GOLD:$1747.20 UP $16.30 The quote is London spot price
Silver:$16.64 UP 81 CENTS (London spot closing price)
Closing access prices: London spot
i)Gold : $1744.00 LONDON SPOT 4:30 pm
ii)SILVER: $16.65//LONDON SPOT 4:30 pm
CLOSING FUTURES PRICES: KEY MONTHS
MAY COMEX GOLD: XXX
JUNE GOLD: $1756.20 CLOSE 1.30 PM// SPREAD SPOT (LONDON) VS/FUTURE JUNE: $9.00.//PREMIUMS WENT UP AGAIN
CLOSING SILVER FUTURE MONTH
SILVER JUNE COMEX CLOSE; $17.04…1:30 PM.//SPREAD SPOT/(LONDON) VS FUTURE JUNE: 40 CENTS PER OZ//PREMIUMS UP AGAIN//HUGE DIFFERENCE
the gold market continues to be broken as future prices are much higher than spot prices. The comex is desperate to fix things but they have no available gold.
If one is to buy gold and or gold coins, the price is around $2800. usa per oz
and silver; $31.00 per oz//
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: YOU ARE NOW WITNESSING FIRST HAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PAPER GOLD/SILVER AND THE REAL PHYSICAL STUFF!!
DO NOT PAY ANY ATTENTION TO WHAT THE CROOKS ARE DOING AT THE COMEX AND LONDON LBMA..PHYSICAL IS THE NAME OF THE GAME AND NOTHING ELSE
COMEX DATA
JPMorgan has been receiving gold with reckless abandon and sometimes supplying (stopping)
today RECEIVING: 133/920
issued: 864
EXCHANGE: COMEX
CONTRACT: MAY 2020 COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES
SETTLEMENT: 1,738.100000000 USD
INTENT DATE: 05/14/2020 DELIVERY DATE: 05/18/2020
FIRM ORG FIRM NAME ISSUED STOPPED
____________________________________________________________________________________________
072 C GOLDMAN 5
118 H MACQUARIE FUT 153
132 C SG AMERICAS 8
167 C MAREX 33
323 H HSBC 8
355 C CREDIT SUISSE 1
624 C BOFA SECURITIES 1
657 C MORGAN STANLEY 22
661 C JP MORGAN 864 133
685 C RJ OBRIEN 1
686 C INTL FCSTONE 46
690 C ABN AMRO 10 432
732 C RBC CAP MARKETS 1
737 C ADVANTAGE 8 56
800 C MAREX SPEC 4 26
905 C ADM 1 27
____________________________________________________________________________________________
TOTAL: 920 920
MONTH TO DATE: 8,820
NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR MAY CONTRACT: 920 NOTICE(S) FOR 92,000 OZ (2.8615 tonnes)
TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED SO FAR: 8820 NOTICES FOR 882000 OZ (27.433 TONNES)
SILVER
FOR MAY
29 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR 145,000 OZ/
total number of notices filed so far this month: 8738 for 43,690,000 oz
BITCOIN MORNING QUOTE $9623 DOWN 172
BITCOIN AFTERNOON QUOTE.: $9396 DOWN 401
GLD AND SLV INVENTORIES:
WITH GOLD UP $16.30 AND NO PHYSICAL TO BE FOUND ANYWHERE:
WITH ALL REFINERS CLOSED//MEXICO ORDERING ALL MINES SHUT: WHERE ARE THEY GETTING THE “PHYSICAL”?
A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD// A PAPER DEPOSIT OF 12.58 TONNES INTO THE GLD//
GLD: 1,104.72 TONNES OF GOLD//
WITH SILVER UP 81 CENTS TODAY: AND WITH NO SILVER AROUND
NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//
RESTING SLV INVENTORY TONIGHT:
SLV: 423.658 MILLION OZ./
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Let us have a look at the data for today
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IN SILVER THE COMEX OI ROSE BY A HUGE SIZED 4716 CONTRACTS FROM 136,495 UP TO 141,211 AND CLOSER TO OUR NEW RECORD OF 244,710, (FEB 25/2020. THE FAIR SIZED GAIN IN OI OCCURRED WITH OUR 33 CENT GAIN IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX. IT SEEMS THAT THE GAIN IN COMEX OI IS DUE TO STRONG BANKER SHORT COVERING PLUS A SMALL EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE, ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION, ACCOMPANYING A GOOD INCREASE IN SILVER OZ STANDING AT THE COMEX FOR MAY. WE HAD A NET GAIN IN OUR TWO EXCHANGES OF 5486 CONTRACTS (SEE CALCULATIONS BELOW).
WE HAVE ALSO WITNESSED A HUMONGOUS 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 SMALL SIZED NUMBER OF COMEX LONGS TRANSFERRING THEIR CONTRACTS TO LONDON THROUGH THE EFP ROUTE: MARCH: 00 AND MAY: 0 AND JULY: 680 AND ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS AND THEREFORE TOTAL ISSUANCE 110 CONTRACTS. WITH THE TRANSFER OF 680 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 680 EFP CONTRACTS TRANSLATES INTO 3.40 MILLION OZ ACCOMPANYING:
1.THE 33 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
5.075 MILLION OZ FINAL STANDING IN JAN
1.480 MILLION OZ FINAL STANDING IN FEB
23.005 MILLION OZ FINAL STANDING FOR MAR
4.660 MILLION OZ FINAL STANDING FOR APRIL
45.435 MILLION OZ INITIALLY STANDING FOR MAY
THURSDAY, AGAIN OUR CROOKS USED COPIOUS PAPER IN ORDER TO LIQUIDATE SILVER’S PRICE…AND THEY WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN (IT ROSE 33 CENTS).. AND, OUR OFFICIAL SECTOR/BANKERS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN THEIR ATTEMPT TO FLEECE ANY AMOUNT OF SILVER LONGS FROM THEIR POSITIONS. THE GOOD GAIN AT THE COMEX WAS ACCOMPANIED BY : i) A SMALL ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS 2) A GOOD GAIN IN SILVER OZ STANDING FOR MAY,3) CONSIDERABLE BANKER SHORT COVERING AND 4) ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION AS WE DID HAVE A NET GAIN OF 5396 CONTRACTS OR 26.480 MILLION OZ ON THE TWO EXCHANGES! YOU CAN BET THE FARM THAT OUR BANKER ARE DESPERATE TO LIQUIDATE THEIR HUGE SHORT POSITIONS IN SILVER
ACCUMULATION FOR EFP’S/SILVER/J.P.MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES, / STARTING FROM FIRST DAY /FOR MONTH OF MAY:
8322 CONTRACTS (FOR 11 TRADING DAYS TOTAL 8322 CONTRACTS) OR 41.61 MILLION OZ: (AVERAGE PER DAY: 756 CONTRACTS OR 3.783 MILLION OZ/DAY)
TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE HUGE SUPPLY THIS MONTH IN SILVER: SO FAR THIS MONTH OF MAY: 41.61 MILLION PAPER OZ HAVE MORPHED OVER TO LONDON. THIS REPRESENTS AROUND 5.48% 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: 1,030.45 MILLION OZ.
JANUARY 2020 EFP TOTALS SO FAR: 181.61 MILLION OZ
FEB 2020 EFP’S TOTAL : …… 259.600 MILLION OZ
MARCH EFP’S ….. 452.280 MILLION OZ //TOTALS//AND A NEW RECORD FOR THE MONTH)
APRIL EFP 95.355 MILLION OZ. (EX. FOR PHYSICALS BECOMING A LOT LESS)
MAY EFP SO FAR: 41.61 MILLION OZ
EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE FOR THE PAST 30 DAYS IS A LOT LESS. NO DOUBT THAT THE COST TO CARRY THESE THINGS HAS EXPLODED AND AS SUCH CANNOT BE DONE AS FREQUENTLY AS BEFORE.
RESULT: WE HAD A HUGE SIZED INCREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 4716, WITH OUR 33 CENT GAIN IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX ///THURSDAY… THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A GOOD SIZED EFP ISSUANCE OF 680 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
TODAY WE GAINED A GOOD SIZED OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES: 5396 CONTRACTS (WITH OUR 33 CENT GAIN IN PRICE)
THE TALLY//EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS
i.e 680 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS HEADED FOR LONDON (EFP’s) TOGETHER WITH A HUGE SIZED INCREASE OF 4716 OI COMEX CONTRACTS. AND ALL OF THIS DEMAND HAPPENED WITH A 33 CENT GAIN IN PRICE OF SILVER/AND A CLOSING PRICE OF $15.83 // THURSDAY’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 UNDER 1 BILLION oz i.e. 0.7050 BILLION OZ TO BE EXACT or 100.7% of annual global silver production (ex Russia & ex China).
FOR THE NEW MAR DELIVERY MONTH/ THEY FILED AT THE COMEX: 29 NOTICE(S) FOR 145,000 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//TODAY’S RECORD OF 244,705 IS SET WITH A PRICE OF: 18.91 (FEB 25/2020)
.
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: 5.075 MILLION OZ.//FEB 1.480 MILLION OZ//MAR: 23.005 MILLION OZ/APRIL 4.660 MILLION OZ//MAY 45.380 MILLION OZ
- THE RECORD PRIOR TO TODAY WAS SET IN FEB 25/2018: 244,710 CONTRACTS, WITH A SILVER PRICE OF $18.90//.
- 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 STRONG SIZED 10,433 CONTRACTS TO 521,493 AND CLOSER TO OUR NEW RECORD (SET JAN 24/2020) AT 799,541 AND PREVIOUS TO THAT: (SET JAN 6/2020) AT 797,110.
THE HUGE SIZED GAIN OF COMEX OI OCCURRED WITH OUR CONSIDERABLE COMEX GAIN IN PRICE OF $19.25 /// COMEX GOLD TRADING// THURSDAY// WE HAD STRONG BANKER SHORT COVERING , A HUGE SIZED INCREASE IN GOLD OZ STANDING AT THE COMEX, ALONG WITH ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION ACCOMPANYING A GOOD EX. FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE. THIS ALL HAPPENED WITH OUR LARGE GAIN IN THE PAPER PRICE OF GOLD.
WE HAD A VOLUME OF 8 4 -GC CONTRACTS//OPEN INTEREST 7
WE GAINED A STRONG SIZED 13,208 CONTRACTS (41.082 TONNES) ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES.
E.F.P. ISSUANCE
THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALED A FAIR SIZED 2775 CONTRACTS:
CONTRACTS, FEB> 0 CONTRACTS; MARCH 00 APRIL: 0. MAY: 0, AND JUNE 2325.; AUG 450 AND ALL OTHER MONTHS ZERO//TOTAL: 2775. The NEW COMEX OI for the gold complex rests at 521.493. 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 A VERY GOOD SIZED INCREASE IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 13,208 CONTRACTS: 10,433 CONTRACTS INCREASED AT THE COMEX AND 2775 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS TOTAL OI GAIN OF 13,208 CONTRACTS OR 41.082 TONNES. THURSDAY, WE HAD A GAIN OF $19.25 IN GOLD TRADING……
AND WITH THAT GAIN IN PRICE, WE HAD A VERY STRONG SIZED GAIN IN TOTAL/TWO EXCHANGES GOLD TONNAGE OF 41.082 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 (IT ROSE $19.25).AND IT ALSO SEEMS THAT THEIR ATTEMPT TO FLEECE ANY GOLD LONGS FROM THE GOLD ARENA WAS UNSUCCESSFUL (SEE BELOW).
4 GC VOLUME: 8 // open interest 7
END
CALCULATIONS ON GAIN/LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES:
WE HAD A GOOD SIZED INCREASE IN EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (2775) ACCOMPANYING THE HUGE SIZED GAIN IN COMEX OI (10,433 OI): TOTAL GAIN IN THE TWO EXCHANGES: 13,208 CONTRACTS. WE NO DOUBT HAD 1 )CONSIDERABLE BANKER SHORT COVERING, 2.)A STRONG INCREASE IN OUNCES STANDING AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR THE FRONT MAY MONTH, 3) ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION; 4) HUGE COMEX OI GAIN, AND …ALL OF THIS WAS COUPLED WITH OUR GAIN IN GOLD PRICE TRADING//THURSDAY
SPREADING OPERATIONS
OUR SPREADING OPERATION HAS NOW SWITCHED INTO GOLD…..
SPREADING OPERATION FOR OUR NEWCOMERS:
WE HAVE NOW COMMENCED IN SILVER THE ILLEGAL SPREADING OPERATION \ FOR NEWCOMERS, HERE ARE THE DETAILS:
SPREADING LIQUIDATION HAS NOW STOPPED IN SILVER AS THEY NOW BEGIN TO MORPH INTO GOLD AS WE HEAD TOWARDS THE NEW FRONT MONTH WILL BE JUNE.
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE NEW, HERE IS THE MODUS OPERANDI OF THE SPREADERS AND THE CRIMINAL ELEMENT BEHIND IT:
HERE IS A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HOW THE CROOKS FLEECE UNSUSPECTING LONGS IN THE SPREADING ENDEAVOUR;
THE SPREADING LIQUIDATION OPERATION IS NOW OVER FOR SILVER..AND WE WILL NOW MORPH INTO AN ACCUMULATION PHASE OF SPREADING CONTRACTS FOR GOLD. THEY WILL ACCUMULATE CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF THE CONTRACTS AND THEN LIQUIDATE ONE WEEK PRIOR TO FIRST DAY NOTICE
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 MAY HEADING TOWARDS THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF JUNE FOR GOLD:
YOU WILL ALSO NOTICE THAT THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST STARTS TO RISE IN THIS NON ACTIVE MONTH OF MAY. BUT SO IS THE OPEN INTEREST OF SPREADERS. THE OPEN INTEREST IN GOLD WILL CONTINUE TO RISE UNTIL ONE WEEK BEFORE FIRST DAY NOTICE OF AN UPCOMING ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH (JUNE), 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.”
HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN 2020 INCLUDING TODAY
ACCUMULATION OF EFP’S GOLD AT J.P. MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES: (EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL) FOR THE MONTH OF MAY : 31917 CONTRACTS OR 3,191,700 oz OR 99.27 TONNES (11 TRADING DAYS AND THUS AVERAGING: 2901 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY
TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE STRONG SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS : THIS MONTH IN 11 TRADING DAY(S) IN TONNES: 99.27 TONNES
TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2019, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES
THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS 99.27/3550 x 100% TONNES =2.80% OF GLOBAL ANNUAL PRODUCTION
ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL GOLD HAS DISSIPATED THIS MONTH…THE COST TO THE BANKERS TO CARRY THESE CONTRACTS IN LONDON IS BECOMING TOO GREAT FOR THEM.
ACCUMULATION OF GOLD EFP’S YEAR 2020 TO DATE: 2665.52 TONNES
JANUARY 2220 TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE; : 570.19 TONNES
FEB 2020 TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE : 653.78 TONNES
MARCH TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE 1,098.93 TONNES (*AND A NEW ALL TIME RECORD ISSUANCE//22 DAYS)
APRIL TOTAL EFP. ISSUANCE: 243.45 TONNES (EFP ISSUANCE BECOMING A LOT LESS)
MAY TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 99.27 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.
First, here is an outline of what will be discussed tonight:
1.Today, we had the open interest at the comex, in SILVER, ROSE BY A HUGE SIZED 4716 CONTRACTS FROM 136.495 UP TO 141,211 AND FURTHER FROM OUR COMEX RECORD //244,710(SET FEB 25/2020). 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 3/4 YEARS AGO. THE PRICE OF SILVER ON THAT DAY: $17.89.
ALL OF THE GAIN IN COMEX OI WAS DUE TO 1) CONSIDERABLE BANKER SHORT COVERING , 2) A GOOD ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (SEE BELOW), 3) A GOOD INCREASE IN SILVER OZ STANDING AT THE COMEX FOR MAY AND 4) ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION
EFP ISSUANCE 680 CONTRACTS
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 0: AND MAY: 0 JULY: 680 CONTRACTS AND ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 110 CONTRACTS. EFP’S GIVE OUR COMEX LONGS A FIAT BONUS PLUS A DELIVERABLE PRODUCT OVER IN LONDON. IF WE TAKE THE COMEX OI GAIN OF 4716 CONTRACTS TO THE 680 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S, WE OBTAIN A HUGE GAIN OF 5396 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES. THUS IN OUNCES, THE GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 26.48 MILLION OZ!!! OCCURRED WITH THE 33 CENT GAIN IN PRICE///
RESULT: A GOOD SIZED INCREASE IN SILVER OI AT THE COMEX WITH THE 33 CENT GAIN IN PRICING THAT SILVER UNDERTOOK IN PRICING// THURSDAY. WE ALSO HAD A GOOD SIZED 680 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
3. ASIAN AFFAIRS
i)FRIDAY MORNING/ THURSDAY NIGHT:
SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 1.88 POINTS OR 0.07% //Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 32.27 POINTS OR 0.14% /The Nikkei closed UP 122.69 POINTS OR 0.62%//Australia’s all ordinaires CLOSED UP 1.38%
/Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed DOWN at 7.1067 /Oil UP TO 28,16 dollars per barrel for WTI and 31.72 for Brent. Stocks in Europe OPENED MOSTLY GREEN// ONSHORE YUAN CLOSED DOWN // LAST AT 7.1067 AGAINST THE DOLLAR. OFFSHORE YUAN CLOSED DOWN ON THE DOLLAR AT 7.1314 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%
COMEX DATA//AMOUNTS STANDING//VOLUME OF TRADING/INVENTORY MOVEMENTS
GOLD
LET US BEGIN:
THE TOTAL COMEX GOLD OPEN INTEREST ROSE BY A HUGE SIZED 10,433 CONTRACTS TO 521,493 MOVING CLOSER TO OUR RECORD THAT WAS SET IN JANUARY/2020: {799,541 OI(SET JAN 16/2020)} AND PREVIOUS TO THAT: 797,110 (SET JAN 7/2020). AND THIS CONSIDERABLE COMEX OI GAIN WAS SET WITH OUR GAIN OF $19.25 IN GOLD PRICING /THURSDAY’S COMEX TRADING//). WE ALSO HAD A GOOD EFP ISSUANCE (2775 CONTRACTS),. THUS WE HAD 1) STRONG BANKER SHORT COVERING AT THE COMEX AND 2) ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION AND 3) ANOTHER INCREASE IN GOLD OZ STANDING AT THE COMEX//MAY DELIVERY MONTH , STRONG COMEX OI GAIN// … AS WE ENGINEERED A HUGE GAIN ON TWO EXCHANGES OF 13,208 CONTRACTS.
