from Gregory Mannarino
Bob Hoye & Chris Waltzek on GoldSeek Radio – July 29, 2016
by Chris Waltzek
GoldSeek Radio
Bob Hoye, senior investment strategist at Institutional Advisors returns with comments on global equities indexes – policymakers are purportedly moving heaven and earth to prop up shares. Case in point, economic Emperor, Shinzo Abe’s regime is holding rates in negative territory, adding to the $13 trillions in total negative debt, worldwide, to the benefit of Nikkei shareholders. While most investors are familiar with the phrase, errare humanum est, to err / make mistakes is only human, the full phrase, errare humanum est, preserverare diabolicum, applies to CB policymakers, to err is human, but to persist in error, is diabolical. Consequently, negative rates is financial plutonium to the precious metals sector, as supported by Barsky and Summers (1988), via Gibson’s Paradox.
Gold Futures Gain Nearly 3% for the Month
Weak U.S. GDP data weighs on the dollar, boosts gold prices
by Myra P. Saefong and Mark DeCambre
Market Watch
Gold futures settled on Friday with a monthly gain of nearly 3%, after a report on U.S. economic growth came in weaker than expected, pushing the dollar lower and lifting prices for the precious metal higher to a three-week high.
Gold saw further support as many investors believe that the Federal Reserve lacks the confidence to lift rates too abruptly without further signs of strength in the U.S. economy.
December gold gained $16.30, or 1.2%, to settle at $1,357.50 an ounce. That was the highest finish since July 8 for gold futures.
For the week, gold futures ended roughly 2.6% higher, according to FactSet data. Based on the settlement of $1,320.60 for the most-active contract on June 30, prices saw monthly gain of 2.8%. The December contract was up 2.3% for the month. Prices have now posted gains for six out of the seven months so far this year.
Hillary: ‘I’m Not Here to Take Away Your Guns’ – But She Will
by Daily Bell Staff
The Daily Bell
Hillary Clinton at her DNC speech: “I’m not here to take away your guns” … Hillary Clinton wants you to know one thing about her position on gun control: “I’m not here to repeal the Second Amendment. I’m not here to take away your guns.” She elaborated further on her comments, which she made at her Democratic National Convention speech accepting the presidential nomination: “I just don’t want you to be shot by someone who shouldn’t have a gun in the first place.” – Vox
During her acceptance speech, see above, Hillary said she wasn’t going to take away guns in the US, but this is untrue.
She knows just how to do it.
First of all, she will make guns more expensive with new back ground checks.
Second, she will make guns manufacturers liable for selling guns that later are used in crimes.
US Dollar Slides Following GDP Report, Yen Up 3 Percent
by Mike ‘Mish’ Shedlock
Mish Talk
The US dollar index now down about 1%, recovering a bit of the initial plunge after the “unexpectedly” weak GDP report. Against the Yen, the dollar is doing much worse, down about three percent.
US Dollar Index Reaction to US GDP
[…]
US Dollar vs. Yen
[…]
Direction on the above chart is opposite the first. The Yen has strengthened about 3%. Some of that is due to a US GDP reaction, but the bulk of the move is on the heels of a market reaction to actions by the bank of Japan.
Let’s Not Do Ourselves Down – Britain is Roaring Ahead of the US and Europe
There’s a tendency to bemoan our own economic shortcomings while turning a blind eye to the errors of others
by Allister Heath
Telegraph.co.uk
Britain has always excelled at self-flagellation. Our economy certainly has many faults, and it is a sign of national self-confidence that we are so keen to discuss endlessly how to address them. But we are not the only ones to face immense challenges, and it is a bizarre legacy of the declinist 1970s that so many people in the UK are so willing to believe that other economies are doing better than our own.
Take the recent false narrative that the eurozone was undergoing a rebirth, fuelled in part by a temporary growth spike in the first quarter. The most recent second-quarter GDP figures shows it expanded by just 0.3pc in the second quarter, against 0.6pc for the UK.
