Tag Archives: currency

Guest Market Analysis, News and Commentary

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Short But Sour  Michael Ashton  3.12.13
Fortress of Lies  James Howard Kunstler  3.12.13
The Freedom of Money  Bill Bonner  3.12.13
The US Economy: Afloat on Cheap Money  Investment Contrarians  3.12.13
Gold Chart of the Week  Brian Booth  3.12.13 (e)
Fantasyland for Policymakers  Steve Saville  3.12.13 (pdf)
Gold & Silver Traders Reduce Long Positions Again  GoldCore  3.12.13
Food Stamps Hit Record Alongside Record Dow Jones…  Zero Hedge  3.12.13 (e)
Historical S&P 500 Sector Weightings  B.I.G.  3.12.13 (e)

More Guest Market Analysis, News & Commentary

Guest Market Analysis

biiwii.com

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Gross Monetary Irresponsibility  Sean Corrigan  2.28.13
Trading a Random Number Generator  Michael Ashton  2.28.13
The Persistence of Paper Currency Faith  Greg Canavan  2.28.13
What Makes a Hero  Bill Bonner  2.28.13
Singapore a Wise Owl Among Currency Snakes  John Browne  2.28.13
Beward the March Effect on the Stock Market  David Goodboy  2.28.13 e
2013 Global Stock Market Performance  B.I.G.  2.28.13 e
European (and US?) Banker Bonuses Capped…  Zero Hedge  2.28.13 e

NFTRH 226 Out Now

Well at least things are getting interesting.  We have managed risk in the precious metals and will continue to do that, but there will be opportunity arriving sooner or later in that sad state of affairs.  More importantly, gold is de-risking against the global ‘RISK ON’ trade.

The stock market is coming due for an interim correction, but bears and gold bugs may not get the big turn for some months yet.  At least that is what current analysis continues to indicate.  It’s always subject to revision of course in dynamic markets being driven by hedgies, black boxes and various momo’s chasing trends.

nftrh 226

MSM Hits Gold With the Ugly Stick

This is currency war alright.  This is a war by peddlers of paper currency the world over playing whack-a-mole against each other but most importantly, coordinating fire against a monetary anchor that has no role in this war except as refuge.

Ask why global CB’s are buying.  Ask why developing nations are buying.  Ask why Credit Suisse and Business Insider are putting out crap like this:

12 Charts That Will Make Gold Bulls Furious

First off, this article does not make me furious.  Quite the contrary, I am comforted to know that these are the arguments of a supposedly well-heeled bank and financial publication.  Looking no further than chart one, it is not whether yields are going up or down (gold blew off with yields sky rocketing in 1980), but what long-term yields are doing vs. short-term yields.  While the curve is not yet rising notably, it is constructive for bottoming and thus so is gold.

Exhibit 18 is a truism:  “And so real rates have turned up again”.  But if they continue to inflate to such point that the global economy actually does appear to gain a foothold, lagging ‘prices’ (see commodities) will rise and real rates will tank.  If however, the economy remains stuck in the mud, this thing is going to fold in on itself into a deflationary liquidation of today’s excesses.  So yes, gold could go down.  But here we remember that gold is not about price, it is about value.  It would retain value vs. other assets in a deflationary liquidation and it would do some catching up if the public becomes concerned about rising prices (the result of today’s bald faced inflationary policies) once again.

Let’s let it breathe for a few more months, however.  Gold is subject to being flogged around over the near term.

The rest of the charts and conclusions look like garbage on balance, not standing up to even the most basic critical cross examination.  But Business Insider is feeding some stuff to the public and they’ll lap it up.

Lee Quaintance and Paul Brodsky offer counter arguments to the above MSM silliness in their most recent report Locked & Loaded (pdf).  You should read it.

Then there is MarketWatch, provider of so many side splitting headlines lately.  I think they may have a new hire in the Headlines Department and this kid is a keeper.  These things are just really funny and easily digested.

Gold down again; North Korea benefit short-lived

Ha ha ha… the old ‘gold benefits from geopolitical strife’ canard for the public to chew on.

After the public pile-drove into gold during the Euro crisis, it is almost as if the financial establishment got right to work on damage control and on mind control.  The tin foil hat brigade feels it is coordinated, and surely it is.  It is also desperate.  But with the way the public has been coddled and tended by the massive financial services industry, they are probably well on their way to buying the story that says everything is under control.  There is no further need for irrationally clinging to a hunk of metal that does nothing, pays no dividend and has no utility beyond jewelry.

‘Come back to us little public; invest with us in stocks and b… well, join the Great Rotation ™ out bonds and other safe havens ;-) and into stocks.  We won’t #&$@ it up again dear little public.  You can trust us.’ says the financial services Goliath and associated media.