WE AGAIN HAD 8 4 -GC VOLUME//open interest remains at 7
EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE
WE ARE NOW IN THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF APRIL.. THE CME REPORTS THAT THE BANKERS ISSUED A GOOD SIZED TRANSFER THROUGH THE EFP ROUTE AS THESE LONGS RECEIVED A DELIVERABLE LONDON FORWARD TOGETHER WITH A FIAT BONUS., THAT IS 2775 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED:
FEB: 0; MARCH 00 AND APRIL: 0, MAY: 0 JUNE : 2325 AND 450 FOR AUG AND ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:
TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 2775 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: 13,208 TOTAL CONTRACTS IN THAT 2775 LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE GAINED A HUGE SIZED 10,433 COMEX CONTRACTS. THE BANKERS PROVIDED ALL THE NECESSARY SHORT PAPER TO WHICH OUR LONGS DUTIFULLY ACCEPTED AS THEY GOBBLED UP A GOOD AMOUNT OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS WITH CONSIDERABLE BANKER SHORT COVERING, ACCOMPANYING A STRONG INCREASE IN COMEX GOLD TONNAGE // STANDING FOR DELIVERY (SEE CALCULATIONS BELOW)….AND ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION…… ALL OF THE ABOVE OCCURRED WITH A CONSIDERABLE RISE IN PRICE
THE BANKERS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE //// (IT ROSE BY $19.25). AND, THEY WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN FLEECING ANY LONGS, AS THE TOTAL GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES REGISTERED A CONSIDERABLE 41.082 TONNES.
NET GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES :: 13,208 CONTRACTS OR 1,320,800 OZ OR 41.082 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: 521,493 TOTAL OI CONTRACTS X 100 OZ PER CONTRACT = 52.14 MILLION OZ/32,150 OZ PER TONNE = 1621 TONNES
THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST REPRESENTS 1621/2200 OR 73.711% OF ANNUAL GLOBAL PRODUCTION OF GOLD.
Trading Volumes on the COMEX TODAY: 113,009 contracts//volume very low
CONFIRMED COMEX VOL. FOR YESTERDAY: 242,177 contracts// volumes very low
MAY 15 /2020
MAY GOLD CONTRACT MONTH
Gold | Ounces |
Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory in oz |
nil oz |
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory in oz |
64.302 oz
oz
2 kilobars
|
Deposits to the Dealer Inventory in oz | 182,182.936 oz
Brinks Manfra
|
Deposits to the Customer Inventory, in oz |
135,592.971 OZ BRINKS HSBC Loomis
includes 2000 kilobars and 1700 KILOBARS |
No of oz served (contracts) today |
920 notice(s)
92000 OZ
(2.8615 TONNES)
|
No of oz to be served (notices) |
653 contracts
(65300 oz)
2.031 TONNES
|
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month |
8820 notices
882000 OZ
27.433 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 2 deposits into the dealer
I) Into Brinks: 96,452.960 oz
ii) Into Manfra: 87,675.976 oz
total dealer deposits: 182,182.936 oz
total dealer withdrawals: nil oz
we had 3 deposits into the customer account
i) Brinks: 16,635.971 oz
ii) Into Loomis: 54,655.000 oz (1700 kilobars)
iii) Into HSBC: 64,302.000 oz (2000 kilobars)
total deposits: 135,592.971 oz
we had 1 gold withdrawals from the customer account:
i) Out of Brinks: 64.302 oz (2 kilobars)
total gold withdrawals; 64.302 oz
We had 3 kilobar transactions +
We had 8 4 KC bar volume transactions/7 contracts oi
ADJUSTMENTS: 2 //
customer to dealer account
From HSBC 161,558.775 oz
and Scotia: 13,255.938 oz
The front month of May registered a LARGE total of 1573 oi contracts for a GAIN of 478 contracts. We had 142 notices filed upon yesterday so we GAINED 620 contracts or an additional 62,000 oz will stand as these guys REFUSED TO morph into London based forwards and thus negated a fiat bonus
The next delivery month after May is the huge delivery month of June. Here June saw a GAIN OF 771 contracts UP to 261,067 contracts. July had a GAIN of 11 OI contracts and thus 269 contracts outstanding. Next comes August another strong delivery month and here the OI ROSE by 7396 contracts up to 160,494 contracts.
We had 920 notices filed today for 92000 oz
To calculate the INITIAL total number of gold ounces standing for the MAY /2020. contract month, we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (8820) x 100 oz , to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of May. (1573 CONTRACTS ) minus the number of notices served upon today (920 x 100 oz per contract) equals 947,300 OZ OR 29.465 TONNES) the number of ounces standing in this non active month of May
thus the INITIAL standings for gold for the May/2020 contract month:
No of notices served (8820)x 100 oz + 1573 OI) for the front month minus the number of notices served upon today (920) x 100 oz which equals 947,300 oz standing OR 29.465 TONNES in this non active delivery month. This is a record amount for gold standing for any May delivery month or any non active delivery month.
We gained 620 contracts or an additional 62,000 oz will seek out metal on this side of the pond as they refused to morph into London based forwards.
NEW PLEDGED GOLD: BRINKS
3027.500 OZ REMOVED TO THE PLEDGED ACCOUNT JAN 10.2020/Brinks
144,088.952 oz NOW PLEDGED JAN 21.2020/HSBC 5.4807 TONNES
322,144.443 oz PLEDGED MARCH 2020 JPMORGAN: 10.020 TONNES
42,548.308.00 PLEDGED APRIL 3/2020: SCOTIA: 1.3234 tonnes
19,290.600 oz Pledged May 8/2020 INT DELAWARE: .600 TONNES
17,853.197 oz pledged May 8.2020 MANFRA: .553 TONNES
TOTAL PLEDGED GOLD NOW IN EFFECT: 545,925.500 OZ OR 16.980 TONNES
SURPRISINGLY WE HAVE BEEN WITNESSING NO REAL PHYSICAL GOLD ENTERING THE COMEX VAULTS FOR THE PAST YEAR!! ..ONLY PHONY KILOBAR ENTRIES…. WE HAVE 222.21 TONNES OF REGISTERED GOLD WHICH CAN SETTLE UPON LONGS ie. 29.465 tonnes
CALCULATION OF REGISTERED GOLD THAT CAN BE SETTLED UPON:
total registered, pledged and eligible (customer) gold; 23,596,106.717 oz 733.93 tonnes (INCLUDES 4 GC GOLD)
total 4 GC gold: 128.632 tonnes
total gold net of 4 GC: 605.30 tonnes
end
I have compiled data with respect to registered (or dealer) gold taken on first day notice for each of the past 24 months
The data begins on first day notice for the May month taken on the last day of April 2018. and it continues to present day. Thus 24 data entry points.
I then took, how many deliveries were recorded by the CME for each and every month. I also included for reference the price of gold on first day notice.
The first graph is a logarithmic graph and the second graph, linear.
You can see the huge explosion of registered gold at the comex along with deliveries. Gold owners are very clear people. They would know full well that
the gold at the comex is unallocated and that they would not be stupid enough to keep their gold at the comex especially in the registered category once deliveries are asked upon. If physical gold was present it would be have removed from the comex… It shows there is no gold at the comex. They are just trading in sticky paper.
THE GOLD COMEX SEEMS TO BE UNDER SEVERE ASSAULT FOR PHYSICAL
END
And now for the wild silver comex results
Total COMEX silver OI ROSE BY A HUGE SIZED 4716 CONTRACTS FROM 136,495 UP TO 141,211(AND FURTHER FROM OUR NEW ALL TIME RECORD OI FOR SILVER SET ON FEB 25.2020(244,710) ECLIPSING OUR PREVIOUS RECORD, AUGUST 25/2018 RECORD (244,196). THE PREVIOUS RECORD TO THAT WAS SET ON APRIL 9.2018/ 243,411 CONTRACTS) . THE GOOD OI COMEX GAIN TODAY OCCURRED WITH OUR 33 CENT GAIN IN PRICING//FRIDAY. WE GAINED A TOTAL OF 706 CONTRACTS IN OUR TWO EXCHANGES. THE GAIN IN TOTAL OI (TWO EXCHANGES) OCCURRED WITH 1) A SMALL ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS 2) A STRONG INCREASE IN SILVER OZ STANDING AT THE COMEX, 3) CONSIDERABLE BANKER SHORT COVERING , 4) ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION,5) STRONG COMEX GAIN IN OI AND ALL OF THIS OCCURRED WITH OUR STRONG 33 CENT GAIN IN PRICE
WE ARE NOW INTO THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF MAY
THE FRONT DELIVERY OF MAY SAW 378 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS STANDING AND THUS WE HAD A GAIN OF 3 CONTRACTS. We had 8 notices filed yesterday so we GAINED 11 contracts or an additional 55,000 oz will stand at the comex as these guys refused to morph into London based forwards and thus they negated a fiat bonus for their efforts..
AFTER MAY WE HAVE THE NON ACTIVE MONTH OF JUNE. HERE JUNE SAW A GAIN OF 8 CONTRACTS RESTING AT 465.
AFTER JUNE COMES THE VERY BIG DELIVERY MONTH OF JULY AND HERE THE OI GAINED 4462 CONTRACTS UP TO 107,622 CONTRACTS
We, today, had 29 notice(s) FILED for 145,000 OZ for the APRIL, 2019 COMEX contract for silver
MAY 15/2020
MAY SILVER COMEX CONTRACT MONTH
Silver | Ounces |
Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory | NIL oz |
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory |
5039.100 oz
CNT
Delaware
|
Deposits to the Dealer Inventory |
nil oz
|
Deposits to the Customer Inventory |
5859.000 oz
Delaware
|
No of oz served today (contracts) |
29
CONTRACT(S)
(145,000 OZ)
|
No of oz to be served (notices) |
349 contracts
1,745,000 oz)
|
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts) | 8738 contracts
43,690,000 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 |
total dealer deposits: nil oz
i) We had 0 dealer withdrawal
total dealer withdrawals: nil oz
i)we had 1 deposits into the customer account
into JPMorgan: 0
ii)into Delaware: 5859.000 oz
*** JPMorgan for most of 2017, 2018 and onward, has adding to its inventory almost every single day.
JPMorgan now has 160.819 million oz of total silver inventory or 51.22% of all official comex silver. (160.819 million/314.220 million
total customer deposits today: 5859.000 oz
we had 2 withdrawals:
i) Out of Delaware: 3036.100 oz
ii) Out of CNT: 2003.000 oz
total withdrawals; 5039.1000 oz
We had 0 adjustments
total dealer silver: 90.608 million
total dealer + customer silver: 314.221 million oz
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The total number of notices filed today for the MAY 2020. contract month is represented by 29 contract(s) FOR 145,000 oz
To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in MAY we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at 8820 x 5,000 oz = 43,690,000 oz to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of MAY.(378) and the number of notices served upon today 29 x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.
.
Thus the INITIAL standings for silver for the MAY/2019 contract month: 8820 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for front month of MAY (378)- number of notices served upon today (29) x 5000 oz of silver standing for the MAY contract month.equals 45,435,000 oz.
We GAINED 11 or an additional 55,000 oz will seek out metal on the London side of the pond as they ACCEPTED a London based forward contract..
TODAY’S ESTIMATED SILVER VOLUME: 39,998 CONTRACTS //volume very low
FOR YESTERDAY: 55,019 CONTRACTS..,CONFIRMED VOLUME//extremely low volume
YESTERDAY’S CONFIRMED VOLUME OF 55,019 CONTRACTS EQUATES to 275 million OZ 39.2% OF ANNUAL GLOBAL PRODUCTION OF SILVER..
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
end
NPV for Sprott
1. Sprott silver fund (PSLV): NAV FALLS TO- 1.12% ((MAY 15/2020)
2. Sprott gold fund (PHYS): premium to NAV FALLS TO -0.05% to NAV: (MAY 15/2020 )
Note: Sprott silver trust back into NEGATIVE territory at +%-/Sprott physical gold trust is back into NEGATIVE/ 1.12%
(courtesy Sprott/GATA
3.SPROTT CEF.A FUND (FORMERLY CENTRAL FUND OF CANADA):
NAV 15.95 TRADING 15.87///NEGATIVE 0.52
END
And now the Gold inventory at the GLD/
MAY 15.WITH GOLD UP $16.30 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER DEPOSIT OF 12.58 TONNES/ INVENTORY RESTS AT 1104.72 TONNES
MAY 14//WITH GOLD UP $19.25 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1092.14 TONNES
MAY 13//WITH GOLD UP $9.05 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//A DEPOSIT OF 11.07 TONNES/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1092.14 TONNES
MAY 12//WITH GOLD UP $6.60 TODAY; A SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/: A WITHDRAWAL OF .58 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1081.07 TONNES
MAY 11/WITH GOLD DOWN $12.65 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY: //INVENTORY RESTS AT 1081.65 TONES..
MAY 8/WITH GOLD DOWN $7.00 TODAY; A BIG CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY: A PAPER ADDITION OF 5.85 TONNES/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1081.65 TONNES
MAY 7/WITH GOLD UP $29.65 TODAY : A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//A PAPER ADDITION OF .41 TONNES/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1075.80 TONNES
MAY 6//WITH GOLD DOWN $17.00 TODAY/ A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//A PAPER ADDITION OF 3.68 TONNES/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1075.39 TONES
MAY 5/WITH GOLD DOWN $1.65 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER ADDITION OF 3.81 TONNES//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1071.71 TONNES
MAY 4//WITH GOLD UP $12.00 TODAY//A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A MASSIVE PAPER DEPOSIT OF 11.4 TONNES INTO THE GLD////GOLD INVENTORY RESTS AT 1067.90 TONNES
MAY 1/WITH GOLD UP $8.45 NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1056.50 TONNES
APRIL 30/WITH GOLD DOWN $15.95 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1056.50 TONNES
APRIL 29/WITH GOLD DOWN $7.65/A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER DEPOSIT OF 8.19 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY REST AT 1056.50 TONNES//
APRIL 28/WITH GOLD DOWN $4.50//NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1048.31 TONNES
APRIL 27/WITH GOLD DOWN $12.75//A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER DEPOSIT OF 5.85 TONNES INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS TONIGHT AT 1048.31 TONNES
APRIL 24/WITH GOLD DOWN $4.90 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS TONIGHT AT 1042.46 TONNES
APRIL 23/WITH GOLD UP $10.00 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS TONIGHT AT 1042.46 TONNES
APRIL 22/WITH GOLD UP $40.75 TODAY:; TWO HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//A)A MONSTROUS 3.8 PAPER TONNES WERE ADDED TO THE GLD INVENTORY AND B) ANOTHER HUGE 9.07 TONNES OF PAPER GOLD ADDED LATE IN THE DAY//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1042.46 TONNES
APRIL 21/WITH GOLD DOWN $21.60 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A MONSTROUS ADDITION OF 7.9 PAPER TONNES TO THE GLD INVENTORY//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1029.59 TONNES
APRIL 20//WITH GOLD UP $10.00 TODAY; NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1021.69 TONNES
APRIL 17/WITH GOLD DOWN $27.80 TODAY: SURPRISINGLY NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1021.69 TONNES TONNES..THE STRING OF 12 STRAIGHT STRONG DEPOSITS ENDS..
APRIL 16/WITH GOLD DOWN $4.50 TODAY: ANOTHER HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY: A STRONG DEPOSIT OF 4.10 TONNES WAS ADDED TO THE GLD INVENTORY//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1021.69 TONNES/12TH STRAIGHT STRONG DEPOSIT
APRIL 15//WITH GOLD DOWN $19.10 TODAY; ANOTHER HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY; A STRONG 7.89 TONNES WAS ADDED TO THE GLD INVENTORY//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1117.59 TONNES.//11TH STRAIGHT STRONG DEPOSIT
APRIL 14/WITH GOLD UP $23.55 TODAY: ANOTHER HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY: A STRONG 15.51 TONNES WAS ADDED TO THE GLD INVENTORY/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1009.70 TONNES//THIS IS THE 10TH STRAIGHT STRONG DEPOSIT//THIS IS A FRAUDULENT VEHICLE..THEY HAVE NO PHYSICAL GOLD IN THE TRUST..
APRIL 13//WITH GOLD UP $27.65 TODAY: ANOTHER HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY: A STRONG 5.36 TONNES WAS ADDED TO THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 994.19 TONNES
APRIL 9 WITH GOLD UP $37.30 TODAY: ANOTHER HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY: A STRONG 2.92 TONNES WAS ADDED TO THE GLD//GOLD INVENTORY RESTS TONIGHT AT..988.63 TONNES
APRIL 8/WITH GOLD DOWN $.60//ANOTHER HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY/;; A STRONG 1.45 TONNES WAS ADDED TO THE GLD/GOLD INVENTORY RESTS AT 985.71 TONNES
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Inventory rests tonight at
MAY 15/ GLD INVENTORY 1104.72 tonnes*
LAST; 821 TRADING DAYS: +158.42 NET TONNES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE GLD
LAST 721 TRADING DAYS://+333.56 TONNES HAVE NOW BEEN ADDED INTO THE GLD INVENTORY.
end
Now the SLV Inventory/
MAY 15/WITH SILVER UP 81 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: /INVENTORY RESTS AT 423.65 MILLION OZ.
MAY 14//WITH SILVER UP 33 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 423.65 MILLION OZ
MAY 13/WITH SILVER UP 2 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A PAPER DEPOSIT OF 2.79 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV..//INVENTORY RESTS AT 423.65 MILLION OZ//
MAY 12/WITH SILVER UP 5 CENTS TODAY: A BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 3.076 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 420.861 MILLION OZ//
MAY 11.WITH SILVER DOWN 5 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 417.785 MILLION OZ//
MAY 8/WITH SILVER UP 11 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A MONSTER DEPOSIT OF 4.661 MILLION OZ OF SILVER INTO THE SLV..///INVENTORY RESTS AT 417.785 MILLION OZ//
MAY 7/WITH SILVER UP 45 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 413.124 MILLION OZ//
MAY 6/WITH SILVER DOWN 6 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 413.124 MILLION OZ//
MAY 5/WITH SILVER UP 17 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 413.124 MILLION OZ///
MAY 4//WITH SILVER DOWN 5 CENTS TODAY:2 HUGE PAPER CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV.i).A LARGE 1.399 MILLION OZ OF PAPER SILVER REMOVED FROM THE SLV//..//INVENTORY RESTS AT 411.427 MILLION OZ and ii) A LARGE 1.647 MILLION OZ OF PAPER SILVER ADDED TO THE SLV// INVENTORY RESTS AT 413.124 MILLION OZ//
MAY 1/WITH SILVER FLAT IN PRICE: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 412.826 MILLION OZ///
APRIL 30/WITH SILVER DOWN 26 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 412.826 MILLION OZ//
APRIL 29/WITH SILVER DOWN ONE CENT TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 412.826 MILLION OZ//
APRIL 28 /WITH SILVER DOWN 2 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 412.826 MILLION OZ..
