06 March 2015

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Non-Farm Payrolls Metals Smash - Troubled Waters


Bubble bubble
Toil and trouble,
Savings burn
While assets double.
 
That certainly was a 'better than expected' Non-Farm Payrolls report number.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has gone back and revised every jobs report I have in my spreadsheet, back to at least 2004.

They have also revised the imaginary jobs, the Birth-Death model.

To give you an analogy, they did not just move the goalposts. They moved the entire field to a new stadium and redid every line, every marker, and every number that describes the field.

So anyway, in itself this was higher than expected, but hardly a great number.  It showed a nation of part time bartenders and low paid servers, with another 390,000 or so Americans being written out of the official record.  At least they are only erasing people on paper for now.
 
The Fed and their partners in government have the itch to raise interest rates.  And to do so, without everyone throwing up over yet another in a series of policy errors, they need the cover of an 'improving economy' with a growing fear of inflation. 
 
After all, it is a 'tight' job market.  Especially if you want to work the day shift at McDonalds in a suburb for minimum wage.
 
WHAT IS THE VELOCITY OF MONEY?    WHAT IS MEDIAN WAGE GROWTH?  Why aren't the whiz kids talking about that when they start fretting about 'inflation.'   Because they are willfully blind?
 
The Fed would like to get interest rates up to one percent.   This give them the room to cut rates again when their latest asset bubble collapses.  That is it in a nutshell.  They see the 'real economy' as cannon fodder in their increasingly self-absorbed financial engineering.
 
I am going to be more interested in what they do with those huge excess reserves which they have given pretty much for free to the Banks, for whom they are now paying them 25 risk free basis points.   Will they keep raising that vigorish for doing nothing to their Banks?  Because that is what it is, to say the least.  There was intraday commentary about that here.
 
The propeller heads and careless few are enamoured of 'corporate profits, and wage pressures.'   I think they will be much more preoccupied with the 'torches and pitchforks' indicators by late next year.
 
The dollar took off this morning as you might expect, with Europe pretty much falling into the abyss of their own hubris and delusions.  I mean, with most of the world savagely cutting interest rates because they recognize that the global economy is failing, what else is an exceptional people to do except raise rates?  Yes, we really are just that good.
 
And with the stronger dollar the multinational financiers will have sweeter pickings in acquiring assets overseas.  As for the real economy well, buck up and stop whining.
 
Let's see how gold and silver fare next week.   They certainly took it on the chin today. But what else would you expect from a largely unregulated bucket shop where prices are almost symbolic bets, contingent on other bets and leverage?  Liar's poker?
 
Have a pleasant weekend.
 
Addendum:   With regard to the cash levels of PSLV, Bron Suchecki seems to think that he knows what the options and outcome are, and has suggested something to me via email.   I have no such certainty about what he thinks he knows and have told him so in return.

Since he (and apparently a tweeter) have recourse to  blogs of their own, dare I suggest that they write their own opinions plainly and put them on their own blogs?

Maybe he is right.  In which case, he should put it in print.  Let him say what he knows, and what he thinks.  And in this he he has directed me to this posting.   And I am largely grateful for it, not having seen it before.  I have added a comment there today noting that I do not care which particular method Sprott uses to add cash, unless it has some adverse effect.   I will look forward to the details from Sprott.  It does now appear that a secondary is unlikely.
 
I am only concerned with accounting for the move in the premium, and that relative to other premiums.  If it varies, I would like to know why.   I also give a word of alert on the cash levels to those who watch these things, that they may be alert to the possibility.
 
I try to stick the facts that I can verify and understand for myself.  But I am always open to reading another's analysis and opinions. Even about details that do not particularly matter to me, of which there are many.   I do that about eight hours a day at least.
 
I should add that I do not 'follow' PSLV in the manner of an analyst.  I had thought I made that fairly clear.   I use it in the limited manner I have described several times, in comparing the premium to some other things. And I do find the fluctuations in the premium to NAV to be fascinating.  I offer no in depth analysis on the individual securities per se.   
 
And finally, if you happen to read the comments in the above link at Mr. Suchecki's blog, you will notice someone claiming that I am a hyperinflationist, although I have toned it down lately.   As anyone who visits here regularly may recall, I forecast for stagflation in a brief paper in 2005, which I have reproduced on this blog some years ago.  
 
I try to keep an open mind on hyperinflation since they do and can occur.  But I think it is a very low probability event for the US, especially while it retains reserve currency status.   The size and cohesiveness of the US economy will allow its currency to weather much more abuse than a smaller nation.
 




 
Despite the Storms, Life and Caring for Life Go On







SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - The Fed and the 'Real Economy'


An astute patron who shall only be identified as il greco asked a particularly interesting question at the tail end of a long email today.

Here is my answer.

I do not believe that the Fed has 'given up' on the real economy.

