Saturday, January 26, 2013

Gold Guarantee blows up in Singapore small time ponzi scheme ) ...... what about the large ponzi scheme run by the Fed / BOE and French Central Banks ? Staurday Reports from Harvey blogspot and Ed Steer's gold and silver reports !

http://www.caseyresearch.com/gsd/edition/reinstatement-sought-silver-market-rigging-class-action-lawsuit


Reinstatement Sought for Silver Market Rigging Class-Action Lawsuit

Jan
26
"Well...are JPMorgan et al done to the downside yet? That's the first question that needs an answer."

¤ YESTERDAY IN GOLD AND SILVER

The gold price traded pretty flat all through Far East trading...and only began to head south around 11:00 a.m. in London.  It hit its low tick at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time...the 3:00 p.m. GMT London gold fix.
The smallish rally that followed died within a few hours...and gold traded flat into the close from 12:30 p.m. Eastern time onward.  The high tick [about $1,672 spot] was around 3:00 p.m. Hong Kong time...and the low tick at the p.m. gold fix was $1,654.90 spot.
Gold closed on Friday at $1,6529.30 spot...down $8.10 on the day.  Net volume wasn't overly heavy at 111,000 contracts.
It was pretty much the same chart pattern for silver...and the big difference between the two was that the low tick for silver was nowhere near the London p.m. gold fix.  Instead, it came in electronic trading shortly after the Comex close.  Like gold, silver traded virtually sideways from 12:30 p.m. onwards...except for the spike low.
The high tick [around $31.75 spot] came shortly after 3:00 p.m. in Hong Kong...and the low [$31.04 spot] was printed around 1:50 p.m. in New York.
Silver closed at $31.18 spot...down 44 cents from Thursday.  Volume was 'average'...around 39,000 contracts.
It was a far different story in both platinum and palladium, as both finished in positive territory.  Palladium was on fire...up 2.07%.  Platinum was up 0.71%.  Gold finished down 0.49%...and silver closed down 1.39%.
Never have I seen such a dichotomy in chart patterns...and I'm not sure what to make of it.
The dollar index opened at 79.99...and climbed a hair to around 80.06 by noon in Hong Kong...and then dropped off a 20 basis point cliff shortly before 3:00 p.m. Hong Kong time.  After that, the index chopped its way slowly lower....with its nadir [79.68] coming just minutes before 11:00 a.m. in New York.  It closed at 79.74...down 25 basis points from Thursday's close.
If you can fit the dollar index action to any of the precious metal charts above, I'd like to see how you did it.

*   *   * 

The CME's Daily Delivery Report showed no activity in either gold or silver.  Almost all the deliveries on Tuesday were in copper...and a couple of contracts in platinum.
There was more withdrawal activity from both GLD and SLV yesterday.  The withdrawal from GLD was 58,087 troy ounces...and from SLV it was 918,796 ounces.
Silver ETF Bar Guru, Joshua Gibbons updated his webpage with all the data from the big deposit of 18.3 million ounces into SLV last Thursday...and you can read all about it here.  If you're new to the site...and most readers are...it's worth a few minutes of your time to poke around a bit.
Over at Switzerland's Zürcher Kantonalbank for the period ending January 24th...they reported that 22,639 troy ounces of gold were withdrawn from that particular ETF...but their silver ETF reported adding 423,554 troy ounces.
There was a tiny sales report from the U.S. Mint...500 ounces of gold eagles...and 500 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes.  Month-to-date the mint has sold 132,000 ounces of gold eagles...67,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...and 6,007,000 silver eagles.  That gives a silver/gold sales ratio of 30 to 1.  No doubt it would have been larger than that if there had been more silver eagles available to sell.
It was another active day in silver over at the Comex-approved depositories on Thursday.  They reported receiving 1,354,601 troy ounces of the stuff..and shipped only 37,301 troy ounces out the door.  The link to that activity is here.
I forgot all about yesterday's Commitment of Traders Report when it came out at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time yesterday afternoon...and it only came to mind as I began writing today's column yesterday evening.  You'll just get the Reader's Digest version today, as I have lots of stories to post.
Because of rising prices in silver and gold, I was expecting an increase in the Commercial net short position in both metals...as "da boyz" were obviously going short against all comers...and that's precisely what the report showed.
Silver's net short position jumped a huge 5,366 contracts, or 26.8 million troy ounces of paper silver, so it was obvious that JPMorgan et al had to aggressively sell this market short to prevent the price from blowing out to the upside during the reporting week.
Gold's Commercial net short position increased by 10,837 contracts, or 1.08 million paper troy ounces.
But all this data was as of the Tuesday cut-off for this report...and is now "yesterday's news" as Ted Butler is wont to say.  The big engineered price declines in both gold and silver that began after the Tuesday cut-off have reversed all of the above data...and then some.
We have two more days left [Monday and Tuesday] in the reporting week for next Friday's COT report..and we'll have to wait impatiently for time to pass.
Here's Nick Laird's weekly "Days of World Production to Cover Short Positions" chart updated with Tuesday's COT data.  The 'Big 8' have added seven days of world silver production to their short positions since last week's update.  The link to the long-term interactive COT charts for both silver and gold are here...and here.