APRIL 27/WITH SILVER UP ONE CENT TODAY: TWO SMALL CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: a) A WITHDRAWAL OF 373,000 OZ FORM THE SLV// b) A SECOND WITHDRAWAL OF 466,000: ////INVENTORY RESTS AT 412.826 MILLION OZ//
APRIL 24//WITH SILVER UP 3 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 413.665 MILLION OZ
APRIL 23/WITH SILVER UP 0 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 2.891 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV/////INVENTORY RESTS AT 413.665 MILLION OZ//
APRIL 22/WITH SILVER UP 42 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY: A PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 1.865 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 410.774 MILLION OZ//
APRIL 21//WITH SILVER DOWN 60 CENTS TODAY; A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A PAPER ADDITION OF 1.398 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV INVENTORY//INVENTORY RESTS AT 412.639 MILLION OZ//
APRIL 20//WITH SILVER UP 16 CENTS TODAY: A BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.797 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 414.038 MILLION OZ//
APRIL 17/WITH SILVER DOWN 24 CENTS TODAY; A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.3999 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 415.437 MILLION OZ//
APRIL 16/WITH SILVER UP 5 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 415.437 MILLION OZ//
APRIL 15//WITH SILVER DOWN 45 CENTS TODAY: TWO HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV TWO HUGE DEPOSITS: A DEPOSIT OF 1.679 MILLION OZ AND ANOTHER 5.222 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 415.437 MILLION OZ//
APRIL 14./WITH SILVER UP 51 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//A MASSIVE PAPER DEPOSIT OF XXX MILLION OZ//INVENTORY RESTS AT 408.536 MILLION OZ//
APRIL 13//WITH SILVER DOWN 29 CENTS TODAY; A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A MASSIVE PAPER DEPOSIT OF 6.155 MILLION OZ////INVENTORY RESTS AT 408.536 MILLION OZ//
APRIL 9/WITH SILVER UP 60 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A HUGE DEPOSIT OF 1.84 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 402.381 MILLION OZ.
MAY 15.2020:
SLV INVENTORY RESTS TONIGHT AT
423.65 MILLION OZ.
END
LIBOR SCHEDULE AND GOFO RATES// GOLD LEASE RATES
YOUR DATA…..
6 Month MM GOFO 2.39/ and libor 6 month duration 0.68
Indicative gold forward offer rate for a 6 month duration/calculation:
G0LD LENDING RATE: -1.71%
NEGATIVE GOLD LEASING RATES//GOLD SCARCITY AND CENTRAL BANKS CALLING IN ALL OF THEIR GOLD LEASES
XXXXXXXX
12 Month MM GOFO
+ 1.92%
LIBOR FOR 12 MONTH DURATION: 0.77
GOFO = LIBOR – GOLD LENDING RATE
GOLD LENDING RATE = -1.15
NEGATIVE GOLD LEASING RATES//GOLD SCARCITY AND CENTRAL BANKS CALLING IN ALL OF THEIR GOLD LEASES
end
PHYSICAL GOLD/SILVER STORIES
i) GOLDCORE BLOG/Mark O’Byrne
Mark O’Byrne of GoldCore this morning:
Gold Hits New Record Highs On Currency Debasement, Brexit and U.S. China Risks
* Gold has surged to new record highs in British pounds at £1,422/oz, is touching near record highs in euros at €1,607/oz and is 1.8% higher this week in dollars to $1,738/oz, near a new 8 year high.
* Gold’s gains on all currencies are due to concerns about the outlook for global economies and global currencies in an era of currency debasement on a scale never before seen in world history.
* Other risks have not gone away and are set to rear their ugly heads again. These include major geopolitical, monetary and systemic risks from the pandemic and attendant global lockdown, from Brexit and risks to the viability of the Eurozone itself and of course U.S. China tensions are bubbling over once again.
* Gold is consolidating near record highs in euros and is the second best performing asset (only the 30 year US bond has done better) in the world in 2020 year to date in all currencies.
* It is again acting as a hedge and a safe haven exactly when investors need one and most analysts including Goldman Sachs believe it will continue to do so in the coming years with Goldman advising that the case for diversifying into gold is ‘as strong as ever.’
* Gold is 14% higher in dollars,18% higher in euros and 22% higher in embattled sterling year to date…
-END-
ii) Important gold commentaries courtesy of GATA/Chris Powell
Alasdair Macleod states that hedge funds have now overpowered the bullion banks with gold.
(Courtesy Kingworldnews/Alasdair Macleod)
Hedge funds have beaten bullion banks with gold, Macleod tells KWN
Submitted by cpowell on Thu, 2020-05-14 16:12. Section: Daily Dispatches
12:14p ET Thursday, May 14, 2020
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Hedge funds appear to have defeated the bullion banks in the gold market, GoldMoney research director Alasdair Macleod tells King World News today.
Presenting a price chart showing gold breaking out of a “pennant formation,” Macleod says: “Pennants are not infallible, but given that the bullion banks were short before the coronavirus shutdowns in the United States and Europe and all central banks’ subsequent promises to accelerate money printing, the fundamentals appear to back a far higher gold price as well.”
Macleod’s comments are posted at KWN here:
https://kingworldnews.com/alasdair-macleod-gold-breaks-out-set-to-attack…
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org
END
iii) Other physical stories:
Silver Is Soaring, Gold-Ratio Plunges To 2-Month Lows
Gold and Silver are surging this morning but it is the latter that is dramatically outperforming…
Gold futures are back above $1750…
Gold is at a record high against the yuan this morning (after yuan weakness on trade tensions)…
Silver futures tagged $17…
The gold/silver ratio is tanking dramatically, back at 2-month lows
But has a long way to go…
As Simon Black recently noted, this ratio may stay elevated for a while, or even go higher, but in the past, the ratio has always returned to more traditional levels. Always. Even when the world was facing Adolf Hitler or the Great Depression.
So it stands to reason that, if they keep printing money (which they already are), and the ratio eventually returns to its historical range, the price of silver could really skyrocket.
end
https://www.jsmineset.com/2020/05/15/mr-resolute-keeps-mucking-up-comexs-au-ag-stalls/
Mr. Resolute Keeps Mucking Up Comex’s Au/Ag Stalls
Posted May 15th, 2020 at 9:37 AM (CST) by J. Johnson & filed under General Editorial.
Great and Wonderful Friday Morning Folks,
We start our early morning report with Gold and its confusions, with the June contract down 40 cents at $1,740.50 after reaching up to $1,748.90 with the low at $1,736.80. Today, finally, Silver is leading with the trade up 40.9 cents at $16.565 after hitting $16.705 with the low at $16.155. Par still surrounds the US Dollar, no matter how much is printed. How long this will last, is up to some Algo with the trade at 100.39, down 11.7 points after hitting a low at 100.195 with the high nearby at 100.420. Of course, all this happened already, after 2.2 trillion was created out of thin air, before 5 am pst, the Comex open, the London close, and after China’s bank HSBC taps the BOE for its GLD Bars.
Gold under the Venezuelan Bolivar is now valued at 17,383.24 showing an increase of 193.75 Bolivar with Silver gaining 8.24 with the price now at 165.443 Bolivar. Argentina’s Currency has Gold’s value pegged at 117,608.46 giving our noble metal a 1,436.10 A-Peso gain with Silver showing a 57.33 A-Peso pop with the trade now at 1,119.44. Gold’s value under the Turkish Lira is now at 12,038.72 showing an increase of 49.74 Lira’s with Silver proving a gain of 4.926 T-Lira’s with its price at 114.556.
May Silver Deliveries now has a Demand Count of 378 up on the board with a Volume of 23 so far today inside a trading range between $16.59 and $16.505 with the last trade at the low (what else is new for London?) up 36.9 cents. This proves an increase of 3 – 5,000-ounce contracts above yesterday’s tally which had a total Volume of 49 “swapping” contracts within a trading range between $16.12 and $16.005 with the last trade at the high with the adjusted close above that at $16.135 proving the demand had more action than the centrals could handle. The fear is showing up in the numbers behind the price again with Silver’s Overall Open Interest at 141,302 Overnighters. An increase of 4,718 paper shorts in order to keep Silver from doing more damage to the short traders’ accounts. Also, of note is the closing prices for the 2 front months in Silver suggesting a shortage of product in the eyes of us “old school traders” with May’s close at $16.136, with June’s close at $16.115, giving the delivery month a 2.1 penny premium in an Algo Controlled world. Let’s see how this unfolds.
May Gold’s Demand Count now sits at 1,573 fully paid for contracts with an early morning trading range between $1,745.10 and $1,739.70 with the last trade at $1,742.30 and with a Volume of 591 already up on the board today. Yesterday’s final trading range inside the delivery month was between $1,743.10 and $1,720.50 with the last trade at $1,736.50 with the adjusted close at $1,738.10 ending with a Volume of 672. The Demand Count from yesterday to today increase by 478 – 100-ounce contracts for that barbarous relic that the centrals kept telling everyone is worthless. Gold’s Overall Open Interest is now at 520,235 Overnighters, proving an increase of 4,779 short contracts being added or else the price would have gone much higher.
Whoever Mr. Resolute is (or how many there are), he keeps coming in and mucking up the Comex Stalls in both metals at a time when many mining facilities remain shuttered and for over 1 ½ months’ time. Our southern neighbor’s central bank, BOM cut rates ½% yesterday, as they too are having financial issues and are suffering from the CCP19 virus as this article claims 30 crematoriums across Mexico City are at full capacity. The truth about this airborne topic still needs honest vetting yet the media continues to be everyone’s enemy no matter where one turns. Who are they supporting after all?
The events of the week have been supportive for the precious metals. Gold is still, not that far away from making new life of contract highs and Silver seems to be ready to catch up. Reminder; Silver has yet to reach the 1980 high which Gold blew thru like a hot knife thru a bar of butter way back in 2011. So, we wait, with physicals in our hands and positive thoughts in the head, with a smile on our faces because, the controllers seem to be losing it. Have a great weekend, and keep the faith. With that we will always …
Stay Strong!
Jeremiah Johnson
end
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.
CNBC.com
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.
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.
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 FRIDAY 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: 7.1034/ GETTING VERY DANGEROUSLY PAST 7:1
//OFFSHORE YUAN: 7.1314 /shanghai bourse CLOSED DOWN 1.88 POINTS OR 0.07%
HANG SANG CLOSED DOWN 32.27 POINTS OR 0.14%
2. Nikkei closed UP 122.69 POINTS OR 0.62%
3. Europe stocks OPENED MOSTLY GREEN EXCEPT SPAIN/
USA dollar index UP TO 100.38/Euro FALLS TO 1.0802
3b Japan 10 year bond yield: FALLS TO. –.01/ !!!!(Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese yen vs usa cross now at 107.03/ 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:: 28.16 and Brent: 31.72
3f Gold YP/JAPANESE Yen UP 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 -.355%/Italian 10 yr bond yield UP to 1.82% /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD UP TO 0.80%…ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD/GERMAN BUND: 2.37: DANGEROUS FOR THE ITALIAN BANKING SYSTEM
3j Greek 10 year bond yield FALLS TO : 2.02
3k Gold at $1733.10 silver at: 16.29 7 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $18.50
3l USA vs Russian rouble; (Russian rouble DOWN 25/100 in roubles/dollar) 73.75
3m oil into the 28 dollar handle for WTI and 31 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 107.03 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 .9732 as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF is 1.0515 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 –0.55%
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 0.60% early this morning. Thirty year rate at 1.26%
5. Details Ransquawk, Bloomberg, Deutsche bank/Jim Reid.
6. TURKISH LIRA: UP TO 6.9152..
Futures Tumble After US Restarts Trade War With China, Locks Out Huawei; China Vows Retaliation
Well, we did warn you just two days ago that “US-China Relations Are About To Fall Off A Cliff.” Sure enough…
It was shaping up as a nice, quiet rampy end a tumultuous week, when at 630am ET all hell broke loose after Reuters reported that the Commerce Department moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers, by amending a foreign direct product rule to “strategically target Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of certain U.S. software and technology” in the process “cutting off Huawei’s efforts to undermine U.S. export controls.”
And while the commerce department did extend the temporary general license for Huawei by another 90 days, the US now “anticipates” this will be the final 90-day extension, effectively giving Huawei – and Beijing – a 3 month ultimatum, one which expires just 2 months before the presidential election.
The report, which culminated a week of increasingly acerbic and belligerent war of words, sent the e-mini S&P future sharply lower into negative territory from modestly positive while triggering a flight to safety…
… as countless US chip suppliers suddenly find themselves scrambling to find a new key client, as well as Huawei which will need an army of new suppliers of semiconductors. Today’s news also confirms what we wrote all the way back in Dec 2018, when we explained that in the escalating trade war with China, Beijing has one giant weakness and that the US has all the leverage – if it wants to use it – with its near monopoly on advanced semiconductor production, the lack of which can stop Huawei dead in its tracks.
The rule change is a blow to Huawei, the world’s no. 2 smartphone maker, as well as to Taiwan’s TSMC, a major producer of chips for Huawei’s HiSilicon unit as well as mobile phone rivals Apple and Qualcomm.
Flaring U.S.-China tensions have hung over markets all week, and President Donald Trump said in remarks broadcast Thursday that he doesn’t want to talk to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping right now. Stress between the nations is an extra headache for investors as they grapple with the ongoing fallout of the coronavirus.
As if prepared for just this eventuality, mere minutes later China’s Twitter mouthpiece, Global Times Editor in Chief Hu Xijing tweeted that “China will activate the “unreliable entity list”, restrict or investigate US companies such as Qualcomm, Cisco and Apple, and suspend the purchase of Boeing airplanes.”
This back and forth, which indicates that a fresh trade war has now broken out, sent futures from comfortably in the green to down almost 1% on the day. It also shook the Yuan out of its recent hypnosis, with the currency tumbling almost 200 pips to 7.13, the lowest level in over a week.
The good news: now we can rally on “hopes” for progress in the trade war as we did every single day of 2019, in addition to “hopes” for a quick reopening from a global pandemic that has cost 40 million US jobs. In short, the world may be in a depression, and one false flag away from trade war turning into kinetic war, but stocks will keep rallying on “optimism.”
Because in this centrally-planned market for idiots, hope is the only strategy.
There was little hope in Europe, where the Stoxx Europe 600 also trimmed its advance on the news, though it remained higher as Italy edged toward allowing free movement and Germany reported a drop in new infections.
Earlier in the session, Asian stocks gained, led by materials and energy, after falling on Thursday and closed well before the latest news rocked the global economy. Markets in the region were mixed, with Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 and Japan’s Topix Index rising, and India’s S&P BSE Sensex Index and Jakarta Composite falling. The Topix gained 0.5%, with Nomura System Corp and LIFULL rising the most. The Shanghai Composite Index was little changed, with Inesa Intelligent Tech advancing and Jingjin Environmental Protection declining the most.
Then there is the coronavirus pandemic: while the likes of Germany are showing some success at containing the virus, other countries that had quelled the pandemic such as South Korea and China are seeing a rise in cases, underscoring the tough choices policy makers face as they try to resuscitate their economies. Hopes over the rate of infection and a potential compromise on a European recovery fund had helped investors look past data that showed the German economy shrank 2.2% in the first quarter, the most in more than a decade.
In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot index and Treasuries traded in tight ranges Friday, with the former heading for this month’s first weekly gain. The greenback traded mixed versus Group-of-10 peers, before bursting higher following the Huawei news. The euro was steady, after briefly slipping below 1.08 per dollar; Australia’s dollar recovered from a loss that followed after a raft of mixed Chinese data highlighted the challenges confronting the world’s second-largest economy as it seeks to recover from the pandemic.
In commodities, Crude headed for a third weekly gain amid signs the oil market is slowly rebalancing.
Market Snapshot
- S&P 500 futures down 0.9% to 2,819
- STOXX Europe 600 up 1% to 330.06
- MXAP up 0.3% to 144.97
- MXAPJ up 0.2% to 466.60
- Nikkei up 0.6% to 20,037.47
- Topix up 0.5% to 1,453.77
- Hang Seng Index down 0.1% to 23,797.47
- Shanghai Composite down 0.07% to 2,868.46
- Sensex down 0.5% to 30,967.95
- Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 1.4% to 5,404.81
- Kospi up 0.1% to 1,927.28
- German 10Y yield unchanged at -0.543%
- Euro up 0.09% to $1.0815
- Italian 10Y yield rose 1.5 bps to 1.643%
- Spanish 10Y yield fell 0.7 bps to 0.74%
- Brent futures up 2.4% to $31.87/bbl
- Gold spot up 0.4% to $1,736.66
- U.S. Dollar Index down 0.2% to 100.22
Top Overnight News from Bloomberg
- Sweden’s central bank just hired consultants from BlackRock to help it buy the corporate bonds at the center of a legal dispute with the country’s parliament
- The German economy shrank 2.2% in the first quarter, the most in more than a decade, offering an early flavor of the damage from the coronavirus outbreak
- Italy will allow citizens to move freely between its 20 regions starting June 3, according to a draft decree seen by Bloomberg, as Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government opens up the country after more than two months of a stringent lockdown
- China said it did not know until Jan. 19 how infectious the new coronavirus is, pushing back against accusations that it intentionally withheld
- China’s industrial output increased in April for the first time since the virus outbreak, while retail sales slid more than projected information about the severity of the outbreak in Wuhan from the world
- China has a total of five possible vaccines for the coronavirus already in human trials and more will be approved next month, signaling the Asian nation’s rapid progress in the race for immunization
- Bank of America sold a $1 billion bond to fund Covid-19 relief efforts, marking the first issuance from a U.S. financial institution that explicitly earmarks all proceeds to tackle the pandemic
- Britain and the European Union’s talks about their future relationship are stumbling toward the brink, with few signs of progress being made ahead of a key deadline next month
- French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire pledged government- support measures for the car and aviation industries by the end of June, including incentives to buy electric vehicles
Asian equity markets initially traded indecisively before moving into broadly positive territory; Wall St saw a financial-led session of gains. The APAC session saw mixed Chinese data in which Industrial Production topped estimates but Retail Sales disappointed with a larger than expected contraction. ASX 200 (+1.4%) was buoyed by strength in mining names and with financials cheering the outperformance of their Wall St peers, while Nikkei 225 (+0.6%) initially outperformed due to confirmation the government will lift the State of Emergency in 39 prefectures although the gains were briefly wiped out considering that Tokyo was not included in those areas and with the index oscillating around the 20K level. Hang Seng (-0.1%) and Shanghai Comp. (U/C) were choppy due to the mixed data releases and following the PBoC’s tepid actions whereby it announced a CNY 100bln Medium-term Lending Facility which was half of what had expired yesterday and kept the rate unchanged at 2.95%, but noted that the second phase of its previously announced RRR cuts took effect from today and would release about CNY 200bln of long-term liquidity. Finally, 10yr JGBs were higher but with the gains only marginal amid the indecisive overnight risk tone and with the BoJ also present in the market for relatively reserved JPY 80bln in up to 1yr JGBs, as well as JPY 370bln in the belly.
