GOLD:$1565.60 UP $15.40 (COMEX TO COMEX CLOSING

Silver:$18.14 UP 3 CENTS (COMEX TO COMEX CLOSING)

Closing access prices:

Gold : $1565.80

silver: $18.15

COMEX DATA

JPMorgan has been receiving gold with reckless abandon and sometimes supplying (stopping)

today RECEIVING: 28/80

EXCHANGE: COMEX
CONTRACT: JANUARY 2020 COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES
SETTLEMENT: 1,549.200000000 USD
INTENT DATE: 01/03/2020 DELIVERY DATE: 01/07/2020
FIRM ORG FIRM NAME ISSUED STOPPED
____________________________________________________________________________________________
435 H SCOTIA CAPITAL 4
624 C BOFA SECURITIES 3
657 C MORGAN STANLEY 3
661 C JP MORGAN 55 28
737 C ADVANTAGE 22 34
800 C MAREX SPEC 2 7
880 C CITIGROUP 1
905 C ADM 1
____________________________________________________________________________________________

TOTAL: 80 80
MONTH TO DATE: 2,120

we are coming very close to a commercial failure!!

NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR JAN CONTRACT: 80 NOTICE(S) FOR 8000 OZ (0.2488 tonnes)

TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED SO FAR: 2120 NOTICES FOR 212,000 OZ (6.5946 TONNES)

SILVER

FOR JAN

80 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR 400,000 OZ/

total number of notices filed so far this month: 314 for 1,570,000 oz

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Bitcoin: OPENING MORNING TRADE : $ 7541 UP 185

Bitcoin: FINAL EVENING TRADE: $ 7552 UP 194

Let us have a look at the data for today

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IN SILVER THE COMEX OI ROSE BY A VERY STRONG SIZED 2473 CONTRACTS FROM 231,255 UP TO 233,728 WITH THE 12 CENT GAIN IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX.

TODAY WE ARRIVED CLOSER TO AUGUST’S 2018 RECORD SETTING OPEN INTEREST OF 244,196 CONTRACTS.

WE HAVE ALSO WITNESSED A LARGE AMOUNT OF PHYSICAL METAL STAND FOR COMEX DELIVERY AS WELL WE ARE WITNESSING CONSIDERABLE LONGS PACKING THEIR BAGS AND MIGRATING OVER TO LONDON IN GREATER NUMBERS IN THE FORM OF EFP’S. WE WERE NOTIFIED THAT WE HAD A STRONG SIZED NUMBER OF COMEX LONGS TRANSFERRING THEIR CONTRACTS TO LONDON THROUGH THE EFP:,

; FEB 0; MARCH: 996 AND ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS AND THEREFORE TOTAL ISSUANCE 996 CONTRACTS. WITH THE TRANSFER OF 996 CONTRACTS, WHAT THE CME IS STATING IS THAT THERE IS NO SILVER (OR GOLD) TO BE DELIVERED UPON AT THE COMEX AS THEY MUST EXPORT THEIR OBLIGATION TO LONDON. ALSO KEEP IN MIND THAT THERE CAN BE A DELAY OF 24-48 HRS IN THE ISSUING OF EFP’S. THE 996 EFP CONTRACTS TRANSLATES INTO 4.98 MILLION OZ ACCOMPANYING:

1.THE 12 CENT GAIN IN SILVER PRICE AT THE COMEX AND

2. THE STRONG AMOUNT OF SILVER OUNCES WHICH STOOD FOR DELIVERY IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS:

JUNE/2018. (5.420 MILLION OZ);

FOR JULY: 30.370 MILLION OZ

FOR AUG., 6.065 MILLION OZ

FOR SEPT. 39.505 MILLION OZ S

FOR OCT.2.525 MILLION OZ.

FOR NOV: A HUGE 7.440 MILLION OZ STANDING AND

21.925 MILLION OZ FINALLY STAND FOR DECEMBER.

5.845 MILLION OZ STAND IN JANUARY.

2.955 MILLION OZ STANDING FOR FEBRUARY.:

27.120 MILLION OZ STANDING IN MARCH.

3.875 MILLION OZ STANDING FOR SILVER IN APRIL.

18.845 MILLION OZ STANDING FOR SILVER IN MAY.

2.660 MILLION OZ STANDING FOR SILVER IN JUNE//

22.605 MILLION OZ STANDING FOR JULY

10.025 MILLION OZ INITIAL STANDING IN AUGUST.

43.030 MILLION OZ INITIALLY STANDING IN SEPT. (HUGE)

7.32 MILLION OZ INITIALLY STANDING IN OCT

2.630 MILLION OZ STANDING FOR NOV.

20.970 MILLION OZ FINAL STANDING IN DEC

1.505 MILLION OZ INITIALLY STANDING IN JAN

THURSDAY, AGAIN OUR CROOKS USED COPIOUS PAPER IN ORDER TO CONTAIN SILVER’S PRICE…AND THEY WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN (IT ROSE 12 CENTS).. AND, OUR OFFICIAL SECTOR/BANKERS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN THEIR ATTEMPT TO FLEECE SOME SILVER LONGS AS THE TOTAL GAIN IN OI ON BOTH EXCHANGES TOTALED 3469 CONTRACTS. OR 17.345 MILLION OZ…..

ACCUMULATION FOR EFP’S/SILVER/J.P.MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES, / STARTING FROM FIRST DAY NOTICE/FOR MONTH OF JAN:

3458 CONTRACTS (FOR 3 TRADING DAYS TOTAL 3458 CONTRACTS) OR 17.290 MILLION OZ: (AVERAGE PER DAY: 1152 CONTRACTS OR 5.7633 MILLION OZ/DAY)

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE HUGE SUPPLY THIS MONTH IN SILVER: SO FAR THIS MONTH OF JAN: 17.29 MILLION PAPER OZ HAVE MORPHED OVER TO LONDON. THIS REPRESENTS AROUND 2.46% OF ANNUAL GLOBAL PRODUCTION (EX CHINA EX RUSSIA)* JUNE’S 345.43 MILLION OZ IS THE SECOND HIGHEST RECORDED ISSUANCE OF EFP’S AND IT FOLLOWED THE RECORD SET IN APRIL 2018 OF 385.75 MILLION OZ.

ACCUMULATION IN YEAR 2020 TO DATE SILVER EFP’S: 17.29 MILLION OZ.

JANUARY 2020 EFP TOTALS SO FAR: 17.29 MILLION OZ

RESULT: WE HAD A VERY STRONG SIZED INCREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 2528, WITH THE 12 CENT GAIN IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX /FRIDAY... THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A STRONG SIZED EFP ISSUANCE OF 996 CONTRACTS WHICH EXITED OUT OF THE SILVER COMEX AND TRANSFERRED THEIR OI TO LONDON AS FORWARDS. SPECULATORS CONTINUED THEIR INTEREST IN ATTACKING THE SILVER COMEX FOR PHYSICAL SILVER (SEE COMEX DATA)

TODAY WE GAINED A HUMONGOUS SIZED: 3469 TOTAL OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES:

i.e 996 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS HEADED FOR LONDON (EFP’s) TOGETHER WITH INCREASE OF 2473 OI COMEX CONTRACTS. AND ALL OF THIS STRONG DEMAND HAPPENED WITH A 12 CENT GAIN IN PRICE OF SILVER AND A CLOSING PRICE OF $18.11 // FRIDAY’S TRADING. YET WE STILL HAVE A STRONG AMOUNT OF SILVER STANDING AT THE COMEX FOR DELIVERY!!

In ounces AT THE COMEX, the OI is still represented by JUST OVER 1 BILLION oz i.e. 1.148 BILLION OZ TO BE EXACT or 164% of annual global silver production (ex Russia & ex China).

FOR THE NEW FRONT JAN MONTH/ THEY FILED AT THE COMEX: 80 NOTICE(S) FOR 400,000 OZ OF SILVER.

IN SILVER,PRIOR TO TODAY, WE SET THE NEW COMEX RECORD OF OPEN INTEREST AT 244,196 CONTRACTS ON AUG 22.2018. AND AGAIN THIS HAS BEEN SET WITH A LOW PRICE OF $14.70

ON THE DEMAND SIDE WE HAVE THE FOLLOWING:

HUGE AMOUNTS OF SILVER STANDING FOR DELIVERY (MARCH/2018: 27 MILLION OZ , APRIL/2018 : 2.485 MILLION OZ MAY: 36.285 MILLION OZ ; JUNE/2018 (5.420 MILLION OZ) , JULY 2018 FINAL AMOUNT STANDING: 30.370 MILLION OZ ) FOR AUGUST 6.065 MILLION OZ. , SEPT: A HUGE 39.505 MILLION OZ./ OCTOBER: 2,520,000 oz NOV AT 7.440 MILLION OZ./ DEC. AT 21.925 MILLION OZ JANUARY AT 5.825 MILLION OZ.AND FEB 2019: 2.955 MILLION OZ/ MARCH: 27.120 MILLION OZ/ APRIL AT 3.875 MILLION OZ/ A MAY: 18.845 MILLION OZ ..JUNE 2.660 MILLION OZ//JULY 22.605 MILLION OZ; AUGUST 10.025 MILLION OZ/ SEPT 43.030 MILLION OZ//OCT: 7.665 MILLION OZ// NOV: 2.630 MILLION OZ//DEC: 20.970 MILLION OZ; JAN: 1,590,000 OZ
THE RECORD WAS SET IN AUGUST 22/2018: 244,196 CONTRACTS, WITH A SILVER PRICE OF $14.78//.
HUGE ANNUAL EFP’S ISSUANCE EQUAL TO 2.9 BILLION OZ OR 400% OF SILVER ANNUAL PRODUCTION/2017 RECORD SETTING EFP ISSUANCE FOR ANY MONTH IN SILVER; APRIL/2018/ 385.75 MILLION OZ/ AND THE SECOND HIGHEST RECORDED EFP ISSUANCE JUNE 2018 345.43 MILLION OZ

AND YET, WITH THE EXTREMELY HIGH EFP ISSUANCE, WE HAVE A CONTINUAL LOW PRICE OF SILVER DESPITE THE ABOVE HUGE DEMAND. TO ME THE ONLY ANSWER IS THAT WE HAVE SOVEREIGN (CHINA) WHO IS ENDEAVOURING TO GOBBLE UP ALL AVAILABLE PHYSICAL SILVER NO MATTER WHERE, EXACTLY WHAT J.P.MORGAN IS DOING. AND IT IS MY BELIEF THAT J.P.MORGAN IS HOLDING ITS SILVER FOR ITS BENEFICIAL OWNER..THE USA GOVERNMENT WHO IN TURN IS HOLDING THAT SILVER FOR CHINA.(FOR A SILVER LOAN REPAYMENT)

GOLD

IN GOLD, THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST ROSE BY A HUMONGOUS SIZED 10,361 CONTRACTS TO 797,110 SETTING ANOTHER ALL TIME RECORD (SET JAN 6/2020) AND THUS ECLIPSING OUR PREVIOUS ALL TIME RECORD OF 786,749 (SET JAN 3/2019).

THE RISE IN COMEX OI OCCURRED WITH A $24.60 PRICING GAIN ACCOMPANYING COMEX GOLD TRADING// FRIDAY// /

THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALED A HUMONGOUS SIZED 12,055 CONTRACTS:

DEC 2019: 0 CONTRACTS, FEB> 12,055 CONTRACTS APRIL: 0 AND ALL OTHER MONTHS ZERO. The NEW COMEX OI for the gold complex rests at A RECORD 797,110,,. ALSO REMEMBER THAT THERE WILL BE A DELAY IN THE ISSUANCE OF EFP’S. THE BANKERS REMOVE LONG POSITIONS OF COMEX GOLD IMMEDIATELY. THEN THEY ORCHESTRATE THEIR PRIVATE EFP DEAL WITH THE LONGS AND THAT COULD TAKE AN ADDITIONAL, 48 HRS SO WE GENERALLY DO NOT GET A MATCH WITH RESPECT TO DEPARTING COMEX LONGS AND NEW EFP LONG TRANSFERS. . EVEN THOUGH THE BANKERS ISSUED THESE MONSTROUS EFPS, THE OBLIGATION STILL RESTS WITH THE BANKERS TO SUPPLY METAL BUT IT TRANSFERS THE RISK TO A LONDON BANKER OBLIGATION AND NOT A NEW YORK COMEX OBLIGATION. LONGS RECEIVE A FIAT BONUS TOGETHER WITH A LONG LONDON FORWARD. THUS, BY THESE ACTIONS, THE BANKERS AT THE COMEX HAVE JUST STATED THAT THEY HAVE NO APPRECIABLE METAL!! THIS IS A MASSIVE FRAUD: THEY CANNOT SUPPLY ANY METAL TO OUR COMEX LONGS BUT THEY ARE QUITE WILLING TO SUPPLY MASSIVE NON BACKED GOLD (AND SILVER) PAPER KNOWING THAT THEY HAVE NO METAL TO SATISFY OUR LONGS. LONDON IS NOW SEVERELY BACKWARD IN BOTH GOLD AND SILVER AND WE ARE WITNESSING DELAYS IN ACTUAL DELIVERIES.

IN ESSENCE WE HAVE AN ATMOSPHERIC AND CRIMINALLY SIZED GAIN IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 22,416 CONTRACTS: 10,055 CONTRACTS INCREASED AT THE COMEX AND 12,055 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS TOTAL OI GAIN OF 22,416 CONTRACTS OR 2,241,600 OZ OR 69.72 TONNES. FRIDAY WE HAD A GAIN OF $24.60 IN GOLD TRADING….

AND WITH THAT GAIN IN PRICE, WE HAD A HUGE GAIN IN GOLD TONNAGE OF 69.72 TONNES!!!!!! THE BANKERS/OFFICIAL SECTOR WERE SUPPLYING INFINITE SUPPLIES OF SHORT GOLD COMEX PAPER WITH RECKLESS ABANDON. THE BANKERS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN THEIR ATTEMPT TO LOWER GOLD’S PRICE (UP $24.60) . THEY WERE TOTALLY UNSUCCESSFUL IN THEIR ATTEMPT TO FLEECE GOLD LONGS FROM THE GOLD ARENA AS WE HAD OUR HUGE GAIN IN OPEN INTEREST ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES (69.72 TONNES). THE SPREADING OPERATION HAS NOW SWITCHED OVER TO SILVER.

SPREADING LIQUIDATION HAS NOW STOPPED IN SILVER AS THEY MORPH INTO GOLD AS THEY HEAD TOWARDS THE NEW FRONT MONTH WILL BE FEBRUARY.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE NEW, HERE IS THE MODUS OPERANDI OF THE SPREADERS AND THE CRIMINAL ELEMENT BEHIND IT:

THE SPREADING LIQUIDATION OPERATION IS NOW OVER FOR GOLD..AND WE WILL NOW MORPH INTO AN ACCUMULATION PHASE OF SPREADING CONTRACTS FOR SILVER. THEY WILL ACCUMULATE CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF THE CONTRACTS AND THEN LIQUIDATE ONE WEEK PRIOR TO FIRST DAY NOTICE

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE NEWCOMERS HERE IS A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HOW THE CROOKS FLEECE UNSUSPECTING LONGS IN THE SPREADING ENDEAVOUR;

MODUS OPERANDI OF THE CORRUPT BANKERS AS TO HOW THEY HANDLE THEIR SPREAD OPEN INTERESTS:

AS I HAVE MENTIONED IN PREVIOUS COMMENTARIES:

“AS YOU WILL SEE, THE CROOKS WILL NOW SWITCH TO GOLD AS THEY INCREASE THE OPEN INTEREST FOR THE SPREADERS. THE TOTAL COMEX SILVER OPEN INTEREST WILL RISE FROM NOW ON UNTIL ONE WEEK PRIOR TO FIRST DAY NOTICE AND THAT IS WHEN THEY START THEIR CRIMINAL LIQUIDATION.

HERE IS HOW THE CROOKS USED SPREADING AS WE ARE NOW INTO THE NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF JAN HEADING TOWARDS THE NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF FEBRUARY FOR GOLD:

AS I HAVE MENTIONED IN PREVIOUS COMMENTARIES, HERE IS THE BANKERS MODUS OPERANDI:

YOU WILL ALSO NOTICE THAT THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST STARTS TO RISE IN THIS NON ACTIVE MONTH OF JAN. BUT SO IS THE OPEN INTEREST OF SPREADERS. THE OPEN INTEREST IN SILVER WILL CONTINUE TO RISE UNTIL ONE WEEK BEFORE FIRST DAY NOTICE OF AN UPCOMING ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH (FEB), AND THAT IS WHEN THE CROOKS SELL THEIR SPREAD POSITIONS BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME OF THE DAY. THEY WILL USE THE SELL SIDE OF THE EQUATION TO CREATE THE CASCADE (ALONG WITH THEIR COLLUSIVE FRIENDS) AND THEN COVER ON THE BUY SIDE OF THE SPREAD SITUATION AT THE END OF THE DAY. THEY DO THIS TO AVOID POSITION LIMIT DETECTION. THE LIQUIDATION OF THE SPREADING FORMATION CONTINUES FOR EXACTLY ONE WEEK AND ENDS ON FIRST DAY NOTICE.”

ACCUMULATION OF EFP’S GOLD AT J.P. MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES: (EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL) FOR THE MONTH OF JAN : 13,486 CONTRACTS OR 1,348,600 oz OR 41.947 TONNES (3 TRADING DAYS AND THUS AVERAGING: 6743 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE STRONG SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS : THIS MONTH IN 3 TRADING DAY(S) IN TONNES: 41.947 TONNES

TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2018, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES

THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS 41.947/3550 x 100% TONNES =1.180% OF GLOBAL ANNUAL PRODUCTION

ACCUMULATION OF GOLD EFP’S YEAR 2019 TO DATE: 41.947 TONNES

JANUARY 2220 TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE; SO FAR: 41.947 TONNES

WHAT IS ALARMING TO ME, ACCORDING TO OUR LONDON EXPERT ANDREW MAGUIRE IS THAT THESE EFP’S ARE BEING TRANSFERRED TO WHAT ARE CALLED SERIAL FORWARD CONTRACT OBLIGATIONS AND THESE CONTRACTS ARE LESS THAN 14 DAYS. ANYTHING GREATER THAN 14 DAYS, THESE MUST BE RECORDED AND SENT TO THE COMPTROLLER, GREAT BRITAIN TO MONITOR RISK TO THE BANKING SYSTEM. IF THIS IS INDEED TRUE, THEN THIS IS A MASSIVE CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD AS WE NOW WITNESS A MONSTROUS TOTAL EFP’S ISSUANCE AS IT HEADS INTO THE STRATOSPHERE.

Result: A HUGE SIZED INCREASE IN OI AT THE COMEX OF 10,361 WITH THE PRICING GAIN THAT GOLD UNDERTOOK FRIDAY($24.60)) //.WE ALSO HAD A HUMONGOUS SIZED NUMBER OF COMEX LONG TRANSFERRING TO LONDON THROUGH THE EFP ROUTE: 12,055 CONTRACTS AS THESE HAVE ALREADY BEEN NEGOTIATED AND CONFIRMED. THERE OBVIOUSLY DOES NOT SEEM TO BE MUCH PHYSICAL GOLD AT THE COMEX. I GUESS IT EXPLAINS THE HUGE ISSUANCE OF EFP’S…THERE IS HARDLY ANY GOLD PRESENT AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR DELIVERY PURPOSES. IF YOU TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE 12055 EFP CONTRACTS ISSUED, WE HAD AN ATMOSPHERIC AND CRIMINALLY SIZED GAIN OF 22,416 CONTRACTS IN TOTAL OPEN INTEREST ON THE TWO EXCHANGES:

12,055 CONTRACTS MOVE TO LONDON AND 10,361 CONTRACTS INCREASED AT THE COMEX. (IN TONNES, THE GAIN IN TOTAL OI EQUATES TO 69.72 TONNES). ..AND THIS INCREASE OF DEMAND OCCURRED WITH A GAIN IN PRICE OF $24.60 WITH RESPECT TO FRIDAY’S TRADING AT THE COMEX.

THE COMEX IS NOW UNDER FULL ASSAULT WITH RESPECT TO GOLD AND SILVER.

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With respect to our two criminal funds, the GLD and the SLV:

GLD...

WITH GOLD UP $15.40 TODAY//(COMEX-TO COMEX)

NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD

JAN 6/2019/Inventory rests tonight at 895.30 tonnes

SLV/

WITH SILVER UP 3 CENTS TODAY

NO CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV

JAN 6/INVENTORY RESTS AT 361.440 MILLION OZ.

TO ALL INVESTORS THINKING OF BUYING GOLD THROUGH THE GLD ROUTE: YOU ARE MAKING A TERRIBLE MISTAKE AS THE CROOKS ARE USING WHATEVER GOLD COMES IN TO ATTACK BY SELLING THAT GOLD. IT SURE SEEMS TO ME THAT THE GOLD OBLIGATIONS AT THE GLD EXCEED THEIR INVENTORY

end

OUTLINE OF TOPICS TONIGHT

First, here is an outline of what will be discussed tonight:

1.Today, we had the open interest in SILVER ROSE BY A HUGE SIZED 2473 CONTRACTS from 231,162 UP TO 233,728 AND CLOSER TO A NEW COMEX RECORD. THE LAST RECORDS WERE SET IN AUG.2018 AT 244,196 WITH A SILVER PRICE OF $14.78/(AUGUST 22/2018)..THE PREVIOUS RECORD TO THAT WAS SET ON APRIL 9/2018 AT 243,411 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS WITH THE SILVER PRICE AT THAT DAY: $16.53). AND PREVIOUS TO THAT, THE RECORD WAS ESTABLISHED AT: 234,787 CONTRACTS, SET ON APRIL 21.2017 OVER 2 1/2 YEARS AGO. THE PRICE OF SILVER ON THAT DAY: $17.89.

EFP ISSUANCE 966

OUR CUSTOMARY MIGRATION OF COMEX LONGS CONTINUE TO MORPH INTO LONDON FORWARDS AS OUR BANKERS USED THEIR EMERGENCY PROCEDURE TO ISSUE:

FOR FEB. 0; FOR MAR 996: AND ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 996 CONTRACTS. EFP’S GIVE OUR COMEX LONGS A FIAT BONUS PLUS A DELIVERABLE PRODUCT OVER IN LONDON. IF WE TAKE THE OI GAIN AT THE COMEX OF 2473 CONTRACTS TO THE 996 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S, WE OBTAIN A STRONG GAIN OF 3469 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS. THUS IN OUNCES, THE GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES: 17.345 MILLION OZ!!! AND YET WE ALSO HAVE A STRONG DEMAND FOR PHYSICAL AS WE WITNESSED A FINAL STANDING OF GREATER THAN 30 MILLION OZ FOR JULY, A STRONG 7.475 MILLION OZ FOR AUGUST.. A HUGE 39.505 MILLION OZ STANDING FOR SILVER IN SEPTEMBER… OVER 2 million OZ STANDING FOR THE NON ACTIVE MONTH OF OCTOBER., 7.440 MILLION OZ FINALLY STANDING IN NOVEMBER. 21.925 MILLION OZ STANDING IN DECEMBER , 5.845 MILLION OZ STANDING IN JANUARY. 2.955 MILLION OZ STANDING IN FEBRUARY, 27.120 MILLION OZ FOR MARCH., 3.875 MILLION OZ FOR APRIL 18.765 MILLION OZ FOR MAY NOW 2.660 MILLION OZ FOR JUNE WITH JULY AT 22.605 MILLION OZ AUGUST AT 10.025 MILLION OZ// SEPT: 43.030 MILLION OZ///OCT: 7.32 MILLION OZ//NOV 2.63 MILLION OZ//DEC: 20.970 MILLION OZ//JAN: 1.590 MILLION OZ//

RESULT: A HUGE SIZED INCREASE IN SILVER OI AT THE COMEX WITH THE 12 CENT GAIN IN PRICING THAT SILVER UNDERTOOK IN PRICING// FRIDAY. WE ALSO HAD A VERY STRONG SIZED 996 EFP’S ISSUED TRANSFERRING COMEX LONGS OVER TO LONDON. TOGETHER WITH THE STRONG SIZED AMOUNT OF SILVER OUNCES STANDING FOR THIS MONTH, DEMAND FOR PHYSICAL SILVER CONTINUES TO INTENSIFY AS WE WITNESS SEVERE BACKWARDATION IN SILVER IN LONDON.

BOTH THE SILVER COMEX AND THE GOLD COMEX ARE IN STRESS AS THE BANKERS SCOUR THE BOWELS OF THE EXCHANGE FOR METAL

(report Harvey)

2 ) Gold/silver trading overnight Europe, Goldcore

(Mark O’Byrne/zerohedge

and in NY: Bloomberg

I)MONDAY MORNING/ SUNDAY NIGHT:

SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 0.38 POINTS OR 0.01% //Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 225.31 POINTS OR 0.79% /The Nikkei closed DOWN 451.76 POINTS OR 0.79%//Australia’s all ordinaires CLOSED UP .03%

/Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed DOWN at 6.9722 /Oil UP TO 63.69 dollars per barrel for WTI and 69.30 for Brent. Stocks in Europe OPENED RED// ONSHORE YUAN CLOSED DOWN // LAST AT 6.9722 AGAINST THE DOLLAR. OFFSHORE YUAN CLOSED DOWN ON THE DOLLAR AT 6.9635 TRADE TALKS STALL//YUAN LEVELS GETTING DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO 7:1//TRUMP INITIATES A NEW 25% TARIFFS FRIDAY/MAY 10/MAJOR PROBLEMS AT HUAWEI /CFO ARRESTED : /ONSHORE YUAN TRADING BELOW LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING WEAKER AGAINST USA DOLLAR/OFFSHORE YUAN TRADING WEAKER AGAINST THE DOLLAR /TRADE DEAL NOW DEAD..TRUMP RAISED RATES TO 25%

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

I)THURSDAY MORNING/ WEDNESDAY NIGHT:

SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 30.52 POINTS OR 1.04% //Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 131.51 POINTS OR 0.46% /The Nikkei closed DOWN 422.94 POINTS OR 1.97%//Australia’s all ordinaires CLOSED DOWN .42%

/Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed DOWN at 6.8807 /Oil UP TO 57.21 dollars per barrel for WTI and 64.13 for Brent. Stocks in Europe OPENED MIXED// ONSHORE YUAN CLOSED DOWN // LAST AT 6.8807 AGAINST THE DOLLAR. OFFSHORE YUAN CLOSED DOWN ON THE DOLLAR AT 6.8834 TRADE TALKS STALL//YUAN LEVELS GETTING DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO 7:1//TRUMP INITIATES A NEW 25% TARIFFS FRIDAY/MAY 10/MAJOR PROBLEMS AT HUAWEI /CFO ARRESTED : /ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING WEAKER AGAINST USA DOLLAR/OFFSHORE YUAN TRADING WEAKER AGAINST THE DOLLAR /TRADE DEAL NOW DEAD..TRUMP RAISED RATES TO 25%

3A//NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA

3b) REPORT ON JAPAN

3C CHINA

CHINA/HONG KONG

China replaces a top Hong Kong official with a “strongman” in a strong signal to protesters

(zerohedge)

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

a)GREECE,ISRAEL,CYPRUS AND TURKEY

Much to the anger of Turkey who does not recognize Cyprus or its partial discovery of natural gas/oil (discovered by Israel several years ago), the following countries entered into a landmark deal to produce the EastMed Pipeline underneath the Mediterranean. Turkey want this gas and will attack ships etc trying to extract the valuable stuff

(courtesy zerohedge)

b)GERMANY/IRAN/SOLEIMANI/USA

Surprisingly Germany has come out and supported the assassination of Soleimani

(zerohedge//Sara Carter)

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

i)Saturday//IRAN

The red flag was hoisted in Baghdad signifying revenge for the death of Soleimani

(zerohedge)

ii)Saturday//IRAN

The 4 days of mourning begins in Bagdad and will continue until he is buried in Kerman Iran

(zerohedge)

iii)IRAN

Meet Ismael Gaani our next leader of the Iran Quds force as next in line for a drone attack from Trump

(zerohedge)

iv)IRAN/USA TRUMP

Iranian state TV announces an 80 million dollar bounty for a head of president Trump. Trump will not be happy with these threats.