Why Reuters is Tweaking Its Presidential Poll
from Zero Hedge
A 13-point lead for Hillary Clinton on July 14 has vanished in two weeks with Donald Trump now leading in the polls by 1 point. This is clearly unacceptable to the establishment and so Reuters/Ipsos is taking matters into its own hands… and ‘tweaking’ its polling methodology.
Trump has seena yuuge bounce since Comey and the convention as Clinton’s bounce was marginal…
[…] Something has to be done.. So Reuters “tweaked” their algos…
Central Bankers Are Driving Us All Into the Dirt
by Harry Dent
Economy and Markets Daily
One of the major triggers I’ve been warning about is already happening, even before we understand and/or admit that we are in a recession. Zero Hedge just picked up on an article from Jeff Cox at CNBC.
Global corporate debt now sits at a record $51 trillion and is poised to hit $75 trillion by 2020 – just four years away. If interest rates rise and the economy slows, it will be very hard for companies to roll these bonds over – and then we get what S&P Global Ratings is calling “Crexit.”
The bond markets dry up for corporate lending, especially higher-yield junk bonds. This would set off a chain of corporate defaults and bankruptcies that would cause central banks to start to lose control of the economy, as they did in 2008 forward.
The simplest depiction of where we’re at comes from the chart below:
Best Gold & Silver Forecasters Revise 2016 Targets Sharply Higher
by Adrian Ash
Financial Sense
Gold and silver prices rose against a falling US Dollar after the Bank of Japan announced smaller-than-expected policy stimulus Friday and more analysts revised their forecasts sharply higher following this year’s 26% and 45% gains to date.
Gold slipped versus the Euro and Yen, however, erasing the last of this month’s earlier gains to match Dollar and Sterling prices with no change for July – only the third month to miss a substantial rise in 2016 so far.
Major government bond yields eased lower as world stock markets flatlined.
More than $10 trillion of bonds issued by developed-world governments and corporations now offer new buyers an annual yield below zero, according to Reuters.
Blood Continues To Flow In The U.S. Oil Industry As Precious Metals Rally
by Steve St. Angelo
SRSRocco Report
The top three U.S. oil companies released their financials today and the results were completely horrible. Exxon Mobil was the only one of the three that still made a profit for the first half of the year, however it was down a stunning 62% compared to the same period last year.
Unfortunately, Chevron and ConocoPhillips results were much worse as they suffered a combined net income loss of $4.7 billion for the first half of 2016. We must remember, these are the major U.S. oil companies that are supposed to be highly profitable. I hear this all the time from politicians and folks who believe in lousy conspiracies.
If we take a look at the chart below, we can see how much blood is flowing in the top three U.S. oil companies:
The Fed is Preparing for Negative Rates – Here’s the Sign Everyone Missed
by John Mauldin
Mauldin Economics
I think it’s possible that the Fed will push rates below zero when the next recession arrives. I explained why a few months ago in my free weekly column, Thoughts from the Frontline, at Mauldin Economics.
In that regard, something important happened recently. And not many people noticed. I’ll do a quick review to explain.
In Congressional testimony last February, a member of Congress asked Janet Yellen if the Fed had legal authority to use negative interest rates. Her answer was this:
In the spirit of prudent planning we always try to look at what options we would have available to us, either if we needed to tighten policy more rapidly than we expect or the opposite. So we would take a look at [negative rates]. The legal issues I’m not prepared to tell you have been thoroughly examined at this point. I am not aware of anything that would prevent [the Fed from taking interest rates into negative territory]. But I am saying we have not fully investigated the legal issues.
Is Bank of Japan Signaling That It’s Running Out of Ammo
‘Comprehensive review’ could underline doubts about negative rates
by William Watts
Market Watch
The Bank of Japan on Friday disappointed investors by offering up a much smaller-than-expected round of additional stimulus while also announcing a review of its current policy measures, leading some observers to wonder whether policy makers fear they are running out of tools to stoke the Japanese economy.
“The message the BOJ is sending is not so much ‘whatever it takes’ as ‘monetary policy’s pretty much played out,’” said Kit Juckes, global macro strategist at Société Générale, in a note.