Top Asian News
- China’s Industrial Economy Improves While Consumers Remain Wary
- MUFG Sees Smaller-Than-Expected Profit Growth on Bad-Loan Costs
- SoftBank Has Spent $2.3 Billion to Buy Own Shares Since March
- Bidders Are Lining Up to Buy Virgin Australia After Collapse
European stocks initially held onto gains [Euro Stoxx 50 +0.6%], having missed out yesterday’s post-Europe rally. However, reports that the US is moving to block Huawei from acquiring US integrated semiconductors and chip sets pressured sentiment and stock markets. Spain’s IBEX (-0.5%) is the region’s underperformer amid steep losses in its Financial names – broad-based upside is seen across the rest of the region. Sectors are all in the green with Energy relinquishing its top spot to later underperform; sector breakdown sees Basic Resources and Autos outperforming while Banks reside alongside Construction & Materials. In terms of individual movers, BT (+4.9%) rose as much as 10% at the open amid source reports via the FT that the Co. is in talks to sell a “multibillion-pound stake” in its GBP 20bln Openreach unit to infrastructure investors, adding that talks were reportedly held with Macquarie. However, an internal memo pushed back against this speculator, thus shares trimmed some gains. Elsewhere, Richemont (-2.6%) shares lag the market amid a slew of downbeat YY metrics in which FY20 adj net, operating profit, diluted EPS and net cash position eroded. William Hill (+6.6%) trades higher after announcing that cash burn reduced to around GBP 15mln per month and liquidity in excess of EUR 700mln. The group also said revolving credit facility covenants waived for 2020 and reset for 2021.
Top European News
- Germany Enters Historic Recession With Biggest Slump in a Decade
- Riksbank Hires BlackRock to Help Pave Way for Corporate Bond QE
- BT Insider Buying Brings Skepticism to Deal Talks, Say Analysts
- Pandora Gains After Carnegie Increases Price Target by 42%
In FX, notwithstanding an element of Friday fatigue and cautious trade ahead of potentially market-moving US data in the form of retail sales and ip ahead of preliminary Michigan sentiment, the Yen and Dollar look tightly bound above 107.00 amidst a recovery in broad sentiment and particularly large expiries rolling off at the NY cut, with over 2 bn at the figure and 107.50 keeping Usd/Jpy contained. Moreover, the remaining Greenback/G10 pairings are also sticking to relatively tight lines awaiting more decisive direction following choppy and erratic price action so far this week, as the DXY consolidates just off yesterday’s new mtd high (100.56) within a 100.390-160 range.
- EUR/AUD/CAD/CHF – As noted above, not much deviation or adverse reaction to Eurozone GDP data that was remarkably close to consensus and largely ignored on the basis that the current quarter will be more telling in terms of gauging COVID-19 contagion. Indeed, after Germany’s 2.2% q/q contraction the Economy Ministry noted no improvement in April vs tangible evidence of recovery from this month, but still predicts a 10% fall overall in Q2. However, the single currency is clinging to 1.0800 vs the Buck following Thursday’s foray below the round number that almost tripped stops at 1.0775. Meanwhile, the Aussie, Loonie and Franc are all meandering between narrow bands against their US counterpart around 0.6460, 1.4045 and 0.9725 respectively, with the former not gleaning much from mixed Chinese data overnight, but the Cad cushioned by firm crude prices and the Chf still wary about ongoing official intervention given further retracement from recent peaks against the Eur to fresh multi-year highs less than 10 pips from 1.0500.
- GBP/SEK/NOK/NZD – Cable remains on the cusp of steeper declines unless 1.2200 continues to provide psychological support or the Pound survives another test of 1.2166 from a technical perspective awaiting updates on this week’s last session of UK-EU trade negotiations. Conversely, the Swedish and Norwegian Kronas appear to have run in to some resistance in Euro cross terms ahead of 10.5800 and 10.9500 respectively, but both retain upward thrust towards the upper bounds of 10.7100-10.5600 and 11.1855-10.9250 extremes on the week so far, in contrast to the Kiwi that is languishing under 0.6000 vs its US peer and not far from 1.0800 against the Aussie in wake of clear NIRP inferences from the RBNZ.
- EM – Most regional currencies are going through the motions, but the Lira has now touched 6.9000 as its resurgence gathers more steam and the Mexican Peso is taking the Banxico’s latest 50 bp ease in stride. However, the Czech Koruna has been hit by comments from CNB Governor Runok playing down the prospect of implementing an FX regime and resorting to negative rates following mixed Q1 GDP reads vs forecasts, albeit q/q and y/y contractions vs better than expected Hungarian, Polish and Romanian prints.
In commodities, WTI and Brent front-month continue to grind higher amid rosier demand and storage prospects alongside a more bullish supply backdrop. Furthermore, the IEA’s more optimistic comments regarding the demand slump not being as steep as feared underpin the complex. That being said, desks note that despite the above, the market remains in surplus, but the magnitude of inventory builds has declined vs. April levels – resulting in strengthening time spreads and narrower contango – suggesting that market improving fundamentals. “we still believe that in the near-term, the upside is limited given that we are still in a surplus environment and as there is plenty of inventory for the market to digest.” ING writes. WTI June hovers around USD 28.00/bbl having printed a base at USD 27.24/bbl, whilst Brent July dipped just below 32/bbl in a USD 30.84-32.50/bbl intraday band. For reference, OPEC Secretary General Barkindo will be appearing on Bloomberg TV at 1500BST. Meanwhile, spot gold tracks Dollar action and gains further ground above 1700/oz – eyeing potential resistance at USD 1738.50/oz (April 23rd high), having traded in a USD 1729-38/oz band thus far. Copper prices move higher in tandem with the broader risk sentiment, but prices remain contained within recent ranges.
US Event Calendar
- 8:30am: Retail Sales Advance MoM, est. -12.0%, prior -8.7%
- Retail Sales Control Group, est. -4.95%, prior 1.7%
- Retail Sales Ex Auto MoM, est. -8.5%, prior -4.5%
- 8:30am: Empire Manufacturing, est. -60, prior -78.2
- 9:15am: Industrial Production MoM, est. -12.0%, prior -5.4%
- 9:45am: Bloomberg May United States Economic Survey
- 10am: Business Inventories, est. -0.2%, prior -0.4%
- 10am: JOLTS Job Openings, est. 5,800, prior 6,882
- 10am: U. of Mich. Sentiment, est. 68, prior 71.8; Current Conditions, est. 62.8, prior 74.3; Expectations, est. 60.2, prior 70.1
- 4pm: Net Long-term TIC Flows, prior $49.4b
DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap
If you promise not to tell anyone I’ll let you into a little secret. I logged off the earliest I have done in 8 weeks last night and went to play golf in what was a beautifully sunny evening. My first game since early March after courses reopened Wednesday. Right from the outset I ensured I was social distancing by driving it onto the third green instead of the first fairway. Thankfully it got better but I’m a bit surprised how shattered I am after a couple of months of not walking round with my clubs.
It’s also amazing how sentiment can turn after a few hours on the golf course. When the S&P 500 continued a tough week by being down -1.9%, 30 minutes into the US session, it was hard not to wonder whether the market was finally having its Wile E. Coyote moment and responding to gravity after successfully running off the edge of the cliff a few weeks back and somehow staying airborne. However the market’s weightlessness returned and an impressive snap back materialised with the S&P 500 closing +1.15% – over 3% up from the lows with Banks (4.10%) leading the charge.
For the majority of the day Technology stocks were down, but the late rally lifted all boats and 21 out of 24 S&P 500 industry groups finished in the green. Since the first historic spike of initial jobs claims on 19 March, 7 out of the 9 Thursdays have seen the S&P rally in the face of massive unemployment numbers. Energy stocks – one of the other laggards YTD with Banks – rallied as well on the back of a large rise in oil prices, with the sector up +0.94% – still lagging the overall index.
As mentioned above, oil had a strong day, with WTI (+8.98%) and Brent (+6.65%) both moving consistently higher throughout the day. The moves came as the International Energy Agency said in their monthly Oil Market Report that they were increasing their estimate of global oil demand in Q2 by +3.2m b/d, though this remained well below last year’s number by 19.9m b/d. Furthermore, they said that global oil supply would fall to a 9-year low in May, thanks to the OPEC+ agreement and other production declines. Saudi Aramco also cut sales to US and Europe by roughly 50%, more than they have cut to Asia already, in an effort to further reduce the overall global oversupply. DB’s Michael Hsueh’s turned bullish on oil yesterday as demand is recovering quicker than anticipated and supply cuts are holding better too. See his brief note here for more.
Overnight, China has released a mixed bag of April activity data. Industrial production surprised to the upside, printing at +3.9% yoy (vs. +1.5% yoy expected and -1.1% yoy last month) however retail sales were -7.5% yoy (vs. -6.0% yoy expected and -15.8% yoy last month). Fixed asset investment data was closer to expectations at -10.3% yoy (vs. -10% yoy expected and -16.1% yoy in YtD March) while the surveyed urban jobless rate came in at 6.0% (vs. 5.9% last month). The NBS noted that the Chinese economy “hasn’t returned to normal level,” and that there are “pent-up demand effects” in the data improvement.
Following that, markets in Asia have eked out small gains this morning with the Nikkei (+0.11%), Hang Seng (+0.40%), Shanghai Comp (+0.18%) and Kospi (+0.14%) all up. Meanwhile, futures on the S&P 500 are down -0.08% while WTI oil prices are up +0.76% to $27.77 as we type.
In other overnight news, Mexico’s central bank lowered rates by 50bps to 5.5% as expected. The central bank board stated in the communique that accompanies its decision that it saw an economic slump deepening in the second quarter, along with a significant contraction in employment.
Back to yesterday where the late US rally was in the face of more worrying news flow yesterday. Starting with the politics, concerns over another escalation in the China-US trade war were sparked by a Fox Business Network interview with President Trump, who said in reference to Chinese president Xi that “right now, I don’t want to speak to him. I don’t want to speak to him.” Furthermore, he added that “we could cut off the whole relationship. If we did, what would happen? You’d save $500 billion”. So certainly not comments that bode well for the prospects of global trade once the coronavirus has passed. And when it came to the coronavirus, Trump described himself as “very disappointed” in Beijing’s failure to prevent the virus at the start. Meanwhile, the US Senate passed a legislation yesterday that would pave the way for targeted sanctions against government officials in China over alleged human rights abuses against Muslim ethnic minority groups in the country’s northwest. The legislation directs the White House to submit a report to Congress within 180 days identifying those deemed responsible for torture, extrajudicial detention, forced disappearance and other “flagrant denial(s)” of human rights in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The jitters were then further exacerbated after the weekly US initial jobless claims were released. They showed that 2.981m made claims in the week through May 9. That was well above the 2.5m reading expected, and was the smallest weekly decline (-195k) since the peak back in late March, raising fears that the scale of the ongoing job losses aren’t easing as fast as investors had been hoping for, particularly given the equity rally we’ve seen in recent weeks. However, Connecticut said later in the day that it incorrectly reported unemployment claims at 298,680, about 10 times higher than the correct number of 29,846 due to a “data entry reporting error” which likely inflated the initial claims number. Any revisions will be reflected in the next release on May 21. The one consolation with yesterday’s data was that continuing claims, which covered the previous week up to May 2, came in at 22.833m (vs. 25.120m expected), with the insured unemployment rate up “just” 0.3 percentage points to 15.7%.
Before the late US rally these negative stories set the tone and Europe closed weak with the Stoxx 600 falling -2.17%. Even with the eventual rally in US stocks and oil, investors still sought out safe havens, with gold climbing +0.82% to reach a new 7-year high. Indeed, the turmoil this year has meant that gold is one of the top-performing global assets, with a YTD return of +14.04%. US Treasuries also rallied, with 10yr yields down -3.1bps to 0.622%. In Europe, peripheral spreads over bunds widened however, with those on both Italian (+2.8bps) and Spanish (+2.5bps) ten-year debt paring back yesterday’s moves tighter.
The global negative rates chatter continued yesterday, though once again it was generally denied. Bank of England Governor Bailey said that negative rates were “not something we are currently planning or contemplating”, though he did also add that it’s “always wise not to rule anything out forever”. Meanwhile St. Louis Fed Bullard added to Chair Powell’s remarks the previous day, saying that the Fed wasn’t considering negative interest rates. And over in Japan, Governor Kuroda said that he didn’t think it was necessary for the BoJ to cut the policy rate further.
Finally, the latest round of Brexit negotiations between the UK and the EU on their future relationship will wrap up today. That leaves just one more round at the start of June before a key high level meeting takes place later next month. Yesterday, we heard from Prime Minister Johnson’s spokesman that the UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost, told the cabinet that the EU had “asked far more from the UK than they have from other sovereign countries with whom they have reached free trade agreements”. One of the key points of contention between the two sides have been EU demands that the UK sign up to a so-called level-playing field, where the UK will commit not to undercut the EU on areas such as workers’ rights or environmental standards. We should hear more on the latest round from the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, in a press conference later today.
To the day ahead now, and the data highlights from Europe include the first look at German GDP in Q1, as well as the second estimate of Q1’s Euro Area GDP. Alongside that, from the US we’ll get retail sales, industrial production and capacity utilisation for April, along with May’s Empire State manufacturing survey and the preliminary University of Michigan sentiment indicator.
3A/ASIAN AFFAIRS
i)FRIDAY MORNING/ THURSDAY NIGHT:
SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 1.88 POINTS OR 0.07% //Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 32.27 POINTS OR 0.14% /The Nikkei closed UP 122.69 POINTS OR 0.62%//Australia’s all ordinaires CLOSED UP 1.38%
/Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed DOWN at 7.1067 /Oil UP TO 28,16 dollars per barrel for WTI and 31.72 for Brent. Stocks in Europe OPENED MOSTLY GREEN// ONSHORE YUAN CLOSED DOWN // LAST AT 7.1067 AGAINST THE DOLLAR. OFFSHORE YUAN CLOSED DOWN ON THE DOLLAR AT 7.1314 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%
3 a./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA
South Korea
b) REPORT ON JAPAN
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE/JAPAN/AUSTRALIA/USA..
Japan Lifts Emergency Order, Australia Reopens Pubs & Georgia, Texas Vindicated As China Suppresses 2nd Wave: Live Updates
Summary:
- Surge in new cases, deaths fails to materialize in Georgia
- Australia reopens pubs this weekend
- Spain imposes 14 day quarantine order on foreigners
- China reports no new deaths for a month
- Japan lifts ‘state of emergency’ for most prefectures
- NY’s “unPAUSE” begins
*. *. *
Now that the first movers in the US have compiled three weeks of data on the spread of the virus, public health officials in Georgia along with Gov. Brian Kemp – who pushed ahead with plans to start reopening the state despite warnings from Dr Fauci and President Trump – can cautiously claim vindication.
Enough time has passed to suggest that the resurgence in new cases and deaths that experts – including Dr. Fauci and others at the CDC, as well as outside the federal government – had touted as a virtual certainty haven’t come to pass. Once again, projections for the mayhem caused by the virus seriously overshot the reality, and the earliest states, including Texas, which reported a record single-day jump in deaths yesterday. In reality, the new “record” was just 8 deaths (out of a state of 30 million) higher than the prior record, reported in late April.
In Wisconsin, the site of the first-ever US court decision to strike down a ‘stay at home’ order, Gov. Tony Evers – a Democrat – expressed his frustration and deep concern about the safety of Wisconsin residents.
Asked for his comment on the decision, Evers offered a response weighted with melodrama: “We are in a new chaotic time,” he warned…My advice is this: Be safer at home. Keep on doing what you have been doing.”
As it turns out, the American people didn’t need Evers to tell them that staying at home and taking precautions during a hyperinfectious pandemic might be a good idea. A few weeks ago, a team of analysts at Goldman Sachs argued that Sweden’s approach to battling the virus, which led to a modestly higher mortality rate but avoided economy-hamstringing shutdowns, likely wouldn’t work in the US because Americans don’t follow proper precautions like Swedes do.
We’re still unsure how they arrived at this conclusion. Some polls suggest that as many as 2/3rds of Americans would stay home anyway even if lockdowns were lifted in their respective states. As far as viral suppression is concerned, that’s probably a positive thing.
Even though the number of new cases jumped across the US yesterday, the trend over the last two weeks has been unmistakably lower.
Outside the US, Australia – which wasn’t nearly as badly hit by the virus as the US – is taking another major step on the path to “normalization”: they’re allowing pubs to reopen.
In Australia, the hospitality industry has welcomed the lifting of closure orders in several states after just 14 new coronavirus cases were reported nationwide on Thursday. However, many pubs warned they wouldn’t be able to reopen because the social distancing restrictions would make it impossible to operate profitably.
In China, meanwhile, the National Health Commission reported just 4 new cases of the virus on Friday, all local cross-infections in the north-eastern province of Jilin where a cluster of uncertain origin has been detected in recent days, prompted the government to reimpose a ‘partial lockdown’ while health workers in Wuhan scramble to test as many of the city’s residents as possible over the next 2 weeks. However, across the country, officials haven’t reported a single death from the virus in a month. As always, take that with a grain of salt.
As western Europe moves ahead with its reopening, Spain has begun imposing a 14-day quarantine on travelers arriving into the country a day after France adopted similar measures.
Cross-border workers, travel crew, goods carriers, and medical workers are exempted. The French measure applies to those arriving from Spain and any other country that imposes a quarantine on anyone coming from France. Spain extended to June 15 its strict entry restrictions, even for EU travellers from within the Schengen zone, and limited the airports that can accept passenger flights to Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga, Mallorca and Gran Canaria. Meanwhile, on Friday, the Ministry of Health reported 138 coronavirus deaths, down from 217 the day before, and the second-lowest number in almost two months. The official death toll to date is 27,459, though many suspect many deaths in nursing homes and at home have been left out. Weekly deaths in Catalonia, the new center of Spain’s outbreak (though, to be sure, it’s far less intense as what was happening in Madrid until very recently), remained almost level compared with the previous week.
The scandal surrounding deaths in care homes in the UK continued to intensify as new data from England and Wales suggested that the number of deaths in long-term homes for retirees could be double the official number of roughly 12k.
A day after Japan lifted its ‘state of emergency’ order as the outbreak as once again appeared to subside in Japan (many have joked that Japanese culture is a de facto form of social distancing), Softbank Corp. and McDonald’s Japan said they would start returning to normal operations in 39 of Japan’s 47 prefectures that are now exempt from the emergency declaration. The 39 prefectures account for about 55 percent of Japan’s 126 million people, Nikkei reported.
PM Abe lifted the state of emergency for most prefectures on Thursday, but said hot spots like Tokyo and Osaka and six other prefectures would remain under restrictions until there is convincing containment of the coronavirus.
“Even in areas where the emergency has been lifted, we would like to see people refrain from moving between prefectures as much as possible, at least during this month,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Friday. “We hope that people will be able to return to their daily lives in stages.”
Kyodo News reported the other day that antibody tests of 500 Tokyo residents found that 0.6% had been exposed to the virus. That would correlate to about 55,000 cases, based on the 9.2 million population of Tokyo’s 23 central wards – more than 10x the official figure. That mirrors antibody surveillance findings in Madrid and NYC.
Nationwide, Japan has reported 16,203 cases of the coronavirus and 713 death.