(zerohedge)

v)Iraq

Iraq votes to remove USA troops for Iraq. Iranian MP’s chant “death to America”.. The USA will not leave Iraq

(zerohedge)

vi) a IRAQ/USA

Trump states that they will not leave Iraq until they repay billions for all of their air bases built. He threatens Baghdad with very big sanctions

(zerohedge)

vi b)IRAQ/USA“we are not leaving”!! an amphibious assault ship, Bataan is now headed toward Iraq

(zerohedge)

vi c)IRAQ/USA

Is Trump now bluffing?: we now get news that the uSA army is telling Iraq it is preparing to move out due to respect for sovereignty.

(zerohedge)

vii)Turkey/Libya

This is more ominous that it seems. Hafter now declares jihad as he will attack Turkish forces in Libya

(zerohedge)

viii)Iraq/USA China

Michael Every echoes my thoughts on what Iran will do in the coming weeks. They are outmanned and they are not suicidal. The will see something small to save face and that is about it

(Michael Every)

ix)IRAN/.USA

Rouhani, the President of Iran claims that Trump should never threaten Iran as he reminds Trump of the ill fated Iranian commercial plane accidentally downed by the uSA with 290 on board.

(zerohedge_

6.Global Issues

7. OIL ISSUES

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES

VENEZUELA

Humorous!! Guaido has been denied entry to the Venezuelan parliament only to be re elected speaker hours later

(zerohedge)

9. PHYSICAL MARKETS

i)Dollars are becoming plentiful in Venezuela and they are being used increasing to buy goods

(Bloomberg/GATA)

ii)Pam and Russ Martens talks about the increasing use of credit default swaps that bet on or against the failure of a sovereign or a bank.

(Courtesy Russ and Pam Martens)

iii)Dave Kranzler discusses that the Comex is one complete joke something that I have been pointing out to you for years

(Dave Kranzler/IRD)

iv)A must read…the explosion in gold will be upon us one day..it might be tomorrow. When gold and silver rise exponentially, it creates havoc to our derivative players. With paper obligations at 100 to one, you can imagine their turmoil as they try to get onside during a crisis

(Chris powell)

10. important USA stories which will influence the price of gold/silver

MARKET TRADING//USA

a)Market trading/LAST NIGHT/USA

b)MARKET TRADING/USA/AFTERNOON

ii)Market data/USA

After a disappointing manufacturing PMI, the service sector pMI jumps to a 5month high but its outlook looks negative

(zerohedge)

iii) Important USA Economic Stories

a)Round 2 of the the USA operation to take out top generals in the Iranian army as USA drone airstrikes kill six of their pro Iranian militia commanders

(zerohedge)

b)USA/Iran

This may become quite problematic for the Americans as no doubt Iran does have sleeper cells in the USA

(courtesy Watson Summit News)

c)Rail traffic continues to plunge indicating that the USA economy is slowing down immensely

(zerohedge)

d)BOEING

Another potential problem for Boeing as “catastrophic wiring issues” were found in the Boeing 737 Max

(zerohedge)

e)Will Iran target Trump properties?

(zerohedge)f)Six B 52 bombers are ordered to Indian Ocean base to be available against Iran.

(zerohedge)

iv) Swamp commentaries)

a)It would have been totally irrational for Trump to notify the Democrats on the Soleimani strike //Lou Dobbs)

(courtesy Lou Dobbs/Zerohedge)

b)As I promised you, the genesis of Crossfire Hurricane started 3 months earlier than Mueller stated in his report and this puts the investigation right into the Obama White hOuse

(zerohedge)

c)More evidence to suggest that Epstein was murdered and did not commit suicide

(zerohedge)

d)THIS WILL GO NOWHERE BUT IT WILL INFURIATE TRUMP: PELOSI TO INTRODUCE “WAR POWERS RESOLUTION” TO LIMIT TRUMP IN IRAN

(ZEROHEDGE)

e)Bruce Ohr covered up his anti Trump crusade to distribute the Steele dossier to the FBI and State dept.(zerohedge)

v) King report/Courtesy of Chris Powell of GATA which includes the major swamp stories.

LET US BEGIN:

Let us head over to the comex:

THE TOTAL COMEX GOLD OPEN INTEREST ROSE BY HUGE SIZED 10,361 CONTRACTS, UP TO A NEW RECORD OF 797,110 (SET JAN 6/2020) (ECLIPSING OUR PREVIOUS NEW RECORD OF 786,749 SET JAN 3/2019) WITH THE GAIN OF $24.60 IN GOLD PRICING // FRIDAY’S // COMEX TRADING)

WE ARE NOW IN THE NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF JAN.. THE CME REPORTS THAT THE BANKERS ISSUED A STRONG SIZED TRANSFER THROUGH THE EFP ROUTE AS THESE LONGS RECEIVED A DELIVERABLE LONDON FORWARD TOGETHER WITH A FIAT BONUS., THAT IS 12,055 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED:

FEB: 12055 AND APRIL: 00 ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:

TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 12,055 CONTRACTS.

THE OBLIGATION STILL RESTS WITH THE BANKERS ON THESE TRANSFERS. ALSO REMEMBER THAT THERE IS NO DOUBT A HUGE DELAY IN THE ISSUANCE OF EFP’S AND IT PROBABLY TAKES AT LEAST 48 HRS AFTER OUR LONGS GIVE UP THEIR COMEX CONTRACTS FOR THEM TO RECEIVE THEIR EFP’S AS THEY ARE NEGOTIATING THIS CONTRACT WITH THE BANKS FOR A FIAT BONUS PLUS THEIR TRANSFER TO A LONDON BASED FORWARD.

ON A NET BASIS IN OPEN INTEREST WE GAINED THE FOLLOWING TODAY ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES: A HUMONGOUS 22,416 TOTAL CONTRACTS IN THAT 12,055 LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE GAINED A HUGE SIZED 10,055 COMEX CONTRACTS.

THE BANKERS SUPPLIED THE NECESSARY AND INFINITE AMOUNT OF SHORT PAPER IN GOLD. THE BANKERS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE //// (IT ROSE BY $24.60). AND THEY WERE MOST DEFINITELY UNSUCCESSFUL IN FLEECING ANY LONGS AS WE GAINED AN ATMOSPHERIC AND CRIMINALLY SIZED 22,416 CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES…..

NET GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES :: 22,416 CONTRACTS OR 2,241,600 OZ OR 69.72 TONNES.

COMMODITY LAW SUGGESTS THAT COMMODITY FUTURES OPEN INTEREST SHOULD APPROXIMATE 3% OF TOTAL PRODUCTION. IN GOLD THE WORLD PRODUCES AROUND 3500 TONNES PER YEAR BUT ONLY 2200 TONNES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THE WEST (THUS EXCLUDING RUSSIA, CHINA ETC..WHO KEEP 100% OF THEIR PRODUCTION)

THUS IN GOLD WE HAVE THE FOLLOWING: 797,110 TOTAL OI CONTRACTS X 100 OZ PER CONTRACT = 79.71 MILLION OZ/32,150 OZ PER TONNE = 2,479 TONNES

THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST REPRESENTS 2,482/2200 OR 112.7% OF ANNUAL GLOBAL PRODUCTION OF GOLD.

We are now in the NON active contract month of JAN. This month is generally one of the poorest of delivery months for the year. Here we have a total of 175 open interest left to be served upon, for a loss of 27 contracts. We had 74 notices served up on Thursday so we surprisingly gained another strong 47 contracts or an additional 4700 oz will stand for delivery in this non active delivery month of January. I can now safely say that the comex is under attack for metal!!

The next active delivery month after January is February and here we witnessed a GAIN OF 3060 in contracts UP to 549,446.

March received another 97 contracts to stand at an open interest of 126.

The next active delivery month after March is April and here we witnessed a gain of 2787 contacts up to 136,912 oi contracts.

We had 80 open interest notices served upon today for 8000 oz.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And now for the wild silver comex results

Total COMEX silver OI ROSE BY VERY STRONG SIZED 2473 CONTRACTS FROM 231,255 UP TO 233,728 (AND CLOSER TO THE NEW RECORD OI FOR SILVER SET ON AUGUST 22.2018. THE PREVIOUS RECORD WAS SET APRIL 9.2018/ 243,411 CONTRACTS) AND THURSDAY’S STRONG OI COMEX GAIN OCCURRED DESPITE A 12 CENT GAIN IN PRICING/.

Gold	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory in oz*	nil oz
Withdrawals from Customer* Inventory in oz*	nil oz
Deposits to the Dealer* Inventory in oz*	nil oz
Deposits to the Customer* Inventory, in oz*	nil
No of oz served (contracts) today	80 notice(s) 8000 OZ (0.2488 TONNES)
No of oz to be served (notices)	95 contracts (9500 oz) 0.2954 TONNES
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month	2120 notices 212,000 OZ 6.5946 TONNES
Total accumulative withdrawals of gold from the Dealers* inventory this month*	NIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of gold from the Customer* inventory this month*	xxx oz

we had 0 dealer entry:

We had 0 kilobar entries

To calculate the INITIAL total number of gold ounces standing for the JAN /2020. contract month, we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (2120) x 100 oz , to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of JAN. (175 contracts) minus the number of notices served upon today (80 x 100 oz per contract) equals 221,500 OZ OR 6.8889 TONNES) the number of ounces standing in this NON active month of JAN

Thus the INITIAL standings for gold for the JAN/2020 contract month:

No of notices served (2120 x 100 oz) + (175)OI for the front month minus the number of notices served upon today (80 x 100 oz )which equals 221,500 oz standing OR 6.8889 TONNES in this NON active delivery month of JAN.

WE GAINED A STRONG 47 CONTACTS OR AN ADDITIONAL 4700 OZ WILL STAND AT THE COMEX AND THUS REFUSE TO MORPH INTO LONDON BASED FORWARDS. BY REFUSING TO TRAVEL TO LONDON THEY ALSO NEGATED A FIAT BONUS.

WHY ARE THEY NOT SETTLING?

THE COMEX IS AN ABSOLUTE FRAUD..

Silver	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory*	NIL oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory	5,949.338 oz Delaware
Deposits to the Dealer* Inventory*	nil oz
Deposits to the Customer Inventory	953,967.900 oz CNT Scotia
No of oz served today (contracts)	80 CONTRACT(S) (260,000 OZ)
No of oz to be served (notices)	4 contracts 20,000 oz)
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts)	314 contracts 1,570,000 oz)
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Dealers* inventory this month*	NIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Customer* inventory this month*

ii) Into CNT: 353,752.500 oz

iii) into Scotia: 600,215.400 oz

total dealer silver: 84.710 million

total dealer + customer silver: 318.155 million oz

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The total number of notices filed today for the JAN 2020. contract month is represented by 80 contract(s) FOR 400,000 oz

To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in JAN, we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at 314 x 5,000 oz =1,570,000 oz to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of JAN. (84) and the number of notices served upon today 80 x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.

Thus the INITIAL standings for silver for the JAN/2019 contract month: 314 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for front month of JAN (84)- number of notices served upon today (80) x 5000 oz equals 1,505,000 oz of silver standing for the JAN contract month.

WE GAINED 17 CONTRACT OR AN ADDITIONAL 85,000 OZ WILL STAND FOR METAL AT THE COMEX AND REFUSE TO MORPH INTO LONDON BASED FORWARDS. BY DOING THIS THEY ALSO NEGATED RECEIVING A FIAT BONUS.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: THE COMEX IS UNDER ASSAULT FOR BOTH PHYSICAL GOLD AND SILVER WITH SILVER IN THE LEAD BY FAR. DESPITE MASSIVE RAIDS, LONGS CONTINUE WITH THEIR HUNT AT THE COMEX FOR PHYSICAL METAL.. IT WILL NOT BE LONG BEFORE WE WITNESS A COMMERCIAL FAILURE..STAY TUNED..WE WITNESSED CONSIDERABLE BANKER SHORT COVERING IN SILVER TODAY AND AN ATTEMPTED BANKER SHORT COVERING IN GOLD WITH ZERO SUCCESS.

TODAY’S ESTIMATED SILVER VOLUME: 139,172 CONTRACTS //

CONFIRMED VOLUME FOR YESTERDAY: 116,969 CONTRACTS..

YESTERDAY’S CONFIRMED VOLUME OF 116,969 CONTRACTS EQUATES to 58.4 million OZ 83.5% OF ANNUAL GLOBAL PRODUCTION OF SILVER..makes sense!!

COMMODITY LAW SUGGESTS THAT OPEN INTEREST SHOULD NOT BE MORE THAN 3% OF ANNUAL GLOBAL PRODUCTION. THE CROOKS ARE SUPPLYING MASSIVE PAPER TRYING TO KEEP SILVER IN CHECK.

The record level of silver open interest is 234,787 contracts set on April 21./2017 with the price at that day at $18.42
The previous record was 224,540 contracts with the price at that time of $20.44

NPV for Sprott

1. Sprott silver fund (PSLV): NAV RISES TO -1.51% ((JAN 6/2019)
2. Sprott gold fund (PHYS): premium to NAV RISES TO -1.15% to NAV (JAN 6/2019 )
Note: Sprott silver trust back into NEGATIVE territory at +%-/Sprott physical gold trust is back into NEGATIVE/ -1.51%

(courtesy Sprott/GATA)

3.SPROTT CEF.A FUND (FORMERLY CENTRAL FUND OF CANADA):

NAV 15.60 TRADING 15.08///DISCOUNT 3,31

END

And now the Gold inventory at the GLD/

JAN 6/WITH GOLD UP #15.40 NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 895.30 TONNES

JAN 3/WITH GOLD UP $24.60: A BIG CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 2.05 TONES INTO THE GLD../INVENTORY RESTS AT 895.30

JAN 2/2020//WITH GOLD UP $5.20: NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 893.25

DEC 31/WITH GOLD UP $4.65: NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 893.25 TONNES

DEC 30//WITH GOLD UP $2.05//NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 892.37 TONNES

DEC 27/WITH GOLD UP $4.10 TODAY: A BIG CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER DEPOSIT OF 3.51 PAPER TONNES INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 892.37 TONNES

DEC 26/WITH GOLD UP $9.85 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER DEPOSIT OF 2.93 TONNES INTO THE GLD.///INVENTORY RESTS AT 888.86 TONNES

DEC 24/WITH GOLD UP $14.60//NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 885.93 TONNES

DEC 23/WITH GOLD UP $7.75: A BIG CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 2.64 TONNES OF PAPER GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 885.93 TONNES

DEC 20/WITH GOLD DOWN $3.15 TODAY; NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 883.29 TONNES

DEC 19/WITH GOLD UP $6.65 TODAY: A BIG CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER DEPOSIT OF 2.65 TONNES INTO THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 883.29 TONNES

DEC 18/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.00 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 5.56 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 880.66 TONNES

DEC 17/WITH GOLD UP $.30 TODAY: 1 SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF .29 TONNES/INVENTORY RESTS AT 886.22 TONNES

DEC 16//WITH GOLD DOWN $.40 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 885.93 TONNES

DEC 13/ WITH GOLD UP $8.60 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 885.93 TONNES

DEC 12/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.65: NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 885.93 TONNES

DEC 11/WITH GOLD UP $7.00: A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .30 TONNES/INVENTORY RESTS AT 885.93 TONNES

DEC 10//WITH GOLD UP $3.00: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 886.23 TONNES

DEC 9//WITH GOLD DOWN $.60: A HUGE PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.34 TONNES//INVENTORY RESTS AT 886.23 TONNES

DEC 6//WITH GOLD DOWN $16.75 NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 888.57 TONNES

DEC 5/2019: WITH GOLD UP $3.60 TODAY: A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF .59 TONNES/INVENTORY RESTS AT 888.57 TONNES

DEC 4/2019/WITH GOLD DOWN $4.00 TODAY//NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 889.16 TONNES

DEC 3/WITH GOLD UP $15.00 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 7.32 TONNES/INVENTORY RESTS AT 889.16 TONNES

DEC 2 /WITH GOLD DOWN $.40 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 895.60 TONNES

NOV 29/WITH GOLD UP $9.85//A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL TO PAY FOR FEES ETC./INVENTORY RESTS AT 895.60 TONNES

NOV 27//WITH GOLD DOWN $6.10 TODAY: NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 896.48 TONNES//

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

JAN 6/2019/Inventory rests tonight at 895.30 tonnes

*IN LAST 737 TRADING DAYS: 42.15 NET TONNES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE GLD
*LAST 637 TRADING DAYS: A NET 124.90 TONNES HAVE NOW BEEN ADDED INTO THE GLD INVENTORY.

end

Now the SLV Inventory/

JAN 6/WITH SILVER UP 3 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 361.440 MILLION OZ///

JAN 3/2020//WITH SILVER UP 12 CENTS TODAY: ANOTHER HUGE PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 1.176 MILLION OZ IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 361.440 MILLION OZ///

SINCE DEC 23 WE HAVE HAD A 94 CENT GAIN CORRESPONDING TO A 2.39 MILLION OZ OF PAPER WITHDRAWALS..AN ABSOLUTE FRAUD!

JAN 2/2020/WITH SILVER UP 12 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 1.214 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV INVENTORY: INVENTORY RESTS AT 362.616 MILLION OZ

DEC 31/WITH SILVER DOWN 7 CENTS TODAY/NO CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 363.830 MILLION OZ//

DEC 30/WITH SILVER UP 6 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 363.830 MILLION OZ//

DEC 27/WITH SILVER DOWN 3 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 363.830 MILLION OZ

DEC 26//WITH SILVER UP 16 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 363.830 MILLION OZ//

DEC 24/WITH SILVER UP 32 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 363.830 MILLION OZ///

DEC 23/WITH SILVER UP 26 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 1.028 MILLION PAPER OZ IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 363.830 MILLION OZ//

DEC 20/WITH SILVER UP 7 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 364.858 MILLION OZ//

DEC 19/WITH SILVER UP 11 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 364.858 MILLION OZ//

DEC 18/WITH SILVER DOWN 3 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 364.858 MILLION OZ//

DEC 17//WITH SILVER DOWN 5 CENTS TODAY: A FAIR SIZED CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 747,000 OZ FROM THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 364.858 MILLION OZ/?

DEC 16/WITH SILVER UP 12 CENTS: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 365.605 MILLION OZ//

DEC 13//WITH SILVER UP 7 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 365.605 MILLION OZ//

DEC 12/WITH SILVER UP 9 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 365.605 MILLION OZ

DEC 11/WITH SILVER UP 13 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 365.605 MILLION OZ//

DEC 10//WITH SILVER UP 5 CENTS TODAY: A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY: A PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 1.495 MILLION OZ//// INVENTORY RESTS AT 365.605 MILLION OZ//

DEC 9/WITH SILVER UP 3 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 1.869 MILLION OZ FROM SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 367.100 MILLION OZ/

DEC 6/WITH SILVER DOWN 42 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 368.969 MILLION OZ//

DEC 5//WITH SILVER UP 14 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 368.969 MILLION OZ//

DEC 4/WITH SILVER DOWN 31 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 368.969 MILLION OZ//

DEC 3//WITH SILVER UP 25 CENTS TODAY: A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 1.512 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 368.969 MILLION OZ..

DEC 2/WITH SILVER DOWN 9 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 370.481 MILLION OZ

NOV 29/WITH SILVER UP 4 CENTS TODAY: A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 2.383 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 370.481 MILLION OZ//

LIBOR SCHEDULE AND GOFO RATES:

YOUR DATA…..

6 Month MM GOFO 1.98/ and libor 6 month duration 1.89

Indicative gold forward offer rate for a 6 month duration/calculation:

G0LD LENDING RATE: – .09

XXXXXXXX

12 Month MM GOFO
+1.93%

LIBOR FOR 12 MONTH DURATION: 1.96

GOFO = LIBOR – GOLD LENDING RATE

GOLD LENDING RATE = +.03

end

PHYSICAL GOLD/SILVER STORIES
i) GOLDCORE BLOG/Mark O’Byrne

Gold Surges To Test $1,600/oz, Oil Over $70, Stocks Fall on Risks of World War In Middle East

6, January

◆ Gold has surged to test $1,600 per ounce, up 4% so far in 2020 and building on the stellar near 18.9% gain in 2019

◆ Gold is testing it’s highest levels since 2013 as investors diversify into gold; Goldman, Citi and other gold analysts are advocating gold bullion as important hedge in crisis

◆ Oil prices have surged with Brent crude reaching $70 per barrel; concern over oil supplies from Iran, Iraq and other nations as U.S. State Department warns of attacks on Saudi oil facilities

◆ Stocks in Europe and Asia have fallen with U.S. stock futures down; the German Dax closed 1.5% lower and the Japanese Nikkei fell 1.1%

◆ Escalating U.S.-Iranian, U.S.-Iraqi, U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia tensions lead to demand for safe haven gold; the U.S. has now threatened to hit Iraq with “very big” sanctions like “they’ve never seen before ever” in Trump’s words

◆ Trump warned in a tweet on Saturday night that if Iran strikes any Americans or American assets, the United States has targeted 52 Iranian sites, “some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture”

“They attacked us, & we hit back. If they attack again, which I would strongly advise them not to do, we will hit them harder than they have ever been hit before!” warned Trump on Twitter as American foreign policy hawks back Trump’s aggressive war mongering stance

◆ China and Russia have called for restraint and urged the U.S. to seek dialogue with Iran instead of ‘force’; Russia condemned the killing Of Iran’s Soleimani and warned the U.S. of ‘grave consequences’

◆ “China opposes the use of force in international relations,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

“Military means will lead nowhere. Maximum pressure won’t work either. China urges the U.S. to seek resolutions through dialogue instead of abusing force.”

◆ “History shows that under most outcomes gold will likely rally to well beyond current levels,” according to Goldman analysts in a note. That’s “consistent with our previous research, which shows that being long gold is a better hedge to such geopolitical risks.”

NEWS and COMMENTARY

Gold Hits Highest Since 2013 as Goldman Backs Bullion in Crisis (Bloomberg)

Gold Is a Nice Hedge to Have, Citigroup (Bloomberg)

Gold jumps to near seven-year high on U.S.-Iran tensions; palladium breaches $2,000 (Reuters)

Shares erase new year gains, gold, oil soar on U.S. and Iran trade threats (Reuters)

Brent crude rises above $70 a barrel after Trump threatens Iraq sanctions, Iran retaliation (CNBC)

Trump threatens to slap sanctions on Iraq ‘like they’ve never seen before’ (Reuters)

China calls for restraint, urges US to seek dialogue with Iran instead of ‘force’ (CNBC)

Fed focuses on repo market exit strategy after avoiding year-end crunch (Reuters)

GOLD PRICES (USD, GBP & EUR – AM/ PM LBMA Fix)

03-Jan-20 1547.40 1548.75, 1182.37 1184.48 & 1389.57 1387.99
02-Jan-20 1520.55 1527.10, 1151.36 1161.51 & 1358.46 1366.91
31-Dec-19 1523.00, 1157.78 & 1358.06
30-Dec-19 1511.50 1514.75, 1152.37 1152.57 & 1350.22 1351.91
27-Dec-19 1510.60 1511.50, 1156.36 1152.67 & 1356.37 1353.85
24-Dec-19 1490.85 1152.58 & 1345.94
23-Dec-19 1483.95 1482.10, 1141.90 1133.95 & 1338.97 1334.35
20-Dec-19 1476.90 1479.00, 1132.19 1132.33 & 1328.20 1327.55
19-Dec-19 1474.40 1476.70, 1125.56 1127.65 & 1325.24 1325.91
18-Dec-19 1478.90 1474.05, 1128.99 1121.76 & 1325.97 1323.35

Is Your Gold and Silver Bullion S.A.F.E. ?
Segregated, Actionable, Flexible and what are the total Expenses?

Watch Our Latest Video Update Here

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Mark O’Byrne

Executive Director

ii) Important gold commentaries courtesy of GATA/Chris Powell

Dollars are becoming plentiful in Venezuela and they are being used increasing to buy goods

(Bloomberg/GATA)

Overwhelming demand for U.S. dollars … in Venezuela

Submitted by cpowell on Fri, 2020-01-03 18:03. Section: Daily Dispatches

Venezuela’s Latest Problem Is There Are Now Too Many Dollars

By Patricia Laya and Nicolle Yapur
Bloomberg News
Friday, January 3, 2020

U.S. dollars are everywhere in Venezuela, and suddenly that’s a problem.

The greenback is steadily gaining currency in this inflation-wracked country, where a single dollar buys about 60,000 bolívares on the black market. That’s creating challenges for local businesses, because Venezuelan banks are barred from offering foreign currency accounts.

For safekeeping, an insurance saleswoman in the western town of San Cristobal tapes stacks of dollars from clients to the inside of a toilet tank in her office bathroom. A general contractor, unable to wire cash to his accounts inthe U.S., flew his elderly mother and wife from Caracas to Miami with $9,900 of cash each, just under the limit required for reporting money to U.S. customs authorities.

“This is money earned through legal means, yet in a currency that exists entirely outside the country’s constitutional order. This isn’t money laundering,” says Luis Godoy, a former deputy chief of the judicial police who now works as a security consultant. “You have to wonder how many people right now have money stacked inside their homes like Pablo Escobar.” …

… For the remainder of the report:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-03/venezuela-s-latest-pr…

* * *

Help keep GATA going:

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:

http://www.gata.org

To contribute to GATA, please visit:

http://www.gata.org/node/16

END

Pam and Russ Martens talks about the increasing use of credit default swaps that bet on or against the failure of a sovereign or a bank.

(Courtesy Russ and Pam Martens)

Pam and Russ Martens: Doomsday machine returns with Citibank’s credit default swaps

Submitted by cpowell on Fri, 2020-01-03 18:29. Section: Daily Dispatches

By Pam and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade
Friday, January 3, 2020

Lily Tomlin is credited with the quote: “No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.” Wall Street regularly brings that message home.

According to the latest derivatives report from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Citibank, the federally-insured, taxpayer-backstopped bank owned by Citigroup, has sold protection to other banks, hedge funds, insurance companies or corporations on a staggering $858 billion of credit default swaps. When a federally-insured bank sells protection to others on credit default swaps, it is effectively taking on the risk of a default event. At a time of unprecedented levels of debt in the system and growing warnings about leveraged loans, that seems like a very unwise move by Citigroup.

…

The OCC notes that Citibank has bought protection via a larger amount of credit default swaps — a total of $898.8 billion. (See Table 12 in the appendix of the report.) There is no guarantee, however, that these bets are properly aligned and will not, once again, blow up this bank along with a chunk of Wall Street firms or insurance companies that may be its counterparties.

Credit default swaps played a central role in the 2008 financial collapse on Wall Street, as did Citigroup. It is an indictment of every federal banking regulator in the United States, as well as Congress, that Citigroup has been allowed to return as a major player in this market while using its federally-insured Citibank once again as a pawn in this game. …

… For the remainder of the report:

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/01/the-doomsday-machine-returns-citi…

* * *

END

Dave Kranzler discusses that the Comex is one complete joke something that I have been pointing out to you for years

(Dave Kranzler/IRD)

Dave Kranzler: The Comex is a complete joke

Submitted by cpowell on Sun, 2020-01-05 19:19. Section: Daily Dispatches

By Dave Kranzler
Investment Research Dynamics, Denver
Sunday, January 5, 2020

Comex gold contracts were brought to life in 1974. Correspondence between senior officials in and advisors to the Nixon Administration discussed the need to create an “investment” vehicle to “capture” institutional investment money directed into gold in order to prevent the rapid rise in gold after President Nixon closed the gold window. If you are curious, the letters are posted in the GATA archive:

http://www.gata.org/node/17081

Since the introduction of paper gold, the Comex — gold and silver trading — has evolved into what can only be described as a caricature of a “market.” The open interest in gold contracts is nearly 10 times the amount of physical gold reportedly held in Comex vaults. It’s 60 times the amount of “registered” gold, the gold designated as available for delivery. …

… For the remainder of the analysis:

https://investmentresearchdynamics.com/the-comex-is-a-complete-joke/

END

A must read…the explosion in gold will be upon us one day..it might be tomorrow. When gold and silver rise exponentially, it creates havoc to our derivative players. With paper obligations at 100 to one, you can imagine their turmoil as they try to get onside during a crisis

(Chris Powell)

‘We must get a winner one day’: Why it might be tomorrow

Submitted by cpowell on Mon, 2020-01-06 04:27. Section: Daily Dispatches

11:35p ET Sunday, January 5, 2020

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Our friend B.A. tonight challenges optimism among gold and silver investors that the latest crisis in the Middle East will explode Western central banking’s longstanding gold price suppression policy.