*   *   * 

selected news items......

Bank of America issues `bond crash' alert on Fed tightening fears

The US lender said investors face a treacherous moment as central banks start fretting about inflation and shift gears, threatening a surge in bond yields.
Bank of America said the “Great Rotation” under way from bonds into equities closely tracks the pattern of 1994, with bank stocks leading the way.
Over the past seven years US investors have pulled $600bn from US equity funds and poured $800bn instead into bond funds. This process is going into reverse. Equity funds have drawn $35bn over the last 13 trading days alone, creating the risk of an unstable “melt-up” in stocks over coming months.
The Bank for International Settlements has issued an alert on the high-yield `junk’ bonds and mortgage debt, currently trading at record lows. The Swiss-based watchdog said parts of the credit market credit are “highly valued in a historical context relative to indicators of their riskiness.”
This Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering from early Thursday evening GMT is courtesy of Roy Stephens...and I thank him for today's first story.  The link ishere.


Choice of Mary Jo White to Head SEC Puts Fox In Charge of Hen House

I was shocked when I heard that Mary Jo White, a former U.S. Attorney and a partner for the white-shoe Wall Street defense firm Debevoise and Plimpton, had been named the new head of the SEC.
I thought to myself: Couldn't they have found someone who wasn't a key figure in one of the most notorious scandals to hit the SEC in the past two decades? And couldn't they have found someone who isn't a perfect symbol of the revolving-door culture under which regulators go soft on suspected Wall Street criminals, knowing they have million-dollar jobs waiting for them at hotshot defense firms as long as they play nice with the banks while still in office?
Matt Taibbi is on another rant once again...and I must admit that I'm not surprised.  This commentary showed up on the Rolling Stone magazine website early yesterday morning...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it.  The link ishere.


Doug Noland: Liquidity Bubble

Ray Dalio is one of the foremost economic thinkers and investors of this era.  His hedge fund empire now manages $130bn.  He has taken on a higher public profile of late, including notable interviews and speaking engagements this week at Davos (43rd World Economic Forum Annual Meeting).  In previous CBBs, I highlighted Mr. Dalio’s “beautiful deleveraging” thesis.  His comments Thursday and Friday from Davos raised some eyebrows – and are certainly worthy of analytical focus.
I’m ok with “liquidity Bubble” terminology - and I’d be ok with “money Bubble.”  The key to the analysis is to recognize it remains an unprecedented monetary Bubble – an integral facet to sustaining a global Credit Bubble.  I agree with Dalio that a flight out of this “money” holds the potential for an extraordinary 2013.  I wish I could be as sanguine.  I worry about what this “money” might do.  But my greater fear is that global policymakers have impaired the creditworthiness of “money” – the foundation of global finance.  They fell for the same monetary inflation trap that has cursed humanity throughout history.  
Unprecedented “money printing” has continued for too many years.  The debits and Credit add to the Trillions.  Along the way, the Fed has tried to assure that they do indeed have an exit strategy.  I have all along the way argued there would be No Exit.  The Fed has theorized how they would withdraw liquidity before it could fuel higher inflation.  From a global Bubble perspective, I’ve seen the greater risks in asset inflation and rejuvenated market Bubbles.
The Fed would be well served to go immediately back its drawing board and try to figure out how to stop all this liquidity from turning inflated and highly speculative global risk markets into an out of control mania.  I’m not holding my breath.
Doug Noland is at the top of his game in his Friday Credit Bubble Bulletin posted over at the prudentbear.com Internet site.  It's definitely worth reading...and the link is here.