Finally, the IOC said Thursday it expects the cost of delaying the summer games in Tokyo will cost more than $800 million.
Around the world, the number of new cases confirmed yesterday climbed modestly vs. the prior day, according to JHU:
Though NY Gov Cuomo has extended the state’s ‘stay at home’ order until June, it looks like the central NY region will still begin the reopening process Friday, which Cuomo has jokingly called the “unPAUSE”. Construction and manufacturing are the focus of the first wave of reopenings in the state, Cuomo has said.
3 C CHINA
CHINA
China does not seem to understand. If they want to play in the western world their data must be reasonably accurate. Today they released a whole lot of data that was just made up.
Markets are now not responding to this fake data.
(zerohedge)
China Releases A Whole Lot Of Made Up Economic “Data”, “Markets” Fail To Respond
It’s that time of the month when the goalseekotron in China’s NBS (which stands for National Bureau of Statistics and not Nonstop Bullshit) gets hyperactive and China spews out a whole lot of numbers that are supposed to represent the Beijing politburo’s model of how China’s economy should work at this moment. These include retail sales, industrial production, property investment, as well as unemployment, capex, and a bunch of other things we already forgot, and for some reason are closely followed by very serious analysts, and sometimes even move markets.
Which is why it is out obligation to inform you that this is what China “reported” moments ago as part of its April “economic” “data” dump.
- Industrial Output +3.9% Y/y; beat exp. +1.5%; up from -1.1% in March:
- Retail sales -7.5% y/y; miss exp. -6%, up from -15.8%
- Jan.-April fixed-asset investment excluding rural households -10.3% y/y; miss exp. -10%, and up from -16.1% in Jan.-March.
- Jan.-April property investment -3.3% y/y vs -7.7% in Jan.-March
- End-April surveyed jobless rate 6.0% vs 5.9% in March
Visually:
Now, we could provide some commentary – either pithy and incisive or profound and in-depth – on these data, but since this is all just made up numbers in some excel spreadsheet located in Beijing (perhaps one infected by some deadly Chinese visual basic virus), we won’t bother – especially when observing that after the biggest contraction in Chinese economic history the unemployment rate “soared” from 5% to 6%, we won’t, and instead will show what real time economic trackers show for China’s industrial and consumer activity, and let readers make their own conclusions.
And since all the “data” is made up anyway, it is only fitting that the made up “market” did not even bother to respond.
Rabobank: “One Day The Main Story Will Not Be US-China Relations… But Today Is Not That Day”
Submitted by Michael Every of Rabobank
One day, perhaps soon, the main story in the Daily won’t be US-China relations – again. But today is not that day.
Not when we see the editor of China’s Global Times, their version of the British Daily Mail, tweet “I am asked a lot recently: Will a war break out between China and the US? My answer: The two countries increasingly dislike each other, various conflicts are rising, therefore, risk for a military clash is increasing. But meanwhile, they both don’t want a war. Am I right?”
Not when US President Trump gives a TV interview in which he muses “There are many things we could do. We could cut off the whole relationship” to save USD500bn, and that he does not want to speak to Xi Jinping right now.
Not when the Global Times counter-response is to ask “Is Trump totally insane?” for wanting to cut ties (and adding “Yes. And it is not China but the US who will suffer more”). This in an article that quotes a number of Chinese academics understandably excoriating the US president, but also including Jin Canrong, the associate dean of Renmin University of China’s School of International Studies in Beijing, who states China has nothing to be afraid of as “in the past, we didn’t solve the Taiwan question because we wanted to maintain the China-US relationship, and if the US unilaterally cuts it off, we can just reunify Taiwan immediately since the Chinese mainland has an overwhelming advantage to solve this long-standing problem.” So it appears there are many things China can do too(?)
Not when in Hong Kong we have just seen an apparently unconstitutional parliamentary procedure to place a pro-Beijing lawmaker in charge of selecting a new Chair on Monday (because “this is a very special situation”), breaking the political impasse, ending an opposition filibuster, and possibly opening the door to both the rapid passage of controversial national security legislation and/or more mass street protests.
Yes, Hong Kong is so 2019. Yes, this is The Global Times. Yes, this is just Trump on Fox. Yes, US-China tensions are now ‘a thing’ for markets to live with and ignore – like a virus I can think of. Yet there are more than enough sabres being rattled for a worrying rise in the risk of someone accidentally cutting themselves, or someone else. Prudence would suggest a cautious approach. In the real world I keep hearing that “just in time” has now switched to “just in case” for businesses. Well here’s a case it’s worth being well ahead of time on, should things go wrong.
Meanwhile, Chinese data out today show that we better all have a “just in case” plan ready. Industrial output was up 3.9% y/y in April vs. 1.5% expected, while y/y YTD terms it was -4.9% y/y; retail sales were -7.5% y/y, worse than expected, and -16.2% y/y YTD, only a slight pick-up from March’s -19.0%; fixed asset investment was -10.3% y/y YTD; and property investment was -3.3% y/y YTD, slightly better than expected. In other words, no major post-virus bounce. Against this backdrop the rise in official unemployment from 5.9% to 6.0% is doing the same Panglossian Potemkin job that GDP data used to before it became necessary to show some reality for the sake of credibility. (Or that the NBS statisticians involved learned their trade from the ABS jobs data team down in Australia).
After all, the US just saw another 3m weekly rise in initial claims vs. 2.5m expected (which are being breezily dismissed by the equity market, as usual) as they head towards 25% unemployment, at least in the short term. Which in an election year makes the need for some political distraction all the more pressing, as we keep saying, and as naive markets keep not understanding. (Although, yes, “Obamagate” is also there too.)
Mexico cut rates another 50bp, as expected, to take them to 4.50%, or what was quite recently a target for where Fed Funds would sit in the eyes of some people who don’t understand how the world has changed. Emerging markets keep cutting, or even doing QE or outright monetization, and the clock is ticking to when the next financial eruption will be.
BRL, for example, is now trading at 5.81 but having been at 5.96 yesterday. Moreover, Reuters reports that “Turkey’s government has appealed to foreign allies in an urgent search for funding, three senior Turkish officials said, as it prepares defences against what analysts fear could be a second currency crisis in as many years. Treasury and central bank officials have held bilateral talks in recent days with counterparts from Japan and the United Kingdom on setting up currency swap lines, and with Qatar and China on expanding existing facilities, the officials said.” So who is going to step up to the plate this time? Qatar and China – again? Reuters quotes one official that “Talks are in a better position especially with Qatar, China and Britain…I am optimistic that a certain amount of resources will be provided“. The larger question is who steps up to the plate for Qatar, especially if oil prices fall again, or for China if geopolitical tensions keep escalating?
Or for Britain, where Brexit talks are making no headway at all and we are apparently weeks away from the date at which it’s going to once again become sharply binary rather than Euro-fudge. The Telegraph reports that the EU has just rejected the UK being able to test or certify cars, chemicals, or pharmaceuticals for export to it, which in the current global trade climate will not be received well. As out ‘Brexit Boy’ Stefan Koopman points out, economic logic says that the UK and the EU strike a deal or extend the withdrawal agreement; but, as with China and the US, this is not just about economics. Prime Minister Boris also needs a good distraction from his handling of the virus, and from suggestions taxes are to rise and spending to be frozen ahead, as well as to put Brexit firmly behind him so it does not define his premiership; so given the UK is already in for its worst recession since 1709 –really!– would it even notice the extra blow from Hard Brexit? One can make a case both ways.
4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS
GERMANY//TOTAL ECONOMIC MELTDOWN
Germany’s first quarter GDP ends in a 2.2% contraction. You can just imagine what is going to happen in the second quarter..probably a loss of 10%
(zerohedge)
“Will Get Worse” – Virus Pushes Germany Into Recession
The German economy fell into recession after recording the sharpest quarterly contraction since the 2009 financial crisis as coronavirus-related shutdowns decimated the end of the first quarter, data showed on Friday.
The 2.2% first-quarter contraction is a preview of what is to come. The second quarter could decline by as much as 10%, Federal Statistics Office official Albert Braakmann warned.
Braakmann said the Statistics Office is not in the game of making predictions but added: “The forecasts – as you probably know – are for around -10%.”
A much deeper contraction is guaranteed during the second-quarter because more of the lockdown was captured. Lockdowns were in full effect for much of April, with shops and factories shuttered as cases and deaths in the country soared.
On the year, the Statistics Office showed the economy declined by 2.3% over the first-quarter, which followed a lousy expansion of .40% in the last quarter of 2019.
Despite the downturn, Germany has fared better than France and Italy, which recently recorded first-quarter contractions of 5.8% and 4.7%, respectively.
“Things will get worse before they get better,” Carsten Brzeski of ING told Reuters while referring to Germany’s economy. “To be more precise, incoming data will be worse, even though the worst might already be behind us.”
He added: “If today’s data are the result of two weeks of lockdown, three more weeks of lockdown and a very gradual lifting of some measures do not bode well for the second quarter.”
The economic effects of the countrywide lockdown have been absolutely devastating. Several weeks ago, we showed how the country’s labor market has been obliterated.
With lockdowns being eased in Germany, alarm bells have been ringing of a possible second coronavirus wave as confirmed case accelerate. News that the “reproduction rate” surged back to 1.1 in the country this week casts a dark shadow over the reopening of the economy. A print over 1 means the virus is spreading exponentially and would likely trigger the next wave. Reversing the easing of restrictions would prove disastrous and could lead to a double-dip recession, if not depression.
Fears of a second wave of infections led to much of the risk-off sentiment in global stocks this week.
Threats are rapidly emerging of a second wave that could be materializing in Germany, China, Singapore, and now South Korea, which serves as a glimpse int
5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS
6.Global Issues
Mexico/Coronavirus
Mexico is badly underreporting its deaths due to the coronavirus. They certainly do not have the virus under control yet and as such they cannot open their economy yet.
(zerohedge)
Mexico Is Cremating Bodies On An “Industrial Scale”
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) unveiled a plan this week to reopen the country’s severely damaged economy by June 1 as part of normalization after the COVID-19 pandemic triggered lockdowns.
Lopez said Wednesday the reopening would be “cautious and gradual,” but with more than 40,000 infections and 4,200 deaths, there are new concerns the federal government is underreporting the public health crisis.
“The numbers do not appear to reflect the death toll for certain,” Donna Patterson, an expert on Mexico’s health care system at Delaware State University, told VOX. “At the federal level, the numbers aren’t being reported accurately.”
VOX reports that Mexican mayors, doctors, funeral home directors, and former government officials indicate the current situation on the ground is absolutely horrendous. They say deaths are being underreported and could be eight times higher than official data.
Dr. Laurie Ann Ximénez-Fyvie, the molecular genetics lab chief at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), said the underreporting is deliberate by the federal government.
“If Mexico is good at anything, it’s hiding numbers,” Fyvie said.
A Sky News investigations team dug deeper into the underreporting issue and discovered the death toll in Mexico City could be staggering. Disturbing images show the country is cremating bodies on an “industrial scale.”
“The bodies don’t stop coming. They can’t cope.” @ramsaysky reports from Mexico where the number of people dying from the #coronavirus pandemic is thought to be higher than official government figures.
More on this story: https://trib.al/099IvZa
Here’s AP’s coverage on Mexico City’s COVID-19 death toll and cremating bodies
Sky obtained access to the city’s morgues and crematoriums, to only discover that the government is massively underreporting COVID-19 deaths.
From 30 crematoriums, Sky learned there is currently a three-day backlog in cremation across the city.
There is currently a three-day backlog for cremation at every public crematorium in the city and crematorium workers in recent days have indicated that more burials will have to take place because burning capacity is overwhelmed.
Black smoke billows out over cemeteries as the ovens are cremating on an industrial level in the city but the bodies don’t stop coming.
In fact, the ovens simply cannot cope and there are regular reports of breakdowns only adding to the backlog.
In full hazmat suits, crematorium staff are working around the clock bringing bodies to huge ovens for disposal.
Sky did the math, also finds several hundred people per day have been dying from the virus, many of whom were not reported in official data.
Sky News analysis of the data from 30 crematoria across Mexico City shows that each one is disposing of between 18 and 22 bodies each day, with a three-day backlog.
Taking an average number of 20 cremations, Sky has calculated the total number of cremations every day is 600. This figure does not include other crematoria or burials.
The urban area of Mexico City spans over two federal entities – Mexico City and the state of Mexico. Because of this, in order to work out the official figure for how many people have died, the figures for the two entities need to be added together.
Government figures show that the average number of people who die every day in Mexico City in May is 189 and (averaged out over the last five years for which figures are available, 2014-18) and the number for the state of Mexico is 185. That makes a total average daily deaths of 374.
That means there are at least 226 excess deaths occurring every day in early May, with most probably down to coronavirus.
In fact, crematorium sources told Sky News that 80-90% of the deaths they are having to deal with are due to COVID-19.
Sky’s analysis suggests the government’s official figure is about 19% of the actual number of COVID-19 deaths in Mexico City, and the real value is probably five times higher, which is why the city is burning bodies on an industrial level. This is exactly what happened in Wuhan, China.
As to AMLO’s ability to open the economy remains anyone guess at the moment, one thing is certain, the country does not have the virus spread under control.
The Perpetual Crisis: Now The WHO Is Telling Us That COVID-19 “May Never Go Away”
Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,
Are you ready for “the new normal” to become permanent? Originally, most of us assumed that “shelter-in-place orders” and “social distancing restrictions” would just be temporary, but now top health officials are warning us that some of these temporary measures may have to remain in place for the foreseeable future. That means that our lives could be severely disrupted for a long time to come. In fact, Dr. Anthony Fauci just told a Senate Committee that it may not be safe for schools all over America to reopen when the next school year begins in the fall. Apparently Fauci and other medical “experts” believe that it will not be possible for us to fully go back to our normal lives as long as this virus keeps spreading.
But how long are we really supposed to wait?
The truth is that this pandemic could still potentially be in the early chapters. The Spanish Flu pandemic lasted for three full years, and we could possibly be facing a similar scenario.
And this week WHO official Mike Ryan warned that this virus could even become “endemic”, and if that happens it “may never go away”…
“It is important to put this on the table: this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away,” WHO emergencies expert Mike Ryan told an online briefing.
“I think it is important we are realistic and I don’t think anyone can predict when this disease will disappear,” he added. “I think there are no promises in this and there are no dates. This disease may settle into a long problem, or it may not be.”
In other words, Ryan is saying that this virus could become like a flu that keeps reappearing year after year.
So what are we going to do if that happens?
Are we supposed to have shutdowns every year whenever a new wave of COVID-19 infections starts happening?
Of course the lockdowns haven’t really been that effective anyway. They may have temporarily slowed down the spread of the virus, but eventually most of the U.S. population is going to get exposed to it anyway no matter what we do.
But instead of facing the reality of this pandemic, Fauci continues to stick to his guns. And many Americans were completely outraged when he suggested that schools should continue to remain closed when the next school year is scheduled to begin. The following bit of commentary comes from Tucker Carlson…
So just to be clear, Fauci was not simply talking about certain workers or even all workers staying at home for the foreseeable future. He implied that schools and colleges will be able to reopen only if there is a cure for this virus or a vaccine. He said that prospect was a bridge too far.
In other words, no school until the coronavirus has been cured — stopped.
The problem is there is currently no approved vaccine for any of the several coronaviruses out there. We still don’t have one for SARS. So, that may never happen. Once again, it has never happened.
A lot of people out there didn’t seem to believe me when I first started talking about how difficult it will be for researchers to create a vaccine for COVID-19.
Just like Tucker Carlson has said, there has never been a successful vaccine for any coronavirus in all of human history.
Despite all of our efforts, there is no vaccine for SARS.
And despite all of our efforts, there is no vaccine for MERS.
Needless to say, there isn’t such a thing as a “common cold vaccine” either, because such a thing does not exist.
Perhaps our scientists will beat the odds this time, and they will certainly do their best to do so.
But meanwhile many local officials all over the nation seem convinced that the best strategy for now is to continue keeping people at home.
For example, the “stay-at-home order” in Washington D.C. was just extended through June 8th…
Washington, D.C., is extending its stay-at-home order through June 8, Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced on Wednesday.
The mayor said that the city has not yet met all the required benchmarks to reopen.
And Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer just extended the “stay-at-home order” in Los Angeles County indefinitely…
Meanwhile, Ferrer extended the county’s stay-at-home order, which was implemented to slow the spread of the coronavirus and has barred gatherings and mandated physical distancing requirements. She said there is no end date to the revised health order and stressed that people should stay home as much as possible to help reduce the spread of COVID-19, which has killed more than 1,600 people in the county.
“As I’ve said from the beginning, this will be a slow journey,” Ferrer said.
Following that announcement, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti told Good Morning America that his city will “never be completely open until we have a cure.”
Good luck with all that.
I am so glad that I don’t live in Los Angeles, because residents of that city could be waiting for a “vaccine” or a “cure” for a very, very long time.
Are residents of L.A. just supposed to put their lives on hold indefinitely? On Wednesday, we learned that the Hollywood Bowl has completely canceled their entire summer concert season…
The Hollywood Bowl scrapped its entire summer concert season Wednesday due to the coronavirus crisis, in a “devastating” move that leaves the Los Angeles Philharmonic with an $80 million shortfall.
The famous open-air California venue has hosted acts from the Beatles to Yo-Yo Ma over nearly a century, and its concerts from June through September are a staple of Los Angeles cultural life.
I was really saddened when I first read about that.
Social gatherings are so central to the human experience, and now we are being told that most of our major social gatherings will need to be delayed, postponed or canceled for the foreseeable future.
And what makes all of this even more tragic is that we are now learning that these lockdowns were never necessary in the first place. If we all had worn masks from the very beginning, kept our Vitamin D levels up and used basic common sense, we could have continued our normal lives all this time just like they have been doing in Japan and Sweden.
Unfortunately, common sense is in short supply in America today, and it looks like this pandemic will continue to greatly disrupt our lives for a long time to come.
7. OIL ISSUES
The low oil price is certainly taking a toll on our shale boys are they are crashing rig usage. This will help in lowering uSA oil production and causing supply to fall a bit.
However we still have the virus risk
(zerohedge)
US Oil Rig Count Crashes To 11-Year Lows: “There’s A Double Risk On The Horizon”
Well that escalated quickly…
Drilling rigs targeting crude oil in the U.S. fell by 34 to 258, the lowest since July 2009… and production is starting to collapse…
Source: Bloomberg
Indeed, as OilPrice.com’s Hely Zaremba notes, US Shale needs to slow down to survive…
Rigs targeting oil in the:
- Permian: -23 to 175
- Eagle Ford: -3 to 23
- DJ Niobrara: unchanged at 7
- Williston: -4 to 16
- Cana Woodford: unchanged at 4
- Others: -2 to 29
It has been a bleak couple of months for oil markets. Although markets recovered after going negative for the first time in history earlier this month, they didn’t recover to nearly their pre-corona levels, and all of the factors that pushed the West Texas Intermediate crude benchmark to nearly $40 below zero per barrel still persist. Thanks to a pandemic-fuelled oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, the leading OPEC+ members, there continues to be a massive global oil glut and a worsening storage deficit. Things have been looking up, however. The output cuts have made a dent in the global oversupply and demand is beginning to recover a bit after taking a huge hit from industrial shutdown due to the pandemic.