Ordinarily your secretary/treasurer would agree with him and change the channel from news to anything promising comic relief. After all, these geopolitical crises never mean anything to the monetary metals after a day or two. Your secretary/treasurer hates them for distracting people from the reasons provided by the world financial system for higher gold and silver prices.

…

If the turmoil in the Middle East was happening on its own, your secretary/treasurer would simply refer gold and silver investors to our late friend Peter George’s prescient observation at GATA’s Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon in 2005:

“In the last 10 years,” George said, “the central banks have effectively shown that when there is a real crisis, gold actually goes down — and it’s so blatant, it’s a joke.”

Video of George’s comment can be seen at the 38-second mark of the top video here:

http://www.gata.org/node/20

But things may be different lately insofar as for months there have been signs of big changes in the gold and silver markets, including indications of exceptional tightness. For example:

— The resolution of most Comex gold and silver futures contracts through the mysterious emergency “exchange for physicals” mechanism.

— The extraordinary increase in open interest in Comex gold and silver futures contracts.

— The Comex’s strange and urgent increase in the out-of-system collateral permitted to be used by the major bullion banks that short gold.

— Increased acquisition of gold by central banks that are not afraid to reveal their admiration for an asset that central banks were generally unloading just a few years ago.

— The reversal of the usual gold flow from London to Switzerland, a flow now going from Switzerland to London, where the shorts largely reside and from where they would need to cover.

— Assertions by Swiss gold fund manager Egon von Greyerz and London metals trader Andrew Maguire that Swiss banks have already imposed “bail-ins” on depositors seeking to withdraw both gold and cash — in effect a gold and cash confiscation.

— The New York Fed’s recent sudden injection of tens of billions of dollars into the financial system through the big New York banks, some of which are bullion dealers, and the dubious explanations given for this.

— The refusal of the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission to answer or even acknowledge a few basic critical questions about the gold market not just for GATA but also for a member of Congress.

— The inability of the usual smashes in the futures market to push gold and silver prices down much for long.

For some musing on these developments from two weeks ago, see:

http://www.gata.org/node/19713

If the recent developments really signify extreme strain on the physical gold market, and if, as there is still every reason to believe, the ratio of paper claims to real metal ranges from 90 or 100 to 1 — that is, 90 or 100 claims for every ounce — an international crisis like the current one might induce enough physical buying at precisely the wrong moment for the price suppressors, causing delivery defaults and exposing the fraud of the paper gold system.

Besides, if supplies are really tight, it would not take an international crisis to explode the system. Any substantial demand for physical delivery might explode it. Indeed, many governments long have known about the fraud of the system and could have pulled the plug on it any time in the last 10 years or more just by taking enough delivery. The Russians and Chinese long have talked openly about the Western central bank policy of gold price suppression.

With the United States having recently weaponized the dollar to an unprecedented extent, is it so farfetched to imagine adversaries of the United States counterattacking by weaponizing gold, the former world reserve currency?

This is exactly what the U.S. government has feared as long ago as 1974, when U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was warned about the possibility by his deputy, Thomas O. Enders, in a meeting in Kissinger’s office. The remarkable transcript of this meeting was discovered in 2013 by gold researcher Jan Nieuwenhuis, then writing under his pen name, Koos Jansen, and was analyzed by GATA here:

http://www.gata.org/node/13310

The transcript remains on the internet site of the State Department’s historian, a wonderful if studiously overlooked explanation of the U.S. policy of gold price suppression:

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v31/d63

Gold, Enders told Kissinger, is the international “reserve-creating instrument” and whoever has the most gold can change its price periodically and thereby enrich himself and alter all the world’s financial valuations in his favor. Gold, Enders explained, is the great threat to the dollar and U.S. control of the world financial system and as such it must be pushed out of the system.

In any case, the previous U.S.-instigated gold price-control system, the London Gold Pool, failed in 1968 for geopolitical reasons and the current gold price control system will fail eventually too. As was said by the leader of the doomsday cult first portrayed by some British comedians including Peter Cook and Dudley Moore back in the 1960s: “We must get a winner one day”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hJQ18S6aag&t=5s

Tomorrow would be as good as any.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org

* * *

iii) Other physical stories:

Ronan Manly outlines that the lBMA is recording making amounts of gold in their vaults

(Ronan Manly)

Record Amount Of Gold In London’s Vaults?

Submitted by Ronan Manly, BullionStar.com,

According to a press release this week from bullion bank controlled industry group the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), the total amount of gold held by combined LBMA commercial vaults and Bank of England vaults in London hit a record 8,228 tonnes as of the end of September 2019. This, says the LBMA, equates to 658,274 wholesale market gold bars (London Good Delivery gold bars) valued at approximately US $392.9 billion.

Given that LBMA monthly London vaulted gold holdings data is published on a 3-month lagged basis and was first published in July 2017 (with initial data going back to July 2016), the “record high” of London vaulted gold that the LBMA is referring to here is in terms of the 3.5 years since the LBMA made monthly vaulting data public from July 2016 onwards, i.e. the pink line in the chart below.

*8228 tonnes – Total gold claimed to be held in combined LBMA and Bank of England vaults in London as of Sept 2019. Chart: http://www.GoldPriceChartsRUs.com*

But because neither the LBMA’s nor the Bank of England’s reported London gold holdings figures have ever been independently audited, none of this data can be independently verified. The LBMA does not even publish where the gold vaults it refers to are actually located, so immediately you can see a large problem with transparency and verification.

What lies beneath?

According to the LBMA, its gold vaulting data reflects gold held by seven LBMA member commercial vault providers at their subterranean vaults in London, as well as gold held for central banks and bullion banks at the Bank of England’s London vaults. Of the seven commercial vault providers, three of these are bullion banks (JP Morgan, HSBC and ICBC Standard), with the other four being security carriers (Brinks, Malca-Amit, G4S and Loomis). From analysis, principally at BullionStar, we know that the LBMA gold vaults are located in the City of London, such as the vaults of JP Morgan and possibly HSBC, or in west London near Heathrow Airport, such as the vaults of Malca-Amit, Brinks (Radius Park), and G4S and Loomis.

Note that both central banks and LBMA bullion banks maintain gold accounts at the Bank of England’s vaults in London. While central banks store gold with the Bank of England in London, they also lend their gold out to LBMA bullion banks in London. Therefore, LBMA bullion banks are involved in transacting borrowed central bank gold and need to have gold accounts at the Bank of England. Furthermore, the Bank of England also plays a role in helping to ‘clear’ the physical gold market in London in cahoots with the London gold clearing banks of HSBC, JP Morgan, Scotia, UBS and ICBC Standard, which are the same five banks that comprise London Precious Metals Clearing Limited (LPMCL). This also means that these banks need gold accounts and at times have gold holdings in the Bank of England vaults.

While the LBMA’s monthly gold vaulting data does not explicitly split out the amount of gold held by the commercial vault providers versus the amount of gold held at the Bank of England, the Bank of England helps in this endeavor as it publishes its own monthly gold holdings (also on a 3 month lagged basis). This then means that the total held by the LBMA bank and commercial vaults can be inferred by subtracting the Bank of England vault holdings.

*5152 tonnes – Total gold claimed to be held in Bank of England gold vaults in London as of Sept 2019. Chart:* *www.GoldChartsRUs.com*

Looking at the latest Bank of England total vaulted gold as of month-end September 2019, the Bank claims to have been holding a combined 5152 tonnes of gold in its vaults. Which in turn means that excluding the Bank of England vaults, the LBMA commercial and bullion bank vaults claim to have been holding 3076 tonnes of gold as of 30 September 2019. The LBMA points out in its latest press release that the ratio of gold (said to be) held at the Bank of England vaults compared to gold (said to be) held at the LBMA commercial vaults has fallen to 1.67 as of month-end September 2019, a new low since the dataset began, and notably lower than the ratio was a year earlier in September 2018 when it sat above 2.25.

*Ratio of gold held in LBMA commercial vaults to gold held in Bank of England vaults. Source:* *LBMA press release 02 January 2019.*

Q3 gold flows in to London vaults

The reason this ratio has fallen is that, according to the London gold holdings data, while the LBMA bullion bank and commercial vaults added about 775 tonnes since end of September 2018, an incredible 621 tonnes of which was added between July 2019 and September 2019 alone, the Bank of England gold vault holdings were relatively flat over the same period, having lost about 215 tonnes in the 9 months from September 2018 to June 2019, before adding back about 190 tonnes between July and September 2019.

Therefore with the bullion bank / commercial vaults adding gold while the Bank of England (BoE) holdings remained relatively flat (or rose at a lower pace), the ratio of commercial vault gold to BoE vault gold naturally fell. This trend is particularly acute for the three months from July to September 2019, when as mentioned above, over 600 tonnes of gold flowed into commercial vaults against about 190 tonnes of gold inflows for the BoE vaults.

*UK gold imports 2015-2019: Note the very large gold imports to London in each month of Q3 2019. Chart:* *www.GoldPriceChartsRUs.com*

But where did this extra gold appearing in London’s vaults come from? In the case of the commercial vaults, the answer is that a lot of this gold was imported into the UK which in practice means imported into London. This is clear from UK gold import and export data for 2019 which captures cross-border non-monetary gold flows, and where over July, August and September 2019, more than 200 tonnes of gold arrived into London in each of those months, much of this gold from Switzerland but also from the US, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

*Major sources by country for London gold imports September 2019. Chart:* *www.GoldPriceChartsRUs.com*

For example in September 2019, London imported about 40% of that month’s 200 tonnes of imports from Switzerland, another 40% from Australia, Canada and the US, and the bulk of the remainder from South Africa, Hong Kong and Germany. While US, Canada, Australia and South Africa are major gold producing countries and traditional exporters of gold to London (see above chart), Switzerland, Hong Kong and Germany are not, except when cross-border gold flows change direction if the London gold market needs supplying, as happened in the third quarter 2019.

Nearly 2000 tonnes in gold-backed ETFs

Some of the additional gold flowing into the London commercial vaults during Q3 2019 can be accounted for as additions to gold-backed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), many of which store their gold in these LBMA London gold vaults. For example, the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) and Blackrock Gold Trust (IAU), which have their gold custodied in the London vaults of HSBC and JP Morgan respectively, saw substantial inflows of gold during Q3, with GLD adding more than 120 tonnes of gold (see chart below) and IAU adding about 50 tonnes.

*SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) gold holdings, July 2019 – January 2020. Chart:* *www.GoldChartsRUs.com*

The same was true across the board with the London gold holdings of other large gold-backed ETFs operated by ETFS, Source and Deutsche Bank all showing a noticeable increase over Q3, bringing the total amount of ETF gold stored in London LBMA vaults at the end of September 2019 to a whopping 1903 tonnes. See chart below.

*1903 tonnes – Gold held in London LBMA vaults by gold-backed ETFs, September 2019. Chart:* *www.GoldChartsRUs.com*

Running on Fumes

Armed with the figures for total gold held in London vaults (8228 tonnes) and total gold held at the Bank of England vaults (5152 tonnes), we therefore know that 3076 tonnes of gold was held in the LBMA commercial vaults as of the end of 30 September 2019. But with 1903 tonnes of this total consisting of ETF stored gold, this means that only 1173 tonnes of gold in these LBMA vaults was unconnected to ETFs. In other words, the LBMA bullion bank gold float to support the entire London Gold Market was only 1173 tonnes, which is only about 0.5% of total above ground global gold stocks.

Visually, we can therefore write the entire London Gold Market as a simple equation as follows:

Total London gold – BoE vault gold – ETF held gold = London gold Float

For month-end September 2019, the figures are as follows:

8228 – 5152 – 1903 = 1173 tonnes float

We can also create a separate ratio relevant to these LBMA commercial vaults of ETF gold to non-ETF gold, which as of the end of September 2019 was (1903/1173) or 1.62.

*Composition of London Gold Market held gold broken into ETF holdings, Bank of England holdings, and LBMA float. September 2019. Chart:* *www.GoldChartsRUs.com*

Conclusion

In the words of the LBMA: “The physical holdings of precious metals held in the London vaults underpin the gross daily trading and net clearing in London“

But with only 1173 tonnes of real physical gold held in the LBMA commercial vaults that is unconnected to ETFs out of a total of 3076 tonnes, this means that only 38% of the gold in the LBMA commercial vaults is available to support the London gold market. However, in reality, out of the ‘record’ 8228 tonnes of gold which the LBMA claims is held in London, only 14% of this total (1173 tonnes) is available to ‘underpin’ the giant gold trading and clearing casino that is the London gold market on any normal trading day.

Additionally, apart from the gold of the ETFS, there is no information whatsoever in the public domain about who owns the gold in the London commercial vaults, how much gold the LBMA bullion banks have to back their giant paper based unallocated gold account system, or how much gold liability claims they have compared to physical gold assets. In short, the market has no information on what gold stocks are available if everyone suddenly stood for physical delivery.

Furthermore, there are also no independent audit reports on any of the gold in the LBMA vaults, there are no gold bar weight lists published, and there is no public evidence of how much of this LBMA gold ‘float’ is unencumbered, free of lien, claim or otherwise. The same by the way is true of all the gold at the Bank of England where there have never been any independent public audits of any central bank gold, and where the Bank prevents the publication of any serial numbered gold bar weight lists. What would a run on the physical gold at the Bank of England look like, or even a continuation of central bank gold repatriation requests?

Finally, latest clearing figures from the LBMA show that in November 2019, 19.7 million ounces of ‘gold’ (613 tonnes) were cleared each day in London. The figure for LBMA gold trading in mid-December was even higher with a daily trading volume of 32 million ounces of ‘gold’ (995 tonnes) traded per day, which is 5,000 tonnes per week. While the vast majority of this trading is not in real gold but more correctly paper or synthetic gold, that is the whole point. There is very little physical gold in London backing a gigantic inverted pyramid of smoke and mirrors.

So instead of cheerleading the fact that there was a record 8,228 tonnes of gold held in London at the end of September, should not we be sounding alarm bells that in terms of the giant casino that is the London Gold Market, there is practically no gold to back up the giant leveraged unallocated and synthetic gold charade?

This article was originally published on the BullionStar.com website under the title “LBMA claims record amount of gold in London’s vaults.”

END

Simon Black on why he owns gold:lack of stability in the world!!

(courtesy Simon Black)

Stability Is Gone – Simon Black: “I Sure Am Glad I Own Some Gold”

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

The price of gold is up nearly $100 since Christmas, reaching around $1,575 per troy ounce as I write this letter.

This most recent price bump is due to the panic over Iran. But the gold price is up nearly 20% over the last year, so there have obviously been plenty of other factors driving the price higher before the Middle East started flaring up again.

And there will be plenty more after these tensions cool down.

Trade wars, economic crisis in China, Bolshevik nonsense in the US, Brexit woes… the world is definitely not lacking in major issues that could continue to drive gold prices higher.

Throughout history there have always been periods of relative calm and stability, followed by periods of chaos and uncertainty.

The 1960s were incredibly chaotic, for example. Riots, assassinations, war, etc. were the dominant stories of the time.

By comparison, the 1990s were relatively calm. Peace and prosperity reigned. And life was so easy that the biggest problem of the decade was Bill Clinton’s love stain.

We seem to be sliding head-first into another period of turmoil (though I would argue that we’ve been there for a few years).

Stability is gone. Trade wars, shooting wars, terror attacks… pretty much everything is back on the table now.

Bolshevik politicians are taking hold all over the world, even in places like the United States, where, only a few years ago, it would have been considered preposterous for a socialist candidate to run for President.

Now there’s more than a dozen.

Most of all, the Social Contract is breaking down; people everywhere are becoming angry and unglued. We’ve seen it in the streets in places like Hong Kong, Spain, Chile, Lebanon, France, etc. And we see it every single day in social media.

People are demanding change and revolution in everything from our basic system of economics, down to the very words we can and cannot use.

This is all part of a level of conflict and turmoil we haven’t seen in decades, and it’s possible we’re just in the early stages.

I somehow doubt that all of these woke social justice warriors will suddenly capitulate their war on gender pronouns, or that Bolshevik presidential candidates will abandon their Marxist ideology and embrace the free market.

Now, don’t get me wrong… I’m not suggesting this is the winter of our discontent. I’m incredibly optimistic about the world and it’s opportunities.

But I sure am glad that I own some gold.

It’s not the fact that the gold price is up $100 in a month, or that precious metals have performed very well as an asset class. (Silver is up 21% in the last six months alone.)

The investment benefits are a nice bonus. But the real value of gold is that it’s one of the best things to own in times of turmoil and uncertainty.

Gold is a global asset with a 5,000+ year history of value and marketability. It’s a hedge… an asset you can rely on when you can rely on little else.

In many respects it’s like a life insurance policy… with the added cherry-on-top that you don’t have to be dead to benefit from it. And your gold dealer is probably not going to give you prostate exam first.

I know this is the time of year where people make all sorts of predictions about what’s going to happen in the year ahead.

Frankly I don’t think anyone can credibly say that they have any idea what’s going to happen in the world in 2020. And that’s why I own gold.

end

Commercial Signal Failure or Another Head Fake?

(courtesy J Johnson)

Great and Wonderful Monday Morning Folks,

We start our first Monday, and first full week of the new year off, with Gold’s price trading slightly higher at $1,578.80 up $26.40 after hitting $1,590.90 with the low at $1,562.30. Silver is still Silver, not allowed the break (yet) with its trade up a little at $18.465, up 31.4 cents after hitting $18.550 with the low at $18.170. The US Dollar‘s current value is now pegged at 96.305, down 21.6 points after dipping down to 96.230 with the high starting point at 96.585. All this of course happened already, before 5am pst, the Comex open, the London close, and after one of the most comfortable celebration parties I have ever been to.

The Emerging Markets Currency Watch is proving what the markets will do when precious metals are allowed to move freely in the primaries with Venezuela, now pricing Gold at 15,768.27 Bolivar, up 298.63 with Silver priced at 184.419 Bolivar proving a gain of 2.447 over the weekend. Argentina’s Peso, the currency that has yet to be adjusted higher (by reducing the digits to the left of the decimal) now has the nobel metal trading at 94,307.72 giving those that hold a 1,771.86 A-Peso gain (x100 ounces per contract) with Silver now trading at 1,102.19 Peso’s showing a gain of 14.72 (x5,000 ounces per). Over in Turkey, the Lira has Gold trading at 9,435.15 Lira proving a gain of 182.97 Lira with Silver also gaining with its value at 110.356 T-Lira offering those that hold a 1.515 T-Lira gain in value.

The January Silver Delivery Demands now show a total of 84 fully paid for contracts proving a drop of 35 requests for physical either getting Silver delivered here, or sent to the EFP-lands of London, and with no trades so far this morning with the exception of those possible trades that are posted inside the parenthesis’s (). Friday’s trade activity inside the delivery month proved a Volume of 83 with a trading range between $18.11 and $17.965 with the closing price adjusted to $18.065.

Silver’s Overall Open Interest, the one part of the trade that strict chartists have no clue about, continues to gain more controlling shorts with the count now at 233,783 Overnighters, proving an increase of 2,621 more short contracts jumping in, losing more money as the prices gain and as the Resolute buyer awaits for his chance to pounce in again! Not only is Silver gaining more shorts but Gold continues to break new Open Interest ground by adding more contracts behind the price with its total now at 799,504 (thank you Harvey O.) proving a gain of 12,755 overnighters willing to tell us holders how wrong we are. Are we seeing a Commercial Signal failure or another head fake? Go team! One day the idea of removing the physicals from the Comex at these prices, will really do some damage to the short trade, if hasn’t already.

While all media was attempting to fire up the “fear trade of war” inside everyone’s mindset, we celebrated the 60th birthday of Bill Holter and yes Jim Sinclair was there. In my entire life, I have never been to a gathering where everyone was talking to everyone about everything. Some of the greatest writers and supporters of precious metals were all elbowing one another in friendly fashion and even the political discussions had zero issues. No one cared about political affiliations at all, in fact, everyone allowed everyone their voice to be heard! It reminds me of the days of “All in the Family” and “The Jefferson’s” and the Trump Stadium gatherings, all at once. What a time to be an American!

Hang in there Baby, keep the faith, and make sure to set that attitude to positive, no matter what is going on in your life, and as always …

Stay Strong!

J. Johnson

Due to the criminal conviction of trader Edmonds, the USA prosecution is seeking to halt the civil lawsuit. I was misinformed: all discoveries in a civil suit are public and because of that, the prosecution gives the defendants the right to plead the 5th if their testimony incriminates them

(courtesy zerohedge/Chris Powell)

US seeks halt in civil lawsuit accusing JP Morgan of manipulating metals market, citing criminal case

The U.S. wants a federal judge to halt a civil lawsuit accusing J. P. Morgan of manipulating precious metals markets. The Justice Department cited an ongoing criminal case as its reason for the request.
A former J. P. Morgan trader pleaded guilty in Connecticut last month to manipulation charges.
In the guilty plea, the trader said he had learned to make bogus trade orders from senior traders at the bank and that he used the strategy hundreds of times with the knowledge and consent of his immediate supervisors.

Dawn Giel | Dan Mangan

Published 3:33 PM ET Tue, 20 Nov 2018 Updated 10:32 AM ET Wed, 21 Nov 2018CNBC.com

Amr Alfiky | Reuters

A sign of JP Morgan Chase Bank is seen in front of their headquarters tower in New York.

The Justice Department is asking a judge to put the brakes on a civil lawsuit against J. P. Morgan Chase, citing an ongoing probe into a “related criminal case” that involves alleged manipulation of precious metals markets.

The department wants a six-month postponement in the proceedings of the civil lawsuit, which was filed in 2015 by hedge fund manager Daniel Shak and two commodity traders. The government also says it could ask for a longer delay in the case, according to a court filing on Monday.

The move comes days after Shak’s lawyer, David Kovel, sought permission to reopen questioning of two former J. P. Morgan traders and the bank’s current global head of base and precious metals trading.

Kovel, in making the request with the Manhattan federal judge in the civil case, cited last month’s guilty plea by one of those former traders, John Edmonds, in federal court in Connecticut.

Edmonds admitted making bogus bids on precious metals contracts while working at the bank from 2009 to 2015.

Neither J. P. Morgan Chase nor Kovel’s clients have opposed the Justice Department’s request.

In arguing for a delay, the Justice Department said Shak’s lawsuit is “related” to Edmonds’ criminal case and that Edmonds has “pleaded guilty and acknowledged his own participation in such conduct, as well as that of other traders.”

“Edmonds awaits sentencing, but the broader investigation is ongoing,” the Justice Department said. The U.S. wants to delay the civil case “to protect the integrity of its ongoing criminal investigation,” it said.

J. P. Morgan did not respond to a request for comment by CNBC. Kovel declined to comment.

Tuesday night, after this story first was published, Judge Paul Engelmayer ordered the federal prosecutors to explain in detail by Monday why postponing proceedings in the civil lawsuit would not harm those involved, and why reopening questioning “would be detrimental to the Government’s ongoing criminal investigation.”

Englemayer also wrote that he regards Edmonds’ guilty plea “as potentially highly consequential” to the civil case.

In his guilty plea, the 36-year-old Edmonds said he had learned to make bogus trade orders from senior traders at the bank and that he used the strategy hundreds of times with the knowledge and consent of his immediate supervisors. He admitted to working with “unnamed co-conspirators” at J. P. Morgan, according to the Justice Department.

Kovel wants to question Edmonds again as well as Michael Nowak, the bank’s global head of base and precious metal trading, and former J. P. Morgan Chase Managing Director Robert Gottlieb. The three had previously answered questions under oath in the civil case.

Kovel said in court filings that Nowak was the immediate supervisor of Edmonds, while Gottlieb was Edmonds’ mentor.

In his prior deposition, Edmonds said that Gottlieb sat only a “couple feet” away from him for about five years, and that he was “somebody [he] looked up to in the business,” who helped guide and train him.

Nowak is described by Edmonds as his direct supervisor, with whom he would sometimes discuss trading strategies. Nowak was also the person responsible for overseeing the performance and risk of Edmonds’ portfolio, according to the deposition.

Edmonds also stated in his prior deposition that he would enter precious metals trades for both Nowak and Gottlieb, among others.

The civil lawsuit claims Shak and his fellow plaintiffs lost tens of millions of dollars as a result of actions by J. P. Morgan’s traders.

A federal judge tells traders that they can combine cases (with the other 6 banks) as they accused JPMorgan of rigging the precious metals market

(courtesy CNBC)

Federal judge tells traders they can combine cases accusing JP Morgan of rigging metals market

Litigation in a separate civil case has been put on hold until at least May at the behest of the Justice Department, which is investigating a “related criminal case” that involves alleged market manipulation by precious metals traders at J. P. Morgan.
Judge John Koeltl of the Southern District of New York appointed the White Plains, N.Y., law firm Lowey Dannenberg as interim lead counsel for the proposed class action.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

A group of traders from across the U.S. who allege that J. P. Morgan Chase manipulated precious metals markets for years are one step closer to bringing a class action suit against the nation’s largest bank.

Earlier this month, a federal judge said five separate lawsuits making similar allegations against the bank could be combined, potentially including thousands of people who traded in the precious metals market from Jan. 2009 through Dec. 2015.

Litigation in a separate civil case has been put on hold until at least May at the behest of the Justice Department, which is investigating a “related criminal case” that involves alleged market manipulation by precious metals traders at J. P. Morgan.

J. P. Morgan declined to comment on this story.

Judge John Koeltl of the Southern District of New York appointed the White Plains, N.Y., law firm Lowey Dannenberg as interim lead counsel for the proposed class action.

Vincent Briganti, a partner at the firm, filed the first suit seeking class action status in November on behalf of Dominick Cognata, a trader who alleges he suffered losses due to J.P. Morgan’s illegal trading conduct in the silver and gold futures and options markets.

That was after the federal court in Connecticut unsealed a criminal plea agreement by John Edmonds, a former J.P. Morgan metals trader. In his guilty plea, Edmonds, who is 36-years old, admitted that he and other “unnamed co-conspirators” fraudulently manipulated the precious metals markets while they were employed at J. P. Morgan from 2009 to 2015.

Edmonds said he had learned the illegal trading tactics from senior traders, and then used them hundreds of times with the knowledge of and consent of his immediate supervisors.

Briganti’s lawsuit also names John Edmonds and a group of yet-to-be-identified precious metals traders and the bank as defendants.

On Wednesday, the lawyers sent a letter to Judge Koeltl saying they were having difficulty locating Edmonds to serve him legal papers and requested a 30-day extension to do so, which the judge granted on Thursday. Briganti noted that they have been in contact with Edmonds’ attorney in the criminal case. Edmonds’ attorney and Briganti could not be reached for comment.

“We are hopeful that this extension will result in completing service on Mr. Edmonds without formal motion practice and a request for alternative means of service,” Briganti said in the letter.

The next step in the civil case is for the plaintiffs to file an amended class action complaint and set a schedule for defendants to respond.

In addition to the proposed class action, J. P. Morgan also faces a separate civil suit which also accuses the bank of rigging precious metals markets.

end

March 4.2019

Parker City News

JP Morgan faces potential class action lawsuit after guilty pleas by a former metals trader

Traders from across the U.S. are banding together to accuse J. P. Morgan Chase of manipulating precious metals markets for years.

At least six lawsuits, all making similar allegations against the nation‘s largest bank, have been filed in New York federal court in the past month, since federal prosecutors in Connecticut with a former J. P. Morgan Chase metals trader.

The cases could potentially include thousands of people who traded in the precious metals market. The White Plains, N.Y., law firm Lowey Dannenberg is asking the court to combine the cases and name it as the lead.

The law firm‘s commodities group is led by Vincent Briganti, the attorney who filed the first lawsuit on behalf of Dominick Cognata, a New York resident who alleges he suffered losses due to J. P. Morgan‘s trading conduct in the silver and gold futures and options markets.