The Bank of Japan under Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda has been an aggressive buyers of bonds and equities. Its decision to implement negative rates earlier this year caught investors off-guard, but the move was seen backfiring as the Japanese yen failed to weaken.
WWIII, Clinton & The Deep State
by Chris Campbell
Laissez Faire Books
A video has surfaced of the recent — and barely reported — attack on northern Syria by U.S.-led forces which killed 73 civilians.
Twenty of the deaths were reportedly women and 35 of them were children.
It’s gruesome. But if you’re someone who can stomach the reality of the situation, take a look…
Top Advisor to Sovereign Wealth Funds Says Gold & Silver Headed Into the Stratosphere Along with the Shares
from King World News
With Wall Street having one of the strangest years in 2016, today a top advisor to the most prominent sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, and institutional funds in the world, told King World News that gold and silver are headed into the stratosphere along with the mining shares.
But first, take a look at the extraordinary calls that Michael Belkin made in previous KWN interviews…
“Gold stocks will turn into the new ‘momentum class.’ It sounds almost hilarious to say that now because gold stocks are so depressed and they are so far from being momentum names, except for the one I recommended that is up 1,000%. But when nothings else is working for institutional investors, they will begin to flock into the thing that is working, and I think that will be gold and gold stocks.” — Michael Belkin, October 10, 2015
Think GLD Is Legit? Better Twice About That
by David Kranzler
Investment Research Dynamics
Readers who have followed my work for several years know that I have been quite vocal about the illegitimacy of the GLD gold ETF. James Turk was the first analyst in 2004 to bring attention to flagrant legal loopholes which enable the GLD custodian (HSBC) to play the “shell game” with GLD’s gold bars.
Certainly highly illegal activities by HSBC are de rigueur, as evidenced by its conviction for laundering drug money – for which a $1.9 billion settlement with the Justice Department failed to deter HSBC’s money laundering activities – LINK. What the heck, $1.9 billion is merely the cost of conducting a high-margin business endeavor. Just ask the big banks funding Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign.
Gold-Stock-Benchmark Battle
by Adam Hamilton
Zeal LLC
The gold-mining stocks have enjoyed enormous gains in their young bull market this year, trouncing all other sectors. Naturally this radical outperformance has led to surging popular interest in this usually-obscure contrarian sector. New investors are wondering how to best track its performance, about which gold-stock benchmark is the definitive one to use. Something of a battle is brewing over new versus old.
Benchmarks are very important for stock trading. Their performances over any given span really help investors and speculators quickly understand how a sector is faring relative to others. Just one easily-digestible number distills down the collective performances of many stocks. Benchmarks also provide standards by which the performances of both individual stocks and individual traders can be objectively judged.
New Signs of an Economic Recession in 2017
by Chad Shoop
The Sovereign Investor
Next year, we will see a recession.
I’m calling it.
Why? Well … there are just too many events unfolding this year that will set the stage for a recession, including a corporate earnings recession, a growth-stunting Brexit vote and a U.S. presidential election unlike any we have ever experienced.
Any one of these events could be the direct catalyst for next year’s recession, or it could be one of the many other reasons not listed.
While I can’t predict the exact catalyst for the event, I do know that I’m not the only one expecting the worst.
Exposed: The S&P 500 Earnings Fraud
by Michael Covel
Daily Reckoning
A new research report has corporate America and Wall Street reaching for damage control…
Marketwatch recently conducted an in-depth analysis of the top 50 companies in the S&P 500. And what they found was widespread corruption.
An overwhelming majority of America’s blue-chip companies are purposefully promoting false earnings.
It’s a sleazy scheme that makes executives rich while masking the true financial state of corporate America.
Rough GDP
by Jeffrey P. Snider
Alhambra Partners
The advance estimate for second quarter GDP came in lower than expected. At just 1.211%, the anticipated rebound from the dreadful winter failed to materialize in any significant way. Worse, benchmark revisions now suggest that GDP has been around 1% for three straight quarters; Q4 2015 was revised down from 1.377% to just 0.869%; Q1 2016 was revised back 0.831%.
