Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts

Intraday commentary on the eurodollar and gold here.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Bounce - VIX Remains Slightly Elevated

Stocks bounced today after the big decline yesterday in part because of some optimism on earnings after last night's Alcoa beat.

The rally was a bit subdued. Let's see if more earnings come in positively.

Eurodollar Update - Hunting The Black Swan - Gold and the Eurodollar

As you know eurodollars are US dollars held anywhere overseas by banks as a foreign currency liability or asset.

Eurodollars were formerly tracked by the Federal Reserve and were included in their M3 figures. In fact, the reason that the Fed stopped issuing its M3 is because it stopped tracking eurodollars. The other components remain.

But the Bank for International Settlements, or BIS, continues to track the dispersion and concentration of global currencies in their reporting banks in their quarterly reports. And this is the source I have been using to derive estimates in the magnitude and changes in dollars held overseas.

Based on my reading of their documentation these figures do not include 'official dollar reserves' of central banks, but rather the dollar holdings as foreign currency of their reporting private credit institutions.

From what I can tell, there is a definite difference between the Fed's tracking of eurodollars, which was based primarily on the foreign branches of their own member banks, and the BIS, which reports on dollars held by a greater universe of ALL banks around the world.  This seems consistent with the Fed's statement at the time that continuing to continue to track eurodollars reliably would become cost prohibitive.  I am curious as to their seeming lack of ability to exchange and share data with BIS.  I would judge the BIS number to be the superior number.  At the end of the day, dollars are dollars, unless there is a selective default, different currency classes, or some benign accounting notation.  The BIS data have every appearance of legitimate dollar claims.

For more on M3 and eurodollars read here.

Even a casual glance at the data shows that there was a trend change in the growth of eurodollars in the mid 1990's. This trend is something I have identified as one potential source of a US dollar crisis if the currency begins to fall in value or lose its appeal US in an uncontrolled manner.

I have not tracked the actual source of the eurodollar growth although it seems to be tied to the trade deficit and a variety of components in the Balance of Payments.

My current estimate of eurodollars is 2.25 trillion which is not insignificant even in these days of an exploding Fed Balance Sheet.

As an aside, the last time the US repatriated funds held by US companies overseas through a tax reduction program was in the 2005 Homeland Investment Act. That seems to have had no material effect on the level of eurodollars at least judging from the charts, and probably did more to inflate the income of the wealthy and stock prices.

During the financial collapse there was a eurdollar short squeeze, primarily in Europe. This is because the dollar denominated assets which they held against their dollar liabilities because to collapse in value, in large part due to the mispricing of risk and fraud.

The trend to an increase in Eurodollars has resumed after a steep drop after the financial crisis.

In the second chart we can see that the banks overseas have adjusted their shortfall, or 'the squeeze,' in part due to the swap lines that the Fed opened through their central banks to relieve the pressure.

There are correlations between gold, the US dollar, US dollar LIBOR and the related TED spread, and eurodollar demand that I have discussed in the past, particularly here, but also here and here.

Last Official Report on Eurodollars from the Fed was in 2006 when they were just over $400 Billion

Comex Registered Silver Inventory Falls Below 30 Million Ounces Again

Comex Registered Silver inventory has dipped back below the 30 million ounce level as deliveries and withdrawals bring it back down near historic lows.

Perhaps they can lease some from SLV as the situation may require. The central banks may stand ready to lease increasing amounts of gold for sale into the markets if the price rises too fast, as Mr. Greenspan had said, but they are fresh out of silver, and have been so for some time.

A dangerous and volatile situation it appears. I am glad that the Masters of the Universe are not 'directionally positioned' and are merely honest clerks, if not practically innocent maidens. That might turn out to be an awkward position to be caught in some day.

But it will put the lie to Daniel Drew, because I doubt any of them will be going to prison.

'He who sells what isn't his'n
Must buy it back, or go to prison.'

But that is not to say that there will not be plenty of 'bagholders' served up on the wrong end of the short side when the time comes. No honor among thieves, the big hanging the little, hedge funds for breakfast, and all that. If you are not among the financial illuminati even a cash settlement can be made rather painful and pricey, at least when they know they have got you, and on their terms.

You may refresh your understanding of eligible and registered inventory here.