A combined case, seeking class action status, would include anyone who purchased or sold futures contracts or an option on NYMEX platinum or palladium or COMEX silver or gold between at least Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2015. The lawyers believe that “at least hundreds, if not thousands” of traders would be eligible to join the case.

Named as defendants in all of the lawsuits are John Edmonds, a 36-year old former metals trader at J. P. Morgan, a group of yet-to-be-identified precious metals traders and the bank.

Edmonds, a New York resident, pleaded guilty in October to one count of conspiracy to defraud the market and manipulate prices of precious metals futures contracts and one count of commodities fraud. In the criminal plea, Edmonds admitted that he and other “unnamed co- conspirators” at J. P. Morgan, fraudulently manipulated precious metals markets from 2009 to 2015, the same time frame covered in the class action suits.

Briganti filed the initial class action on Nov. 7, just one day after the Justice Department unsealed Edmonds‘ plea in the U.S. District Court of Connecticut.

Edmonds admitted in his guilty plea that he deployed the illegal trading scheme hundreds of times with the direct knowledge and consent of his immediate supervisors. Plaintiffs say they have suffered economic injury, including monetary losses, as a direct result of actions by Edmonds and the other unnamed J. P. Morgan metals traders in the futures and options contracts.

One of the suits alleges that “the number of unlawful trades that JP Morgan traders executed in precious metals futures markets is at least in the thousands.”

J. P. Morgan declined to comment. Lowey Dannenberg did not respond to a request for comment by CNBC.

The Justice Department‘s criminal investigation is still ongoing and recently caused a separate related civil case to be put on hold for at least six months while the government continues its investigation. That civil lawsuit, which also accuses J. P. Morgan of rigging the precious metals market, was filed in 2015 by hedge fund manager Daniel Shak and two commodity traders.

After reviewing the details of the plea agreement, David Kovel, the attorney for Shak‘s suit, sought to re- interview Edmonds, along with two other current and former senior traders at the bank. However, the government argued that reopening questioning would be detrimental to the ongoing criminal investigation. The federal judge overseeing the proceedings ordered a six-month stay in the civil case.

Kovel declined to comment.

Edmonds was originally scheduled to be sentenced in Hartford, Conn., on Wednesday, Dec. 19, but a court filing on Nov. 27 shows the sentencing has been postponed until June. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut could not elaborate on why the sentencing was postponed since the court filing is under seal.

-END-

Justice Department stalls another class action in gold market rigging, this one against JPM

Submitted by cpowell on Tue, 2019-03-05 14:40. Section: Daily Dispatches

9:47a ET Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Proceedings in the federal class-action anti-trust lawsuit against JPMorganChase charging the investment bank with manipulating the gold and silver futures markets —

http://www.gata.org/node/18844

— have been suspended for three months at the request of the U.S. Justice Department, just as the department has arranged suspension of proceedings in the class-action anti-trust lawsuit against Deutsche Bank charging similar market manipulation.

…

In both cases the Justice Department has told U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that proceedings would jeopardize its criminal investigation into market rigging, which has been admitted by a former JPMorganChase trader, John Edmonds, who awaits sentencing.

According to court filings, the White Plains, New York, law firm representing the plaintiffs against JPMorganChase, Lowey Dannenberg, concurred in the government’s request to suspend proceedings. The stay is to continue for three months and may be extended.

The Justice Department’s motion, granted by the court on February 26 —

http://www.gata.org/files/JPMorganChaseClassActionStay.pdf

— said “the government is not seeking an open-ended stay that could indefinitely postpone this matter and thus jeopardize the parties’ interests in a timely resolution.” The motion added, “Any developments in the criminal case during the period the consolidated action is stayed may reduce or completely resolve the need to litigate certain issues in the consolidated action.”

Much of the Justice Department’s motion is redacted to conceal from the public evidence still under investigation. Edmonds has said he and other traders manipulated the gold and silver markets for years with the knowledge of their supervisors at JPMorganChase. In its motion to conceal that evidence, also granted by the court on February 26, the Justice Department said disclosure “could lead to destruction of evidence, flight from prosecution, and otherwise interfere with the government’s ability to conduct its investigation”:

http://www.gata.org/files/JPMorganChaseClassActionStaySeal.pdf

Monetary metals investors may be skeptical of the Justice Department’s stalling the Deutsche Bank and JPMorganChase cases, since the department and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission do not seem ever to have responded conscientiously to complaints of gold and silver market rigging until the class actions commenced.

How much time will the court give the Justice Department to delay getting to the bottom of the issue? The court might hasten matters if enough monetary metals mining companies protested the harm done to them and their shareholders by market rigging, but of course most monetary metals mining companies don’t mind at all.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org

* * *

Your early MONDAY morning currency, Asian stock market results, important USA/Asian currency crosses, gold/silver pricing overnight along with the price of oil Major stories overnight/7 AM EST

i) Chinese yuan vs USA dollar/CLOSED / LAST AT: 6.9722/

//OFFSHORE YUAN: 6.9635 /shanghai bourse CLOSED DOWN 0.35 POINTS OR 0.01%

HANG SANG CLOSED DOWN 225.31 POINTS OR 0.79%

2. Nikkei closed DOWN 451.76 POINTS OR 1.91%

3. Europe stocks OPENED ALL RED/

USA dollar index DOWN TO 96.61/Euro RISES TO 1.1998

3b Japan 10 year bond yield: FALLS TO. –.02/ !!!!(Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese yen vs usa cross now at 108.09/ THIS IS TROUBLESOME AS BANK OF JAPAN IS RUNNING OUT OF BONDS TO BUY./JAPAN 10 YR YIELD IS NOW TARGETED AT .11%/JAPAN LOSING CONTROL OF THEIR BOND MARKET//CARRY TRADERS GETTING KILLED

3c Nikkei now JUST BELOW 17,000

3d USA/Yen rate now well below the important 120 barrier this morning

3e WTI:: 63.69 and Brent: 69.30

3f Gold UP/JAPANESE Yen DOWN CHINESE YUAN: ON -SHORE DOWN/OFF- SHORE: DOWN

3g Japan is to buy the equivalent of 108 billion uSA dollars worth of bond per month or $1.3 trillion. Japan’s GDP equals 5 trillion usa./“HELICOPTER MONEY” OFF THE TABLE FOR NOW /REVERSE OPERATION TWIST ON THE BONDS: PURCHASE OF LONG BONDS AND SELLING THE SHORT END

Japan to buy 100% of all new Japanese debt and by 2018 they will have 25% of all Japanese debt. Fifty percent of Japanese budget financed with debt.

3h Oil UP for WTI and UP FOR Brent this morning

3i European bond buying continues to push yields lower on all fronts in the EMU. German 10yr bund FALLS TO -.29%/Italian 10 yr bond yield DOWN to 1.34% /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD UP TO 0.39%…ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD/GERMAN BUND: 1.63: DANGEROUS FOR THE ITALIAN BANKING SYSTEM

3j Greek 10 year bond yield FALLS TO : 1.41

3k Gold at $1576.70 silver at: 18.43 7 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $18.50

3l USA vs Russian rouble; (Russian rouble UP 4/100 in roubles/dollar) 62.03

3m oil into the 63 dollar handle for WTI and 69 handle for Brent/

3n Higher foreign deposits out of China sees huge risk of outflows and a currency depreciation. This can spell financial disaster for the rest of the world/

JAPAN ON JAN 29.2016 INITIATES NIRP. THIS MORNING THEY SIGNAL THEY MAY END NIRP. TODAY THE USA/YEN TRADES TO 108.09 DESTROYING JAPANESE CITIZENS WITH HIGHER FOOD INFLATION

30 SNB (Swiss National Bank) still intervening again in the markets driving down the SF. It is not working: USA/SF this morning .9695 as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF is 1.0856 well above the floor set by the Swiss Finance Minister. Thomas Jordan, chief of the Swiss National Bank continues to purchase euros trying to lower value of the Swiss Franc.

3p BRITAIN VOTES AFFIRMATIVE BREXIT/LOWER PARLIAMENT APPROVES BREXIT COMMENCEMENT/ARTICLE 50 COMMENCES MARCH 29/2017

3r the 10 Year German bund now NEGATIVE territory with the 10 year FALLING to –0.29%

The bank withdrawals were causing massive hardship to the Greek bank. the Greek referendum voted overwhelming “NO”. Next step for Greece will be the recapitalization of the banks and that will be difficult.

4. USA 10 year treasury bond at 1.78% early this morning. Thirty year rate at 2.24%

5. Details Ransquawk, Bloomberg, Deutsche bank/Jim Reid.

6. TURKISH LIRA: UP TO 5.9765..

Futures Tumble, Gold Soars To 7 Year High As Iran Escalation Fears Spill Over

Global markets slumped, and US equity futures tumbled on Monday, wiping out gains for 2020 as tensions in the Middle East soared amid fears of escalation in the Middle East as investors pushed safe-haven gold to a seven-year high, and oil jumped to its highest since September.

The fallout from last week’s targeted US assassination of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani escalated over the weekend, as the US said it detected a heightened state of alert by Iran’s missile forces (hardly a shock) as President Donald Trump warned the U.S. would strike back, “perhaps in a disproportionate manner”, if Iran attacked any American person or target. Also on Sunday, Iraq’s parliament on Sunday recommended US troops be ordered out of the country, while Trump threatened heavy sanctions on Iraq and said any US troop withdrawal would require Iraq to reimburse the US for billions spent on an air base.

And so, with algos once again looking at geopolitical risk as something more than merely a reason for the Fed to ease further, US equity futures slumped to red for 2020, with Boeing once again dragging down the Dow after a new, potentially “catastrophic” wiring issue was discovered on the 737 MAX…

… as European shares extended losses and were set for their worst day in a week, with the European Stoxx 600 index down 1.12%. The European oil and gas stock index rose about 0.74% and was the sole gainer among its peers, hitting its highest since July as Brent briefly topped $70 overnight. Not even the strongest Eurozone Service PMI print since August, which at 52.8 came in well above the 52.4 expected, had any impact on the sudden dour mood.

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks fell, led by health care and consumer staples, as frictions between the U.S. and Middle Eastern countries ratcheted up. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index headed for its biggest drop since Aug. 26, on growing tensions following the killing of Soleimani. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei slid almost 1.9% in a sour return from holiday, while stocks listed in Hong Kong and mainland China dropped in afternoon trade, with technology-related shares among the worst performers. Chinese shares, which had opened in the red, reversed their losses, as did Australian shares which ended the day flat. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 0.8%. Most other markets in the region were also down, with India’s S&P BSE Sensex Index and Japan’s Topix Index falling more than 1%.

MSCI’s All-Country World Index was down 0.43%, erasing all its new year gains in its biggest two-day fall since early December.

Naturally, the perpetually optimistic sellside hoped markets would quickly look beyond the recent geopolitical debacle: “Geopolitical events by their nature are unpredictable, but previous periods of increased tensions suggest that the impact on wider markets tends to be short-lived, with more lasting effects confined to local markets,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, adding that “in general, this supports holding a diversified portfolio.”

Maybe Haefele will be right, but for now the market is not buying it, with spot gold surging another 1.6% to $1,579.72 per ounce, reaching its highest since April 2013, and making a delightful mockery of certain WSJ commodity “experts.”

At the same time, oil prices also extended gains on fears any Middle East conflict could disrupt global supplies; Brent futures rose as high as 2% to $70 a barrel, while U.S. crude climbed 1.7% to $64.12.

Commenting on the possible trajectory of oil, Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group said in a Bloomberg Television interview that potential retaliation for the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani could push Brent crude $3-$10 a barrel higher, “we think crude’s going up some more” because there will be further violence as Iran responds to the U.S. attack. “The odds of an overt U.S. military conflict with Iran went from about 5% to about 25%. We think crude has some more risk pricing to do.”

The rapid escalation of tensions in the Middle East continues to damp the enthusiasm that sent the S&P 500 Index to a record on its first trading day of the year. “Everyone got comfortable in that fact that the truce in the trade war had come through and the outlook for 2020 looked a little bit better and then we had another geopolitical reminder come through,” said Suncorp Group Financial Market Strategist Peter Dragicevich. “It’s going to be a big driver of markets in the short term.”

In rates, sovereign bonds benefited from the safe haven bid with yields on 10-year Treasuries down at 1.7725% having fallen 10 basis points on Friday.

In FX, the yen reached its strongest level in three months thanks to Japan’s massive holdings of foreign assets, as investors assume Japanese funds would repatriate their money during a true global crisis, pushing the yen higher. The Bloomberg Dollar index weakened, and the pound gained as the U.K.’s dominant services sector showed signs of strengthening at the end of 2019 following Boris Johnson’s decisive election victory. The euro eased to 120.61 yen having hit a three-week low. The risk sensitive currencies of Australia and New Zealand were on track for their fourth straight session of losses.

“Iran is almost certainly to respond in some scale, scope and magnitude,” said Lee Hardman, currency analyst at MUFG. Therefore “market participants are likely to remain nervous until there is more clarity over how geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and Iran will proceed”, Hardman said, noting that geopolitical tensions could hurt global economic growth, especially if the price of oil increases.

But while investors are having a hard time as they final have to learning to co-exist with an odd red color on their screens, nobody had a worse day overnight than the virtue signallers in Hollywood who were simply crucified by Ricky Gervais’ parting Golden Globes monologue.

On today’s economic calendar, we have the latest Markit services PMI report.

Market Snapshot

S&P 500 futures down 0.8% to 3,209.50
STOXX Europe 600 down 1.3% to 412.76
MXAP down 1% to 170.06
MXAPJ down 0.9% to 551.66
Nikkei down 1.9% to 23,204.86
Topix down 1.4% to 1,697.49
Hang Seng Index down 0.8% to 28,226.19
Shanghai Composite down 0.01% to 3,083.41
Sensex down 1.9% to 40,688.02
Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.03% to 6,735.71
Kospi down 1% to 2,155.07
German 10Y yield fell 2.1 bps to -0.299%
Euro up 0.2% to $1.1180
Brent Futures up 1.7% to $69.75/bbl
Italian 10Y yield fell 6.6 bps to 1.177%
Spanish 10Y yield fell 0.4 bps to 0.382%
Brent Futures up 1.7% to $69.75/bbl
Gold spot up 1.6% to $1,577.05
U.S. Dollar Index down 0.1% to 96.71

Top Overnight News from Bloomberg

Iran said on Sunday that it no longer considered itself bound by a 2015 nuclear agreement, while Iraq’s parliament voted to expel U.S. troops from the country
Yen bulls betting the currency will gain in times of stress face one formidable obstacle — Japanese demand for Treasuries. Japanese funds will pounce at every opportunity to buy the dollar cheaply and invest overseas given low domestic bond yields, said Satoshi Nagami, head of global strategies investment group at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Co.
The yen’s correlation with the CBOE Volatility Index climbed to the highest in almost three years. Japan’s currency climbed to the strongest since October on Monday after the VIX index jumped last Friday. The correlation between the two has also been increasing as sentiment has swung more wildly in recent months due to global risk events such as the U.S.- China trade war, said Daisaku Ueno, chief currency strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. in Tokyo
Gold surged to the highest level in more than six years, with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. saying bullion offered a more effective hedge than oil to the crisis. Palladium extended gains to an all-time high
BNP Paribas SA is planning to join JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. by setting up an electronic currency trading and pricing platform in Singapore. The facility will support electronic trading of 50 currencies in spot, forward, swaps, non-deliverable forwards and options, according to a company statement

Asian equity markets kicked the week off mostly in the red following downside seen on Wall Street on Friday as US-Iran developments and dismal US ISM metrics weighed on sentiment. ASX 200 (Unch) was initially led lower by a bulk of its constituents in negative territory including its largest weighed financial sector, albeit losses were somewhat cushioned by gold miners and energy names as prices in the complexes rose amid the escalating geopolitical tensions, thus the index later pared losses. Meanwhile, Nikkei 225 (-1.9%) underperformed given the recent safe-haven demand in the JPY and as Japanese participants had the first chance to react to the Middle Eastern events after their extended New Year break. Elsewhere, Hang Seng (-0.8%) opened modestly in negative territory but extended losses as heavyweight financial names accelerated downside – with traders attributing the closures of local bank branches due to the protests, albeit the index later climbed off lows as energy names benefitted from the surge in crude prices with oil-giants CNOOC and PetroChina notching gains in excess of 3%. Finally, Shanghai Comp (U/C) oscillated between gains and losses as the overall risk aversion in the market was countered by the tentative dates touted for the US-China Phase One signing and with the PBoC’s RRR cut going into effect today, releasing over CNY 800bln of long-term funds.

Top Asian News

Hong Kong Parents Eye Singapore Schools as Wild Protests Endure
Schuldschein Sets Record For the Third Consecutive Year in 2019
India Stocks Extend Drop as Oil Jumps on U.S.-Iran Rhetoric
Philippines Prepares to Evacuate Citizens in Middle East

European bourses are subdued this morning (Stoxx 50 -1.3%), as geopolitical tensions in the Middle-East weighs on price actions at present. An update on the Iranian situation is available in the Commodity section below. Indices are all in negative territory at present in Europe, with US futures painting a similar picture as well; price action this morning has seen the Dax and Stoxx 50 futures test key levels to the downside, with the Dax having convincingly given up the 13000 mark and the Stoxx 50 testing the 3700 handle on multiple occasions. In terms of sectors, it’s a similar story to Friday, with all sectors in negative territory aside from Energy which continues to benefit from the inflated oil prices; which is, in turn, assisting oil names such as BP (+1.8%) and Shell (+1.2%), and is helping to stem some of the FTSE 100’s losses – although, the bourse is firmly in negative territory. Turning to other notable movers, at the other end of the spectrum from the outperforming oil names, flight names such as Ryanair (-4.4%) and Air France (-3.8%) are weighed on by the crude market. Elsewhere, Metro AG (-5.0%) are suffering after a downgraded at JP Morgan, while ASML (-3.5%) are afflicted on reports that US President Trump’s Administration implemented a campaign to prevent the sale of the Co’s technology to China; do note, this reportedly began in 2018 and as such the significance and current situation may well have changed given the US-China trade war.

Top European News

Euro Zone Edges Away From Stagnation as Services Improve
U.K. Services Get Boost From Election as New Orders Increase
Takeaway Nears Final Victory in $8 Billion Just Eat Battle
European Car Stocks Fall as U.S., U.K. Auto Markets Weaken

In FX, the Pound was already benefiting from broad Dollar weakness amidst escalating US-Iran tensions and in wake of last Friday’s dire manufacturing ISM, but Cable derived some independent impetus from the final UK services PMI that beat consensus in contrast to manufacturing and construction, albeit only reclaiming the 50 level on post-GE relief that did not factor in the preliminary survey. Cable is hovering just shy of 1.3175 compared to lows circa 1.3064, and Eur/Gbp threatening 0.8500 bids even though the single currency also gleaned encouragement from largely firmer than forecast or flash Eurozone services PMIs and a more upbeat than anticipated Sentix index. Indeed, Eur/Usd is inching towards 1.1200 vs sub-1.1160 and further from very early 2020 lows under 1.1125.

CHF/CAD/NZD/AUD/JPY – Also firmer against the Greenback, as the DXY slips towards 96.500, with the Franc crossing 0.9700, Loonie eying 1.2950, Kiwi hovering around 0.6675 and Aussie back above 0.6950. However, the Yen is still finding 108.00 too tough to breach as Japanese markets return from their long New Year holiday and contacts suspect a major player is propping the headline pair.
NOK/SEK – More divergence between the Scandi Crowns, as Eur/Nok repels risk-off rebounds ahead of 9.9000 with the aid of oil’s ongoing rally, but Eur/Sek struggles to cap advances beyond 10.5000 and Nok/Sek extends its advance towards 1.0700 after breaking strong chart resistance below 1.0500.
EM – Risk aversion has prevented many regional currencies from taking advantage of general Buck underperformance, but the Rouble is also getting a boost from Brent and Rand has managed to overcome more Eskom power issues to bounce back above 14.3000 on what appears to be mainly technical grounds.

In commodities, WTI and Brent prices remain elevated on Iranian-US tensions, with prices higher by just shy of a USD 1.0/bbl at present; as crude prices have drifted off of their overnight highs as sentiment continues to deteriorate but the ferocity of newsflow has reduced as mourning proceedings are underway in the Middle-East for Soleimani. Weekend reports highlight that Iran has finalised a retreat from the nuclear deal, and will not be complying with any of the restrictions set out within this; additionally, Iraqi parliament has voted to begin developing plans to end the presence of US troops in the country. For reference, an analysis piece which outlines the impact on oil prices from the ongoing situation is available on the Newsquawk headline feed. The key views are JP Morgan believing that the stress on oil supply will be bearable, looking ahead focus is on whether the situation will disrupt supplies with UBS noting, at a minimum, US assets in the area are at risk – as is the broad infrastructure for oil supply in the region. Separately, ING posit that any substantial increase in crude prices could see US President Trump authorise use of the SPR, which currently has around 635mln barrels of supply. For reference, in 2018 the US consumed on average 20.5mln BPD, given this consumption rate this implies self-sufficiency for the US of roughly one month; excluding additional US production which last week stood at 12.9mln barrels and would significantly extended such a period of self-sufficiency. In terms of metals, spot gold is well supported on the aforementioned tensions with the precious metal having printed a high just over USD 1587/oz overnight, which is a 6-year high for the safe haven. Price action picked up once the USD 1557/oz mark was surpassed, with contacts noting a number of stops were likely present around this figure. Additionally, the yellow metal will be gleaning support from a softer dollar this morning, with the DXY having printed multiple fresh session lows throughout the session.

US Event Calendar

9:45am: Markit US Services PMI, est. 52.2, prior 52.2
9:45am: Markit US Composite PMI, prior 52.2

DB’s Jim Reid has returned from vacation, and concludes the overnight wrap:

As I left for my hols before Xmas I received the seasonally uplifting message from our CEO wishing us all a happy holiday and imploring us to fully recharge our batteries ahead of starting back in January. Well on my first day back today my brain has just flashed up “5% battery – do you want to go into low power mode”. We had an awful 2-week holiday. My wife was in bed for 70% of it with severe flu and still was yesterday. I had a constant bad cough and the children took it in turns to be on industrial strength calpol. Bronte has applied for emancipation. I’ve been longing to return to work to recover and now my dreams have been fulfilled.

Already in the two business days this year markets have been up and down like me in the night on holiday administering medicine to the troops. In today’s EMR we’ll review some of the main action at the back end of last week and also include some bullets as to the major stories you may have missed over the Xmas/NY period if you’ve only just returned from holiday. A reminder that Henry put out the December, Q4, 2019 and full decade multi-asset returns last week (link here).

First lets have a quick look at what we can expect from this first full week of the new decade. Obviously it will be dictated by the seismic events surrounding Iran and the US (more later) but outside of this it’s not the busiest week for data but there are some key highlights still with today’s global services and composite PMIs, tomorrow’s US non-manufacturing ISM and Friday’s US payrolls (after last month’s surprise bumper print) being the main ones. On payrolls, the consensus is +167k, with the unemployment rate expected to remain at 3.5%, its joint lowest since 1969. This follows some fairly strong US employment data recently, with nonfarm payrolls growing by +266k in November, the most since January, while the 3-month moving average also rose above +200k for the first time since January. The full day by day week ahead is at the end.

Bringing you up to speed with markets over the holiday season and in 2020 to date now. Equities finished 2019 at record highs, with the S&P 500 up +28.88% over the year, its strongest annual performance since 2013, while in Europe the STOXX 600 was up +23.16%, its best year since 2009. Markets then had a bumper opening day of the decade on Thursday as Trump suggested he’d sign the phase one deal on January 15th and China announced an interest rate cut (see bullets below).

However, markets were soon knocked off their perch on Friday by the news that a US airstrike had killed the Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani. In response, Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamienei said that “severe retaliation” awaited his murderers, raising fears over the potential for further escalation between the two sides. However, US President Trump said later on that “We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.” The remarks that the US wasn’t looking for conflict chimed with those by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who tweeted on Friday that in a conversation with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, “I emphasized that de-escalation is the United States’ principal goal.” However the stakes were raised again on Saturday as Trump identified 52 Iranian sites the US would hit if Iran retaliates. Meanwhile on Sunday the Iraqi government voted to expel US troops from the country after a near 17 year period of presence there since the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003. In response, Trump said that US troops won’t leave without billions in payment for their base there – or if they do leave Trump would apply sanctions. Also the Iranian government said it no longer considers itself bound by the limits on the enrichment of uranium. Most importantly though we’re left waiting to see if we get an aggressive response from Iran with the whole Middle East likely feeling vulnerable. The US State department said on Sunday that there was ‘heightened risk’ of missile attacks near military bases and energy facilities in Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, Esmail Ghaani, the successor to Soleimani, said in an interview with Iranian state television aired today that “Certainly actions will be taken”. He also said that, “We promise to continue down martyr Soleimani’s path as firmly as before with help of God, and in return for his martyrdom we aim to get rid of America from the region.” So, a nervous time awaits markets. Elsewhere, NATO ambassadors are due to meet today in Brussels to discuss the situation in the Middle East.

Away from geo-politics, the SCMP reported over the weekend that the Chinese trade delegation tentatively plans to travel to the US on January 13 for the signing of the phase one deal.

This morning in Asia, crude oil continues to be a key mover with brent (+2.73%) and WTI (+2.38%) oil prices both up a further 2% after Friday’s c. 3% gain (see below). Meanwhile, most Asian markets are trading in the red with the Nikkei (-1.75%) leading the declines as it trades for the first time in 2020 after the holidays. The Hang Seng (-0.52%) and Kospi (-0.80%) including India’s Nifty (-1.10%) are also down while Chinese bourses (Shanghai Comp +0.63%) are up likely on the SCMP news mentioned above. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul index (-2.42%), Qatar’s Ex index (-2.14%), UAE’s DFM General (-3.06%), Kuwiat’s KWSE Premier Mkt (-4.07%) and Israel’s Tel Aviv 35 (-0.55%) were all down yesterday. As for Fx, most Asian currencies are trading weak this morning with the currencies of oil importing countries down. Elsewhere, futures on the S&P 500 are down -0.28% while 10yr treasury yields are down a further -1.6bps to 1.773% this morning. As for overnight data releases, Japan’s final December manufacturing PMI came in at 48.4 vs. 48.8 (flash) while China’s December Caixin services PMI came in at 52.5 (vs. 53.2 expected) and the composite PMI stood at 52.6 (vs. 53.2 in last month).

As the news of the US strike broke on Friday the biggest impact was seen in oil, with Brent crude up +3.55% on the day, bringing it to $68.60 per barrel, its highest closing level since just after the drone strike on Saudi oil facilities in September, while WTI also ended the session up +3.06%. Investors fled to safe havens elsewhere, with gold up +1.51% in its biggest daily rise since August, while the Japanese Yen was the strongest performing G10 currency on Friday, up +0.449% against the US Dollar. Equities sold off in response, with the S&P 500 (-0.71%), the NASDAQ (-0.79%) and the Dow Jones (-0.81%) all losing ground, while sovereign debt rallied, with 10yr Treasury yields down -8.9bps to 1.788% having touched 1.944% on Thursday. 10yr bunds closed the week at -0.284% having hit -0.16% (the highest since May) early on Thursday. MSCI’s emerging markets Europe, Middle East and Africa index declined by -0.78% on Friday.

Matters were not helped on Friday by the ISM manufacturing index from the US coming in at 47.2 in December (vs. 49.0 expected), which was the worst reading since June 2009 and below every estimate on Bloomberg. Looking at the index in more detail provided little encouragement, with the employment reading down to 45.1, the lowest since January 2016, new orders falling to 46.8, the lowest since April 2009, and production down to 43.2, also the lowest since April 2009. In terms of other data out Friday, the preliminary reading for German CPI rose to +1.5% (vs. +1.4% expected) in December, its highest level since June on the EU harmonised measure. However, unemployment rose by +8k in December (vs. +4k expected) but at still very low levels.