On Monday Saudi Arabia announced that it will impose even more production cuts, and markets rose in response.
“Saudi Aramco, the state-controlled oil company, will produce 7.5 million barrels a day in June, down from more than 12 million in April,” reported Barron’s. Although Saudi Arabia has been overtaken by the United States as the biggest oil producer in the world thanks to the latter nation’s “shale revolution,” Saudi Aramco’s decisions are still hugely influential on the global stage.
Their production cuts therefore bode extremely well for the international oil markets.
But it’s not all sunshine and roses.
“There’s a double risk on the horizon,” writes Julian Lee in an opinion piece for Bloomberg.
“Just as lifting lockdowns too soon could bring a second spike in virus infections and deaths, loosening the hard-fought restraint in oil production too soon risks a second oil-price collapse.”
The United States will have to walk a very fine line if they want to have any chance at reviving the shale industry that is currently drowning in a wave of bankruptcies and fired and furloughed employees.
As restrictions are being eased in many countries around the world, oil demand is beginning to pick up, but “it is still far from the year-on-year growth we experienced before the novel coronavirus struck, or from any kind of meaningful start at drawing down ballooning stockpiles. But it might just be an initial turning of a corner — as long as there’s no need to stop the global economy again to keep the Covid-19 outbreak under control,” opines Bloomberg’s Lee. The opinion column looks to the way that China, which is ahead of the rest of the world in its pandemic curve, for how they have navigated the delicate balance between opening up the economy and preventing a COVID-19 resurgence.
The situation in China can teach us a lot about what to expect for fuel demand in the coming months.
“Congestion on roads in major cities has soared during peak commuting hours, but it remains depressed outside those times, with traffic levels still well below normal during the weekend and on holidays,” writes Lee.
“Meanwhile, people are choosing to drive rather than take public transport, boosting gasoline demand, a trend that’s likely to continue for a considerable time in big cities around the world. In Beijing, for example, subway passenger numbers are still more than 50% below pre-virus levels, according to analysis by Bloomberg NEF.”
It will be tempting, in the United States, to see a light at the end of the tunnel and open the shale fields back up in an effort to revitalize the economy, but this would be premature and short-sighted. The positive effects of reductions in oil production are just now starting to kick in and need to be prolonged.
“But we are still a long way from seeing much relief for crude producers and they need to continue exercising restraint,” says Lee. “The real risk may be that when all the financial pain of output cuts — and the human cost of job losses — starts to pay off with higher oil prices, producers take it as a signal to restart the pumps, as if the whole oversupply problem got solved overnight. The output restraint has to last long enough not only for supply and demand to be brought back into line, but for stockpiles to be brought back down again.”
What’s more, the United States is not Saudi Arabia. Without the authoritarian power that many petro-nations have, the decentralized, privatized leadership in the U.S. the oil industry means that the country can’t stop and start pumping on a dime.
This means that the U.S. has to be extra cautious about making any serious changes to current oil production patterns because the ship can be slow and difficult to right.
8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES
Your early morning currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings FRIDAY morning 7:00 AM….
Euro/USA 1.0802 DOWN .0003 REACTING TO MERKEL’S FAILED COALITION/ REACTING TO +GERMAN ELECTION WHERE ALT RIGHT PARTY ENTERS THE BUNDESTAG/ huge Deutsche bank problems ///ITALIAN CHAOS//CORONAVIRUS/PANDEMIC /AND NOW ECB TAPERING BOND PURCHASES/JAPAN TAPERING BOND PURCHASES /USA RISING INTEREST RATES /FLOODING/EUROPE BOURSES /MOSTLY GREEN EXCEPT SPAIN
USA/JAPAN YEN 107.03 DOWN 0.325 (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 1.2170 DOWN 0.0063 (Brexit March 29/ 2019/ARTICLE 50 SIGNED/BREXIT FEES WILL BE CAPPED/
USA/CAN 1.4096 UP .0062 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 FRIDAY morning in Europe, the Euro FELL BY 3 basis points, trading now ABOVE the important 1.08 level FALLING to 1.0802 Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED DOWN 1.88 POINTS OR 0.07%
//Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 32.27 POINTS OR 0.14%
/AUSTRALIA CLOSED UP 1,38%// EUROPEAN BOURSES MOSTLY GREEN EXCEPT SPAIN
Trading from Europe and Asia
EUROPEAN BOURSES MOSTLY GREEN EXCEPT SPAIN
2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 32.27 POINTS OR 0.14%
/SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 1.88 POINTS OR 0.07%
Australia BOURSE CLOSED UP 1.38%
Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED UP 122.69 POINTS OR 0.62%
INDIA’S SENSEX IN THE RED
Gold very early morning trading: 1732.35
silver:$16.20-
Early FRIDAY morning USA 10 year bond yield: 0.60% !!! DOWN 2 IN POINTS from THURSDAY’S night in basis points and it is trading WELL BELOW resistance at 2.27-2.32%.
The 30 yr bond yield 1.26 DOWN 3 IN BASIS POINTS from THURSDAY night.
USA dollar index early FRIDAY morning: 100.38 DOWN 9 CENT(S) from THURSDAY’s close.
This ends early morning numbers FRIDAY MORNING
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And now your closing FRIDAY NUMBERS \1: 00 PM
Portuguese 10 year bond yield: 0.88% UP 2 in basis point(s) yield from YESTERDAY/
JAPANESE BOND YIELD: -.01% DOWN 1 BASIS POINTS from YESTERDAY/JAPAN losing control of its yield curve/56
SPANISH 10 YR BOND YIELD: 0.81%//UP 5 in basis point yield from yesterday.
ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD:1,85 UP 3 points in basis points yield from yesterday./
the Italian 10 yr bond yield is trading 104 points higher than Spain.
GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD: FALLS TO –.53% IN BASIS POINTS ON THE DAY//
THE IMPORTANT SPREAD BETWEEN ITALIAN 10 YR BOND AND GERMAN 10 YEAR BOND IS 2.38% 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 FRIDAY
Closing currency crosses for FRIDAY night/USA DOLLAR INDEX/USA 10 YR BOND YIELD/1:00 PM
Euro/USA 1.0818 UP .0013 or 13 basis points
USA/Japan: 107.26 DOWN .095 OR YEN UP 10 basis points/
Great Britain/USA 1.2134 DOWN .0098 POUND DOWN 98 BASIS POINTS)
Canadian dollar DOWN 45 basis points to 1.4082
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The USA/Yuan,CNY: AT 7.1021 ON SHORE (DOWN)..GETTING DANGEROUS
THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE: 7.1302 (YUAN DOWN)..GETTING REALLY DANGEROUS
TURKISH LIRA: 6.9137 EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WISH//SEEKING BADLY NEEDED FUNDS//THEY ARE BROKE.
the 10 yr Japanese bond yield closed at -.01%
Your closing 10 yr US bond yield UP 2 IN basis points from THURSDAY at 0.64 % //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%) very problematic USA 30 yr bond yield: 1.31 UP 2 in basis points on the day
Your closing USA dollar index, 100.38 DOWN 9 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 FRIDAY: 12:00 PM
London: CLOSED UP 60.07 1.05%
German Dax : CLOSED UP 110.12 POINTS OR 1.07%
Paris Cac CLOSED DOWN 5.35 POINTS 0.13%
Spain IBEX CLOSED DOWN 61.60 POINTS or 0.94%
Italian MIB: CLOSED UP 17.41 POINTS OR 0.10%
WTI Oil price; 28.89 12:00 PM EST
Brent Oil: 31.78 12:00 EST
USA /RUSSIAN / RUBLE FALLS: 73.71 THE CROSS HIGHER BY 0.21 RUBLES/DOLLAR (RUBLE LOWER BY 21 BASIS PTS)
TODAY THE GERMAN YIELD FALLS TO –.53 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 : 29.63//
BRENT : 32.73
USA 10 YR BOND YIELD: … 0.65..plus 3 basis points…
USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 1.32…plus 3 basis points..
EURO/USA 1.0813 ( UP 8 BASIS POINTS)
USA/JAPANESE YEN:107.18 DOWN .137 (YEN UP 14 BASIS POINTS/..
USA DOLLAR INDEX: 100.38 DOWN 8 cent(s)/
The British pound at 4 pm Britain Pound/USA:1.21131 down 120 POINTS
the Turkish lira close: 6.9042…in desperate need of funds..massive short dollars.
the Russian rouble 73.61 down 0.25 Roubles against the uSA dollar.( down 25 BASIS POINTS)
Canadian dollar: 1.4109 down 75 BASIS pts
German 10 yr bond yield at 5 pm: ,-0.53%
The Dow closed UP 60.08 POINTS OR 0.25%
NASDAQ closed UP 70.84 POINTS OR 0.79%
VOLATILITY INDEX: 13.53 CLOSED DOWN .44
LIBOR 3 MONTH DURATION: 0.392%//libor dropping like a stone
LIBOR/OIS: .331%
TED SPREAD (3 MONTH TREASURY VS LIBOR) ..0.255
USA trading today in Graph Form
Gold, Dollar, & Bonds Jump; Stocks Slump On Fauci Fearmongering, China Trade Turmoil
US equities suffered their worst weekly drop in two months…
Shock horror…how did that happen?
Fauci Fearmongering started the ball rolling down-hill:
“The reality is [Fauci] is scared the crap out of Americans,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs, R-AZ, said. “That’s what he’s done. And with his co-folks in the left wing media, they’ve scared people. You’ve got businesses that are afraid to open. They’re scared to death to open because someone is going to get sick or they get sick. He has scared people who have children and he is gone back and forth. I mean now you don’t wear a mask, people look at you. But it was just a month ago, when they were saying don’t wear a mask because that’s the perfect way to get sick, if you wear a mask. You don’t wear a mask if you are sick. So now this is gone to everybody supposed to wear a mask. Fauci has relied on bad models.”
He added, “He himself says we can’t rely on the models, Fauci said in his testimony two days ago, he’s responding to Rand Paul, ‘I don’t look at all this other stuff that you that you’re talking about. I’m just a scientist. I’m just looking at this data and this science.’ That means he’s not looking at the public health consequences of poverty, of stress, of people not getting treatments they need to get, who are afraid to go in and get screened for cancer or whoever had heart attacks and strokes. He doesn’t care about that. I shouldn’t say that. I don’t know if he cares or doesn’t care. But he doesn’t look at it.”
The truth is hard to swallow for a 79-year-old career fearmonger – as BofA details COVID-19 has a low case fatality rate (<0.3%) for the median age (38) US citizen, meaning return to work may be worth the risk…
The US is making the calculation that people need to get back to work for obvious economic reasons; they will live with the risk of COVID infection. Consider some data, using Italy as benchmark and noting that median age of US population is 38 years old. Italy has a relatively high aggregate case fatality rate (CFR) of 13.8%, but the CFRs for the 30-39 and 40-49 age cohorts are just 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively. Given this, the US CFR for 38 year olds is likely less than 0.3%, perhaps even in the 0.1%-0.2% range; to be (hopefully) conservative, we’ll assume range upside of 1.0%. Assuming a 99.0%- 99.9% chance of survival given infection (1-CFR) for the median-aged US worker, we believe US workers will overwhelmingly opt to return to work given the opportunity. Against the backdrop of record policy stimulus, this creates upside risk to the economic recovery scenario as reopening expands.
But don’t worry – The Fed’s got your back…
Overnight ugliness after Washington and Beijing traded threats. An utter shitshow in Retail Sales, Industrial Production, JOLTS, and Sentiment but because some of those data items “beat” expectations, we ramped at the cash market open. Then another “rumor” lifted stocks a little more.
Source: Bloomberg
After Fox News sparked a buying panic yesterday with bullshit WFC/GS rumors; today saw Sorrento (and the market) shoot notably higher in early trading after a report from Fox News that the company said it had discovered an antibody that could protect against COVID-19. Trump came on later and commented on being ready for a vaccine… and stocks lifted some more.
So, US restarts trade war with China, US retail spending and manufacturing collapse most on record, and Nasdaq closes green (despite a weak close seemingly sparked by some honest words on Huawei by Kyle Bass)…
You had to laugh at it really… retail ran tech stocks higher all day (once cash markets opened) as yuan kept fading…
Source: Bloomberg
Semis slammed on the Huawei headlines (worst week in 2 months)…
Source: Bloomberg
But FANG Stocks ended higher on the week – why not!? (7th weekly gain in last 8)
Source: Bloomberg
Nasdaq has not closed this high relative to Small Caps since the peak of the dotcom bubble in 2000…
Source: Bloomberg
Virus-Impacted Sectors were slammed with Airlines worst (but bounced Thursday)…
Source: Bloomberg
Another ugly week for banks – despite the bullshit WFC/GS rumors…
Source: Bloomberg
And banks are at a record low against the market…
Source: Bloomberg
VIX was up 4 vols on the week, the most since mid-March…
The Fed was in da house this week… but that didn’t save HY bonds which fell as IG rallied…
Source: Bloomberg
And even as stocks have rallied recently, the broader bond market has refused to play along…
Source: Bloomberg
Treasury yields were down on the week as the curve bull-flattened…
Source: Bloomberg
For the 6th day in a row, the dollar was suddenly bid during the US day session (across the European close)
Source: Bloomberg
Bitcoin rallied notably after the halving…
Source: Bloomberg
But all crypto is down from last Friday’s “close”…
Source: Bloomberg
WTI (June) tested up towards $30 today…
Quite a week for June (but all contracts bid)…
WTI’s front-month is back into backwardation after being in contango since March…
Source: Bloomberg
Silver surged back above $17 today…
Gold broke out of its recent triangle…
Gold hit a record high in yuan…
Source: Bloomberg
Silver notably outperformed gold for the second week in a row… (biggest daily outperformance of silver over gold since July 2016 today)…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, we are sure many can sympathize with a bearish Hitler as he checks his trading account this month…“my wife will not be happy with me…”
“You can’t just bribe small businesses to keep people employed forever…” Or can you?
But, if only Addie had been long gold from the start?
Scores on the Doors: gold 13.1%, US dollar 4.0%, government bonds 2.9%, cash 0.5%, IG bonds -2.3%, HY bonds -9.7%, global equities -14.9%, commodities -40.6% YTD.
And now your more 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
My goodness: The Fed purchases 305 million dollars in ETF in the bast two days.. Its balance sheet is now at a record 6.934 trillion heading for 12 trillion dollars. When it passes 12 trillion there will be enough dollars in the system to provide help for our emerging nations short of dollars. However it will lead to an onslaught of dollars coming back into the uSA. This is when hyperinflation starts.
The Fed’s Visible Hand: Powell Buys $305 Million In ETFs In Two Days
On Tuesday, the US officially crossed over into some bizarro version of a crony, centrally-planned mandated pricing model that is anything but a market when the Fed started buying corporate bond ETFs for the first time ever. Then, moments ago in its latest H.4.1 statement, the Fed – which disclosed that its balance sheet is now a record $6.934 trillion and well on its way to $12 or more than half of US GDP…
… also revealed that in the first two days the program was operational, the Fed purchased $305 million under the Corporate Credit Facility, i.e., the corporate bond ETF buying program, as of EOD May 13, or just two days after the Fed officially gave Blackrock the green light to start waving it in.
Of course, since the transactions were organized by the NY Fed which used Blackrock as agent for the buying, all of the ETFs were parked at the New York Fed.
Bloomberg’s ETF expert, Eric Blachunas, was sure he had observed the Fed in action two days ago when he noticed a jump in both LQD and HYG volumes around mid-day, which appears to be the time Blackrock will be active in the market for all those who feel like frontrunning the world’s largest asset manager, which in turn is frontrunning the world’s largest central bank.
What is a bit concerning is that even after the Fed bought millions in LQD on the 12th, the ETF closed red. However, Blackrock redeemed itself on the next two days when LQD posted a solid rebound, rising above 128 for the first time since May 5.
What next? Well, those hoping that the Fed’s ETF buying will serve as a stop brake any time there is even a whiff of selling, may want to read the following caveat from Bank of America:
… the maximum amount of ETF purchases may be lower than the $28bn and $8bn we estimated for IG and HY, respectively, as the Fed plans to rely on a number of additional factors to determine eligibility. These include management style (perhaps only passive?), concentration in banks, average maturity, AUM, liquidity and leverage.
So for those who plan on frontrunning the Fed, do it now instead of waiting until Blackrock finds outself out of ammo and a new crash is required to reset the Fed’s buying parameters.
US Retail Sales Crash By Most Ever In April, Cars & Clothing Clobbered
After March’s collapse in headline retail sales, April was expected to be a bloodbath but it was much worse than expected with a 16.4% MoM collapse (the most ever), considerably worse than the 12% drop expected.
Source: Bloomberg
On a YoY basis, headline and core retail sales crashed by record amounts…
Source: Bloomberg
Under the surface, it’s a total shitshow!!! Every category down except online sales which are up 8.4%
Car Sales have crashed as online sales are surging… both by the most ever…
It would appear that the rebound in stocks did nothing to juice consumer confidence after all… just as we have already seen…
Source: Bloomberg
Maybe just another few thousand dollars a month in handouts and America will start spending frivolously again?
end
Now we witness industrial production plunges by the most in over 100 years
(zerohedge)
US Industrial Production Plunges By Most In Over 100 Years
Having crashed in March, April industrial production was expected to crash even harder. Industrial production plunged 11.2% MoM (very modestly better than the 12% drop expected) but still the worst in 101 years…
Source: Bloomberg
Manufacturers in the U.S. were among the first to experience the pandemic’s economic drag as producers fell victim to supply-chain disruptions, a severe weakening in exports market and a drop in domestic demand.
Capacity Utilization collapsed to a record low 64.9%
The Industrial Average still has a long way to go to catch down to Industrial Production…
Source: Bloomberg
It could never happen, right?
end
Job openings plunge by the most on record with the huge mass layoffs..also a plunge in hiring..
(zerohedge)
Job Openings Plunge Most On Record Amid Mass Layoffs, Plunge In Hiring
With the BLS’s JOLTs, or job openings and labor turnover, survey coming in with an extra month delay, we already knew that the March data would be dismal (especially considering the total implosion in April when over 20 million people lost their jobs), and sure enough that’s what happened when the BLS reported that in March the number of job openings plunged from an upward revised 7.004 million to just 6.191 million, the 813K monthly drop the largest on record going back to 2000.
The largest declines in job openings took place in accommodation and food services (-258,000) and durable goods manufacturing (-82,000).
As a result of the surge in unemployed people in March and the plunge in job openings, the series of 24 consecutive months in which there were more job openings than unemployed workers is now officially over, with 949K more unemployed workers than there are job openings, the biggest gap since May 2017.
Keep in mind this is from March; the April data will be far, far worse.