Most of the benchmark revisions instead focused on seasonality, a particularly troubling result since it can only reduce faith in the statistical processes while at the same time further confirming what we have charged all along – that this economy is very different and thus statistics that were designed for “normal” circumstances are largely inappropriate.
Britain Takes Step Toward Private Justice With Online Court Suggestion
by Daily Bell Staff
The Daily Bell
Judge calls for online court without lawyers to cut costs … Lord Justice Briggs, a Court of Appeal judge, who drew the package of reforms to the civil justice system ALAMY A senior judge has called for the establishment of an online court that does not have lawyers and can deal with claims of up to £25,000. The move would give “effective access to justice without having to incur the disproportionate cost of using lawyers”, a report says. – UK Times
We’ve often made the point that the current Western law system is an illegitimate, expensive botch that would not be practical without monopoly central banking.
It is the counterfeiting and debasement of currency that allows countries like the US and to a lesser extent the UK the ability to rip apart families and imprison people for years for “criminal” activities harmful only to themselves.
The US alone imprisons 25 percent of the world incarcerated population. It pays for this insanity by the over-printing of money.
No One Can Stop Her… And She Knows It: “This Election Won’t Be Fair”
by Mac Slavo
SHTF Plan
In a fair election, my best estimate is that Donald Trump would win in a landslide.
But this election will not be fair. In fact, few of them are.
For Trump’s part, there is no doubt that he has been this year’s sensation. A newcomer to politics, he has thrown out all the conventional rules, played by his own, and found a captivated country hanging onto his every word. Love him, hate him, or somewhere in between… no one can look away from the spectacle.
After a war within the party and the convenient disposal of 16 conventional GOP contenders, Trump is now the official Republican candidate and he is in a strong position. Coming out of the relatively calm Republican National Convention and going into the tumultuous DNC, Trump has enjoyed soaring poll numbers while Hillary has been losing ground fast to the scandals and corruption revealed by Wikileaks and other related mouthpieces.
New York Fed 3rd Quarter GDP Nowcast 2.5%; I’ll Take the Under
by Mike ‘Mish’ Shedlock
Mish Talk
The FRBNY staff Nowcast of GDP Growth for the third quarter of 2016 remains essentially unchanged at 2.5%.
The Atlanta Fed GDPNow forecast for the third quarter will occur after the BEA’s release of the “Underlying Detail” tables of the annual revisions, between August 2 and August 5.
[…] I’ll Take the Under
With 2.5% as the current over/under line, I’ll take the under, way under.
Q2 GDP Advance Estimate: A Major Downside Surprise
by Doug Short
Financial Sense
The Advance Estimate for Q2 GDP, to one decimal, came in at 1.2 percent, up from 0.8 percent for the Q1 Third Estimate (a downward revision from 1.1 percent). Today’s number was far below most mainstream estimates, with Investing.com posting a consensus of 2.6 percent. However, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecast was revised downward yesterday to 1.8 percent from 2.3 percent the day before. Today’s update includes data revisions from Q2 2013 to the present.
Here is an excerpt from the Bureau of Economic Analysis news release:
One of the Biggest Life Regrets for Older Americans is …
Many regrets center around what you didn’t do, not what you did
by Catey Hill
Market Watch
Young people, listen to your elders: Travel more now or you might regret it.
Thinking back on their lives so far, one in five boomers say that one of their biggest regrets is not traveling enough, according to a survey of 2,000 baby boomers conducted by survey company Censuswide on behalf of British Airways, which has a vested interest in encouraging people to take more trips.
Those 65 and up say the same thing: Research into the lives of 1,200 older people over a 10-year period by Karl Pillemer, a professor of human development at Cornell University, found that elders often regretted not traveling more while they were young. “Based on my studies, I can almost guarantee you one thing: If you don’t do it now, you will wish you had traveled more,” Pillemer writes. “To sum up what I learned in a sentence: When your traveling days are over, you will wish you had taken one more trip.”