Finally from the Fed, we got the minutes on Friday from the FOMC’s December meeting, where rates were kept on hold following 3 consecutive 25bp cuts at the previous meetings. The overall takeaway, in line with the median dot showing policy remaining unchanged in 2020, is that “participants regarded the current stance of monetary policy as likely to remain appropriate for a time as long as incoming information about the economy remained broadly consistent with the economic outlook.” In a somewhat dovish note, the minutes said that “While many saw the risks as tilted somewhat to the downside, some risks were seen to have eased over recent months.” So it’s interesting that the risks are still seen as tilting to the downside. Other somewhat dovish points were that “Participants generally expressed concerns regarding inflation continuing to fall short of 2 percent”, and also that “various participants remarked that there were some indications that further strengthening in overall labor market conditions was possible without creating undesirable pressures on resources.” Thursday this week is a big day for Fed speak with Clarida, Williams, Evans and Bullard speaking.

Before the day-by-day week ahead, for those of you who are returning today and need a recap of other major events that have happened in the last two weeks since the EMR last appeared in your inboxes here’s the run-down of the main stories:

China: The People’s Bank of China lowered the required reserve ratio for banks by 50bps, helping to support domestic liquidity. Our China economics team released a note last week about the issue (link here), but they also write that the space for further cuts in the required reserve ratio “is becoming increasingly limited”, and their base case is that the PBoC won’t cut the RRR further in 2020.
US-China trade: President Trump announced that he would sign the Phase One US-China trade deal at the White House on January 15th. He also tweeted that “At a later date I will be going to Beijing where talks will begin on Phase Two!”
Brexit: UK MPs voted in favour of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill at second reading, which is the bill that ratifies the Brexit deal into UK law. MPs will be resuming debate tomorrow, though thanks to the Conservatives’ 80-seat majority following the election, the bill is expected to pass through the House of Commons easily. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will be meeting with Prime Minister Johnson on Wednesday.
North Korea: Kim Jong Un announced he would be introducing a “new strategic weapon”.
France: Strikes have continued over reforms to public sector pensions, with President Macron refusing to back down on the proposals. Bloomberg has now reported that unions are aiming for a fourth day of nationwide protests on January 9 and a fifth on January 11. The far-left CGT union is pushing to escalate the demonstrations, calling for a complete blockade of the country’s refineries from January 7 to 10. Elsewhere, a survey conducted Thursday and Friday by pollster Ifop and published on Sunday found that 44% support the strikers, down from 51% just before Christmas.
Spain: Following November’s inconclusive general election, Prime Minister Sanchez got the agreement he needed to form a new government after one of the Catalan separatist parties agreed that they would abstain in a confidence vote. Along with other abstentions, this means that Sanchez’s new coalition government between his Socialist Party and Podemos will be able to win a simple majority vote in parliament.
Data: Not much of significance to report over the last two weeks. The US data included the Conference Board’s consumer confidence reading coming in at 126.5 in December (vs. 128.5 expected). The preliminary durable goods orders reading for November was also worse than expected, down -2.0% (vs. +1.5% expected), as were new home sales in November at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of +719k (vs. +732k expected). The final Euro Area manufacturing PMI for December was revised up to 46.3 (vs. flash 45.9), with the German reading revised up to 43.7 (vs. flash 43.4). However, the Italian reading fell to 46.2, its lowest level since April 2013. Meanwhile in the UK, the final reading of Q3 GDP was revised up to +0.4% qoq (vs. 0.3% in the prior estimate).

3A/ASIAN AFFAIRS

I)MONDAY MORNING/ SUNDAY NIGHT:

SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 0.38 POINTS OR 0.01% //Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 225.31 POINTS OR 0.79% /The Nikkei closed DOWN 451.76 POINTS OR 0.79%//Australia’s all ordinaires CLOSED UP .03%

3 a./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA

South Korea

b) REPORT ON JAPAN

3 C CHINA

CHINA/HONG KONG

China replaces a top Hong Kong official with a “strongman” in a strong signal to protesters

(zerohedge)

China Replaces Top Hong Kong Official; Appoints “Strongman” In Signal To Protesters

China changed its top representative to Hong Kong in the first major leadership reshuffle since anti-government protests broke out in the city seven months ago, unexpectedly replacing Wang Zhimin with a “strongman” party stalwart who has no experience in Hong Kong as its new top official based in the city, signaling its intention to restore law and order after almost seven months of social unrest. Luo Huining, the former party leader of Shanxi province, has been named as the new director of the central government’s liaison office in the city, Xinhua reported on Saturday.

*Luo Huining is the new head of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong.*

According to the SCMP, Wang, who was blamed in some quarters for the unrest, will be given a dignified exit: he will be recalled to Beijing and reassigned to another position unrelated to Hong Kong affairs; the Hong Kong publication notes that the reshuffle should not be seen as a punishment for Wang but a change of strategy.

Wang was liaison office director since September 2017. His term of two years and three months made him the shortest-serving head of the office since the return of Hong Kong to the mainland. Before taking the position in Hong Kong, he served as director of the liaison office in Macau for around a year. One reason for Wang’s short tenure: his inability to normalize the situation in Hong Kong which has been in the grip of protests since June last year, sparked by the now-withdrawn extradition bill before morphing into a wider anti-government campaign that has been marked by mass rallies and often-violent clashes.

As for Luo’s appointment, it appears to presage a new phase in Beijing’s crackdown of ongoing Hong Kong protests.

Having reached the retirement age of 65 in October, he was just named on December 28 as the deputy director of the financial and economic affairs committee of the national people’s congress – a position usually reserved for retired officials. Luo served for more than a decade in China’s far-flung western province Qinghai – one of the poorest regions populated by ethnic minorities – and became deputy chairman of the financial and economic committee of the National People’s Congress last month. According to Bloomberg, Chinese media credited him with bringing Shanxi back to its feet, enforcing the central government’s campaign to purge corruption and weed out disloyal officials.

In Shanxi, Luo excelled himself and impressed the top leadership by swiftly weeding out corruption and overhauling the government. He is among a selected few Chinese officials who could boast the experience of having managed two provinces, each with the population of a midsized European country.

It is this “strongman” background that made Luo China’s perfect candidate to take over Hong Kong, even though he has never held any position directly related to Hong Kong before. Apart from one business trip to Hong Kong in 2018, he has no known connections here.

“Luo seems to have had the experience to end chaos and restore stability in Shanxi,” said Victoria Hui, associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. “Since the outbreak of anti-extradition protests, Beijing has been trying to rein in Hong Kong,” and “it’s not clear why a strongman like him was not picked earlier.”

Luo will be the first Hong Kong liaison director with such rich local experience. Most of his predecessors were specialist bureaucrats who worked in the central government before taking up the Hong Kong assignment.

“One key consideration is that Luo does not have connections with Hong Kong’s business and other community, therefore his work will not be complicated by any relationship,” the source said.

Li Xiaobing, an expert on Beijing’s policies on Hong Kong at Nankai University in Tianjin, said the choice highlighted Beijing’s will to break the deadlock in Hong Kong.

“The problem of choosing someone from the Hong Kong and Macau system is they will be constrained by the existing frameworks and relationships,” he said. “His past experiences showed that he is capable of providing out-of-box solutions.”

Luo, who held a PhD in Economics, is known for his efforts in curbing corruption and boosting economies in less-developed regions in Anhui, Qinghai and Shanxi. A Shanxi official who had worked under Luo told the Post: “He seldom raises his voice. But he is very determined and demanding when he wants to get things done. No jokes.”

END

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

GREECE,ISRAEL,CYPRUS AND TURKEY

(courtesy zerohedge)

Greece, Israel & Cyprus Sign Landmark EastMed Gas Pipeline Deal Despite Turkey’s Wrath

Long in the works, but coming at a geopolitically sensitive moment for the region given expanding Turkish maritime claims, the East Med gas pipeline deal was signed this week between the countries of Greece, Cyprus and Israel.

The three signed the deal on Thursday to build a 1,900 km (1,180 mile) subsea pipeline to transport supplies from the rapidly advancing gas fields of the eastern Mediterranean to Europe.

A massive undertaking tosupply energy-hungry Europe, the East Med pipeline project was first proposed by Greek energy minister Yannis Maniatis in 2014, and has since been hailed as “the longest and deepest gas pipeline in the world”. At an initial estimated cost of $6-7 billion, it will be financed by “private companies and institutional lenders,” according to prior Israeli Energy Ministry statements.

*The energy ministers of Greece, Israel and Cyprus – Kostis Hatzidakis, Yuval Steinitz and Yiorgos Lakkotrypis – attending the signing ceremony on Thursday. Image source: Reuters.*

The underground, sub-sea pipeline is proposed to connect Israel, via Cyprus, to Greece and Italy, in a massive construction project estimated to take five or six years to complete, and which once online is expected initially pump 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

The energy ministers of Greece, Israel and Cyprus – Kostis Hatzidakis, Yuval Steinitz and Yiorgos Lakkotrypis – attended a signing ceremony in Athens which finalized the project’s moving forward, according to Reuters.

Predictably, Turkey is actively opposing the project, given its own expanding oil and gas exploration claims which have now completely surrounded Cyprus (using the excuse of “rights” based on the contested so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) and have even cut into Greece’s Exclusive Economic Zone as well. Per Reuters:

Although Turkey opposes the project, the countries aim to reach a final investment decision by 2022 and have the pipeline completed by 2025 to help Europe diversify its energy resources.

Last month a Turkish official said there was no need to build the EastMed pipeline because the trans-Anatolian pipeline already existed.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry complained this week that the East Med pipeline “ignored the rights of Turkey and Turkish Cypriots” and thus would be doomed to failure.

“The most economical and secure route to utilize the natural resources in the eastern Mediterranean and deliver them to consumption markets in Europe, including our country, is Turkey,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said Thursday, just as the deal was being signed in Athens.

Turkey has lately angered countries like Egypt, Greece and Cyprus over its disputed maritime boundary agreement with Libya, which many see as a big and illegal maritime grab for drilling rights in the southern Mediterranean.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades shot back, however, saying “It (the agreement) … supports a common aim for peace, security and stability in the particularly vulnerable region of the Eastern Mediterranean,” underscoring that it’s actually good for the region’s security in a historically restive area where neighboring countries rarely get along.

The transformation of the eastern Mediterranean into an “energy hotspot” could have huge global geopolitical implications, especially given that currently the EU relies on Russia for a third of its gas.

It’s especially southeast Europe that’s been entirely reliant on Russian gas, given its lack of infrastructure. Thus Europe has greeted the project as part of a broader push for “energy diversity” that such other projects as the Nord Stream 2 Russia-Germany pipeline is meant to satisfy as well.

end

GERMANY/IRAN/SOLEIMANI/USA

Surprisingly Germany has come out and supported the assassination of Soleimani

(zerohedge//Sara Carter)

German Govt Says America’s Actions Were Justified In Killing Of Soleimani

Via SaraACarter.com,

The German government said Friday that the United States had reason to strike and kill a the top commander of the Iranian Quds Force late Thursday in Baghdad after the Iranian regime provided support to its militias that targeted U.S. citizens and facilities in Iraq.

The surprise support from Germany on the targeted killing of Iranian Quds Force Gen. Qassem Soleimani was validated by German government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer in a statement that was posted on Twitter by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell.

Grenell has long stressed the need for European partners to get on the same page with the United States regarding Iran and has worked extensively behind the scenes to push German officials to support U.S. policy on the issue.

“The American action was a reaction to a series of military provocations for which Iran is responsible,” said Demmer.

Moreover, German officials have been well aware of the extensive reach of the Iran Quds Force and its umbrella agency the Iranian Revolutionary Guard operations, which works directly under the authority of the Iranian regime.

For example, in January, 2019 Germany revoked the license of Iranian airliner Mahan Air, after evidence revealed it provided support, including financial, to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

Grenell was instrumental in working with the German government to ensure that the Iranian airliner’s license was revoked.

At the time, a German foreign ministry spokesman said his nation, “revoked the license of an Iranian airline because it has been transporting military equipment and personnel to Syria and other Middle East war zones.”

END

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

Saturday//IRAN

The red flag was hoisted in Baghdad signifying revenge for the death of Soleimani

(zerohedge)

Red Flag Of Jihad Raised As 1000s Mourn Death Of Suleimani In Baghdad

In what many middle east experts are calling an “ominous” signal to the west following the assassination of the commander of IRGC’s Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani, a red flag has been hoisted over the holy mosque of Jamkaran in Qom, Iran’s holiest city.

The flag is almost always blue, but according to old Iranian traditions in ancient wars red flags were raised when the enemy commits murder and will remain red until revenge is complete.

Al Manar TV reports that the red flag was raised as speakers in the mosque called: “O Allah, hasten your custodian reappearance,” referring to the reappearance of Imam Al-Mahdi.

The flying of the so-called “flag of jidah” is particularly noteworthy given Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei comments that Soleimani was now a “worldwide resistance icon,” and Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah described Soleimani as the “master of Resistance Axis martyrs,” stressing that avenging him and the other martyrs is a duty of all resistance mujahidin around the world.

Meanwhile, AP reports that thousands of mourners chanting “America is the Great Satan” marched in a funeral procession Saturday through Baghdad, a day before the top Iranian commander will be laid to rest in Iran.

The mourners, mostly men in black military fatigues, carried Iraqi flags and the flags of Iran-backed militias that are fiercely loyal to Soleimani. They were also mourning Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a senior Iraqi militia commander who was killed in the same strike.

The mourners, many of them in tears, chanted:

“No, No, America,” and “Death to America, death to Israel.”

Mohammed Fadl, a mourner dressed in black, said the funeral is an expression of loyalty to the slain leaders.

“It is a painful strike, but it will not shake us,” he said.

Hadi al-Amiri, who heads a large parliamentary bloc and is expected to replace al-Muhandis as deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of mostly Iran-backed militias, was among those paying their final respects.

“Rest assured,” he said before al-Muhandis’ coffin in a video circulated on social media.

“The price of your pure blood will be the exit of U.S. forces from Iraq forever.”

The gates to Baghdad’s Green Zone, which houses government offices and foreign embassies, including the U.S. Embassy, were closed. The U.S. has ordered all citizens to leave Iraq and closed its embassy in Baghdad. Britain and France also warned their citizens to avoid or strictly limit travel in Iraq.

Predicting what happens next is near impossible but this thread from Politico’s Rym Momtaz is as good as we have seen…

1/ Why did Iran militarily escalate in the Gulf lately? Shooting down a US drone, seizing tankers, bombing Saudi oil infrastructure? It wanted to internationalise the conflict. The Strait of Hormuz is where most of the world’s shipping transits. The US chose not to go there.

2/US also held its own line: a US person killed meant retaliation. It targeted the militia that did the attack. It was reciprocal, but also punitive to send a message. Iran-backed militia escalated against US embassy. US managed the attack, didn’t blow everything up.

3/ US responded to embassy attack, and many lower level attacks by Iranian-backed militias in run-up, by killing, in Iraq, the head of all Iranian-backed anything #Soleimani. US may have just restored some escalation dominance. Whether it’s part of cogent strategy is different Question

4/ Real US reckless action or declaration of war would have been attacking Iranian soil. This admin determined that the cost of tolerating Soleimani alive had now exceeded the benefits of not killing him. We must wait and see whether that was the right call, no one knows today.

5/ The most important part of Soleimani’s killing, isn’t his killing (as big as that is), it is the deep US intelligence penetration around Iran’s most important military leader that it revealed. Signals and human intel. This is what is going to spook the Iranian camp the longest.

6/ Why did US claim the #Soleimani kill, instead of following the Israeli ambiguity playbook? US and Israel have different roles and capacities. The US is the mightiest military power around, owning attacks could be part of deterrence, showing force, restoring escalation dominance.

7/ What happens next: let’s be clear, no one knows for sure, even those who will decide some of the next steps.
The Iranian regime is not suicidal, it is strategic, calculating (even if it miscalculates sometimes), so likelihood of an all-out direct US-Iran war is low.

8/ Khamenei promised response, it must be strong enough to save face internally, for a regime already strained + facing popular dissent, and also be calibrated to avoid provoking a US response inside Iran. Iran response will show whether deterrence restored.

9/ The myth of invincibility that Iran built around Soleimani was a huge recruitment tool, it may also now turn out to be a double-edged sword.How does its most valiant warrior, its most effective US challenger, get picked off so precisely by the US?

10/ Concern for US military, diplo. personnel, and citizens, in the region is legit. But allowing it to dictate policy plays into Iran’s hands which weaponizes Western sensitivity to human loss, and war weariness, to further destabilise the region unchecked.

11/ There are many so-called anti-imperialists who always criticise Western intervention but justify Iranian/Russian intervention. Iran is not a legit actor in Iraq/Syria/Leb/Yemen. Its crimes there are no less reprehensible than those by the US or colonialists.

12/ Iran is set to announce its next violations of the JCPOA in next few days. That’s another thing to look out for, other than a military retaliation, in wake of today’s #Soleimani kill. Will it escalate to the point of affecting break-out time or not?

END

Saturday

IRAN

The 4 days of mourning begins in Bagdad and will continue until he is buried in Kerman Iran

(zeorhedge)

Mourners Chant “Death To America!” As Multi-Day Funeral Procession For Soleimani Begins

Multiple days of mourning for Shia in Iraq and Iran over the death of Iran’s most celebrated elite general, Qasem Soleimani, began on Saturday as his funeral procession began to make its way through the streets of Baghdad. Also being mourned is Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was head of Iran’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah.

The procession passed near the Green Zone, where the US Embassy and other diplomatic compounds are located, while thousands chanted “Death to America” and “America is the Great Satan!”

The procession is now making its way south to the Shia Muslim holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, after which Soleimani’s body will be returned to Iran for a funeral and burial in his home town of Kerman in the country’s southeast.

The Revolutionary Guard announced earlier that his funeral is scheduled for Tuesday, amid three days of national mourning ceremonies across the Islamic Republic mandated by the Ayatollah.

Events in Baghdad quickly turned to scenes of protesting American troop presence in the country, which included mourners burning American and Israeli flags. One international report summarized the chaotic scenes of the procession as follows:

Mourners in the Iraqi capital today carried posters of Soleimani and flags of Muhandis’s Iran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah militia, which has committed brazen attacks against US bases in recent months, climaxing with a siege of the US embassy on Tuesday.

The procession began at the Imam Kadhim shrine in Baghdad, one of the most revered in Shia Islam before crowds headed south to a point near the Green Zone, the high-security district home to government offices and foreign embassies, including America’s.

Meanwhile thousands of angry demonstrators stood outside the UN offices in Iran’s capital, demanding retribution for the killing of Soleimani.

Next, Soleimani’s body is expected to arrive in Tehran at some point on Saturday nigh, after which a ceremony will be held at Imam Reza’s shrine.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has vowed that Americans will “feel the impact” of their “criminal act… for years ahead”.

Indeed it appears Washington is taking the prospect for “severe” retaliation seriously given additional troops, possibly number in the thousands, have been deployed to Kuwait and other regional bases.

It is likely that the multiple days of mourning for Soleimani’s funeral will be the calm before the storm, as we could possibly see “revenge attacks” begin as early as next week.

end

IRAN

Meet Ismael Gaani our next leader of the Iran Quds force as next in line for a drone attack from Trump

(zerohedge)

Meet Qassem Soleimani’s Replacement: Esmail Ghaani Is Iran’s New Top Military Leader

While Iran’s iconic military leader, Qassem Soleimani, has yet to be buried, a new Iranian general has stepped out of the shadows to lead the country’s elite Quds Force, becoming responsible for Tehran’s numerous proxies across the Mideast as the Islamic Republic threatens the US with “harsh revenge” for killing Soleimani.

Meet Esmail Ghaani.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday appointed Qassem Soleimani’s deputy, Maj. Gen. Esmail Ghaani as the new commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force.(Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

In announcing Ghaani as Soleimani’s replacement, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the new leader “one of the most prominent commanders” in service to Iran. The Quds Force “will be unchanged from the time of his predecessor,” Khamenei said, according to IRNA.

As the AP reports, like his predecessor, the young Ghaani faced the carnage of Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s and later joined the then-newly founded Quds, or Jerusalem, Force. The elite Quds Force is part of the 125,000-strong Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary organization that answers only to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Guard oversees Iran’s ballistic missile program, has its naval forces shadow the US Navy in the Persian Gulf and includes an all-volunteer Basij force.

While much still remains unknown about Ghaani, 62, Western sanctions suggest he’s long been in a position of power in the organization. And likely one of his first duties will be to oversee whatever revenge Iran intends to seek for the U.S. airstrike early Friday that killed his longtime friend Soleimani.

“We are children of war,” Ghaani once said of his relationship with Soleimani, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. “We are comrades on the battlefield and we have become friends in battle.”

The Guard has seen its influence grow ever-stronger both militarily and politically in recent decades. Iran’s conventional military was decimated by the execution of its old officer class during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and later by sanctions. A key driver of that influence comes from the elite Quds Force, which works across the region with allied groups to offer an asymmetrical threat to counter the advanced weaponry wielded by the U.S. and its regional allies. Those partners include Iraqi militiamen, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Soleimani had long has been the face of the Quds Force; his fame surged after American officials began blaming him for deadly roadside bombs targeting U.S. troops in Iraq. Images of him, long a feature of hard-line Instagram accounts and mobile phone lockscreens, now plaster billboards calling for Iran to avenge his death.

And while Soleimani’s exploits in Iraq and Syria launched a thousand analyses, Ghaani has remained much more in the shadows of the organization. He has only occasionally come up in the Western or even Iranian media. But, as the AP notes, his personal story broadly mirrors that of Soleimani.

* * *

Born on Aug. 8, 1957 in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, Ghaani grew up during the last decade of monarchy. He joined the Guard a year after the 1979 revolution. Like Soleimani, he first deployed to put down the Kurdish uprising in Iran that followed the shah’s downfall. Iraq then invaded Iran, launching an eight-year war that would see 1 million people killed. Many of the dead were lightly armed members of the Guard, some of whom were young boys killed in human-wave assaults on Iraqi positions.

Volunteers “were seeing that all of them are being killed, but when we ordered them to go, would not hesitate,” Ghaani later recounted. “The commander is looking to his soldiers as his children, and in the soldier’s point of view, it seems that he received an order from God and he must to do that.”

He survived the war to join the Quds Force shortly after its creation. He worked with Soleimani, as well as led counterintelligence efforts at the Guard. Western analysts say that while Soleimani focused on nations to Iran’s west, Ghaani’s remit was those to the east like Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, Iranian state media has not elaborated on his time in the Guard.

In 2012, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Ghaani, describing him as having authority over “financial disbursements” to proxies affiliated with the Quds Force. The sanctions particularly tied Ghaani to an intercepted shipment of weapons seized at a port in 2010 in Nigeria’s most-populous city, Lagos. Authorities broke into 13 shipping containers labeled as carrying “packages of glass wool and pallets of stone.” They instead found 107 mm Katyusha rockets, rifle rounds and other weapons. The Katyusha remains a favored weapon of Iranian proxy forces, including Iraqi militias and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

An Iranian and his Nigerian partner later received five-year prison sentences over the shipment, which appeared bound for Gambia, then under the rule of dictator Yahya Jammeh. Israeli officials had claimed the rockets would be shipped to militants in the Gaza Strip, while Nigerian authorities alleged that local politicians could use the arms in upcoming elections.

Also in 2012, Ghaani drew criticism from the U.S. State Department after reportedly saying that “if the Islamic Republic was not present in Syria, the massacre of people would have happened on a much larger scale.” That comment came just after gunmen backing Syrian President Bashar Assad killed over 100 people in Houla in the country’s Homs province.

“Over the weekend we had the deputy head of the Quds Force saying publicly that they were proud of the role that they had played in training and assisting the Syrian forces — and look what this has wrought,” then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at the time.

In January 2015, Ghaani indirectly said that Iran sends missiles and weapons to Palestinians to fight Israel.

“The U.S. and Israel are too small to consider themselves in line with Iran’s military power,” Ghaani said at the time. “This power has now appeared alongside the oppressed people of Palestine and Gaza in the form of missiles and weapons.”

Now, Ghaani is firmly in control of the Quds Force. Yet while Iran’s leaders say they have a plan to avenge Soleimani’s death, no plan has been announced yet as the country prepares for funerals for the general starting Sunday.

Whatever that plan for revenge is, Ghaani will be leading it.

“That Qaani survived at such high ranks in the (Guard), and remained Soleimani’s deputy for so long, says a lot about the trust both Khamenei and Soleimani had in him,” said Afshon Ostovar, the author of a book on the Guard. “I suspect he’ll have little difficulty filling Soleimani’s shoes when it comes to operations and strategy.”

END

IRAN/USA TRUMP

Iranian state TV announces an 80 million dollar bounty for a head of president Trump. Trump will not be happy with these threats.

(zerohedge)

Iranian State TV Announces $80 Million Bounty For President Trump’s Head

Several sources have confirmed that Iranian state television has announced a crowdsourcing effort among citizens to raise nearly $80 million for a bounty on President Trump’s head after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds military force and one of the most influential people in the country.

NBC News’ Tehran Bureau Chief Ali Arouzi tweeted Sunday that “At Solemani’s funeral procession in Mashad one of the organizers called on all Iranian to donate $1 each in order to gather an $80million bounty on President Trumps head.”

Dr. Zaid Abdel Wahab, a television host on Iraqi Al Fallujah TV, also tweeted that “Iranian state television: $ 80 million equivalent to President Donald Trump’s head.”

“Iran has 80 million inhabitants. Based on the Iranian population, we want to raise $ 80 million, which is a reward for those who get close to the head of President Trump,” state television said Sunday.

“Each Iranian should therefore donate a dollar to pay the amount to the alleged murderer.”

It seems Kathy Griffin was only 3 years too early…

Iran/USA

Gaani threatens to remove American from the middle East

(zerohedge)

Iran’s New Top Military Commander Vows To “Remove America From The Region” As Vengeance For Soleimani

Overnight we reported that the power vacuum at the top of Iran’s elite Quds Force, the military organization responsible for Tehran’s numerous proxies across the Mideast as well as Iran’s overall military strategy, was filled quickly in the aftermath of Qassem Soleimani’s killing, with the Jan 3 appointment of Esmail Ghaani, who none other than Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said was “one of the most prominent commanders” in service to Iran, and that the Quds force “will be unchanged from the time of his predecessor.”

Predictably, Ghaani wasted no time to make it clear that continuity would be preserved, saying that Tehran will avenge the assassination of Soleimani by driving the US out of the region, shortly after another Revolutionary Guard commander warned that dozens of American targets are “within our reach.”

“We promise to continue martyr Soleimani’s path with the same force… and the only compensation for us would be to remove America from the region,” Esmail Qaani said on Monday in an interview to local media ahead of the general’s funeral in Tehran.

Ghaani’s comments come just days after General Gholamali Abuhamzeh, who heads the IRGC in Iran’s southern Kerman province, said 35 US targets in the region as well as Tel Aviv were identified “long ago” and are “within our reach.”

Washington responded with a similarly-worded message, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatening “lawful strikes” targeting “actual decision makers” if any American asset is in danger.

Echoing Ghaani’s warning, this morning Al Jazeera reported that an Iranian IRGC Air Force Commander said President Trump “must prepare coffins for his soldiers before” he makes threats to Iran, warning that the real revenge for Soleimani’s assassination is the removal of U.S. forces from the Middle East. It wasn’t clear just how Iran hopes to achieve that goal .

As the war of words has escalated, the Pentagon ordered 3,500 more troops from Fort Bragg’s 82nd Airborne Division to deploy to the Middle East. Meanwhile, as we reported overnight, Iraq’s parliament passed a resolution calling for the removal of foreign troops from the country.

end

IRAN/.USA

Rouhani, the President of Iran claims that Trump should never threaten Iran as he reminds Trump of the ill fated Iranian commercial plane accidentally downed by the uSA with 290 on board.

(zerohedge_

Rouhani Says “Never Threaten Iran” In Evoking Downed Airliner With 290 People Onboard

Did the President of Iran just threaten to down a western airliner? Or is he merely reflecting President Trump’s own bellicose rhetoric right back at the US.

Rouhani

Using his verified blue checkmark twitter account, the President of Iran tweeted that the US and any westerners who distrust Iran should remember that Iran has been victimized, just as it has victimized and attacked others.

290 is a reference to the death toll from downed Iran Air Flight 655: in 1988, the U.S. warship Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian passenger plane over the Gulf, killing all 290 aboard.

The attack was the deadliest aviation disaster involving an Airbus A300, as well as the deadliest to occur in Iran.