They see reality through the prism of the banking system and their circle of friends and associates, mostly laboring in the 'unreal world' of the academy, government, and the Banks.

They tend to diminish their own culpability and shift the problems they are creating to the 'fiscal side' of the house, the dysfunctional government. They do have a point, but they are mostly moral cowards and courtiers to power and privilege, rationalizing their own servility.

Things are going to be getting rougher before they get better. 

There is no recovery.

There has been no genuine reform.

There is another asset bubble.

The careless few are doing very well, and do not care.
 
Have a pleasant weekend.
 

 
 
 




The Existential Economist and Interest Rates



Here is an exchange I had this morning with someone I will only identify as the existential economist.

EE:

Fed will use this jobs report (+295k jobs) to justify raising rates.

Despite average wage growth falling.

Jesse:

They want to get off zero so that they can cut later on when they fail again.  Even if it is only 'symbolic.'  I would almost guarantee that this is their game plan.

I wonder if they will increase the rate that they pay the Banks on their excess reserves that the Fed provides? That could be another motivation.  They *could* play that a bit. Or maybe using rates to drive investors into riskier assets is just for the little people, and they could just use it to increase the Banks' share in their vigorish.

Aren't we cynical?  Maybe.  Maybe not enough.

I do not see the Fed doing anything to help anyone except to help the Banks belly up closer to an ever widening trough of economic distortions, inequality, and malinvestments.


NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds


Yes it certainly is a Non-Farm Jobs Payrolls day.

Apparently if you stack low paying part time jobs high enough it means something.

The dollar took off on the 'blowout' jobs number. With the rest of the world in the process of cutting interest rates, the US looks to be getting ready to raise rates, which is certainly boosting the DX index, which is most heavily weighted to the euro.

One thing I have never seen before to my memory is the negative estimate I have on the Sprott Silver Trust's cash position. Keeping in mind of course that this is my estimate based on what numbers they do publish.  And it could be wrong.  But if it is, it is not for a lack on trying to find out.

I believe they have several options to resolve this, but they do not seem to be in any hurry to share this information with their unit holders.  And it doesn't appear to be for any lack of Sprott spokespersons who are available to give their opinions on so many other things.

As I reminder, I recommend nothing to anyone, ever.  I am not in a professional position to do so.  I am actively watching macro-economic developments, and then putting out my own analysis and theories about what is happening and why.  And this does involve watching individual sectors and representative firms.

I am watching these particular trust and funds because they are closed end and publish some timely statistics, meaning that there is a way to track their variance to Net Asset Value.  And they offer a useful cross section of redeemable, non-redeemable, and a mix of gold and silver.  I do not track any open ended funds designed to track the price of an underlying commodity.  Some people do.

Everyone's individual financial position is unique, requiring much more information than a public blog will have.  I put what I know and what I think out there, and people may make their own best judgements.

I bring this up now because people have a tendency to take full credit for all their successes, but their failures are orphans at best.   Sometimes people will ask for my 'opinion' on some particular notion they have, and they provide so little meaningful personal information in their request that it is obvious that they have already made up their minds, but just want to tag someone else with the decision.  It if wins, they are a genius, if it is wrong, they ought not to have listened to that other guy.

And while I have occasionally done it, I no longer like to even disclose what specific positions I may be holding because I do not wish people to 'follow' my own investing or trading, even at a distance.  That is no way to do it.  My circumstances and objectives may be entirely inappropriate for yours.

Leverage, risk and portfolio theory.  If you do not understand them, you ought not to be investing on your own.  And in general I think that in this market no amateurs should be actively trading because the probability that they will lose money is exceptionally high for the reasons I have stated many times.
 


05 March 2015

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Walkabout


"The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power.

There is the word. It is the king of words—Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power.”

Jack London, The Iron Heel


At the devil's booth are all things sold. Each ounce of dross, costs its ounce of gold.

James Russell Lowell

 The price action in dross was the usual thing for the bucket shop today.
 
One thing that was a bit surprising is that a good chunk of the Comex deliverable gold went walkabout.    Where it went, I am sure no one can say.  
 
Considering that this is an inactive month, and the gold clearing report continues to be a snoratorium, the big withdrawal of 114,790 ounces of gold out of Scotia Mocatta was a bit of a surprise.
 
There was a lesser withdrawal of 3,890 ounces from HSBC.
 
Silver had the usual ins and outs.
 
Non-Farm Payrolls tomorrow.
 
Have a pleasant evening.


 
 
 
 



SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Killing Floor Blues


"We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy."

Phil Gramm, 11 July 2008


"Charles Munger, the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., defended the U.S. financial-company rescues of 2008 and told students that people in economic distress should 'suck it in and cope.'"

Bloomberg, Sept 20, 2010
 
There is no recovery.
 
There has been no genuine reform.
 
There is another asset bubble.
 
The careless few are doing very well, and do not care.
 
Have a pleasant evening.