Jesse Cafe Americain......
18 FEBRUARY 2014
Hong Kong Gold and Silver Exchange To Launch 1,500 Tonne Depository in China
Just a fad. Nothing to see here, move along.
Reuters
Hong Kong gold exchange eyes 1,500-tonne warehouse in mainland China
February 16, 2014
The Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society (CGSE), based in Hong Kong, aims to launch a physical bullion trading exchange and a 1,500-tonne depository in mainland China within the next year, its president said on Thursday. The century-old firm, which runs Hong Kong's only physical bullion trading exchange, is looking to tap the burgeoning demand for gold in China, which last year toppled India from its ranking as the world's top gold consumer.
Its 171 members include dealers, banks and jewellers, among them Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd, the world's most valuable jewellery retailer. It has been in talks to open a warehouse in China's free trade zone in the Qianhai district of Shenzhen that has struggled to take off some three years after it was first touted as a new "mini-Hong Kong".
But talks are finally getting serious after last year's launch of the Shanghai free trade zone, CGSE President Haywood Cheung told Reuters. "Three years ago we started negotiating with them to build a vault for gold and silver. It is now finally down to an ad hoc committee," said Cheung, adding that Qianhai officials had asked for CGSE's plans and proposals...
Read the entire story here.
Standard Bank in prime position for Deutsche's gold fix seat, sources tell Reuters
Submitted by cpowell on Tue, 2014-02-18 19:57. Section: Daily Dispatches
By Clara Denina and Jan Harvey
Reuters
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Reuters
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
LONDON -- South Africa's Standard Bank, now selling a controlling stake in its markets unit to China's ICBC, is emerging as a frontrunner to buy Deutsche Bank's place in the global gold price-setting process, sources familiar with the matter said.
A seat in the process -- also known as the "fix" -- to determine the benchmark gold price had long been considered a mark of distinction in the bullion market.
But the fix, along with other commodity benchmarks, has come under growing regulatory scrutiny since the Libor scandal last year. ...
... For the full story:
Silver Seek......
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO BEAR STEARNS?
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February 17, 2014 - 4:16pm
Six years ago the well-known investment bank Bear Stearns imploded. In February 2008, Bear Stearns stock traded as high as $93; by mid-March the insolvent company agreed to be taken over by JPMorgan for $2 a share (later raised to $10 after class-action lawsuits). In the annals of Wall Street, there was hardly a more sudden demise than the fall of Bear Stearns. The cause was said to be a run on the bank as nervous investors pulled assets from the firm. Bear Stearns was said to be levered by 35 times, meaning it had equity of $11 billion and total assets of $395 billion. This is a very small cushion if something negative suddenly appears.
Something negative did hit Bear Stearns in the first quarter of 2008; although there are remarkably few details of what went wrong. Since Bear had a significant presence in sub-prime mortgages and that market was in distress, it is assumed the fall of the firm was mortgage related. That may be true, but there was no general stress in the stock market through mid-March 2008 reflecting a credit crisis. Was there instead some specific trigger behind the company’s sudden collapse?
I believe that sudden and massive losses and margin calls of more than $2.5 billion on tens of thousands of short COMEX gold and silver contracts were the specific triggers that killed Bear Stearns. Let’s face it – Bear was so leveraged that a sudden demand of more than $2.5 billion in immediate payment for any reason could have put them under. Bear Stearns’ excessive gold and silver shorts on the COMEX are the most plausible reason for the sudden demise. Bear Stearns did fail and due to a sudden cash crunch was acquired by JPMorgan for a fraction of what it was worth two months earlier. Bear Stearns was the largest short in COMEX gold and silver at the time. The day of Bear Stearns’ demise coincides precisely with the day of the historic high price points in gold and silver. That is also the same day the biggest COMEX gold and silver short would experience maximum loss and a cumulative demand for upwards of $2.5 billion in cash deposits for margin. It was no coincidence the music stopped for Bear Stearns that same day.
Gold prices rose from under $800 in mid-December 2007 to $1,000 in mid-March 2008, a gain of more than $200. Silver prices rose from under $14 in mid-December to $21 when Bear Stearns failed on March 17, 2008. That was a gain of $7. This was the highest price for silver and close to the highest price of gold since 1980. Obviously, a $200 rise in the price of gold and a $7 rise in the price of silver is not good if you are the biggest gold and silver short.
The concentrated short position of the 4 largest short traders in silver was at an extreme level of more than 300 million ounces. In contrast, the concentrated long position of the 4 largest long silver traders was a bit above 100 million ounces. In COMEX gold, the big shorts held two and half times what the biggest longs held.Since we know that Bear Stearns was the largest short in COMEX silver and we also know how much gold and silver prices rose in that time period, all that has to be established is how many short contracts Bear Stearns held. That would tell us how much money they had to come up with in margin money. All market participants on the COMEX, including the leading clearing member (which Bear Stearns was), must deposit additional funds daily to cover adverse price movements.