But there’s also a hint of irony in Rouhani’s warning: Those who are familiar with the Iranian aviation industry should recall that several Iranian passenger planes have crashed over the past decade. These accidents have largely been blamed on mechanical errors, as international sanctions have caused many of the country’s passenger planes to fall into disrepair.

So it’s a bit of a macabre coincidence that Rouhani is reminding the world of this particular attack at a time when his country can’t seem to keep its planes in the air.

As for “the number 52”, that reference is far clearer: Trump recently threatened to attack 52 Iranian cultural sites in response to any acts of Iranian retaliation, a reference to the number of hostages taken during the Iran hostage crisis.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

· Jan 4, 2020

Replying to @realDonaldTrump

….hundreds of Iranian protesters. He was already attacking our Embassy, and preparing for additional hits in other locations. Iran has been nothing but problems for many years. Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have…..

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

….targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!

Of course, to victims of Iranian terror will undoubtedly be quick to remind the world that Iran has been far more active in inciting terrorism abroad. The families of the 85 people killed in the AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires can probably remind Rouhani how hollow his claims that Iran doesn’t attack civilians can sound…

Iraq

Iraq votes to remove USA troops for Iraq. Iranian MP’s chant “death to America”.. The USA will not leave Iraq

Iraq Votes To Expel US Troops As Iranian MPs Chant “Death To America”

If President Trump wanted to reduce America’s troop presence in the Middle East, he may have just got his wish, albeit not at his orders.

During an emergency parliamentary session this morning, the Iraqi government just voted to have foreign troops removed from the country.

Interim Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul Mahdi, stressed during the session, that while the US government notified the Iraqi military of the planned strike on Soleimani, his government denied Washington permission to continue with the operation.

As RT reports, Mahdi said after the incident that it was clear it was in the interest of both the US and Iraq to end the presence of foreign forces on Iraqi soil.

“Despite the internal and external difficulties that we might face, it remains best for Iraq on principle and practically.”

Still there are plenty more US bases around…

Meanwhile, as the Iraqi government voted, the Iranian parliament took to the Parliament podium to chant “death to America.”

After a speech by parliamentary Speaker Ali Larjani, who exclaimed “Mr. Trump, this is the voice of the Iranian nation,” MPs surged united to the podium…

The Iranian MPs echoed a popular sentiment heard on the streets as 1000s mourned the death of Qasem Soleimani.

end

IRAQ/USA

Trump states that they will not leave Iraq until they repay billions for all of their air bases built. He threatens Baghdad with very big sanctions

(zerohedge)

Trump Says “US Will Not Leave” Iraq Unless Billions For Air Base Are Repaid, Threatens Baghdad With “Very Big” Sanctions

Just hours after Iraq voted to expel US troops stationed in Iraq, Trump made it clear that he has no interest in vacating the nation that has been a stalwart US military outpost in the middle east for nearly two decades ever since it was invaded by, well, the US in search of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, and speaking to reporters on Air Force One said “we’re not leaving” unless Iraq “pays us back” for a US air base built in Iraq.

“We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it.” Trump told the AF1 reporter pool.

That, however, wasn’t enough, and Trump also made it clear that that in addition to billions in reimbursements, unless the US left on a “very friendly basis”, the US would hit Iraq with “very big” sanctions like “they’ve never seen before ever.”

“If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis. We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”

And just to make it abundantly clear, Trump also added that “if there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq.”

Trump also addressed his Saturday threat to attack various Iranian cultural sites in retaliation to any escalation out of Tehran, threatening “major retaliation” on Iran if they “do anything” and saying that “they’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. they’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way.”

Steven Portnoy

✔@stevenportnoy

· 12h

Replying to @stevenportnoy

“We’re not leaving” Iraq, Trump says, unless Iraq repays the US for an air base.

“It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it,” Trump said on AF1.

Steven Portnoy

✔@stevenportnoy

“We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever,” Trump says if Iraq’s government demands US leave. “It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”

Amusingly, if Trump is indeed serious that Iraq will have to reimburse the US for its countless military bases, camps and other installations, the US will be able to repay its $23 trillion in debt (and have money leftover), when all is said and done: here is a partial list of the US camps in iraq:

Camp Abu Naji / FOB Garry Owen (Al Amarah)
Camp Adder also known as Tallil Air Base and Ali Air Base located in Nasiriyah
Camp Al Adala / Camp Justice / Camp Bonzai (Kadhamiyah / Baghdad)
Camp Al Amal / Camp Hope (Baghdad)
Camp Al Asad (Al Asad Air Base)
Camp Al-Hurya Al-Awal / Camp Freedom I / Camp Warhorse (Baqubah Air Field)
Camp Al-Hurya Al-Thani (Green Zone)
Camp Al-Isdehar (Al Salam)
Camp Al-Istiglal (Baghdad Air Base)
Camp Al-Khalis (Rock City F.O.B.)
Camp Al-Nasr (Abu Ghurayb)
Camp Al Qa’im (Al Qa’im train station, Al Anbar)
Camp Al-Saqr (Rasheed Air Base)
Camp Al-Sharaf / Camp Honor (Green Zone)
Camp Al-Tadamum (Adhamiyah / Baghdad)
Camp Al-Tahreer (Abu Ghurayb)
Camp Al-Tawheed Al-Awal (Al Sijood)
Camp Al-Tawheef Al-Thani (Al Sijood)
Camp Al Watani (Green Zone)
Camp Anaconda (Balad Air Base)
Camp Anah / COP Anah
Camp Andaluz (Kufa)
Camp Anderson (Diwaniyah)
Camp Apache / Camp Gunner Main
Camp Arkansas (Al Salam)
Camp Arrow (Ad Dawr)
Camp Ashraf, also known as Camp New Iraq, located near Khalis
Camp Avalanche (Abu Ghurayb)
Camp Babylon
Camp Baharia (Fallujah)
Camp Balad (Bala Air Base)
Camp Basilone (Qalat Sikar Air Base)
Camp Basrah
Camp Bastard / Camp Ellis (near Haqlaniyah / Barwanah ?)
Camp Black Jack
Camp Blackjack (Abu Ghurayb)
Camp Blue Diamond (Ar Ramadi)
Camp Bonzai (Kadhamiyah / Baghdad)
Camp Boom (Baqubah)
Camp Brassfield Mora (Samarra)
Camp Bristol (BIAP)
Camp Bucca, located near Umm Qasr
Camp Buffalo (Tikrit)
Camp Bulldog (Baghdad)
Camp Bushmaster (Najaf)
Camp Bushwaker
Camp Buzz
Camp Caldwell (Kirkush)

… This is just through the letter C – clearly there are many, many more. Click here for the full list.

In any event, earlier, Axios reported that The Trump administration tried to stop an Iraqi vote to expel the U.S. military from the country and citing unnamed sources, said that the Trump administration tried to persuade top Iraqi officials to kill the parliamentary effort. As a reminder, earlier on Sunday, Iraq’s parliament voted to approve of the expulsion of the U.S. military following last week’s attack that killed Soleimani.

A US official told Axios that expelling the U.S. military from Iraq “would be inconvenient for us, but it would be catastrophic for Iraq”, adding that “it’s our concern that Iraq would take a short-term decision that would have catastrophic long-term implications for the country and its security.”

“But it’s also what would happen to them financially if they allowed Iran to take advantage of their economy to such an extent that they would fall under the sanctions that are on Iran,” the official added. “We don’t want to see that. We’re trying very hard to work to have that not happen.”

A senior Iraqi official told Axios that many Kurdish and Sunni members of parliament, who tend to be more supportive of the U.S. presence in Iraq, did not attend the vote to expel the U.S. presence.

“This is a temporary victory for the parties which are pro-Iranian,” the official told Axios. “But it’s also a clear message from the Sunnis and from the Kurds [who didn’t vote] and from some Iraqi Shia for the Americans to tell them we want you to stay in Iraq.

END

IRAQ

“we are not leaving”!! an amphibious assault ship, Bataan is now headed toward Iraq

(zerohedge)

Amphibious Assault Ship Bataan With 2,000 Marines On Board Is Headed Toward Iraq

The Iraqi parliament voted on Sunday to expel US troops out of the country but so far, it appears that nobody in the US got the memo. In fact quite the contrary.

According to the US Naval Institute, amid rising tensions with Iran, the US Navy is scrapping an exercise with Morocco as it redirects the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD-5) and embarked 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit with roughly 2,000 marines on board to the Middle East, a defense official confirmed to USNI News.

ELINT News@ELINTNews

#UPDATE: 2,000 US Marines en route to the Middle East onboard USS Bataan Wasp-class amphibious assault ship, USS New York San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock & USS Oak Hill Harper’s Ferry-class dock landing ship

4,000 US troops from 82nd Airborne also being/been deployed https://twitter.com/lucasfoxnews/status/1214217158726705157 …

Lucas Tomlinson

✔@LucasFoxNews

More than 2,000 Marines headed to Middle East aboard warships Bataan, New York and Oak Hill amid Iran tensions: officials

Members of the 26th MEU and Bataan crew were slated to train with members of the Moroccan military as part of the joint Exercise African Sea Lion. Indeed, the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group had just arrived off the coast of Morocco this week before its new tasking, according to the USNI Fleet tracker. The ARG deployed quietly from the East Coast in December. Now, Bataan and the 26th MEU are moving closer to the Middle East, as shown in the most recent map of naval deployments.

The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit—a force of more than 2,000 Marines, including infantryman, artillery and aircraft—is expected to pass through the Suez Canal within days, U.S. officials said. On board the USS Bataan, an amphibious assault ship, the force could be put ashore for combat operations and also specializes in protecting and evacuating embassies.

“USS Bataan and embarked Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) are underway conducting routine operations, demonstrating the inherent flexibility of our naval forces,” Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Comer, a U.S. 6th Fleet spokesman told USNI News. “For operational security reasons, we do not discuss future operations. ARGMEUs operate continuously across the globe to provide commanders with a forward-deployed, flexible and responsive sea-based Marine Air-Ground Task Force.”

SHILOH/GEN 49:10@Ps3Shiloh

#UPDATE #EPHRAIM #MANESSAH #JOSEPH #MALKI #TZEDEK #YAHUSHA #HolySpirit #ISAAC

COVFEFE 2,000 “SONS OF ADAM” US Marines en route to Mid-East on-board USS Bataan, USS New York & USS Oak Hill.
4,000 US troops from 82nd Airborne also deployed.

(File Photos) https://twitter.com/Ps3Shiloh/status/1214232765006172160 …

SHILOH/GEN 49:10@Ps3Shiloh

“It is Written” May you NOW SUCUMB to the Mighty HAND Of Ephraim & MANESSAH from the WEST. Their Archers & Warfighters- THESE, the “flame & the tip of the arrow: JOSEPHS’ SONS/SEED THROUGH ISAAC, THE ANGLO SAXON PROMISE !!!

The Marines will join soldiers from the Fort Bragg, N.C.-based 82nd Airborne who have been sent to Iraq as a security measure following the U.S. operation that killed a top Iranian military leader on Thursday. In total when the 5,000 sailors and marines from the Bataan arrive in Iraq, the US will have added roughly 10,000 troops in Iraq in the last week.

Nancy Youssef, نانسي يوسف

✔@nancyayoussef

When the USS Bataan, carrying 5K sailors and Marines, arrives, the U.S. will have added roughly 10K troops to Iraq in the last week. https://www.wsj.com/articles/iraqi-parliament-decision-to-expel-u-s-forces-is-hampering-american-led-operations-against-islamic-state-11578270282 … via @WSJ

Iraqi Parliament Decision to Expel U.S. Forces Is Hampering American-led Operations Against Islamic…

If carried out, an expulsion would deprive the U.S. of bases to conduct operations against Islamic State in Iraq and make it harder to provide logistical support to hundreds of U.S. troops still in…

wsj.com

end

end

IRAQ/USA

Is Trump now bluffing: we now get news that the uSA army is telling Iraq it is preparing to move out due to respect for sovereignty.

(zerohedge)

US Army Tells Iraq It Is Preparing To “Move Out” Out Of “Respect For Sovereignty”

As it turns out, President Trump’s decision to kill Iranian General and revolutionary icon Qasem Suleimani – an attack that millions of Trump’s liberal critics hysterically warned would risk starting WWIII – might have given the US exactly the cover it needs to pull out of Iraq, once and for all.

In a letter obtained by AFP, the US Army has told Iraq that it is preparing to “move out” citing “respect for Iraqi sovereignty.”

AFP also confirmed that “a US defence official and an Iraqi defence official confirmed the letter was real and had been delivered.”

Full letter below:

sLTG Abdul Amir

Deputy Director, Combined Joint Operations Baghdad Iraq – Ministry of Defense

Your Excellency,

Sir, in due deference to the sovereignty of the Republic of Iraq, and as requested by the Iraqi Parliament and the Prime Minister, CJTF-OIR will be repositioning forces over the course of the coming days and weeks to prepare for onward movement.

In order to conduct this task, Coalition Forces are required to take certain measures to ensure that the movement out of Iraq is conducted in a safe and efficient manner.

During this time, there will be an increase in helicopter travel in and around the International Zone (IZ) of Baghdad. This increased traffic will include CH47, VH-00, and AH-64 security escort helicopters.

Coalition Forces will take appropriate measures to minimize and mitigate the disturbance to the public. In addition, we will conduct these operations during hours of darkness to help alleviate any perception that we may be bringing more Coalition Forces into the IZ.

As we begin implementing this next phase of operations, I wish to reiterate the value of our friendship and partnership. We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure.

Very Respectfully,

WILLIAM H. SEEKLY III
Brigadier General, U.S. Marine Corps
Commanding General, TF-Iraq

Yesterday, Iraqi lawmakers voted to expel foreign troops from the country during an emergency parliamentary session.

Though the Iraq war ‘officially’ ended in 2011, thousands of coalition troops stuck around. Their numbers increased following the rise of ISIS in the region.

Ending the US troop presence in Iraq has been a longtime goal of non-interventionists like Ron Paul and his son, Rand.

Though, even without troops in Iraq, the US will still have plenty of elbow room to bully Iran.

The decision to withdraw begs the question: Was Trump playing 5-D chess after all?

END

Turkey/Libya

This is more ominous that it seems. Hafter now declares jihad as he will attack Turkish forces in Libya

(zerohedge)

Turkey Deploys Troops To Libya As Haftar Calls For “Jihad”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced late on Sunday that Turkish troops have been deployed to Libya to support the internationally-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, Al Jazeera reported. Erdogan’s troop deployment announcement comes days after Turkey’s government approved operations in Libya after it received a request for military support by GNA.

“Our troops are gradually departing to Libya. They will coordinate [their action with the GNA] there. Our goal is to support the legitimate government,” Erdogan told CNN Turk during an interview, adding that “the goal is to support a legitimate government. This will not hurt our agreement. The task of the Turkish military there is to ensure a ceasefire, not to fight. On the other hand, by supporting a legitimate government, prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.”

“Right now, we will have different units serving as a combatant force,” he said without giving much detail about the number of troops and the type of weapons that will be used to support GNA.

Erdogan said the object of the new deployment is not about combat operations but instead to support the government and prevent a humanitarian crisis: “Our soldiers’ duty there is coordination. They will develop the operation center there. Our soldiers are gradually going right now.”

Media reports have alleged that the Trump administration was mulling an ambitious plan to divide Libya into three areas based on three old Ottoman provinces: Cyrenaica in the east, Tripolitania in the north-west and Fezzan in the south-west, according to Sputnik News. And who better to implement this split than the country which once was the Ottoman Empire…

Libya has been stuck in a civil war since the killing of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with the country fracturing into two parts, with two separate governments controlling the eastern and western parts of the country. GNA controls Tripoli in northwestern Libya, and Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) controls the eastern part of the country that has an abundance of oil reserves.

President Trump warned Erdogan that intervention in Libya would make things a lot more complicated in the country. Coming at a time on unprecedented regional tensions following the killing of Qassem Soleimani, that appears to be the understatement of the year so far.

Predictably, the LNA’s field marshal, Haftar, slammed Turkish support of the western-backed GNA and declared “a jihad”, calling for the mobilization of “men and women, officers and civilians” to resist Turkish military operation.

end

Iraq/USA China

Michael Every echoes my thoughts on what Iran will do in the coming weeks. They are outmanned and they are not suicidal. The will see something small to save face and that is about it

(Michael Every)

Rabobank: “World War 3? The US Has Crossed A Red Line… But It’s Not The One They Think”)

Submitted by Michael Every of Rabobank

“World War Three!” is trending on social media the day I return to work after two weeks off deliberately not reading any news for once: ironic given my reputation for being bearish about geopolitics. Markets, of course, have failed to react much: Middle-East bourses closed down 2-4% on Sunday, which is not exactly end of the world stuff; WTI futures are up around 3%, again not a real panic; while US 10-year yields were down from 1.94% intraday Thursday to 1.79% as of the Friday close – but the weak US ISM survey (47.2 headline; 46.8 new orders; 45.1 employment) could be to blame for that alone.

You know what? For once the markets are arguably right, albeit for all the wrong reasons. Markets think nothing that happens in the Middle East matters because central banks will have their backs regardless. That is patent nonsense, even if Ben Bernanke is muttering about not ruling out negative rates and further purchases of “private securities” during the next down-turn. If Iran launched a devastating missile attack on Saudi and UAE oil facilities, and means it this time; or on Tel Aviv and the nuclear reactor at Dimona; if it unleashed a wave of global terrorist attacks and assassinations from sleeper agents – none of those things are made better by a lower cost of borrowing. They aren’t even helped by (not) helicopter money, as Bernanke alludes to. Central banks can and would be funding a lot more defence spending immediately on a helicopter money basis in those scenarios, but much of the world economy would take a hit regardless – most so if the oil complex is hit. Sorry Central banks, but in those kind of scenarios–as Ayatollah Khamenei tweeted to US President Trump right before he then killed Iranian Revolutionary Guards Council head Qassem Suleimani–“You can’t do anything.” So in the case of the PBOC, keep lowering the reserve requirement ratio further to no real effect; or in the case of the FOMC, kidding yourself rates are on hold even as you do more and more NOT QE to keep the ship afloat for now.

“What, no World War Three?” I hear you ask. Well, consider that most of these panicked claims are being made by the same commentators who thought that Clinton had the 2016 election in the bag; that moving the US embassy to Jerusalem also meant World War Three; that the Fed and RBA were raising rates in 2019; and that Russiagate and Ukrainegate spelled doom for Trump. Yes, there ARE real risks of a truly devastating geopolitical scenario playing out; but they are perhaps arguably LOWER for the killing of Suleimani.

Consider this: for years the US has been unable to deal with Iran’s advantage in asymmetric warfare against it, all led by Suleimani. For decades, the US maintained massively-expensive military forces in the Gulf; Iran used low-cost terrorist proxies to prod and provoke and expand its regional influence, all the time knowing the US was unwilling to respond with a Gulf War Three in response as it simply cannot afford another war like the last one on multiple fronts. With the killing of Suleimani the commentators are right: the US has crossed a red line – yet it’s not the one they think.

The new message is simple: the US does not have to rely on sanctions, or conventional war, or trying to rally a reluctant international community to act while Iran runs rings round it. It can simply kill the Iranian leadership or take out their key facilities – as Trump has just threatened to do at 52 unspecified locations if Iran retaliates. (His threat against ‘cultural sites’ is either a war-crime…or recognition that cultural centres in Iran allegedly house cyber-resources for the regime.) As such, asymmetry is now for the US too – and they can do it very well too. This is not to debate the constitutionality or legality or morality of Trump’s move, merely the real politik – which is where market should nonetheless focus.

Crucially, economically-feeble and massively out-gunned Iran does not want a real war with the US even more than the US does not want one with Iran. As such Tehran can either respond to Suleimani’s death by escalating with further US deaths, which triggered this crisis, and in which case war looks more realistic; or it can accept Trump has upped the ante to a level where it will have to make only a token response (against US allies?) instead. In doing so it will lose face domestically, where the regime has already just faced an uprising that has seen hundreds shot and the internet closed down (to no real Western opprobrium), and internationally the limits of tweaking the US’s nose will be made clear to *all* globally. As I have written many times: Si vis pacem, para bellum: if you desire peace, prepare for war. That’s what the US just did.

Hence the market, ignorant as it is about how little central banks can do if things go wrong geopolitically, is arguably right to see only a limited risk-off move so far. That said, Iran is meeting rhetoric with rhetoric and just pledged to abandon the terms of the nuclear deal the US has already walked away from and to enrich uranium on its terms. If Tehran is going for a mad dash for a nuke to try to prevent US military pressure *rather than just pretending to* then we are in for a very wild ride. Yet is Iran really that suicidal? And if so, why did anyone think it was a regime that could be trusted to stick to the terms of a nuclear deal? (I point this out to see if commentators are internally consistent with their World War Three logic.)

Meanwhile, recall fear and greed run markets. Markets are still thinking central-bank ‘greed!’, and rallying, but in one respect it’s US military ‘fear!’ that matters most. The USD is still global top FX dog because it’s top F-35 gun, and that’s true even if Iraq just asked US forces to leave the country. To those who want to buy gold and Bitcoin or CNY as a hedge vs. US power: ‘Who has all the guns?’ And guess who has just shown it isn’t afraid to use them against those who seek to undermine it? In short, if World War Three kicks off, go long USD as you head for the shelters; and if US muscle-flexing prevents World War Three here, it’s even more the time to remember why the USD is still the USD.

On which front, allow me to segue to another story from Friday. The Economist magazine has always been a fan of free markets. Guess what they have to say about the US-China trade deal due to be signed on 15 January? “Don’t be fooled by the trade deal between America and China: the planet’s biggest break-up is underway” – which we have been saying since before there even was a deal. They add ”The threat to the West from China’s high-tech authoritarianism has become all too clear. Everything from its pioneering artificial-intelligence firms to its gulags in Xinjiang spread alarm across the world,” while decrying the muddled US response so far. That was just before China’s Global Times reported Beijing will not “sit idle” if Huawei is excluded from Germany’s 5G rollout. Sides are being picked here, just as they are vs. Iran, and Europe is again caught impotently in the middle. This time markets might be right to panic. Even The Economist now gets that the US-China struggle is the main act and Iran the relative side-show – for now.

6.Global Issues

7. OIL ISSUES

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES

VENEZUELA

Humorous!! Guaido has been denied entry to the Venezuelan parliament only to be re elected speaker hours later

(zerohedge)

“This Is Unprecedented!” Guaido Denied Entry To Venezuelan Parliament, Only To Be Reelected Hours Later

Between Turkey, Venezuela and efforts to remove Donald Trump from office, it’s been tough sledding for coup d’états over the last several years.

In the case of Venezuela, would-be President Juan Guaido’s journey is just sad at this point – after the opposition leader said on Sunday that police prevented him from entering the country’s National Assembly, only to be reelected for a second term as speaker of parliament hours later.

Guaido has led opposition to Venezuela’s socialist president Nicolas Maduro for the past 12 months and had hoped to be confirmed in the post in a key vote.

When he arrived for the special parliament session, police prevented him from entering. –DW

At one point he tried to jump the fence, only to be repelled.

“This is unprecedented!” Guaido told a guard amid a heated exchange.

“The regime is kidnapping and persecuting deputies, militarizing the Federal Legislative Palace, preventing access and blocking entry to the free press,” he later tweeted.

“This is the reality in Venezuela: the desire for change in the face of a dictatorship that continues to persecute.”

That said, despite the earlier impasse, Guaido was reelected president of Parliament by the majority of deputies hours later.

The standoff outside the parliamentary chambers went on for more than an hour as troops reviewed the credentials for each lawmaker. According to DW, critics said this was a delay strategy to prevent the assembly from reaching quorum. Journalists were denied entry as well.

Guaido declared Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro illegitimate after the May, 2018 elections.

END

Your early morning currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings MONDAY morning 7:00 AM….

Euro/USA 1.11998 UP .0046 REACTING TO MERKEL’S FAILED COALITION/ REACTING TO +GERMAN ELECTION WHERE ALT RIGHT PARTY ENTERS THE BUNDESTAG/ huge Deutsche bank problems ///ITALIAN CHAOS /AND NOW ECB TAPERING BOND PURCHASES/JAPAN TAPERING BOND PURCHASES /USA RISING INTEREST RATES /FLOODING/EUROPE BOURSES /ALL RED

USA/JAPAN YEN 108.09 UP 0.112 (Abe’s new negative interest rate (NIRP), a total DISASTER/NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT .11% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…

GBP/USA 1.3145 UP 0.0067 (Brexit March 29/ 2019/ARTICLE 50 SIGNED/BREXIT FEES WILL BE CAPPED/BREXIT EXTENDED TO JAN 31/2020//

USA/CAN 1.2973 DOWN .0023 CANADA WORRIED ABOUT TRADE WITH THE USA WITH TRUMP ELECTION/ITALIAN EXIT AND GREXIT FROM EU/(TRUMP INITIATES LUMBER TARIFFS ON CANADA/CANADA HAS A HUGE HOUSEHOLD DEBT/GDP PROBLEM)

Early THIS MONDAY morning in Europe, the Euro FELL BY 8 basis points, trading now ABOVE the important 1.08 level FALLING to 1.1219 Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED DOWN 0.38 POINTS OR 0.01%

//Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 225.31 POINTS OR 0.79%

/AUSTRALIA CLOSED UP 0,03%// EUROPEAN BOURSES ALL MIXED

Trading from Europe and Asia

EUROPEAN BOURSES ALL RED

2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang Sang CLOSED UP 225.31 POINTS OR 0.79%

/SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 0.38 POINTS OR 0.01%

Australia BOURSE CLOSED UP 03%

Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED DOWN 451.76 POINTS OR 1.91%

INDIA’S SENSEX IN THE RED

Gold very early morning trading: 1577.60

silver:$18.42-

Early MONDAY morning USA 10 year bond yield: 1.78% !!! UP 0 IN POINTS from FRIDAY’S night in basis points and it is trading WELL BELOW resistance at 2.27-2.32%.

The 30 yr bond yield 2.57 UP 1 IN BASIS POINTS from FRIDAY night.

USA dollar index early FRIDAY morning: 97.16 DOWN 6 CENT(S) from FRIDAY’s close.

This ends early morning numbers FRIDAY MORNING

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And now your closing MONDAY NUMBERS \1: 00 PM

Portuguese 10 year bond yield: 0.37% UP 4 in basis point(s) yield from YESTERDAY/

JAPANESE BOND YIELD: -.02% DOWN 1 BASIS POINTS from YESTERDAY/JAPAN losing control of its yield curve/56

SPANISH 10 YR BOND YIELD: 0.39%//DO UP 1 in basis point yield from yesterday.

ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD:1,36 DOWN 0 points in basis points yield from yesterday./

the Italian 10 yr bond yield is trading 97 points higher than Spain.

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD: FALLS TO –.29% IN BASIS POINTS ON THE DAY//

THE IMPORTANT SPREAD BETWEEN ITALIAN 10 YR BOND AND GERMAN 10 YEAR BOND IS 1.65% AND NOW ABOVE THE THE 3.00% LEVEL WHICH WILL IMPLODE THE ENTIRE ITALIAN BANKING SYSTEM. AT 4% SPREAD THERE WILL BE A HUGE BANK RUN…

END

IMPORTANT CURRENCY CLOSES FOR MONDAY

Closing currency crosses for MONDAY night/USA DOLLAR INDEX/USA 10 YR BOND YIELD/1:00 PM

Euro/USA 1.1195 UP .0043 or 43 basis points

USA/Japan: 108.35 UP 366 OR YEN DOWN 37 basis points/

Great Britain/USA 1.3171 UP .0093 POUND UP 93 BASIS POINTS)

Canadian dollar UP 31 basis points to 1.2964

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The USA/Yuan,CNY: AT 6.9747 ON SHORE (DOWN)..

THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE: 6.9713 (YUAN DOWN)..