Do you think this is bearish for gold?  What was bearish for gold was that overly lustful global knee jerk into the metal.  We’ll give it to or through spring just for the sake of sanity.  But none of what you see today is bearish folks.  That is the way the gold market works.  We have seen this attempted mass mind control before and today is just the most intense phase yet.  This is all just…

outer limits

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to — The Outer Limits.

G-7 Currency Salvo?

The MSM keeps on pumping it out.

Gold hit on worry of possible G7 currency salvo

“The Group of 20 nations will meet later in the week, with currencies expected to be at the top of the agenda. Many nations have been working to bring down their currencies in order to drive up growth, which has worked in gold’s favor. But there is growing concern about a potential “currency war” if major nations can’t tone down the rhetoric.”

Ha ha ha…

It’s all a game of whack-a-mole and unfortunately the markets continue to be compliant and highly influenced every time these creeps open their mouths or worse yet, every time there is speculation about what these creeps are going to say when they do open their big fat inflating mouths.

They are powerless in reality because they are bankrupt.  But functionally, the market acts like a codependent and abused partner to official attempts to rig currencies while presenting an aura of being in control.

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to — The Outer Limits.

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to — The Outer Limits.

NFTRH 225 Out Now

This 28 page letter wrote itself and by the end I felt it prepared me to be a better player moving forward not only in the short-term, but also in a bigger picture that sees profound changes coming on the 6 month to 1 year horizon.  The discipline of sitting down and writing it all out forces me to learn, you know.  We should all be triple-checking our assumptions now.

NFTRH 225

Goldilocks Ends and ‘Currency Wars’ Begin

Below is a copy of this week’s free eLetter that went out this morning.

Goldilocks Ends & ‘Currency Wars’ Begin

Amid continuing inflationary policy, the US Dollar is at a critical juncture by both daily and weekly charts.  Euro targets 142+ and the Yen approaches our target.  Currency war kicks off; gold just sits there biding time.

From last week’s eLetter:

“A Goldilocks atmosphere was expertly created in large part due to the fact that Operation Twist (yes, we are still dealing with its effects) by its very definition held long-term interest rates down (buying long-term T bonds) while sopping up any money supply implications and inflationary signals by sanitizing the process with the sales of equal amounts of short-term bonds.”

Policy makers have not found a new way to indefinitely manage the economy.  Traditional laws of economics have not been repealed.  The Federal Reserve used the equivalent of a macro parlor trick to dampen inflation signals and help produce today’s Goldilocks atmosphere, which features stocks rising now that the public and its mainstream money managers feel the worst is over with respect to the Fiscal Cliff non-event and the Debt Ceiling noise.

But in economics and macro finance, there is is always a price to be paid for unnatural (read: man-made) distortions.  The Fed ran out of short-term bonds to sell and now something has to give, as its ongoing inflationary operation is now unsanitized.

A bearish Head & Shoulders pattern has formed on the currency for which the Fed is  supposedly a steward.  If the neckline breaks, the measured target is 76.50.

The weekly chart of USD targets 74 off of an even more significant H&S, with the baby H&S of the first chart merely representing the right shoulder of the big daddy H&S.

A breakdown in the US dollar would confirm that the recent tick higher in Adjusted Monetary Base is the beginning of a new trend up in inflationary policy.

Unsurprisingly, USD’s chief rival, the Euro is in an inverted and bullish H&S.  We have been targeting 142 in NFTRH since the break above the neckline.  The Euro appears to be attracting a ‘long Euro/short Yen and gold’ momentum (read: hedge funds) crowd playing the opposite game to that from mid 2011 when Yen and Gold rose strongly in reaction to the Euro crisis.

Yen has been played to the hilt by the hedgies.  We have had 106 as the downside target since the neckline to the massive H&S broke down.  Yen could be a heck of a contrarian play for a counter trend rally, as the short-covering should be massive.

Meanwhile, the currency that resides outside the system bides its time.  Gold is unofficial money and with all the hype about currency war people who are not patient may have expected a rocket launch in the precious metals.

Here we bring it back to the Euro and realize that too many unhealthy would-be gold bugs came aboard during the acute phase of the Euro crisis in 2011.  That is being worked off now in gold’s ongoing consolidation.

Bottom Line

US dollar looks bearish.  Euro looks to complete its rally to 142+ where it will by the way, encounter a bigger picture DOWN trend line.  Yen is bearish but due for a whale of a short-covering bounce soon.

In the near-term some currencies are bullish and some are bearish.  But the US Fed, Europe’s ECB and the BOJ are not going to engineer their way out of their respective ‘inflate-or-die’ predicaments.  Gold may have a few more months of correction/consolidation but that is a drop in the bucket when viewing its entire history as a monetary anchor to value.

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