Venezuela is Struggling With a Historic Food Shortage

In December, the Central Bank said its scarcity index, which tracks the percentage of consumer goods missing from grocery store shelves, rose to a four-year high of 16.3 percent in December.
In light of the situation, some supermarkets and bakeries are restricting the amount people can buy. Some Caracas restaurants are even cutting back on their menu offerings.
"January is always a tricky month because distributors go on vacation in December but by mid-month inventories are usually restocked," said Edgar Parra, manager of a sparsely stocked grocery store in Caracas where customers scrounged for items. "Not this time around."
This AFP story was picked up by the businessinsider.com Internet site late yesterday afternoon Eastern time...and it's also courtesy of Roy Stephens.  The link is here.


Portugal will need second aid programme, says Fitch

Lisbon sold €2.5bn of five-year bonds on Wednesday, paying less than 5pc in its first long-term debt issue since it was bailed out in 2011, and with foreign investors predominating.
Fitch said the sale was positive for the country's credit profile and there was "a clear positive momentum" in the way its borrowing costs were coming down.
"(But) our base case remains that Portugal will not gain full market access by the time the IMF-EU programme expires and, therefore, additional funding support and a new programme will be needed," the ratings agency said in a statement.
Fitch said the biggest challenge was that a weak outlook for an economy mired in its worst recession since the 1970s was making the government's deficit reduction efforts more complicated.
This item was posted on The Telegraph's website shortly before lunch in London yesterday and, as usual, I thank Roy Stephens for bringing it to our attention.  The link is here.

Attack On Sovereignty — Paul Craig Roberts

Those concerned about “The New World Order” speak as if the United States is coming under the control of an outside conspiratorial force. In fact, it is the US that is the New World Order. That is what the American uni-polar world, about which China, Russia, and Iran complain, is all about.
Washington has demonstrated that it has no respect for its own laws and Constitution, much less any respect for international law and the law and sovereignty of other countries. All that counts is Washington’s will as the pursuit of hegemony moves Washington closer to becoming a world dictator.
The examples are so numerous someone should compile them into a book. During the Reagan administration the long established bank secrecy laws of Switzerland had to bend to Washington’s will. The Clinton administration attacked Serbia, murdered civilians and sent Serbia’s president to be tried as a war criminal for defending his country. The US government engages in widespread spying on Europeans’ emails and telephone calls that is unrelated to terrorism. Julian Assange is confined to the Ecuadoran embassy in London, because Washington won’t permit the British government to honor his grant of political asylum. Washington refuses to comply with a writ of habeas corpusfrom a British count to turn over Yunus Rahmatullah whose detention a British Court of Appeals has ruled to be unlawful. Washington imposes sanctions on other countries and enforces them by cutting sovereign nations that do not comply out of the international payments system.
This short but absolute must read was sent to me by Jim Rogers.  It was posted on Paul's website on January 15th...and the link is here.


The Hunt for Red October: Russian Virus Hunters Try to Catch Diplomatic Time Bomb

For five years now, the Red October computer virus has embarked on a new brand of espionage, stealing emails and other encrypted classified documents undetected from diplomats around the world. Though the virus may now be in hibernation, it's designed so that it can strike again at anytime.
The virus hunters have their headquarters in a nondescript office building in northwest Moscow. Vitaly Kamlyuk, a 28-year-old Belarusian with gel in his hair and a shiny black tie, sits in front of a giant monitor wall displaying a world map. He is having a discussion with a pale female computer scientist and a nerdish-looking man with long hair and a bouncy goatee.
The three virus hunters, part of a special unit at Kaspersky, a Russian computer firm, are hunting for "Red October." It's the moniker they have given to a newly discovered spy program, inspired by the almost noiseless submarine in the eponymous novel by Tom Clancy.
The original title to this story was "How Russian Virus Hunters Tracked Down a Global Espionage Network".  Roy Stephens sent it to me yesterday morning.  It's posted on the spiegel.de Internet site...and the link is here.