Also far worse will be the number of hires, which in March dropped by 658K, from 5.864 million to 5.206 million, something which one can argue was long overdue considering the persistent outperformance of this series relative to the rolling 12 month payroll change. Hires decreased in accommodation and food services (-344,000), health care and social assistance (-87,000), and durable goods manufacturing (-33,000). Hires increased in federal government (+8,000).
And while we wait for the true shocker of a JOLTs report next month, there was one series that hinted at just how ugly it will get, when the number of layoffs soared to 11.372 million, up by 9.5 million in one month, and the biggest monthly total on record. . The number of layoffs and discharges increased for total private to 11.2 million (+9,445,000) and for government to 175,000 (+80,000). The layoffs and discharges level increased significantly in all but one industry, with the largest increases in accommodation and food services (+4,136,000) and retail trade (+908,000)
And, inversely, with everyone getting fired, virtually nobody had any interest in voluntarily quitting and such the number of quits tumbled by the most ever, from 3.436MM to 2.782MM, the lowest level since 2015. Total private quits fell to 2.6 million (-640,000), while government edged down to 177,000 (-14,000). Quits decreased in a number of industries, with the largest decreases in accommodation and food services (-145,000) and retail trade (-137,000).
END
Foreigners Dumped Record Amount Of US Treasuries Amid March Liquidity Crisis
Foreign holdings of U.S. government debt fell in March, at a time when panic over the COVID-19 pandemic was driving volatility in the world’s safest market to highs unseen since 2009.
Treasury’s report showed total foreign ownership of Treasuries dropped by a record amount…
In fact this was a record monthly sale of US Treasuries by central banks…
And record selling by foreign private investors…
In aggregate it was a record month of selling for all US assets but the Treasury selling ($299.3BN) was offset by…
- buying of $61.5BN in Agencies
- buying of $3.177BN in Corporate Bonds
- buying of $6.812BN in Stocks
(We do note that TIC data are mark to market, so the value of holdings are driven in part by price swings in the relevant month and as liquidity crises struck, we saw bonds getting sold along with everything else)
The total for China – the second-largest holder of U.S. government debt – sank $10.7 billion in March to $1.08 trillion. Japan still has the largest pile of Treasuries outside the U.S.; the value of its holdings rose $3.4 billion to $1.27 trillion.
Source: Bloomberg
Saudi Arabia dumped a record $25.3 billion in US Treasuries…(which makes sense as petro-exporters dumping anything and everything for liquidity)
Source: Bloomberg
But while they were all selling US Treasuries, they were buying something…
Source: Bloomberg
As the recent trend of rotation from US Treasuries to gold continues.
iii) Important USA Economic Stories
Restaurants banking on a vaccine coming soon will surely be disappointed
(zerohedge)
Restaurants Betting On Vaccine To Reopen Will Be Disappointed
Some restaurateurs, those who are surviving the severe economic downturn, because as we’ve noted, restaurants are getting fried during lockdowns, have said they will reopen dining halls when a proven vaccine is mass-produced for the general population. Now the issue, there is no clear timetable on when a treatment or vaccine will be ready — an uncertainty that could prove disastrous industrywide.
Danny Meyer, a restaurateur in New York City with 19 eateries, said his dining halls would remain closed until a COVID-19 vaccine is seen.
Of the 19 restaurants, he owns Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Café, two pricey restaurants in Manhattan. He told Bloomberg that all of his eateries were shuttered in early March due to the public health crisis.
“We won’t be welcoming guests into our full-service restaurants for a very long time—probably not until there’s a vaccine,” Meyer said. “There is no interest or excitement on my part to having a half-full dining room while everyone is getting their temperature taken and wearing masks, for not much money.”
“It’s very frustrating, but it’s the only safe way to go,” he adds. This gloomy outlook is also shared by fellow restaurateur Daniel Humm, who may permanently close Eleven Madison Park.
With the restaurant industry on life-support, hopes for a vaccine were dashed on Wednesday when Dr. Anthony Fauci noted several caveats, one being that Gilead’s remdesivir has proven to be a “modest success” by the results so far – it’s not the ‘game-changer’ as Wall Street likes to believe. He said some of the vaccine trials could cause harm to test subjects while listing at least eight vaccines (including Moderna’s) in some stage of development.
Dr. Fauci said more details about the trails would be known by late fall or early winter.
As for President Trump, he’s on Twitter Thursday morning trying to pump the stock market with tweets about “VERY promising” vaccines “before the end of the year.”
A proven vaccine by the fourth quarter is possibly the best and most optimistic scenario, though JPMorgan’s core assumption is that one “could take 12-16 months” — which would mean a vaccine could be seen in the back half of 2021.
Rick Bright, the top federal vaccine official who claims he was ousted for criticizing President Trump’s response to the virus pandemic, told a House hearing on Thursday that “2020 will be (the) darkest winter in modern history.”
What’s worse, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently warned treatment or vaccine might be more than a year away – and in fact, may never arrive.
“A mass vaccine or treatment may be more than a year away. Indeed, in a worst-case scenario, we may never find a vaccine,” said Johnson. “So our plan must countenance a situation where we are in this, together, for the long haul, even while doing all we can to avoid that outcome.”
WHO’s Dr. Mike Ryan warned this week that the virus is bouncing around the population like HIV or a supercharged version of the common cold until a vaccine can be mass-produced.
Restaurants are making a good call to exclude the opening of dining halls, and many have opted to rework their business models to include carryout.
For restaurants waiting for a COVID-19 vaccine to reopen, we note that seventeen years after the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak and seven years since the first Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) case, there is still none.
What’s becoming clear is that a mass-produced vaccine is not a 2020 story. Bright told a House hearing on Thursday that a 12-18 month vaccine timeline is still very “aggressive.” Restaurants are doomed, and judging by the shockingly easy spread of viruses as we detailed earlier, it will be a long time before anything like ‘normal’ is back.
end
The nationwide lockdowns have sparked a plunge in local government tax returns. Expect a huge cut in services similar to what we witnessed in 2011 with Jefferson County Alamba.
(zerohedge)
Nationwide Lockdown Sparks Plunge In Local Govt Tax Revenues; Cuts In Services Strike As Demand Soars
Small to medium size cities and counties across the United States are facing huge budget gaps amid the coronavirus shutdown induced record unemployment, drying up crucial tax revenue for local governments.
Bloomberg profiles a domino effect that Jefferson County, Alabama famously went through in 2011 leading tothe biggest municipal bankruptcy in US history, saying it’s experience portends a tsunami of what will be similar local government collapses.
“A massive share of the local government’s tax revenue disappears. Elected officials lay off employees and shutter a health-care facility used by the poorest residents. Road work grinds to a halt. Residents wait in hours-long lines to renew their licenses,” Bloomberg introduces of the scene that Alabama’s largest county witnessed years ago.

The report notes the picture is apt for today’s prolonged coronavirus recession:
Surging unemployment and business closures are causing government revenue to plunge nationwide in a matter of weeks, mirroring the swift hit to Jefferson County when a court struck down a wage tax that covered about 25% of its budget. The 660,000-resident county, which is home to Birmingham, fired 1,300 employees over three years, sold a nursing home and shuttered inpatient services at its hospital that cared for the poor. After closing satellite courthouses, the lines at the main one downtown grew so long that a portable toilet was installed in the park next door. Eventually, the county filed for bankruptcy.
At the tipping point wherein the county was locked into a vicious downward cycle, the crisis led to mass furloughs and layoffs of public employees at even essential places like hospitals, jails, police units, and long-term care facilities.
It also left decaying infrastructure in its wake as county crews simply stopped work on roads, fixing potholes, restoring an incredibly costly botched sewage system project, and public building maintenance.
This scenario which played out in Jefferson County has very likely started in many other places, born out by numbers showing nearly 1 million employees already cut from state and local payrolls last month.
“Local governments are preparing to cut services, idle employees, raise taxes and sell assets,” the report continues. “As a last resort, those burdened by excessive long-term debt and pension obligations could file for bankruptcy, although so far investors and analysts haven’t predicted a wave of insolvencies and not every state even allows it.”

In the prior case of Jefferson County, it made drastic and painful austerity-type measures which eventually prepared it to better weather the current economic “pause” brought on by the pandemic:
To generate cash, the county sold its nursing home for $11.3 million. In one of its most politically difficult decisions, it closed inpatient and emergency care at Cooper Green Mercy Hospital, which served the county’s lowest-income residents. The money-losing hospital was underutilized, with typically fewer than 40 patients a day, and received more than $10 million a year in county subsidies, Carrington said.
Although an urgent care facility remained open, the closing of the downtown hospital was hard for some residents because suburban hospitals weren’t on bus lines, said Scott Douglas, executive director of Greater Birmingham Ministries, a community organization.
It ranked as the biggest municipal bankruptcy in US history after a series of local scandals involving corrupt and incompetent officials, a bungled sewage system project that left an enduring billion dollar debt, and toxic bonds, among other things. It was only in 2013 that Jefferson Country finally emerged from bankruptcy.
Bloomberg forecasts ominously that all signs point toward a similar crisis now ready to roll downhill for other local governments across the nation.
END
THE PLIGHT OF FALLING COMMERCIAL PROPERTY FAILURES//DEVASTATION CREATED BY THE CORONAVIRUS
Robert email to me:
In America at a time when banks are raising criteria for all loan qualifications, 30% of all mortgages are on the edge of default while commercial property is in a death spiral. And I could write similar things about Canada and many other countries. And I was shocked earlier today to realize that the Canadian real estate index dropped more than 10% in 4 days.
Each
day, we are all subjected to misrepresentations and half truths from selected epidemiologists as so called experts, who are all on the donation lists of Gates, painting a flawed narrative about this coronavirus mess. Check it out, it is all on the website. It becomes increasingly difficult to understand the logic of destroying economies and lives of people over a virus that is a manageable threat and no where near the Threat, it is made out to be. And each day, I watch people in gear and fear, distance themselves ( no proof this works) from the general population. Selective distancing is common sense and does not require such dictation. And there is reason to think masks worn everywhere are more of a harm than a benefit . No question, if you have underlying health conditions or are elderly, risk needs to be managed, and masks prudently should be used, but as rule, I think not. But is this not common sense? Seems like if you have a heart condition and are 70 or more, going out for a night of drinking and dancing with young people til 4 in the morning might be tempting fate, etc. And no, eating a 16 ounce steak with fries and several bottles of wine for lunch, with a underlying condition, may result in more than heartburn.
Damage to the Global economy looks like it is over $10 trillion thus far. But who knows unofficially beneath the covers, it could be somewhat larger. Europe and Japanese bond markets are gone, as no one will lend them money at these low rates. The ongoing damage to Trade credit availability is astounding and we all will pay a higher Price as a result and we will experience shortages and disruption in supply, as a result. Even the strong companies are rethinking their business for contraction and not expansion in order to survive. Too many of them are starting to eat into equity not to think this way.
Sadly, all lending or credit provision is meaningless with out real spending to generate new growth. And yes, the climate crowd would remake the world as a net zero contributor to co2 but at what cost to society? As it is, we are watching the crumbling of the world we knew just months ago into a state, no one predicted for needless Self inflicted pain. We have sailed into uncharted seas that are not sailed, as no event in modern history has caused so much disruption, so widely, or as quickly. And it will take many a year to recover and rebuild while witnessing and experiencing a fractured world.
The resulting days ahead will be filled with more extremity, both economically and socially and politically and many beliefs and opinions will be driven by experienced conditions and realities to be faced. And in that day, anger will rise as the truth of actions taken over what is showing to be a minimal threat to the general population faces resultant economic household issues. One can expect that capital that exists will be very prudent and cautious about where and in what it chooses to find a home.
Cheers
Robert
end
So far Georgia’s reopening has been a great success.
(zerohedge)
Georgia’s Reopening A ‘Great Success’: “In Theory, No One Is Going Too Fast,” Experts Claim
Well, would you look at that.
Three weeks have passed since Georgia started reopening its economy, and the feared apocalyptic resurgence in the coronavirus that was supposed to overwhelm the state’s health-care system and cost thousands of lives hasn’t come to pass. And many of the same experts who warned against reopening the state “prematurely” – a group that includes Dr. Tony Fauci – are now conspicuously silent.
Meanwhile, other experts have pointed out that Georgia’s reopening, along with the reopenings of others states like Tennessee, South Carolina and Texas, has so far worked out.
And if Georgia’s reopening has been a success so far,then in theory, “no state is going too fast.”
Some Wall Street economists say a continued decline in serious illnesses suggests Georgia’s reopening may encourage other states to ease restrictions and lead to an eventual resumption in economic activity in the US.
“Georgia is a bellwether mainly because the reopening has been so aggressive,”said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities LLC, who cited in a research note Wednesday an almost 20% drop in Georgia’s Covid-19 patients in the past week or so.
“The other aggressive states, like Florida and Texas, are still opening up more slowly,” Stanley said in an interview. “So if Georgia is successful then, in theory, no one is going too fast – there should be a strong presumption that reopenings everywhere else should be successful.”
Kemp lifted a state order on April 24, allowing nail salons, hairdressers, bowling alleys and gyms to reopen so long as they followed state protocols. Restaurants and theaters were given the go-ahead three days later.
The same goes for other states, because, although the NYT has repeatedly pointed out that, when backing out the data from the Greater NY area, the curve still appears to be gradually steepening, and even though Texas reported a “record” daily jump in deaths on Thursday (data reported with a 24 hour delay), in reality, the number of cases and states remains relatively low per capita, and there are still counties across the midwest, south and mountain west haven’t reported a single case or death. Some have attributed a recent bump in some of the less-impacted areas to an improvement in the availability of testing.
To be sure, as BBG explains, it’s too early to declare “Mission Accomplished”. Georgia has suffered a lot, but even as hospitalizations and the spread slow, a new “hot spot” of cases has emerged north of Atlanta, and the risk of spread remains moderate.
But one thing is clear: A few weeks ago, the mayor of Atlanta, and several other Democratic mayors of the state’s largest cities, slammed Kemp and implied that he was putting lives at risk for the sake of the president’s reelection campaign.
At the time, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she was “dumbfounded” and “extremely concerned” by the decision.
But here’s the thing: Just as Kemp expected, most businesses didn’t reopen right away. Indeed, three weeks in, some small businesses and even some chains have yet to reopen (most Apple stores in the US remain closed, for example, though five stores have reopened, one of which is in South Carolina).
It was this drawn-out reopening, combined with the strict observance of social distancing recommendations, that likely helped keep rates of spread relatively low – certainly much less than expected.
Even as Dr. Fauci implores the Senate not to pressure states to reopen “prematurely”, others claim that Georgia’s reopening has gone far better than experts expected. Keep in mind: Three weeks ago, when Kemp decided to push ahead with the reopening, Dr. Fauci sniffed that “it certainly wasn’t going to be helpful”. He has since refrained on commenting on specific states.
But it’s just another example of what President Trump said earlier was the good doctor’s tendency to “play both sides”. The strategy: make sure to vacillate and avoid making conclusive statements and warnings. By positioning himself as “the voice of prudence”, Dr. Fauci is poised to take credit should the “expedited” reopening that Trump is supposedly “demanding” (in truth, the governors are independently pushing ahead on their own) pan out.
But if everything goes awry and deaths skyrocket, President Trump will be left to shoulder the blame alone.
end
My goodness: Opentable states that 25% of all USA restaurants will not re open
(zerohedge)
25% Of US Restaurants Will Never Reopen: Opentable
A quarter of US restaurants will go out of business due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a forecast by OpenTable, which reported that total restaurant reservations and walk-in customers have fallen 95% over the previous year ending May 13.

The company tracks over 54,000 restaurants on its reservation site, which offers the ability to make online, walk-in, and phone reservations – but does not track data for take-out and deliveries, according to Bloomberg.
The company’s data shows that there are growing signs that patrons are willing to dine out again in states like Arizona and Texas where it’s allowed, though the numbers are still far below where they were last year.
Scottsdale showed the greatest improvement. It had zero reservations almost every day since March 21, but on May 13 this eased to a down 72% from reservations on the same day in 2019. The next most significant recoveries were in Houston and Phoenix. –Bloomberg
At the state-level, Florida showed the greatest statewide gain, with foot traffic only down 83% y/y after launching a phased reopening May 4 during which restaurants were allowed to operate at one-quarter capacity.
Indiana, which is now in phase two – allowing restaurants to operate at 50% of capacity – has come in second. The state is planning on a full reopening by the Fourth of July.
“Restaurants are complicated beasts,” said Steve Hafner, CEO of OpenTable parent company, Booking Holdings. “You have to order food and supplies. You have to make sure you’ve prepped the kitchen and service areas to be easily disinfected.”
According to Hafner, state unemployment benefits with the federal booster is one reason why restaurants have struggled to hire help. “A lot of people are making $1,200 a week doing nothing. That’s good pay.”
Meanwhile, restaurateur Danny Meyer – who shut down all of his 19 New York restaurants on March 13, says his dining rooms will stay closed for the foreseeable future, according to Bloomberg.
“We won’t be welcoming guests into our full-service restaurants for a very long time—probably not until there’s a vaccine,” he said, adding “There is no interest or excitement on my part to having a half-full dining room while everyone is getting their temperature taken and wearing masks, for not much money.”
It’s a caution shared by fellow restaurateur Daniel Humm, who said he may not re-open Eleven Madison Park at all, and by David Chang who just announced the closing of his Chelsea restaurant Nishi and his Washington, DC, Momofuku location.
Meyer, in the meantime, is taking the first steps back into business by opening his café Daily Provisions for take out service as early as next week. The storefront, which is next to Union Square Café on East 19th St., was designed for grab-and-go coffee, breakfast sandwiches, and signature crullers. Initially, it will open for curbside pickup of breakfast items, with an expanded menu expected to follow. –Bloomberg
Meyer will likely open his Flatiron District pizza restaurant, Marta, for takeout – saying “We had been on the cusp of takeout at Daily Provisions, Marta, and Blue Smoke [the company’s barbecue spot] when we closed. It makes sense now.”
“I would think about anything that is safe and profitable. If it’s not safe, we won’t do it, we all lose,” he said, adding “Profitable matters, as well. The only way we can responsibly get back in the business of employing people is to not go out of business. It’s already incredibly hard to survive.”
end
US Blocks Shipment Of Semiconductors To Huawei In Latest Procovation Of Beijing
Fox Business Network has confirmed a Reuters report from earlier this morning claiming the Trump Administration blocked a shipment of semiconductors to Huawei on Friday, prompting threats from Beijing.
Earlier, the news set off the anxieties about the deteriorating US-China bilateral relationship that sent markets lower at the open.
- LARGE U.S SHIPMENT OF SEMICONDUCTOR CHIPS GOING TO HUAWEI BLOCKED BY TRUMP ADMIN THIS MORNING – FBN
According to Reuters, a new policy unveiled by the Commerce Department has expanded US authority to require licenses for sales to Huawei of semiconductors made abroad with US tech, which will vastly expand the US’s power to stop exports and cut off vital supplies of semiconductors that Huawei will have difficulty sourcing elsewhere.