Thanks to historical Commitments of Traders report (COT) data from the CFTC, in the relevant time period (December 31, 2007 to March 17, 2008) the net short position of the 4 largest gold and silver shorts on the COMEX averaged 165,000 contracts and 60,000 contracts respectively. My analysis indicates Bear held 75,000 net gold contracts short and 35,000 net silver contracts short. Those are minimum numbers, as I think Bear’s position could have been higher.
A $200 adverse price move on 75,000 COMEX gold contracts would result in a mark to market loss and margin call of $1.5 billion. A $7 adverse price move on 35,000 COMEX silver contracts would result in a mark to market loss and margin call of $1.2 billion. Bear Stearns had to come up with $2.7 billion because gold and silver prices rose sharply in the first quarter of 2008 and the company bet the wrong way. That it couldn’t come up with all the margin money for the losses in gold and silver, is the most visible reason it went under.
What happened to Bear Stearns was exactly what I had warned the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) about continuously for the twenty years before the event. Aside from the manipulative impact that a concentrated market corner would have on price, the biggest risk was what would happen if the largest short ran into trouble. The facts in the case of Bear Stearns indicate that the worst did occur. The biggest short did go under. During the relevant time period, I was in private email contact with CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton who indicated that the Commission was considering silver matters closely and that there would be a finding published soon. The subsequent CFTC finding was released on May 13, 2008 and completely denied anything was wrong on the short side in COMEX silver due to large traders.
Here’s the problem – the report lied. It conveniently ignored the failure of the largest COMEX gold and silver short seller, by only considering events through Dec 31, 2007 and not through the March 17, 2008 date of Bear Stearns’ failure, a clear lie of omission. How could the CFTC issue a report on large traders on the short side of silver and overlook that the largest short trader of all went under because of that short position? It has taken me some time to see all this in the proper perspective. What I now see is deeply disturbing, but it answers many questions. Even though I petitioned the CFTC about the illegality of the concentrated short position in COMEX silver for decades, they disregarded those warnings. Then Bear Stearns went under for precisely the reasons I warned about. Subsequently, the CFTC kept it quiet and denied all allegations.
Any regulator worthy of the name should have known that a lopsided, large trader mismatch was dangerous on the short side. Having misjudged just how dangerous the situation was, the CFTC and the CME Group put in motion a scheme to save the shorts and punish gold and silver investors. By arranging, with the Federal Reserve Chairman and Treasury Secretary, to have JPMorgan take over Bear Stearns’ silver and gold short positions, the US Government embarked (or continued) on a journey of allowing price manipulation, in stark violation of commodity law.
Since Bear Stearns was a failure that threatened the financial system, it necessarily invited the involvement of the nation’s highest regulators, the Treasury Secretary and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, as the historical record indicates. Both had to be aware of the gold and silver margin problem at Bear Stearns. Additionally, since Bear Stearns was the leading clearing member of the exchange, you can be certain that the CME Group was more than aware. The CME was the one issuing the margin calls to Bear. Also, there is no way that JPMorgan wasn’t aware of Bear Stearns’ gold and silver predicament. Yet none of this was made public.
These facts indicate that everyone at the top had to be aware that excessive gold and silver shorting was at the center of the Bear Stearns fiasco. Since the Feds requested JPMorgan’s assistance, there can be no question that JPMorgan demanded (and received) permanent immunity from future gold and silver allegations. This explains how they have been able to establish market corners in gold and silver today that commodity law prohibits. Had not the U.S. Treasury Secretary, the Fed chairman, the CFTC, and the CME agreed to JPMorgan’s takeover of Bear Stearns’ gold and silver positions, the excessive market concentration and manipulation in these markets could not have continued.
The interference of the U.S. Government in the Bear Stearns affair explains what was previously inexplicable: why the CFTC couldn’t find anything after investigating a silver manipulation for five years, and why the CFTC and CME were deathly quiet in reaction to the giant price smashes in gold and silver, particularly the two 30% price smashes within days in silver in May and September of 2011.
What baffles me today is that no well-known journalist from outside the gold and silver world has yet picked up on what is an easy-to-document story of epic historical proportions. It’s the story of why Bear Stearns went under, and how the gold and silver price manipulation continued since the day JPMorgan took over Bear. I think the story has Pulitzer Prize written all over it.