War on Terror Forever: Pepe Escobar

And the winner of the Oscar for Best Sequel of 2013 goes to...The Global War on Terror (GWOT), a Pentagon production. Abandon all hope those who thought the whole thing was over with the cinematographic snuffing out of "Geronimo", aka Osama bin Laden, further reduced to a fleeting cameo in the torture-enabling flick Zero Dark Thirty.

It's now official - coming from the mouth of the lion, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, and duly posted at the AFRICOM site, the Pentagon's weaponized African branch.
Exit "historical" al-Qaeda, holed up somewhere in the Waziristans, in the Pakistani tribal areas; enter al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). In Dempsey's words, AQIM "is a threat not only to the country of Mali, but the region, and if...left unaddressed, could in fact become a global threat."

With Mali now elevated to the status of a "threat" to the whole world, GWOT is proven to be really open-ended. The Pentagon doesn't do irony; when, in the early 2000s, armchair warriors coined the expression "The Long War", they really meant it.
This longish commentary by Pepe is certainly a must read...and it was posted on the Asia Times website on Wednesday.  Mali's gold and uranium deposits are now in play here.  Thanks go out once again to Roy Stephens...and the link is here.  If I had to pick the most important story in today's column...this would be it.


RUSSIA TO WEST: We Told You Not To Overthrow Qaddafi!

On Wednesday Russia blamed Western countries for creating the current turmoil in Africa by arming Libyan rebels, Timothy Heritage and Gabriela Baczynska of Reuters report.
"Those whom the French and Africans are fighting now in Mali are the [same] people who...our Western partners armed so that they would overthrow the Gaddafi regime," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference.
The toppling of Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi led to "perhaps the greatest proliferation of weapons of war from any modern conflict," Emergency Director of Human Rights Watch Peter Bouckaert told The Telegraph.
This very short story appeared on the businessinsider.com Internet site on Wednesday.  It's certainly worth skimming...and it, too, is courtesy of Roy Stephens.  The link is here.


Six King World News Blogs/Audio Interviews

1. Egon von Greyerz:  "3 Incredibly Key Charts for Battered Gold & Silver Bulls".  2. Jean-Marie Eveillard: "Wall Street is a Den of Thieves, I'm Not Selling Gold".  3.  Richard Russell: "Will Germany Shock the World?"  4.Robert Fitzwilson: "This is Why Big Money Keeps Buying Gold & Silver Smashes".  5. Tom Fitzpatrick: "Oil Set to Super-Spike 63%, Crushing Global Stock Markets".  6. The audio interview is with Dr. Stephen Leeb.
View full GSD edition


and.....



