includes the US dollar and the South African rand.
“Zimbabwe adopted the multiple-currency system or dollarization in 2009 and it is therefore necessary to demonetise the Zimbabwe dollar unit,” Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya said at a news conference.”We are decommissioning this currency,” he added.
The southern African country once removed 12 zeros from its battered currency at the height of hyper-inflation in 2009 when the largest note was the $100 trillion denomination.
Official figures put inflation at 230 million per cent but in reality it was much higher.
Mangudya said $20 million has been set aside to offset Zimbabwe dollar bank balances and to pay people still holding to the local unit. The process will run until September, he said.
“People went through a difficult process in terms of inflation. Yes, we know that there was hyperinflation. We need to ensure that as a country we move forward,” Mangudya said.
Zimbabwe has been saddled with a financial crisis for over a decade following President Robert Mugabe’s land reforms, which decimated farming, the backbone of the economy.
Growth is expected to weaken further this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
end
Alasdair Macleod…..
(courtesy Alasdair Macleod/GATA)
Alasdair Macleod: The fallacies of GDP
Submitted by cpowell on Thu, 2015-06-11 18:10. Section: Daily Dispatches
2:09p ET Thursday, June 11, 2015
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
GoldMoney’s head of research, Alasdair Macleod, today explains why gross domestic product, a statistic worshipped by some economists, is misleading and does only harm.
“GDP,” Macleod writes, “has nothing to do with economic progress. It is a flawed statistic that imperfectly summarizes the money-value of selected transactions over a given period. The fact that it is usually positive is a reflection of the temporal difference between monetary inflation and the lagging effect on prices, and has nothing to do with economic progress.”
Macleod’s commentary is headlined “The Fallacies of GDP” and it’s posted at GoldMoney here:
https://www.goldmoney.com/research/analysis/the-fallacies-of-gdp?gmrefco…
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
end
A must listen to:
Grant Williams and Andrew Maguire two great minds talk about gold suppression. Grant Williams is formerly of Hmmmm…fame!!
(courtesy Grant Williams/Real Vision and Andrew Maguire)
Real Vision has great interview with Andrew Maguire about gold suppression
Submitted by cpowell on Thu, 2015-06-11 17:58. Section: Daily Dispatches
1:58p ET Thursday, June 11, 2015
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Singapore-based fund manager Grant Williams has just done an outstanding and detailed interview with London metals trader Andrew Maguire in the Real Vision series of in-depth interviews with leading figures in the financial markets.
Among the topics discussed by Maguire and Williams:
— The intention of the Bank of England’s gold sales to drive the price down 15 years ago to rescue bullion banks from a short squeeze.
— Maguire’s attempt to get the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission interested in documentation he provided about silver market manipulation in London.
— The shocking impact on the metals market caused by CPM Group executive Jeffrey Christian’s admission to a CFTC hearing that bullion banks are leveraged by as much as 100 to 1 in their shorting of metal.
— The official interventions against gold in April 2013
— London’s loss of control of the gold market to Asia, where the physical market will overwhelm the paper or “synthetic” markets of the West.
— The new Asian exchanges that will draw metal away from the West and break the price-suppression system.
— What Maguire considers the financial trade of the decade.
The Real Vision people have kindly posted Maguire’s interview entirely in the clear here —
https://teaser.realvisiontv.com/130358792
— in the hope that you’ll want to consider subscribing to their service, whose price is $400 per year. But a $100 discount is available to GATA supporters who use the discount code GATA-RV when subscribing. Please check out Real Vision here:
https://realvisiontv.com/#About
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
end
And now we have Dave Kranzler talk about the huge manipulation in silver:
(courtesy Dave Kranzler/IRD)
Silver Manipulation May Be The Most Extreme In History
June 12, 2015Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metalsanti-gold terrorism, Comex, Commitment of Traders, silver
Much has been made in this commentary of the soaring silver open interest, which ought to be unprecedented in commodity market history. – Bill “Midas” Murphy, co-founder and Chairman of GATA
The open interest in Comex silver hit another new all-time high yesterday. As of Wednesday’s final open interest report, the open interest in silver was 189.7k contracts. This is the highest the open interest has been based on data I have going back to April 2005.
189.7k contracts translates into 948.5 million ounces of silver. According to the Silver Institute, the total global silver mine output for 2014 was 877 million ozs. The amount of paper silver open interest on the Comex is thus greater than the amount of silver mined in a year globally.
The ratio of silver futures open interest to the amount of silver warehoused on the Comex is even more absurdly disproportionate. As of Wednesday, June 10 the Comex vault operators (JP Morgan, Scotia, HSBC, Delaware Depository, CNT and Brink’s) were reporting a total of 179.7 million ozs of silver in Comex vaults. Of that, 57.8 ozs were classified as “registered,” or available for delivery (the rest was being “safekept” at the Comex by investors or commercial users of silver).
Based on these numbers, the silver open interest is now 5.3x higher than the totalamount of silver on the Comex and 16.4x the amount of silver that has been made available for delivery.
Never in the history of the commodities markets has the amount of futures outstanding for any commodity been this extraordinarily disconnected from the amount of the physical supply produced and available for delivery.
Anyone who asserts that gold and silver are not manipulated using paper derivatives just based on the market action alone is either completely corrupted – with a motivated financial interest in denying the obvious – or is a total idiot. But upon examining the Comex data for silver – and accepting it prima facie, which I do not (I believe the real numbers are even more extreme) – anyone who denies that silver is manipulated in extremis has likely received a full frontal lobotomy.
The blatant takedown in gold and silver signals to me that something is coming. I enjoyed Keith Neumeyer’s letter to the CFTC. When a major producer like First Majestic raises the issue I think the CFTC will have a more difficult time blowing it off than another diatribe from Ted Butler. – John Embry
Briefly, the price of gold/silver is manipulated in two ways. The first method involves “bombing” the Comex (either the trading floor or the electronic Globex trading system) will massive futures sell orders, typically during periods of low liquidity or when economic reports are released. This causes the sharp sell-offs. The second method involves price capping, which is achieved by meeting periods increased demand from buyers with added supply of futures.
If the allowable amount of gold/silver futures open interest was pegged to the amount of physical gold/silver available for delivery, it would be impossible for the banks to print an infinite supply of paper contracts to meet demand from buyers. This is how every other commodities product operates. In fact, isn’t this how every other commercial product market typically operates?
The motivation by the Fed/Government to keep a lid on the price of precious metals is certainly understandable. If gold and silver were allowed to operate in a market of bona fide price discovery, they would almost instantaneously re-price at significantly higher levels. This event would completely undermine the legitimacy of the dollar. It would disrupt entire the massive wealth transfer mechanism being operated by America’s corporate, banking and political elite. We’re talking about blood money.
There’s no telling how much longer this extreme manipulation can continue. History has shown that market interventions eventually fail – often with serious consequences. As I have suggested in recent commentary, I believe that the credit market is sending signals which indicate that western Central Banks and Governments are beginning to lose their ability to control the markets.
This whole thing is totally nuts. I still think silver will go bonkers within the next few months. Maybe that is a hope trade of mine, but I smell it as much as I smelled my biggest winner, the copper move of 1987. – Bill Murphy
end
We now have a 3rd mining company issue a complaint to the CFTC:
(First Mexican Gold Corp/Vancouver Canada)
Here is his letter;
Fi