It may be raining bankers for a reason, Leeb tells KWN
Submitted by cpowell on Tue, 2014-02-18 18:58. Section: Daily Dispatches
1:57p ET Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Fund manager Stephen Leeb today tells King World News that the United States will do anything to preserve the dollar's role as the world reserve currency, a status that confers almost absolute power over the world financial system, and he thinks that the rain of bankers falling from great heights around the world may be connected to it:
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
Embry kicks the Bundesbank and Christian says 'Ouch!'
Submitted by cpowell on Mon, 2014-02-17 19:59. Section: Daily Dispatches
3:22p ET Monday, February 17, 2014
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
MineWeb's Lawrence Williams today notes the attack by CPM Group's Jeffrey Christian on Sprott Asset Management's John Embry, made Friday on Business News Network in Canada in response to Embry's expression of suspicion on BNN that impairment of the German Bundesbank's gold at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is behind the slow pace of the Bundesbank's gold repatriation.
In his interview on BNN --
-- which runs about 10 minutes, Christian expresses confidence that nothing is amiss with Germany's gold and that questions have been raised about it only by people who are trying to scare investors into buying gold.
Certainly, as always, people in the gold sector are "talking their book" here. Embry and the Sprott people are advocates of and investors in the monetary metals, while Christian has described his company as having most central banks as clients, and of course most central banks, even central banks in gold-producing countries, are enemies of gold, gold being an independent and neutral form of money that competes with central bank money and restricts central bank power.
Maybe most people can agree that the Bundesbank is not as eager to repatriate its gold as, say, Venezuela recently was. Indeed, the Bundesbank well may not want to repatriate its gold at all. Some people think that the Bundesbank is making a show of arranging to get a little of its gold back simply to placate the political clamor that has been stirred up in Germany by paranoid gold bugs.
They are still not showing the ounces being delivered out of the Comex warehouses to standing February contracts.
It is thin on deliverables, not as thin as it had been, but it will be getting thinner.
Let's see what happens.
Have a pleasant evening.
But the Bundesbank's repatriation schedule -- seven years to ship metal that easily could be shipped in seven months if not seven weeks -- nurtures suspicions, the more so in light of the longstanding refusal of the Bundesbank and the U.S. Federal Reserve to disclose whether they have or have had gold swaps with each other --
-- gold swaps and leases being, as confirmed by the secret March 1999 report of the staff of the International Monetary Fund, primary mechanisms of gold price suppression by central banks:
Really, it's a little too silly for Christian to get more indignant about insults to the Bundesbank's integrity than the Bundesbank itself can bring itself to get. Like most major Western central banks, having long participated in gold price suppression, the Bundesbank simply can't be candid and forthcoming about its gold activities. All the Bundesbank can do is issue the occasional misleading press release and then refuse to answer the critical questions that would give the game away.
Does Christian really believe that Western central banks are not involved surreptitiously in the gold market every day, directly and through their gold broker, the Bank for International Settlements? Are the documents cited here, just a few of the many GATA has published, actually forgeries?:
If only BNN would try interviewing Christian about these documents, one by one. But maybe that would be too cruel. The guy is only trying to do a good job for his clients, and these are hard times for central banks as well as for the people who live in the world central banking is destroying.
Williams' commentary at MineWeb about Christian's attack on Embry is headlined "Christian vs Embry: Gold, Lies, and Video Interviews" and it's posted here:
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
Jesse's Cafe Americain .....
18 FEBRUARY 2014
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts
"A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead."
W. B. Yeats, Leda and the Swan
"When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks;
When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand;
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?...
Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end."
William Shakespeare, Richard III
"As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man,
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:
That the Dog returns to his Vomit, and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing, and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!"
Rudyard Kipling, The Gods of the Copybook Headings
They are still not showing the ounces being delivered out of the Comex warehouses to standing February contracts.
It is thin on deliverables, not as thin as it had been, but it will be getting thinner.
Let's see what happens.
Have a pleasant evening.
Good morning.
ReplyDeleteThe revolutions are heating up and sounds like Libya may get a new one.
This last banker suicide is a bit different in that people actually saw him do it, alone and without help apparently.
Big warm up down here, starting to see grass in a few places finally.
Have a great day.
Morning Kev ! Arab spring ha broken out in the winter this go round and not confined to MENA !
ReplyDeleteThe last suicide involved a 33 year old FX trader - unlike the other recent deaths , it actually appears to have been a suicide ( would love to know his motivation ) .. So , was he under investigation , had a trade gone horribly wrong , did he have a fatal illness , was he about to be fired , had his wife left him , had he been threatened ..... why does a young man take his own life ?
Warming trend should continue although yesterday morning , i did get another chance to shovel !
Enjoy your day !