TURKISH LIRA: 5.9678 EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WISH.

the 10 yr Japanese bond yield closed at -.02%

Your closing 10 yr US bond yield UP 1 IN basis points from FRIDAY at 1.80 % //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%) very problematic USA 30 yr bond yield: 2.27 UP 2 in basis points on the day

Your closing USA dollar index, 96.66 DOWN 18 CENT(S) ON THE DAY/1.00 PM/

Your closing bourses for Europe and the Dow along with the USA dollar index closing and interest rates for MONDAY: 12:00MON

London: CLOSED DOWN 47.06 0.62%

German Dax : CLOSED DOWN 92,16 POINTS OR .70%

Paris Cac CLOSED DOWN 30.57 POINTS 0.51%

Spain IBEX CLOSED DOWN 45.70 POINTS or 0.47%

Italian MIB: CLOSED DOWN 121.06 POINTS OR 0.51%

WTI Oil price; 63.16 12:00 PM EST

Brent Oil: 68.82 12:00 EST

USA /RUSSIAN / RUBLE RISES: 61.84 THE CROSS LOWER BY 0.22 RUBLES/DOLLAR (RUBLE LOWER BY 22 BASIS PTS)

TODAY THE GERMAN YIELD FALLS TO –.29 FOR THE 10 YR BOND 1.00 PM EST EST

END

This ends the stock indices, oil price, currency crosses and interest rate closes for today 4:30 PM

Closing Price for Oil, 4:00 pm/and 10 year USA interest rate:

WTI CRUDE OIL PRICE 4:30 PM : 62.73//

BRENT : 68.39

USA 10 YR BOND YIELD: … 1.80..PLUS ONE BASIS PT…

USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 2.28….PLUS 3 BASIS PTS…

EURO/USA 1.1193 ( UP 41 BASIS POINTS)

USA/JAPANESE YEN:108.44 UP .456 (YEN DOWN 46 BASIS POINTS/..

USA DOLLAR INDEX: 96.67 DOWN 17 cent(s)/

The British pound at 4 pm Britain Pound/USA:1.3166 UP 88 POINTS

the Turkish lira close: 5.9724

the Russian rouble 61.75 UP 0.31 Roubles against the uSA dollar.( UP 31 BASIS POINTS)

Canadian dollar: 1.2963 UP 31 BASIS pts

USA/CHINESE YUAN (CNY) : 6.9747 (ONSHORE)/

USA/CHINESE YUAN(CNH): 6.9703 (OFFSHORE)

German 10 yr bond yield at 5 pm: ,-0.29%

The Dow closed UP 68.50 POINTS OR 0.24%

NASDAQ closed UP 50.70 POINTS OR 0.56%

VOLATILITY INDEX: 13.72 CLOSED DOWN .30

LIBOR 3 MONTH DURATION: 1.873%//libor dropping like a stone

USA trading today in Graph Form

Gold Nears 7 Year Highs As Stocks, Bonds Shrug Off Soaring Geopolitical Risk

After an ugly open last night in futures trading, the machines went on a buying spree lifting the majors back to unchanged. Notice the weakness at the Asia open and European open and buying panic at US open…

BTFWW3?

And why not – who would be worried by this?

So far in 2020, bonds and bullion are easily outperforming

Source: Bloomberg

Chinese stocks ended mixed overnight (with small cap, tech outperforming)…

Source: Bloomberg

Despite buying pressure all day, European markets could not get back to even…

Source: Bloomberg

In the US, Trannies underperformed, Nasdaq led, and The Dow, S&P, and Small Caps clung to unchangedish, pushing notably higher into the last few minutes…

AAPL had an ugly open, but once again was panic-bid back into the green to test $300…

And we note that AAPL and its volatility remain notably decoupled…

Source: Bloomberg

VIX and stocks remain decoupled but for the 4th day in a row, vol was clubbed like a baby seal intraday…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields ended the day higher with the long-end underperforming (2Y +2bps, 30Y +4bps)

Source: Bloomberg

The 30Y Yield found support from a few weeks ago and bounced (still lower yield on the year)…

Source: Bloomberg

Similarly, the yield curve steepened off support, after flattening dramatically in the first two days of the year…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar extended its decline from Friday’s highs…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos are higher after the weekend’s rising geopolitical tensions with Ripple soaring…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin was up again – 4th day in a row, longest streak of gains since July – back above $7500…

Source: Bloomberg

Commodities were bid last night (crude and PMs) as mideast tensions rose but the US equity market open prompted selling…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold held on to its gains from the weekend’s headlines…

Pushing Spot Gold to its highest since April 2013…

Source: Bloomberg

But WTI Crude ended unchanged, giving back the risk premium…

Finally, while the dollar is clinging to support against its also-declining fiat friends, its is collapsing against gold…

Source: Bloomberg

And now your more important USA stories which will influence the price of gold/silver

MARKET TRADING//USA

a)Market trading/SUNDAY TRADING//MIDDLE EAST/USA

Gulf Stocks Plunge On War Threat, Aramco Hits Lowest Since IPO

Gulf stock markets plunged on Sunday, with Saudi, Kuwaiti, Dubai, Qatari, and Egyptian stocks leading heavy losses after top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was assassinated by a US drone airstrike at Baghdad International Airport on Friday, reported Reuters.

The Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) fell 170 points to 8,226, or down -2%, on heavy volume. The index was weighed down by significant losses in telecommunications, industrials, healthcare, and financials.

Shares of Saudi Aramco fell 1.7% on Sunday, hitting 34.55 riyals ($9.21) per share, now at its lowest level since last month’s IPO.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange fell 4% with no stocks advancing, all declining, including a 3% drop in the National Bank of Kuwait.

The Dubai Financial Market General Index (DFMGI) dropped 3% on Sunday, significant declines were seen in Dubai’s largest lender Emirates NBD and Dubai Islamic Bank.

The Qatari index fell 2%, with all 20 stocks declining. The Qatar Islamic Bank slid 2.7%, and Qatar National Bank decreased by 1.9%.

The Egyptian Exchange (EGX 30, EGX 70, and EGX 100) all plunged 4.50% on Sunday.

Risk-off sentiment was widespread across Gulf markets after Soleimani, the mastermind of Tehran’s overseas military operations was killed in US airstrikes on Friday.

Tehran views the killing of Soleimani as an act of war.

On Saturday, a red flag was hoisted over the holy mosque of Jamkaran in Qom, Iran’s most sacred city.

The flag is almost always blue, but according to old Iranian traditions in ancient wars, red flags were raised when the enemy commits murder and will remain red until revenge is complete.

President Trump on Saturday evening tweeted if Iran was to retaliate, the US would target “52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!”

Geopolitical tensions are certainly holding back Gulf stocks to start the new week. This same pessimism is likely to be seen in Asia, Europe, and the US come Sunday night as the world awaits what Iran will do next.

The world is in uncharted water. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Many investors are unhedged for geopolitical risk.

Is this what war with Iran could look like?

END

SUNDAY NIGHT:

Gold Spikes To 6-Year High, Oil Jumps, Stocks Dump As Asia Opens

Amid the weekend’s escalating tensions, threats, and retaliations in the middle east, futures trading has opened with some significant market moves…

Spot gold is at its highest since April 2013…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold futures are up around 2%…up near $1600

WTI Crude futures are also up notably, tagging $64 and taking out last week’s highs…

Dow futures are down around 150 points, taking out Friday’s lows…

And bond futures are higher…

2020 has not been kind to risk assets…so far.

How many more points down will The Dow be allowed before somebody gets on the phone!??

b)MARKET TRADING/USA/AFTERNOON

Oil Goes Red, Gold Holds Gains, S&P Rebounds Into Green

Well that de-escalated quickly…

WTI crude is red now, erasing the gains from the weekend’s tensions in the middle east…

Gold is holding its gains (for now)…

And the machines have lifted the Nasdaq and S&P into the green…

ii)Market data/USA

After a disappointing manufacturing PMI, the service sector pMI jumps to a 5month high but its outlook looks negative

(zerohedge)

US Services PMI Jumps To 5-Month Highs But Outlook Plummets

After a dip in Manufacturing PMI (and plunge in ISM Manufacturing), analysts expected the final December print for Services to hold at its highest since July.

As US Macro data has serially disappointed, PMI’s Services survey instead accelerated further in December to 52.8 (from 52.2 flash and 51.6 in November).

Source: Bloomberg

Commenting on the latest survey results, Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit, said:

“Business activity in the vast service sector picked up pace at the end of last year as rising domestic demand and signs of reviving exports led to higher workloads. Combined with indications of manufacturing lifting out of it’s recent lull, the survey data suggest the overall pace of economic growth accelerated to its fastest since last April.

“The missing ingredient compared to this time last year is optimism about the future, with business sentiment regarding prospects for the next twelve months running well below levels seen this time last year, and close to the lowest for at least seven years. Indeed, much of the recent improvement in demand has come from stronger sales to consumers, with business spending and investment remaining under pressure amid this anxiety about the economic and political outlook.”

However, as Williamson notes, while moving in the right direction, “service sector growth remains well below that seen in the early months of 2019, and the overall survey results are indicative of GDP rising at a relatively modest annual rate of 1.8% in December.”

iii) Important USA Economic Stories

Lindsay Graham correctly tells Trump to target Iranian refiners as an attack on these sites would cripple their economy for a long time

(zerohedge)

Graham Tells Trump To ‘Crush Iranian Economy’ By Targeting Oil Refineries After Assassination

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says he was briefed on the plan to target Iran’s No. 2 Qassem Soleimani earlier this week, and that he advised President Trump to cripple Iran’s economy by taking out the country’s oil refineries.

“I was briefed about the potential operation when I was down in Florida,” said Graham during a Friday interview on Fox & Friends, adding “If I were the president, I would put on the table targets in Iran, not Iraq and Syria. Economic targets that would crush the economy.”

Notably, Graham appears to be the only member of Congress briefed on the military action while he was with Trump at Mar-a-Lago for a round of golf.

Graham was asked “You say, the next stop is their oil fields, right?”

To which he responded: “Well, what I’m trying to do is create deterrents,” adding “What are they thinking about in Tehran right now? Revenge. What are they thinking about inside Iraq? All of these Shiite militias are going to have three days of mourning. What kind of command and control do they have regarding Tehran? Who makes the decisions to strike, and what kind of strikes are they contemplating? How would you stop retaliation to deterrents? What’s the one thing that the regime can’t afford to lose? The ability to refine oil. So what President Trump has done is up the ante as high as you can up it. He’s killed the most consequential military leader in Iran.”

Round 2 of the the USA operation to take out top generals in the Iranian army as USA drone airstrikes kill six of their pro Iranian militia commanders

(zerohedge)

Round Two: US Drone Airstrikes Kill Six Pro-Iran Militia Commanders

Whether he is eating ice cream or not, Trump appears to be on a rampage to recreate the end of The Godfather.

Less than 24 hours after a US drone shockingly killed the top Iranian military leader, Qasem Soleimani, resulting in equity markets groaning around the globe in fear over Iranian reprisals (and potentially, World War III), the US has gone for round two with Reuters and various other social media sources reporting that US air strikes targeting Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units umbrella grouping of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias near camp Taji north of Baghdad, have killed six people and critically wounded three, an Iraqi army source said late on Friday.

Iraqi official media has also confirm that two vehicles were targeted north of Baghdad, carrying commanders of the pro-Iran militias in the PMUs.

Hassan Hassan

✔@hxhassan

· 14h

#Hizbollah’s channel is reporting the air targeting of a “convoy of two vehicles” north of Baghdad. #iraq https://twitter.com/almayadeenlive/status/1213227659335028738 …

الميادين عاجل@AlMayadeenLive

العراق: مراسل الميادين: أنباء عن استهداف جوي طال قافلة مؤلفة من سيارتين شمالي العاصمة بغداد

Hassan Hassan

✔@hxhassan

Iraqi officials media now confirm that two vehicles were targeted north of Baghdad, carrying commanders of the pro-Iran militias in the PMUs. #iraq #QassemSuleimani

Two of the three vehicles making up a militia convoy were found burned, a Reuters source said, as well as six burned corpses.

The strikes reportedly took place at 1:12 am local time.

Baxtiyar Goran

✔@BaxtiyarGoran

Replying to @BaxtiyarGoran

Hezbollah’s Mayadeen confirms that an airstrike hit a moving target in Taji northern Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
—
Mayadeen was first media outlet that confirmed the death of Soleimani and Muhandis last night.#Iraq https://twitter.com/almayadeenlive/status/1213227545300275200?s=21 … https://twitter.com/almayadeenlive/status/1213227545300275200 …

الميادين عاجل@AlMayadeenLive

العراق: مراسل الميادين: أنباء أولية عن غارة على هدف متحرك في التاجي شمالي العاصمة العراقية بغداد

According to unconfirmed reports, a US MQ-9 Reaper drone targeted a convoy carrying several high ranking officials of PMU (Hashd al-Shaabi) in Taji, North of Baghdad. The casualties are said to be mostly among members of the IRGC-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq. It is not known whether Qais al-Khazali is dead or alive.

Separate reports claim that Shibl al-Zaidi, a commander of Kataib Imam Ali brigades, an Iranian-backed militia and the PMU’s 40th Brigade, is among those the six who were killed in the strike.

Al-Zaidi was close (see on left) to Soleimani & Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, both killed 24hrs ago.

That said there are conflicting reports, with some noting that a Twitter account allegedly belonging to al-Zaidi tweeted that he is alive after the attack.

Strategic Sentinel

✔@StratSentinel

· 13h

Replying to @StratSentinel

It seems now, despite official #Iraqi confirmation, that Shibl al-Zaydi was not killed and is currently alive.

Strategic Sentinel

✔@StratSentinel

The twitter account, who we presume is run by al-Zaydi, tweeted this out saying they aren’t dead: https://twitter.com/alzaidysh/status/1213235275670990849 …

الحاج شبل الزيدي@alzaidysh

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
الى كافة الاخوة والاخوات الكرام نشر قبل قليل خبر
استشهاد #الحاج_شبل_الزيدي هذا الخبر غير صحيح والحمد لله رب العالمين

Additionally, Hamad al-Jazairi, the deputy leader of Saraya al-Khorasani, was also reportedly among those killed tonight.

In separate, unconfirmed reports, yet another airstrike is said to have targeted a convoy in Iraq’s Nineveh governorate.

And so, with the US laying death and carnage from the sky across Iraq, reactions have ranged from the sarcastic and laconic…

Michael Tracey

✔@mtracey

Oh, I thought last night’s peace-loving strike was supposed to prevent additional warfare https://twitter.com/richardengel/status/1213245422992424961 …

Richard Engel

✔@RichardEngel

Iraqi security official tells @nbcnews there has been anther US airstrike, this one north of Baghdad targeting Shiite militia leaders. Reports of 6 killed.
This right BEFORE a big Shiite protest tomorrow in Baghdad. It seems certain to provoke an escalation.

… to the objectively concerned, with some wondering how much further is Iraq going to let US operate freely in country before they decide to kick their assets out? These airstrikes really make the Iraqi government look weak like they can’t deal with their problems by themselves, which may or may not be true, but the point stands.”

Of course, the other point is when and how will Iran respond, as it is now clear that if it does nothing it will only embolden the US to pick off its top generals, while any substantial escalation could lead to a regional war.

end

USA/Iran

This may become quite problematic for the Americans as no doubt Iran does have sleeper cells in the USA

(courtesy Watson Summit News)

Iran Has Hezbollah Sleeper Cells In The US Ready To Strike

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

The threat posed by Iran-backed Hezbollah sleeper cells embedded in major American cities has once again come to the fore following the killing of Iran’s Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani.

Following last night’s assassination of the Iranian military leader, authorities in both New York and Los Angeles announced that they were ramping up security in readiness for possible revenge attacks on U.S. soil.

This is because Iran is known to have placed Hezbollah terrorist sleeper cells throughout not just Europe but the United States too.

Last year, the the criminal prosecution and conviction in New York of the Hezbollah operative Ali Kourani revealed that the terror outfit has already plotted to attack U.S. interests inside the country and is ready to activate if it considers the existence of either Hezbollah or Iran to be at stake.

Following the arrest of Kourani and another Hezbollah operative named Samer el-Debek, the U.S. intelligence community reversed its belief that Hezbollah was unlikely to attempt attacks within the U.S.

“It’s our assessment that Hezbollah is determined to give itself a potential homeland option as a critical component of its terrorism playbook,” said National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen.

Paul Joseph Watson

✔@PrisonPlanet

Authorities in major U.S. cities are monitoring developments and ramping up security in preparation for any potential Iranian-backed terror attacks following the killing of Iran’s Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani.#WWIII https://summit.news/2020/01/03/major-u-s-cities-ramp-up-security-to-prepare-for-potential-iran-backed-attacks/ …

Major U.S. Cities Ramp up Security to Prepare For Potential Iran-Backed Attacks

NYPD & LAPD monitoring developments.

summit.news

“We in the intelligence community do in fact see continued activity on behalf of Hezbollah here inside the homeland,” he added.

Hezbollah has never directly attacked the U.S. homeland, but Kourani, working for the Hezbollah-controlled Islamic Jihad Organization, was confirmed to have been conducting surveillance of FBI and U.S. Secret Service offices, as well as a U.S. Army armory and John F. Kennedy International Airport, all in New York City.

“While living in the United States, Kourani served as an operative of Hezbollah in order to help the foreign terrorist organization prepare for potential future attacks against the United States,” said U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers.

In casing both JFK and Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, “Kourani told the FBI that he provided Hezbollah with details about security procedures, the uniforms worn by security officers, and whether the officers were armed. His surveillance, Kourani told the FBI, focused on exit points, security checkpoints, camera locations, baggage claim procedures, and what questions airport screeners asked passengers,” reported ForeignPolicy.com.

With the world now waiting for Iran’s response to Soleimani’s killing, we can only hope that it doesn’t come in the form of a massive Hezbollah-backed terror attack targeting a major American city.

* * *

My voice is being silenced by free speech-hating Silicon Valley behemoths who want me disappeared forever. It is CRUCIAL that you support me. Please sign up for the free newsletter here. Donate to me on SubscribeStar here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown.

end

Rail traffic continues to plunge indicating that the USA economy is slowing down immensely

(zerohedge)

Rail Traffic Continues To Plunge Amid Industrial Recession

US freight railroads have long been used as a barometer of the country’s economic health, continue to show declines in traffic, suggesting the industrial recession could persist into 2020.

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) published a new report that shows US weekly rail traffic for the week ending December 21 was down 10.5% to 507,589 carloads and intermodal units compared with the same week last year.

Total carloads for the week were 245,048 carloads, down 11.5% compared with the same week in 2018, while weekly intermodal volume was down 9.5% to 262,541 containers and trailers.

The AAR tracks ten carload commodity groups on a weekly basis — with Petroleum and Petroleum Products and Other segments showed marginal growth over the week as all other segments including Chemicals; Coal; Farm Products excl. Grain, and Food; Forest Products, Grain, Metallic Ores and Metals; Motor Vehicles and Parts; and Nonmetallic Minerals registered declines.

For the first 51 weeks of 2019, US rail traffic across all segments was 12,780,814 carloads, down 4.8% from the same period last year; and 13,550,432 intermodal units, down 5.1% from last year. Total rail traffic in the first 51 weeks was 26,331,246 carloads and intermodal units, a 5.9% drop over last year.

Canadian and Mexican railroads also reported traffic declines for the week and in the first 51 weeks as both countries are teetering if not already in a recession.

North American rail volume for the week was down 9.2% to 350,256 carloads over the same week last year, and 348,566 intermodal units, down 8.2 % over the previous year. Total combined weekly rail traffic in North America was 698,822 carloads and intermodal units, down 8.7%.

North American rail volume for the first 51 weeks of 2019 was 35,963,299 carloads and intermodal units, down 3.9% compared with 2018.

In a separate report, AAR described how 400,000 railcars currently sit in storage amid slumping rail demand.

But it’s not just rail traffic that is tumbling, class-8 truck orders collapsed last month, all of this is a symptom of an industrial recession that shows no signs of abating into 2020.

end

BOEING

Another potential problem for Boeing as “catastrophic wiring issues” were found in the Boeing 737 Max

(zerohedge)

New, Potentially “Catastrophic” Wiring Issues Found In Boeing 737 Max

As if Boeing needed any more bad news.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) conducted an internal audit in December of the Boeing 737 Max and found wiring issues could potentially cause a “catastrophic” short circuit at the rear of the plane and lead to a crash, a senior engineer at Boeing and three people familiar with the matter told The New York Times.

Boeing is examining if two wiring harnesses at the rear of the plane are too close together that would result in an electric short that would cause the plane’s tail to malfunction in flight, said one of the sources.

If Boeing decides to fix the wiring problem, it would mean that more than 800 Max jets would have to see wiring reconfiguration.

Of course, Boeing told The Times that the fix is relatively simple. Spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Sunday the “identified issue is part of a rigorous process, and we are working with the FAA to perform the appropriate analysis. It would be premature to speculate as to whether this analysis will lead to any design changes.”

It was unclear, however, if simple also means cheap, and some have speculated that a full-blown recall could cost tens ofd billions.

An FAA statement Sunday said investigators are “re-analyzing certain findings from a recent review of the proposed modifications to the Boeing 737 MAX.” The agency will “ensure that all safety-related issues identified during this process are addressed.”

The FAA said the wiring harnesses are too close together, located at the rear of the plane, would cause the motors that control the stabilizer, a horizontal fin on a plane’s tail, to malfunction (short circuit) and could lead to a potentially “catastrophic” crash.

Max engines have also become another focus for FAA investigators.

Nicholas Ramos@NickVRamos

RE: Boeing 737 Max

Anyone who missed this post back in March should read throughly. The issue with the 737 Max is not a software issue, it’s a design issue. Boeing got desperate when Airbus released the NEO, so they too wanted a big engine. Merry Christmas $ba.d $ba https://twitter.com/trevorsumner/status/1106934362531155974 …

Trevor Sumner@trevorsumner

1of x: BEST analysis of what really is happening on the #Boeing737Max issue from my brother in law @davekammeyer, who’s a pilot, software engineer & deep thinker. Bottom line don’t blame software that’s the band aid for many other engineering and economic forces in effect.

All of these issues, of course, are separate from the MCAS software that was likely the cause of two separate Max crashes, killing 346 people. New Max issues could delay the ungrounding even further. There is no clear timeline of when the planes will return to the air.

Meanwhile, confirming that things are going from bad to worse, the WSJ reported that Boeing is mulling raising more debt to “improve finances”, read fund buybacks, as costs related to the grounding of its 737 MAX are raising. The paper reports that Boeing is also considering cutting CAPEX, freezing acquisitions and cutting on R&D to save cash. In total, analysts expect Boeing to raise as much as $5BN in additional debt to help cover expenditures that could rise to $15BN in 1H 2020. It was not clear if all of this new money, or just most of it, would to repurchasing BA shares.

end

Will Iran target Trump properties?

(zerohedge)

Iran To Attack Trump Properties? Top Adviser Tweets List Of President’s Real Estate Empire

After Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei clarified on Friday that ‘death to America’ really means death to President Trump, Secretary if State Mike Pompeo and other “American Rulers,” a top adviser to Iranian president Hassan Rouhani shared a list of Trump properties on Sunday, including his Mar-a-Lago estate and resort in Florida.

According to the Daily Mail, adviser Hesameddin Ashena tweeted a link to a Forbes article listing all of Trump’s properties in the US and Britain.

Ashena, who heads up the Center for Strategic Studies – an Iranian think tank, echoed Khamenei’s talking points hours before dropping the Forbes link.

The singling out of both Trump and his properties come amid a series of threats exchanged between the two nations in the wake of the US killing of top Iranian commander, Quds leader Qasem Soleimani, on January 2.

Tehran has sworn revenge for Soleimani’s death and yesterday announced it was abandoning its remaining nuclear limits under the 2015 deal.

Today Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wept over Soleimani’s coffin as hundreds of thousands joined a funeral march in Tehran.

Speaking to the crowds, the military commander’s daughter declared that ‘families of U.S. soldiers in the Middle East will spend their days waiting for the death of their children’.

Trump has threatened his own retaliation if Iran hits US targets, warning of a ‘disproportionate response’ including cultural sites.

Today the president vowed in a capital-letters tweet that ‘IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON’ despite Tehran’s latest move away from the nuclear deal. –Daily Mail

The recent tensions were ignited on December 27, when an Iranian-backed militia group, Kataib Hezbollah, bombed the K-1 Air Base near Kirkuk in northern Iraq at the direction of Soleimani (per Reuters) – killing a US contractor and wounding several others.

Two weeks before the October meeting, Soleimani ordered Iranian Revolutionary Guards to move more sophisticated weapons – such as Katyusha rockets and shoulder-fired missiles that could bring down helicopters – to Iraq through two border crossings, the militia commanders and Iraqi security sources told Reuters.

At the Baghdad villa, Soleimani told the assembled commanders to form a new militia group of low-profile paramilitaries – unknown to the United States – who could carry out rocket attacks on Americans housed at Iraqi military bases. He ordered Kataib Hezbollah – a force founded by Muhandis and trained in Iran – to direct the new plan, said the militia sources briefed on the meetings. –Reuters

In response, US forces struck Iranian targets in Syria, killing 25 and wounding 50 – resulting in the New Year’s Eve protests at the US embassy in Iraq in which militia groups aligned with Soleimani caused significant damage to the compound.

end

Six B 52 bombers are ordered to Indian Ocean base to be available against Iran.

(zerohedge)

Six B-52 Bombers Ordered To Indian Ocean Base To Be “Available” Against Iran

As more than 3,000 US troops are readying to deploy to the Middle East this week following the killing of the IRGC’s Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani, the Pentagon will additionally send major military hardware in the form of an additional B-52 strike force.

CNN’s Barbara Starr reported late in the day Monday that a US defense official has confirmed the Pentagon will being sending six B-52 bombers to the major US military base at Deigo Garcia.

Starr reports the B-52s will be “available for operations against Iran if ordered”.

*Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. Image source: USAF*

However, the CNN correspondent noted that “the deployment does not signal that operations have been ordered.”

The major US military base at Diego Garcia, located in the middle of the Indian Ocean on the largest island in the Chagos archipelago, is often used as a staging ground for operations in the eastern hemisphere.

Currently, American B-52 Stratofortress bombers are stationed at a US airbase in Qatar, after a strike group was previously ordered there by US Central Command (CENTCOM) last May over increasing tension with Iran.

For that prior deployment, the Trump administration said it had been sending a “message to Iran”.

Meanwhile, Iranian state media channels on Monday began “answering” US threats, broadcasting military “shows of force” against the United States to its population:

Over the past couple months thousands of American military personnel have also be stationed inside Saudi Arabia, following the Sept.14 Aramco facility attacks, widely blamed by the West on Iran.

Clearly, this newest B-52 deployment is meant to act as “deterrence” against any potential Iranian strike on US personnel or interests. President Trump has already threatened all-out attack on 52 sites inside Iran.

END

iv) Swamp commentaries

It would have been totally irrational for Trump to notify the Democrats on the Soleimani strike //Lou Dobbs)

(courtesy Lou Dobbs/Zerohedge)

It Would Have Been ‘Utterly Irrational’ For Trump To Notify Democrats Of Soleimani Strike: Dobbs

President Trump would have been ‘utterly irrational’ to have shared plans to strike Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the country’s second-most powerful person, according to Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs.

The Friday comments come amid outrage from Congressional Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

“I think Chuck Schumer was born complaining,” Dobbs told White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham on “Lou Dobbs Tonight,”…

…adding “And I wouldn’t expect any quick change in his behavior. There is also, I think, a good case to be built that it would be utterly irrational of the Trump Administration to brief the very people who are trying to unseat him, remove him from power, to overthrow his presidency and to have done everything in their power to do so.”

Watch (via the Daily Caller):

Hilariously, on Saturday the White House delivered Congress notification of the Soleimani strike two days later.

The notification, required by law within 48 hours of introducing American forces into armed conflict or a situation that could lead to war, has to be signed and then sent to Congress, according to the officials with knowledge of the plan.

Lawmakers expected the document to publicly lay out the White House’s legal justification for the strike on General Suleimani, Iran’s top security commander, who officials have said has been behind hundreds of American deaths over the years. But the notification first sent to Congress late Saturday afternoon only contained classified information, according to a senior congressional aide, likely detailing the intelligence that led to the action. It is unclear whether the White House will send a separate, unclassified document. –NYT

In response, Pelosi said in a Saturday evening statement that the notification “raises more questions than it answers,” such as “serious and urgent questions about the timing, manner and justification of the administration’s decision to engage in hostilities against Iran.”

