central banks

What Makes This Gold Market Rally Different From All Others?

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By Michael Kosares – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

1.  It is led by institutions and funds, not private investors. Global quantitative easing created a huge and mobile pool of capital in constant need of a place to call home. As the need for a safe haven became apparent among the stewards of that capital, the demand for gold flourished. The consistent presence of funds and institutions as buyers in this rally, as represented by the growth in ETF stockpiles, is one of its hallmarks and represents one of the major differences between this gold rally and rallies of the past. Though private investors have been late to the game, the rapid development of the physical market for gold coins and bullion in the United Kingdom is testament to the fact that sentiment can change quickly.

2.  Day-to-day price reversals often originate in Asia and Europe, not just the United States.  For decades, the U.S. commodity markets set the tone for gold pricing and the rest of the world was content to follow. Even the old London price fix tended to follow along with trends established in the United States.  That all changed when the Shanghai gold market began offering its own pricing mechanism and the effects of Brexit began to have a profound impact on both sides of the English Channel. Now, price reversals often begin in Asian or European markets overnight and carry over to the open in New York rather than the other way around.  All of this is a reflection of ramped up global investor interest in gold and a leveling of the playing field in terms of who and what influences the price on a daily basis.  As such, it comprises our second important difference between the current gold price rally and rallies in the past.

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Deflation Or Inflation: Gold Doesn’t Care

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By Rudi Fronk and Jim Anthony – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

In our view, gold investors should settle back with some popcorn and enjoy the coming fireworks, which will include the best gold bull market ever, with all the volatility that implies. We see new all-time highs just around the corner. The challenge is to take a position and stay the course. Central banks are about to pay for decades of bad policy and gold will reap the dividends.

Let’s be clear about one thing: the global economy is falling into a deep recession but it is NOT due to the U.S.-China trade war, and a resolution of that war, no matter what it is, will not avoid the inevitable. Inverted yield curves and an historic collapse in bond yields are the clearest message that markets can send on the economic outlook. The trade war does not explain why Europe and Japan have been on the brink of recession for more than a year. Nor will central bank easing prevent a recession when monetary conditions are already the loosest in 25 years. Central bank monetary policy is part of the problem, not the solution. In our view, the economy and the stock market are not going to be saved by trade deals and monetary policy.

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The Ghost of Failed Banks Returns

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By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From Gold Money

Last week’s failure in the US repo market might have had something to do with Deutsche Bank’s disposal of its prime brokerage to BNP, bringing an unwelcome spotlight to the troubled bank and other foreign banks with prime brokerages in America. There are also worrying similarities between Germany’s Deutsche Bank today and Austria’s Credit-Anstalt in 1931, only the scale is far larger and additionally includes derivatives with a gross value of $50 trillion.

If the repo problem spreads, it could also raise questions over the synthetic ETF industry, whose cash and deposits may face escalating counterparty risks in some of the large banks and their prime brokerages. Managers of synthetic ETFs should be urgently re-evaluating their contractual relationships.

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Sailing Through a Global Storm Without Enough Hot Air

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By David Haggith – Re-Blogged From Great Recession Blog

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The Global Debt Bubble Enters Its Blow-Off Stage

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By John Rubino – Re-Blogged From Dollar Collapse

People have been talking about a “debt bubble” for some years now. They’ve been right, of course, based on the combination of surging borrowing and plunging rates. But the bubble hasn’t stopped inflating, and recently it entered what certainsly looks like a terminal blow-off stage. Some highlights:

Though July, China’s total debt rose by $2 trillion, a year-over-year increase of 26%. And this month the Chinese government cut bank reserve requirements in an attempt to further rev up lending.

In Japan, the junk bond market is being constrained by banks so desperate for yield that they’re lending directly to companies previously considered too risky. See Japan Junk Bond Market Hopes Crushed by Banks Hungry to Lend.

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Measuring Recession

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By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From Gold Money

Using nominal GDP, or GDP deflated by the CPI, as the principal guide to the state of the economy is a common mistake which will eventually prove very costly. Having convinced themselves that GDP measures economic progress, government statisticians have suppressed evidence of price inflation, giving the illusion of economic growth. Policy makers appear unaware that they are leeching ordinary people and their businesses of their wealth to the point where an economic and monetary collapse becomes inevitable. This article exposes how the authorities use GDP and the CPI to conceal the true deterioration of an economy.

Introduction

When an economy turns from expansion to contraction there is an order of events. The first signs are an unexpected increase in inventories of unsold goods, both accompanied with and followed by business surveys indicating a general softening in demand. For monetarists, this is often confirmed by an inverting yield curve, which tells them that at the margin the short-term rates set by the central bank are becoming too high for business conditions.

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Why are Bonds Going for Broke?

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By David Haggith – Re-Blogged From The Great Recession Blog

One argument for last week’s extraordinary plunge in bond prices, which I explored as something that might happen this time of year in one of my earlier Premium Posts, was that bond prices could get crushed by the supersized US treasury auctions planned for September and October as the government makes up for its inability to issue new debt during the debt-ceiling standoff.

While pointing out the concern to patrons, I decided in the end for my own investment purposes that the Fed’s termination of quantitative tightening and its return to reducing interest rates would likely offset the impact of the government’s sudden debt expansion. Evidence is solid so far that the ballooning treasury auctions have not been the cause of the sudden collapse in bond prices (rise in yields).

(I also got out before the carnage of last week.)

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