¤ THE WRAP

This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient and the world will follow our lead into the future. - Adolf Hitler, 1935
Today's pop classic comes from 1984.  The artist, along with the song, are forever one...and requires no further embellishment from me.  The link is here.
Today's classical composition is courtesy of Norway's greatest classical composer...Edvard Grieg.  He's best known for his piano concerto...but today's featured work isn't far behind for most classical music lovers...although some might argue [probably convincingly] that hisincidental music from Peer Gynt is more famous.  This is the Gavotte and Air from his famousHolberg Suite.  The other three movements are in the right sidebar...and I just don't have the time to look them all up and/or put them in order.
It's played by the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra...and they are more than up to the task.  The quality of the audio and video is top drawer as well.  The link is here. Enjoy.
Well...are JPMorgan et al done to the downside yet?  That's the first question that needs an answer.  The second question is even more important...will JPMorgan et al be going short the next rally?  These are the only two things that should concern you at the moment.
Note from the 6-month gold chart posted below, that the metal closed below its 200-day moving average.
(Click on image to enlarge)
The Relative Strength Indicators [RSI] traces for both the gold and silver charts show that we are nowhere near being oversold in either metal. Silver is also nowhere near its 200-day moving average...and it's entirely possible that "da boyz" can inflict even more pain to the downside if this is their plan.  But can they, or will they?  Beats me.
The shares have been decimated during the last three days...and here's the 1-year HUI chart.  It's pretty ugly...but it's obvious that we are about to set a major bottom in both the metals prices and their associated stocks.
(Click on image to enlarge)
This grand game of market intervention in the precious metals has been going on for more than a generation...and I would like to think that we'll see the end game this year.  Even though the last three trading days have brought a big improvement to the market structure in both gold and silver...there are still obscene and grotesque short positions in both metals that are still hanging over these markets...and how this situation resolves itself going forward is still open to debate.
As I've said many times...the end game for JPMorgan and the Bank of Nova Scotia et al have only three possible outcomes that I can see.  They can cover and drive precious metal prices to the moon...and get bailed out.  They can stand back and get over run...and then get bailed out as prices blast off to the moon...or they can close the Comex in these markets and render their futures contracts [long and short] null and void.  My vote is with the last option.
Keeping the short-side corner on gold and silver prices forever, is not an option.  It's not even an option in the medium term.  All we can do is await the outcome, and pray that we've covered all the bases.
That's it for the day...and for the week.  I'll see you on Tuesday...Wednesday if you live just west of the International Date Line.

















    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-25/guest-post-gold-guarantee-blowing-singapore


    Guest Post: The Gold Guarantee Blowing Up In Singapore?

    Tyler Durden's picture
    Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/25/2013 20:35 -0500




    Originally posted at The World Complex blog,
    Today's reminder of the importance of taking physical delivery of gold at the best price possible comes from Singapore.
    The Gold Guarantee is (was?) a company based in Singapore allowing "investments" in gold. They had two separate schemes. One allowed victims to take delivery of their gold, but at an approximately 30% premium,  albeit with a monthly repayment of a small portion of the premium for as long as the gold was held (and the company remained solvent) and an option for the company to buy back the gold at a price related to the spot price. The other scheme offered a gold certificate and a higher monthly payout.
    The monthly payouts amounted to over 20% p.a. I am unaware of any method by which a company could sustain such payouts through normal business practices. Were I aware of such a business, I would invest in it.
    Today's Straits Times reports (unfortunately this story is not in the free online section) that the owner of the company is unreachable, and the offices have been shuttered since about January 9. The last communication most shareholders had was an email sent on January 8, announcing a merger between The Gold Guarantee and a similar company called Asia Pacific Bullion.
    Customers have been dropping by the office and showing up at the CEO's home since he vanished, but to no avail. Some are facing losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
    The latest gold price reported on the company's website is dated January 7. What appears to be an apologist blog posting for the company is dated January 3.
    Here is a link to a discussion group which includes some unfortunates who bought gold from this company within the last few months. Note the advice they have received.
    The scheme looks like a carbon-copy of theGeneva scam which fell apart in October.
    Avoid certificates, and if you take delivery of gold, verify the spot price (it should be part of your due diligence).
    Update:
    Here is an article on the topic by a local financial blogger.

    and.....

    http://www.martinlee.sg/gold-guarantee-and-asia-pacific-bullion-owner-lee-song-teck-missing/

    Gold Guarantee and Asia Pacific Bullion Owner Lee Song Teck Missing

    Commodities
    by Martin Lee
    It appears that Lee Song Teck, owner of The Gold Guarantee and Asia Pacific Bullion, has gone missing.
    These two companies operate with a similar ponzi model to Genneva Gold, offering unsustainable cash rebates for gold purchases. They have even been aggressively advertising rescue plans for Genneva Gold customers after they was raided by CAD late last year.
    Asia Pacific Bullion
    The Gold Guarantee had earlier in the month frozen rebate payments to customers for their gold purchases. The owner, Lee Song Teck, was supposed to meet up with affected customers yesterday to update on a new payment schedule. However, he failed to show up and has not been contactable ever since.

    High chance this is the end for The Gold Guarantee and Asia Pacific Bullion.
    Posted by at

    1 comment:

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