Manu Raju

✔@mkraju

· 4h

Scathing Pelosi statement: “This classified War Powers Act notification delivered to Congress raises more questions .. (and) prompts serious and urgent questions about the timing, manner and justification of the Administration’s decision to engage in hostilities against Iran”

Manu Raju

✔@mkraju

Pelosi added: “The highly unusual decision to classify this document in its entirety compounds our many concerns, and suggests that the Congress and the American people are being left in the dark about our national security.”

end

As I promised you, the genesis of Crossfire Hurricane started 3 months ealier than Mueller stated in his report and this puts the investigation right into the Obama White hOuse

(zerohedge)

Durham Probes Early, Suspicious Contacts Between Obama State Dept And Papadopoulos

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) dropped some interesting tidbits regarding the ongoing investigation into the Obama-era intelligence community and its actions during the 2016 US election.

In an appearance with Maria Bartiromo on Fox‘s Sunday Morning Futures, Ratcliffe said “Now we come up with evidence that’s recently been reported that one of the folks that John Durham talked to was an embassy official who reached out to George Papadopoulos three months before Crossfire Hurricane was ever opened,” adding “That’s a sign that John Durham is looking at the fact that this may include Obama administration officials beyond law enforcement, perhaps to include our intelligence community.”

As the Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross noted in September of 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller interviewed US embassy official Terrence Dudley about his contacts during the 2016 election with Papadopoulos – several months before the FBI launched operation Crossfire Hurricane to officially investigate the Trump campaign.

Terrence Dudley, a former Navy commander who works with the Office of Defense Cooperation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Mueller’s office contacted him to discuss several meetings that he and a colleague had during the campaign with Papadopoulos.

The former Trump aide recently identified Dudley and his colleague, Greg Baker, in a tweet alleging that the pair were sent to spy on him on behalf of the U.S. government. –Daily Caller

(relevant portion starts at 7:15)

Ratcliffe also said that Durham is looking into conflicting statements between former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan regarding the Steele Dossier.

“Brennan says Comey was pushing the Steele dossier to be included in the intelligence community assessment. Comey says that it was Brennan that was pushing it. They both testified under oath, before Congress and to investigators, to that fact,” said Ratcliffe, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.

“They both can’t be telling the truth.”

END

More evidence to suggest that Epstein was murdered and did not commit suicide

(zerohedge)

Fake Noose? ’60 Minutes’ Shreds Epstein Suicide Theory

’60 Minutes’ has revealed several new data points in the death of wealthy pedophile Jeffrey Epstein which raise more questions than they answer, and suggest that the financier did not kill himself – an opinion the New York City Medical Examiner’s office stands “firmly” behind.

The New York City Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Epstein’s death a suicide by hanging, but a forensic pathologist who observed the four-hour autopsy on behalf of Epstein’s brother, Mark, tells 60 Minutes the evidence released so far points more to murder than suicide in his view. Dr. Michael Baden’s key reason: the unusual fractures he saw in Epstein’s neck. –CBS News

While we’ve heard all sorts of theories about the improbabilities of the force required by the nearly 6 foot tall Epstein to successfully hang himself while breaking an unusual three bones in his neck usually seen in strangulations, that’s nowhere near the most peculiar part of Epstein’s demise (notwithstanding the ol’ homeless guy switcharoo theory).

For the first time, we get to look at the noose Epstein used to allegedly kill himself. Photos admitted as evidence reveal a clean cloth with no blood, despite Epstein’s clearly bloody neck. Moreover, both ends of the noose were hemmed, not cut – while the guard who found Epstein reportedly cut him down.

Also odd is that Epstein’s ligature wound, allegedly left by said bloodless noose, is fairly low on his neck.

“It doesn’t look like anybody ever took scissors to it,” said 60 Minutes’ Sharyn Alfonsi. “So there is some question—is that the right noose?”

The photos also reveal other potential nooses – none of which are bloodied, as well as orange sheets strewn around the room.

“There were fractures of the left, the right thyroid cartilage and the left hyoid bone,” said Baden. “I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging.”

“Going over a thousand jail hangings, suicides in the New York City state prisons over the past 40-50 years, no one had three fractures,” he added.

Other irregularities include Epstein being taken off suicide watch, broken cameras which didn’t record the front of his cell during the cruicial period, and of course, the fact that his guards failed to check on perhaps the most high-profile inmate in modern history – and were instead browsing the web and sleeping.

END

THIS WILL GO NOWHERE BUT IT WILL INFURIATE TRUMP: PELOSI TO INTRODUCE “WAR POWERS RESOLUTION” TO LIMIT TRUMP IN IRAN

(ZEROHEDGE)

Pelosi: House To Introduce ‘War Powers Resolution’ To Limit Trump In Iran

In a move which is sure to enrage President Trump, Nancy Pelosi said in a Sunday letter to colleagues that the House will introduce an vote on a “War Powers Resolution” which will “limit the President’s military actions regarding Iran.”

“Last week, the Trump Administration conducted a provocative and disproportionate military airstrike targeting high-level Iranian military officials. This action endangered our servicemembers, diplomats and others by risking a serious escalation of tensions with Iran,” reads the letter.

“As Members of Congress, our first responsibility is to keep the American people safe. For this reason, we are concerned that the Administration took this action without the consultation of Congress and without respect for Congress’s war powers granted to it by the Constitution.”

The Resolution is similar to one introduced in the Senate by Tim Kaine, and “reasserts Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days.”

Former CIA and DoD analyst Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-NY) will lead the House Resolution.

The announcement comes as the Trump administration deploys thousands of additional troops to the Middle East after US forces killed Iran’s top commander last week, Qasem Soleimani.

end

Bruce Ohr covered up his anti Trump crusade to distribute the Steele dossier to the FBI and State dept.

(zerohedge)

Bruce Ohr Covered Up Anti-Trump Crusade To Distribute Steele Dossier

Still-employed DOJ official Bruce Ohr says he was simply doing his “duty as a citizen” when he distributed the infamous Steele dossier through “numerous meetings, phone calls and emails” while acting “as a link between the FBI and Hillary Clinton forces” to take down Donald Trump, according to the Washington Times.

All this, while he was the #4 official at the Department of Justice – associate deputy attorney general, and in charge of the agency’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, titles Ohr was stripped of by Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein after his crusade to take Trump down was uncovered by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz in November, 2017.

And while Ohr was swapping anti-Trump research with his wife Nellie – a Fusion GPS employee with CIA ties – he hid his efforts between the summer of 2016 and Trump’s election from his bosses.

Recall that both Bruce and Nellie Ohr had ongoing communications with Christopher Steele, the dossier’s author, even having breakfast with him on July 30, 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel in downtown Washington D.C. – one day before the FBI launched operation Crossfire Hurricane, and one week after Steele had given installments of his Clinton-funded anti-Trump research to the FBI.

Mr. Horowitz’s 434-page report on FBI abuse of wiretap laws to target Trump campaign associate Carter Page includes scores of pages on Mr. Ohr and his one-man Washington operation. The inspector general concluded that Mr. Ohr had committed “consequential errors in judgment” and “lapses in judgment.”

Mr. Ohr’s self-appointed operation started with an alliance with Glenn R. Simpson, the Fusion GPS co-founder who employed Mr. Ohr’s wife, Nellie, as a Trump-Russia investigator. Mr. Ohr then began communications with Christopher Steele. Mr. Simpson paid and controlled the former British spy as he wrote and distributed 17 dossier memos accusing Mr. Trump and aides of various felonies. –Washington Times

Following the Ohrs’ breakfast with Steele, Bruce immediately phoned the FBI and met with Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page, a high-ranking FBI lawyer who was banging the head of counterintelligence – Peter Strzok – as they swapped anti-Trump text messages, while investigating Trump (yet no bias). Ohr later met with Strzok as well.

Clearly the lines between Ohr’s personal crusade and his position as a top DOJ official had blurred, resulting in his demotions.

“The idea that he actually had some role in this Russia investigation was shocking to me,” Rosenstein told the inspector general. “We had been fending off these congressional inquiries. And they were asking for all sorts of stuff, 302s [FBI reports] and things, and … I had no idea that somebody on my staff had actually been involved in … an operational way in the investigation.”

Nellie Ohr, meanwhile, also appears to have gone on a mysterious personal crusade – becoming a late-life Ham radio enthusiast, which some suspect is how she covertly communicated with others about the Trump-Russia investigation.

Dossier breaks down

According to the Times, Christopher Steele’s FBI handler warned Ohr that “Steele could not be trusted.”

Mr. Steele doubted his own source network. “Reporting of Kremlin activities ‘may be exaggerated or conspiracy theory talk,’ so Steele cannot know whether all the reporting is true,” the notes say.

Mr. Ohr assured those around the table that Mr. Steele was not fabricating information.

The next month, Mr. Ohr asked for more information from Mr. Simpson and received it in the form of a thumb drive that he delivered to the FBI supervisory agent with whom he had met in November. –Washington Times

On November 21, 2016, Ohr met with Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, who he told the dossier was “kind of crazy … kind of wild … quite a tale.” Later in the day, Bruce went to FBI headquarters for “his most high-powered meeting,” just one month after the FBI had executed its first warrant to electronically and physically surveil Carter Page after they were finally granted a FISA warrant by the surveillance court.

According to those who were in the meeting, Ohr made clear that there was a link between Steele and the Clinton campaign, which had paid Fusion GPS through law firm Perkins Coie. Fusion owner Glenn Simpson was “hired by a lawyer who does opposition research and the dossier was being fed to the campaign,” according to the IG report.

According to Ohr, Steele was “desperate” to sink Trump.

The FBI, however, never disclosed Ohr’s revelation that the Steele Dossier had partisan funding in three subsequent wiretap applications – which was among 17 instances that Horowitz found the agency misled the FISA court.

Ohr delivers to an underling

After the Steele dossier made its way from Fusion GPS’s Simpson to John McCain associate David Kramer – who gave it to former FBI Director James Comey (who already had most of the dossier already), Kramer gave it to BuzzFeed and other media outlets, which published it on January 10, 2017.

Ohr, meanwhile, passed the dossier to a DOJ underling.

“Ohr’s colleague said that Ohr told her that Steele provided information that the Trump campaign had been corrupted by the Russians,” reads the IG report. “The colleague told us that she asked Ohr if the allegations went ‘all the way to the President’ and that Ohr responded ‘yes.’”

Ohr had effectively become an ‘off-the-books’ investigator, which he failed to tell then-Deputy AG Sally Yates out of fear that she would prevent him from further contacts with Steele.

“He further stated that he did not want to stop talking to Steele because he was alarmed by the information he was receiving and believed he needed to get it to the FBI,” reads the Horowitz report.

“None of the FBI witnesses we interviewed,” the report continues “recalled anyone tasking Ohr to gather information from Steele or to act as an intermediary between the FBI and Steele.”

In other words, Ohr was on a personal – or at least officially disavowed mission to help take down Donald Trump.

end

v) King report/Courtesy of Chris Powell of GATA which includes the major swamp stories.

Trump Calls the Ayatollah’s Bluff

For years, Iran has set the rules. It was Iran that picked the time and place of confrontation. No more… Reciprocity has been the key to understanding Donald Trump. Whether you are a media figure or a mullah, a prime minister or a pope, he will be good to you if you are good to him. Say something mean, though, or work against his interests, and he will respond in force. It won’t be pretty. It won’t be polite. There will be fallout. But you may think twice before crossing him again…

https://freebeacon.com/columns/trump-calls-the-ayatollahs-bluff/

Fox: Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warns of ‘harsh retaliation’

https://www.foxnews.com/world/iran-promises-harsh-retaliation-after-us-airstrike-kills-iranian-gen-qassem-soleimani

Trump on Friday afternoon: “We took action last night to stop a war. We do not take action to start a war. … Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel. But we caught him in the act and terminated him… What the United States did yesterday should have been done long ago… If Americans anywhere are threatened, we have all of those targets already fully identified, and I am ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary… Under my leadership, America’s policy is unambiguous to terrorists who harm or intend to harm any American. We will find you, eliminate you and always protect our diplomats, service members, all Americans and our allies… We do not seek regime change. However the Iranian regime’s aggression in the region, including the use of proxy fighters, to destabilize its neighbors must end—and it must end now.”

State Department: “We can confirm that in the past several days, General Soleimani had been traveling in the Middle East coordinating further imminent large-scale attacks against U.S. diplomats and service members. These threats were highly credible and the intelligence is sound.”

Inside the plot by Iran’s Soleimani to attack U.S. forces in Iraq

The Revolutionary Guards commander instructed his top ally in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and other powerful militia leaders to step up attacks on U.S. targets in the country using sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran… The strategy session… came as mass protests against Iran’s growing influence in Iraq were gaining momentum, putting the Islamic Republic in an unwelcome spotlight. Soleimani’s plans to attack U.S. forces aimed to provoke a military response that would redirect that rising anger toward the United States, according to the sources briefed on the gathering, Iraqi Shi’ite politicians and government officials close to Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi…

Two weeks before the October meeting, Soleimani ordered Iranian Revolutionary Guards to move more sophisticated weapons – such as Katyusha rockets and shoulder-fired missiles that could bring down helicopters – to Iraq through two border crossings…

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-soleimani-insight-idUSKBN1Z301Z

Fox News on Friday night: Airstrike kills 5 members of Iran-backed militia, Iraq official says

https://www.foxnews.com/world/iraq-airstrike-iran-backed-militia-official

Brookings Institution’s @RanjAlaaldin: Reports coming in suggest the US has struck a convoy carrying senior PMF officials. There’s been a tectonic shift in US policy it seems – and if Iran’s going to avenge Soleimani’s death anyway then the US may now see no reason *not* to go after Iraq’s most powerful militia heads. What’s becoming apparent is that the US is no longer carrying out ad-hoc attacks on militia groups in Iraq. What we may be witnessing is an intensified US *campaign* of airstrikes designed to undermine, contain and paralyse Iran’s proxy network in Iraq.

Other than a sustained campaign of strikes initiated over an extended period, the other possibility is that the Trump administration is pulling off a Michael Corleone hit: settling all its business by moving swiftly & decisively against the entirety of Iran’s proxies in Iraq

Fear Hits Tehran over What Might Come Next – Iranians are already exhausted by crippled finances, anti-government protests and the risk of provoking more conflict

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-04/fear-hits-tehran-over-what-might-come-next

On Saturday, OAN’s @alexsalvinews: Iraqi news reports say Katyusha rocket attacks have targeted two U.S. assets around Baghdad: Balad Air Force Base hosting U.S. troops (damage unknown); U.S. Embassy (no damage reported).

@realDonaldTrump on Saturday: Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently hundreds of Iranian protesters. He was already attacking our Embassy, and preparing for additional hits in other locations. Iran has been nothing but problems for many years. Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!

Sunday developments in regard to Iran

WaPo: Iran announces it is suspending all commitments to the 2015 nuclear deal
GOP @RepMarkMeadows: A better headline would be: “Country that was never following agreement announces it will continue not following agreement”
Iran put an $80m bounty on Trump.
A massive US air presence over Baghdad after a rocket attack near the US embassy.
Missile forces across Iran went on high alert.
Trump tweet: These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!
@IntelCrab: Two more C-17s headed across the Atlantic… Fort Bragg alone has seen nearly a dozen departures since this morning.
[Iran-controlled mostly Shiite] Iraq parliament votes to expel U.S. military

The resolution was backed by most Shiite members of parliament, who hold a majority of seats…

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/5/iraq-parliament-votes-expel-us-military/

@JesseKellyDC: The biggest story from all this Iran stuff is how much support they have inside Iraq. Man, American foreign policy is such a clueless joke. All those lives and all that money, and we created an Iranian vassal state.

Turkey sent troops to Libya. Something big is about to happen.

Erdogan says Turkey is already sending troops to Libya – Turkey backs U.N.-recognized government while Russia, France, UAE support eastern faction

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/erdogan-says-turkey-is-already-sending-troops-to-libya-2020-01-05

Trump last night: “If it happens it happens. If they do anything there will be major retaliation… They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They are allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way… If there’s any hostility [after Iraq parliament voted for US to leave], they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq… We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it.”

HeshmatAlavi: Former CIA Director [under Obama] David Petraeus: “It’s impossible to overstate the significance” of taking out Qasem Soleimani. “This is bigger than [taking out Osama] bin Laden” and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The Pentagon said the US drone strike was authorized under 10 U.S. Code § 127e. “Support of special operations to combat terrorism.”

@realDonaldTrump: General Qassem Soleimani has killed or badly wounded thousands of Americans over an extended period of time, and was plotting to kill many more...but got caught! He was directly and indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people, including the recent large number of PROTESTERS killed in Iran itself. While Iran will never be able to properly admit it, Soleimani was both hated and feared within the country. They are not nearly as saddened as the leaders will let the outside world believe. He should have been taken out many years ago!

Iran never won a war, but never lost a negotiation!

@realDonaldTrump Jul 22, 2018: To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!

Iran’s Quds Forces Commander Mocks Trump, Says Iran Will ‘Destroy All That You Possess’

27 Jul 2018 –“As a soldier, it is my duty to respond to your threats… If you want to use the language of threat … talk to me, not to the president (Rouhani). It is not in our president’s dignity to respond to you.”…https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/07/27/iran-quds-forces-commander-mocks-trump-says-iran-will-destroy-all-that-you-possess/

@johnrobb: Killing Soleimani “pierced the veil” on asymmetric wars and remote control assassinations. The senior officials and bureaucrats that run them now have some skin in the game.

The shadowy Iranian spy chief who helped plan Benghazi

According to the book “Dark Forces,” Major Gen. Qassem Suleymani (right) was the powerful figure behind the 2012 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya…

https://nypost.com/2014/06/20/how-irans-spy-chief-paid-for-the-benghazi-attack/

@seanmdav: Iran has been at war with the U.S. for decades. They took over 50 American hostages. They kidnapped and murdered the CIA station chief in Beirut. They bombed our embassy in Lebanon. They designed and deployed IEDs against our troops in Iraq. And then they attacked our embassy.

Dem Senator Chris Murphy (CT) – Who Lashed Out at Trump Following Suleimani’s Death – Is Frequent Speaker at NIAC Council – the Iranian Regime’s US Lobby House

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/dem-senator-chris-murphy-who-lashed-out-at-trump-following-suleimanis-death-is-frequent-speaker-at-niac-council-the-iranian-regimes-us-lobby-house/

John Kerry’s Secret Talks with Iran after Daughter Married Iranian National; Best Man Was Son of Iran’s Secretary of State – Kerry was the lead negotiator who handed Iran over $150 Billion in U.S. cash for what was then-spun as a nuclear deal… Kerry’s daughter Vanessa is married to an Iranian national and physician. His best man at the ceremony was the son of Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs — the position comparable to U.S. Sec of State. Zarif was also and Kerry’s chief counterpart in the nuclear deal negotiations… https://truepundit.com/family-business-john-kerrys-secret-talks-with-iran-after-daughter-married-iranian-national-best-man-was-son-of-irans-secretary-of-state/

Pelosi: “The Administration has conducted tonight’s strikes in Iraq targeting high-level Iranian military officials and killing Iranian Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani without an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Iran. Further, this action was taken without the consultation of the Congress. The full Congress must be immediately briefed on this serious situation and on the next steps under consideration by the Administration, including the significant escalation of the deployment of additional troops to the region.”

Rep. Omar Vows to ‘Step In and Stop Trump’ after Soleimani Killed

So what if Trump wants war, knows this leads to war and needs the distraction? Real question is, will those with congressional authority step in and stop him? I know I will…

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rep-omar-vows-step-and-stop-trump-after-top-iranian-commander-killed

Joe Biden and other Dem presidential candidates slammed DJT for Soleimani’s death. @Denlewis01: Joe Biden 1996: If Iran attacked a USA facility it is an act of war and ANY retaliation is warranted

https://twitter.com/Denlewis01/status/1213450344711311361

@lawyer4laws: Notice . . . Democrats aren’t asking What Soleimani was doing in Iraq?

@MichaelCoudrey: Obama ordered over 542 drone strikes without approval from Congress and killed an estimated 3797 people, including 324 civilians. Trump ordered the kill of terrorist Qassim Soleimani without approval from Congress. And the Democrats are freaking out about Trump

NBC News: Newly Released Bin Laden Document Describes Iran, Al Qaeda Link Nov. 1, 2017

A document seized the night Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden suggests that Al Qaeda and Iran had a relationship more complicated and intimate than previously known — one that included threats and kidnappings, but also occasional cooperation… the document traces the history of the relationship starting with the escape of a group of Al Qaeda officials and their families from Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion in September 2001. Bin Laden dispatched the group of Al Qaeda leaders, known as the Al Qaeda Management Council, to Iran…

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/newly-released-bin-laden-document-describes-iran-al-qaeda-link-n816681

The Jerusalem Post’s @CarolineGlick: Iran played a key role in the 9/11 attacks… Arguably the greatest failing of the Bush administration was its refusal to lift a finger against Iran. Israel warned him that it was Iran, not Iraq that needed to be dealt with. He didn’t listen.

Ex-CIA operative Tony Shaffer @T_S_P_O_O_K_Y: We killed bin Laden because of his acts of terror planning, Suleimani was worse, yet you see @TheDemocrats, Hollywood & the MSM in full defense of Iran and their terrorism

@JonathanTurley: Schumer’s statement today is curious since he not only opposed any witnesses in the Clinton trial but also supported a summary vote without a trial. He is insisting on “following precedent” that he opposed creating. He also ran on the pledge to vote to acquit before any trial.

“A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely”—Cicero

end

Let us close with this offering courtesy of Greg Hunter and Michael Pento

(Greg Hunter/Michael Pento)

No Escape from Massive Global Debt Monetization – Michael Pento

By Greg Hunter On January 5, 2020

Money manager Michael Pento says forget about the sky high stock market because everything is being propped up with massive global money printing. Pento explains, “Let’s look at the facts. Global debt has now risen above $250 trillion. Let that sink in for a second, and it is a record percentage, 330% of GDP. So, we have never seen debt like this before in nominal terms. Even as a percentage of the phony GDP that is engendered by free money, it is at a record. So, the central bankers have realized that they are trapped. There is no escape from global massive debt monetization. . . . We have China, Japan, Europe . . . and even our Federal Reserve is back in QE. We have a standing repo facility. We could only raise rates to 1.5%, and we are headed back to 0%. So, the only way this massive pile of debt is able to be serviced, even on the margins, is when money is free and central banks continually debase currency.”

Pento goes on to say, “Now I hear from the central bankers that inflation is not rising fast enough. They are panicked that inflation is not rising fast enough. You have to wonder why the faith in fiat currencies isn’t eroding even more rapidly. It is going to because all the ingredients are there. I think the pace of that erosion is going to become a deluge. . . . The zeitgeist of the day should be central bankers are trapped and they can never raise interest rates. Real interest rates will be falling, and if you want a chance of staying in the middle class, you have to preserve your purchasing power, and that means owning gold.”

Pento recommends, “I have 10% of my portfolio in gold, and I am going to increase that. I would think you need at least 10% in gold, physical gold, right now. If you don’t have that, then you are doing yourself a great disservice. I include gold, silver and platinum in the precious metals basket, and that amount should be increasing. . . . We are going to have a massive reset, and all of this debt is going to have to be defaulted upon. It is going to be defaulted upon two ways: through inflation and through implicit restructuring. Knowing how they are going to default on this debt is going to make you solvent. . . . If you look at all the ingredients that surround your decision as to when you should increase your allocation to precious metals, all those ingredients are in place and getting more so.”

Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with money manager Michael Pento of PentoPort.com.

-END-

Well that is all for today

I will see you Tuesday night.

JAN 6/GOLD APPROACHES 7 YR HIGH//GOLD UP ANOTHER $15.40 TO $1550.20//SILVER UP 3 CENTS TO $18.14 AS BANKERS DEFEND $18.50//MORE SWAMP STORIES FOR YOU TONIGH//

NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR JAN CONTRACT: 80 NOTICE(S) FOR 8000 OZ (0.2488 tonnes)

80 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR 400,000 OZ/

Bitcoin: OPENING MORNING TRADE : $ 7541 UP 185

Bitcoin: FINAL EVENING TRADE: $ 7552 UP 194

Let us have a look at the data for today

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

3A//NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA

3b) REPORT ON JAPAN

3C CHINA

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

6.Global Issues

7. OIL ISSUES

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES

9. PHYSICAL MARKETS

10. important USA stories which will influence the price of gold/silver

Let us head over to the comex:

Trading Volumes on the COMEX TODAY: 578,814 contracts

CONFIRMED COMEX VOL. FOR YESTERDAY: 474,042 contracts

INITIAL standings for JAN/GOLD

And now for silver

AND NOW THE DELIVERY MONTH OF JAN.

INITIAL standings/SILVER

ii) Important gold commentaries courtesy of GATA/Chris Powell

Overwhelming demand for U.S. dollars … in Venezuela

Pam and Russ Martens: Doomsday machine returns with Citibank’s credit default swaps

Dave Kranzler: The Comex is a complete joke

‘We must get a winner one day’: Why it might be tomorrow

iii) Other physical stories:

Record Amount Of Gold In London’s Vaults?

What lies beneath?

Q3 gold flows in to London vaults

Nearly 2000 tonnes in gold-backed ETFs

Running on Fumes

Conclusion

Stability Is Gone – Simon Black: “I Sure Am Glad I Own Some Gold”

US seeks halt in civil lawsuit accusing JP Morgan of manipulating metals market, citing criminal case

Federal judge tells traders they can combine cases accusing JP Morgan of rigging metals market

Justice Department stalls another class action in gold market rigging, this one against JPM

Your early MONDAY morning currency, Asian stock market results, important USA/Asian currency crosses, gold/silver pricing overnight along with the price of oil Major stories overnight/7 AM EST

Futures Tumble, Gold Soars To 7 Year High As Iran Escalation Fears Spill Over

3A/ASIAN AFFAIRS

3 a./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA

b) REPORT ON JAPAN

3 C CHINA

China Replaces Top Hong Kong Official; Appoints “Strongman” In Signal To Protesters

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

Greece, Israel & Cyprus Sign Landmark EastMed Gas Pipeline Deal Despite Turkey’s Wrath

German Govt Says America’s Actions Were Justified In Killing Of Soleimani

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

Red Flag Of Jihad Raised As 1000s Mourn Death Of Suleimani In Baghdad

Iran’s New Top Military Commander Vows To “Remove America From The Region” As Vengeance For Soleimani

Rouhani Says “Never Threaten Iran” In Evoking Downed Airliner With 290 People Onboard

Amphibious Assault Ship Bataan With 2,000 Marines On Board Is Headed Toward Iraq

Iraqi Parliament Decision to Expel U.S. Forces Is Hampering American-led Operations Against Islamic…

US Army Tells Iraq It Is Preparing To “Move Out” Out Of “Respect For Sovereignty”

Turkey Deploys Troops To Libya As Haftar Calls For “Jihad”

AK Parti @Akpartiorg

Rabobank: “World War 3? The US Has Crossed A Red Line… But It’s Not The One They Think”)

6.Global Issues

7. OIL ISSUES

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES

“This Is Unprecedented!” Guaido Denied Entry To Venezuelan Parliament, Only To Be Reelected Hours Later

Your early morning currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings MONDAY morning 7:00 AM….

Your closing bourses for Europe and the Dow along with the USA dollar index closing and interest rates for MONDAY: 12:00MON

Closing Price for Oil, 4:00 pm/and 10 year USA interest rate:

USA trading today in Graph Form

Gold Nears 7 Year Highs As Stocks, Bonds Shrug Off Soaring Geopolitical Risk

And now your more important USA stories which will influence the price of gold/silver

Gulf Stocks Plunge On War Threat, Aramco Hits Lowest Since IPO

Gold Spikes To 6-Year High, Oil Jumps, Stocks Dump As Asia Opens

Oil Goes Red, Gold Holds Gains, S&P Rebounds Into Green

US Services PMI Jumps To 5-Month Highs But Outlook Plummets

Graham Tells Trump To ‘Crush Iranian Economy’ By Targeting Oil Refineries After Assassination

Round Two: US Drone Airstrikes Kill Six Pro-Iran Militia Commanders

Iran Has Hezbollah Sleeper Cells In The US Ready To Strike

Major U.S. Cities Ramp up Security to Prepare For Potential Iran-Backed Attacks

Rail Traffic Continues To Plunge Amid Industrial Recession

New, Potentially “Catastrophic” Wiring Issues Found In Boeing 737 Max