“This action puts America first, American companies first, and American national security first,” a senior Commerce Department official told reporters in a telephone briefing on Friday.
Unsurprisingly, the reaction from China was swift: China’s Global Times warned that Beijing was ready to put US companies – including Qulacomm and Apple – on an “unreliable entity list” as part of its countermeasures.
In addition to these restrictions, later Friday morning, the Trump administration dispatched Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for an interview on Fox Business. Ross (likely the source of the anonymously sourced comment above) explained that the department is changing its policies to block Huawei’s use of American software in overseas manufacturing, closing a loophole that the Chinese manufacturer had relied on to circumvent US sanctions.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security is revising its foreign-produced direct product rule and the “Entity List” – the US blacklist that Huawei was supposedly added to more than a year ago, though the US has been reluctant to bring the hammer down so far – to “narrowly and strategically: target Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of U.S. software.
“There has been a very highly technical loophole through which Huawei has been able to use U.S. technology with foreign fabrication producers,” Ross said. “This first rule about foreign direct product is a very highly tailored thing to try to correct that loophole. That will have a very powerful impact. We never intended that loophole to be there.”
Threatening the viability of a company like Huawei is a major escalation on behalf of the US. At this point, we’re starting to wonder if Trump plans to distract from his handling of the virus response by starting WWIII.
end
iv) Swamp commentaries)
Sidney Powell responds to Obama’s attack on the Flynn dismissal
Flynn’s Lawyer Excoriates Obama In Open Letter
Last week, former President Barack Obama reacted to the DOJ’s move to end its case against Michael Flynn by declaring in a leaked private phone call that the “rule of law is at risk,” and that “there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free.”
“That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places,” said the former President.
On Wednesday, Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell punched back – correcting Obama’s inaccurate diatribe, while managing to drop MOABs on his “wingman” – former Attorney General Eric Holder, Andrew McCabe, Loretta Lynch and others. It’s quite the read.
Authored by Sidney Powell via sidneypowell.com (emphasis ours)
To: Barack Hussein Obama
From: Sidney Powell
www.SidneyPowell.com
Date: May 13, 2020
Re: Your Failure to Find Precedent for Flynn Dismissal
Regarding the decision of the Department of Justice to dismiss charges against General Flynn, in your recent call with your alumni, you expressed great concern: “there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.”
Here is some help—if truth and precedent represent your true concern. Your statement is entirely false.However, it does explain the damage to the Rule of Law throughout your administration.
First, General Flynn was not charged with perjury—which requires a material false statement made under oath with intent to deceive.1A perjury prosecution would have been appropriate and the Rule of Law applied if the Justice Department prosecuted your former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabefor his multiple lies under oath in an investigation of a leak only he knew he caused.
McCabe lied under oath in fully recorded and transcribed interviews with the Inspector General for the DOJ. He was informed of the purpose of the interview, and he had had the benefit of counsel. He knew he was the leaker. McCabe even lied about lying. He lied to his own agents—which sent them on a “wild-goose-chase”—thereby making his lies “material” and an obstruction of justice. Yet, remarkably, Attorney General Barr declined to prosecute McCabe for these offenses.
Applying the Rule of Law, after declining McCabe’s perjury prosecution, required the Justice Department to dismiss the prosecution of General Flynn who was not warned, not under oath, had no counsel, and whose statements were not only not recorded, but were created as false by FBI agents who falsified the 302.
Second, it would seem your “wingman” Eric Holder is missing a step these days at Covington & Burling LLP. Indelibly marked in his memory (and one might think, yours) should be his Motion to Dismiss the multi-count jury verdict of guilty and the entire case against former United States Senator Ted Stevens. Within weeks of Mr. Holder becoming Attorney General, he moved to dismiss the Stevens prosecution in the interest of justice for the same reasons the Justice Department did against General Flynn—egregious misconduct by prosecutors who hid exculpatory evidence and concocted purported crimes.
As horrifying as the facts of the Stevens case were, they pale in comparison to the targeted setup, framing, and prosecution of a newly elected President’s National Security Advisor and the shocking facts that surround it. This case was an assault on the heart of liberty— our cherished system of self-government, the right of citizens to choose their President, and the hallowed peaceful transition of power.
Third, the inability of anyone in your alumni association to find “anybody who has been charged [with anything] just getting off scot-free” would be laughable were it not so pathetic.
Many of your alum feature prominently in the non-fiction legal thriller published in 2014: Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice. A national best- seller, it focusses on the egregious prosecutorial misconduct of your longest serving White House Counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler; your counter-terrorism advisor Lisa Monaco; Loretta Lynch’s DAG for the Criminal Division Leslie Caldwell; and Mueller protégé Andrew Weissmann. While they worked as federal prosecutors on the Enron Task Force—under the purported supervision of Christopher Wray—they destroyed Arthur Andersen LLP and its 85,000 jobs; sent four Merrill Lynch executives to prison on an indictment that criminalized an innocent business transaction while they hid the evidence that showed those defendants were innocent for six years. Both cases were reversed on appeal for their over-criminalization and misconduct. Indeed, Andersen was reversed by a unanimous Supreme Court.
Fourth, even if your many alumni don’t remember multiple cases that had to be reversed or dismissed for their own misconduct, Judge Emmet Sullivan should remember dismissing the corrupted case against Ted Stevens. Judge Sullivan is the judicial hero of Licensed to Lie. It is that case that caused Judge Sullivan to enter the strong Brady order the Mueller and D.C. career prosecutors violated repeatedly in the Flynn prosecution.
Fifth, there is precedent for guilty pleas being vacated. Your alumni Weissmann and Ruemmler are no strangers to such reversals. At least two guilty pleas they coerced by threats against defendants in Houston had to be thrown out—again for reasons like those here. The defendants “got off scot-free” because—like General Flynn—your alumni had concocted the charges and terrorized the defendants into pleading guilty to “offenses” that were not crimes. Andersen partner David Duncan even testified for the government against Andersen in its trial, but his plea had to be vacated. Enron Broadband defendant Christopher Calger had his plea vacated. There are many others across the country.
Sixth, should further edification be necessary, see Why Innocent People Plead Guilty, written in 2014 by federal Judge Jed Rakoff (a Clinton appointee). Abusive prosecutors force innocent people to plead guilty with painful frequency. The Mueller special counsel operation led by Andrew Weissmann and Weissmann “wannabes” specializes in prosecutorial terrorist tactics repulsive to everything “justice” is supposed to mean. These tactics are designed to intimidate their targets into pleading guilty—while punishing them and their families with the process itself and financial ruin.
Most important, General Flynn was honest with the FBI agents. They knew he was—and briefed that to McCabe and others three different times. At McCabe’s directions, Agent Strzok and McCabe’s “Special Counsel” Lisa Page, altered the 302 to create statements Weissmann, Mueller, Van Grack, and Zainab Ahmad could assert were false. Only the FBI agents lied—and falsified documents. The crimes are theirs alone.
Seventh, the D.C. circuit in which you reside vacated a Section 1001 case for a legal failure much less egregious than those in General Flynn’s case. United States v. Safavian, 528 F.3d 957 (D.C. Cir. 2008). Safavian sought advice from his agency’s ethics board and did not give them all the relevant info. The jury convicted him on the theory it was a 1001 violation to conceal the information from the government ethics board. The court disagreed: “As Safavian argues and as the government agrees, there must be a legal duty to disclose in order for there to be a concealment offense in violation of § 1001(a)(1), yet the government failed to identify a legal disclosure duty except by reference to vague standards of conduct for government employees.” General Flynn did not even know he was the subject of an investigation—and in truth, he was not.The only crimes here were by your alumni in the FBI, White House, intelligence community, and Justice Department.
These are just a few obvious and well-known examples to those paying any attention to criminal justice issues.
Finally, the “leaked” comments from your alumni call further evinces your obsession with destroying a distinguished veteran of the United States Army who has defended the Constitution and this country “from all enemies, foreign and domestic,” with the highest honor for thirty-three years. He and many others will continue to do so.
Trump demands Obama testify to Senate over ‘Obamagate’ conspiracy theory
Former president has yet to weigh in on allegations he sought to hobble the Trump presidency from the start
Donald Trump is pressing Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham to call former President Barack Obama to testify about what the incumbent says was a plot to damage his 2016 candidacy then hobble his presidency.
“If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama. He knew EVERYTHING. Do it @LindseyGrahamSC, just do it,” Mr Trump tweeted. “No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk!”
The president fired off that tweet minutes before his top spokesperson, Kayleigh McEnany, appeared on Fox News to call the alleged conspiracy “the biggest political scandal in history.”
She and her boss were referring to what the president has dubbed “Obamagate,” a complex web of intelligence and law enforcement investigations, moves by former Obama administration officials and other initiatives the Trump camp, backed by GOP legislators, that Mr Trump is peddling as he seeks a second term.
The “Obamagate” theory maintains that the 44th president and his top intelligence chiefs sought to entrap incoming Trump officials in legal controversies to kneecap Mr Trump’s presidency from the start. Some aspects of the president’s theory have yet to be corroborated, but he and his top aides and surrogates are pushing the narratives by asking questions about the motives of a number of individuals who were senior members of the Obama administration’s national security, intelligence and foreign policy team.
The White House’s Thursday messaging came a day after Senate Republicans released documents showing a list of former Obama administration officials sought to “unmask” the person on the other end of phone calls with Russia’s then ambassador to Washington. That person turned out to be Michael Flynn, Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign adviser and first national security adviser.
Mr Trump joined Senate Republicans on Wednesday in slamming the former Obama administration officials, including his presumptive 2020 general election foe Joe Biden, of being involved in a “massive” plot to take him down.
“The unmasking is a massive thing,” he said of the former vice president and others in the previous administration seeking to find out who was on the other end of phone calls with Russia’s then-ambassador to the United States. It turns out it was Michael Flynn, his 2016 campaign adviser and first national security adviser.
Mr Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday, accused Mr Biden of lying during a television interview earlier this week during which the former VP said he knew there was an investigation of Mr Flynn but was unaware of specifics.
“He said he knows nothing about anything,” Trump said, before saying Biden was an unmasker and questioning why he could say he knew nothing. “He knows nothing about anything. … And then it gets released today that he’s a big unmasker. How do you know nothing if you’re one of the unmaskers?”
Some Obama allies, however, say the conspiracy theory has many holes. One, they say, is then-President Obama telling Mr Trump in late 2016 when he was president-elect that he had concerns about Mr Flynn taking the national security adviser role.
The president and GOP senators are pressing the former officials to explain why they pushed to learn who the former Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, was talking to between December 2016 and early January 2017. That was the window of time during which Mr Trump was in his transition phase from winning the 2016 election to being sworn in.
end
Dershowitz Blasts Flynn Judge’s “Endangering Our System Of Separation Of Powers”
Authored by Alan Dershowitz via The Gatestone Institute,
Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision to appoint a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department’s entirely proper decision to end the criminal prosecution of General Michael Flynn is designed to circumvent the constitutional limitation on the jurisdiction of federal judges. The Constitution limits this jurisdiction to actual cases and controversies. There must be disagreement between the parties that requires resolution by a judge. If the parties agree, there is nothing for the judge to decide.
In the Flynn case, the prosecution and defense both agree that the case should be dropped. Because there is no longer any controversy between the parties to be resolved, there is no longer any case properly before the judge. His only job is to enter an order vacating the guilty plea and dismissing the case with prejudice.
But Judge Sullivan does not want to do that.
He apparently thinks Flynn belongs in prison. He has as much as said that. So, he has manufactured a fake controversy by appointing a new prosecutor because evidently he does not like what the constitutionally authorized prosecutor — the Attorney General — has decided. The new prosecutor has been tasked to argue for the result that Judge Sullivan prefers. But under our constitutional system of separation of powers, the new prosecutor has no standing to make such an argument. He is not a member of the executive branch, which is the only branch authorized to make prosecutorial decisions. He was appointed by a member of the judicial branch to perform an executive function — a clear violation of the separation of powers, which allocates the power to prosecute to the executive, not judicial, branch.
It makes no constitutional difference that Flynn pleaded guilty — even if his plea was voluntary, which is questionable in light of the threats against his son.
The Justice Department has the constitutional authority to dismiss a prosecution that it has brought at any time and for any reason, without being second-guessed by the judicial branch.
Judge Sullivan is basing his unconstitutional actions on Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure which provides that: “The government may, with leave of court, dismiss an indictment, information, or complaint. The government may not dismiss the prosecution during trial without the defendant’s consent.” This judge-written rule was designed to protect the defendant against manipulation by the government to circumvent the protection against double jeopardy. It is not properly employed to hurt the defendant by empowering the judge to act as both prosecutor and decision-maker. It rarely if ever results in a judge denying leave to the government to drop a prosecution that it believes is unjustified.
Judge Sullivan is exceeding his authority by turning his courtroom into a three-ring partisan circus, designed to allow him to get his way despite the agreement of the actual parties before him. He is taking judicial activism to a new and grossly improper level, to the disadvantage of a defendant he does not like.
As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg recently wrote for a unanimous Court:
“Courts are essentially passive instruments…”
It is not within their legitimate authority to “sally forth each day looking for wrongs to right.”
Their role is to “decide only questions presented by the parties.”
Judge Sullivan is improperly exceeding that role in the Flynn case and should be chastised for it, whether one agrees or disagrees with the Justice Department’s decision on its merits.
There is a joke lawyers who practice in Federal Court like to tell.
Angel Gabriel summons Sigmund Freud in heaven and tells him God is having delusions of grandeur.
Freud asks how God can have delusions of grandeur: There is no one grander than Him.
To which the Angel Gabriel responded, “he thinks he’s a federal judge.”
But what Judge Sullivan is doing is no joke.
He is endangering our system of separation of powers and he should be stopped by a writ of mandamus or a motion to recuse. Judges, too, are not above the law or the Constitution.
v) King report/Courtesy of Chris Powell of GATA which includes the major swamp stories.
Jobless Claims were mixed: Initial Jobless Claims 2.981m (2.5M expected); Continuing Claims 22.833m (25.12m expected). Out of relief that Continuing Claims were much better than expected, ESMs rallied 16 handles into the NYSE open. However, sellers were waiting. ESMs and stocks sank from the opening NYSE bell until 10:02 ET. Traders once again bought an opening dip. ESMs and stocks then rallied sharply. Trump caused the decline on the NYSE open.
Trump on China: ‘We could cut off the whole relationship’ – over China’s handling of coronavirus The president, appearing exclusively on “Mornings with Maria,” raised the impact of ending relations. “Now, if you did, what would happen?,” asked Trump. “You’d save $500 billion if you cut off the whole relationship.”… https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-on-china-we-could-cut-off-the-whole-relationship
We cannot reiterate it enough: Being tough on China is a major DJT campaign theme.
Chicago on track to having most COVID-19 cases nationwide
Queens County reported a total of 56,889 cases on Wednesday. Cook County reported 56,406…
[Due to infections at nursing homes, long-term care facilities and Cook County Jail]
https://www.mystateline.com/news/national/chicago-on-track-to-having-most-covid-19-cases-nationwide/
Coronavirus cases, deaths in Georgia continue to decline, three weeks after re-opening
@kerpen: If the media weren’t hopelessly corrupt and partisan, the good news stories of success in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, and Oklahoma would be everywhere and other governors would be shamed into following their lead [to reopen].
President Trump says political opponents pushing to keep the economy closed, amid reelection bid
Ex-Rep (GOP) Gowdy: Trump Family Unmasked During Inauguration Day Surveillance Reports
During his tenure as House Oversight Committee Chair, apparently Trey Gowdy has seen intelligence reports showing the Trump family was unmasked on inauguration day…
@MZHemingway: Following revelation that some senior State Dept. impeachment witnesses weren’t completely honest about Burisma vis-a-vis Hunter Biden, House Judiciary ranking member @Jim_Jordan asks Secretary Mike Pompeo for more documents.
Fox’s Ed Henry reports that John Durham is investigating Obamagate unmaskings; more intelligence on unmasking is coming; the Flynn list was the first dose and there are “buckets” of unmaskings coming.
Former Intelligence Director James Clapper responds to ‘unmasking’ allegations
“It’s a routine thing,” the former intelligence chief said, “It’s appropriate and legitimate when you have a valid foreign intelligence target engaging with a U.S. person…”
Asked by the network if he was responsible for the leaking of the contents of the documents which included Flynn’s name, the video went dead and the anchor was unable to get an answer to his question… https://nypost.com/2020/05/14/james-clapper-responds-to-flynn-unmasking-allegations/
@seanmdav: Obama’s U.N. ambassador repeatedly swore under oath that she never sought to unmask Michael Flynn. If that’s true, how did Samantha Power’s name show up on a list of officials who unmasked Flynn, and why did that list show her unmasking Flynn seven times?
FBI serves warrant on [GOP] senator in investigation of stock sales linked to coronavirus
Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, turned over his phone to agents after they served a search warrant on the lawmaker at his residence in the Washington area, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a law enforcement action… https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-05-13/fbi-serves-warrant-on-senator-stock-investigation
Observers wonder if Burr is involved with something more than insider trading on Covid-19 intel. Senators Loffleur (R-GA), Inhofe (R-OK) and Feinstein (D-CA), or a family member, sold stocks. As of now, the FBI has NOT served warrants on the other suspected senators.
@JoshNBCNews: Feinstein’s office confirms she answered questions from FBI about her husband’s stock trades, handed over documents
Ex-NSC official @RichHiggins_DC: I am old enough to remember when Senator Burr told reporters at an off the record dinner in DC that his goal was “to financially bleed @GenFlynn dry”
@JuliaDavisNews: Such a warrant being served on a sitting U.S. senator would require approval from the highest ranks of the Justice Department and is a step that would not be taken lightly. Senator Burr is desperately looking for assurances that they’re ONLY looking at his stock sales. Oh my… Think of it, gang of 8, Chairman of Senate cmte, top shelf… and the FBI snatches his personal cell phone
Fox’s @JakeBGibson: The warrant for Senator Burr was served on his lawyer, according to a senior DOJ official. Such a warrant would need to be approved at the HIGHEST levels of the Department of Justice, and it was, according to the senior DOJ official.
Fox’s @ChadPergram: From the pool. Burr on warrant: “I don’t know its part of the investigation and everybody ought to let this investigation play out?” Says he has been cooperating “since the beginning.”
Burr stepped down from SSCI (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) yesterday at midday. We opined months ago, that AG Barr should capture a Republican trophy before he goes after Democrats to mitigate the usual suspects’ invocation of ‘politics’. We cannot emphasize enough the magnitude of what Barr and his team are investigating now and will likely prosecute in coming months. What is likely to transpire in late summer/early fall will be profound because some high officials did not perform the traditional peaceful transfer of power in 2016. PS – Burr publicly extolled Comey numerous times.
@seanmdav: The politician hurt most by this move is not Burr, but Russian collusion hoaxer Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia), whom Burr inexplicably allowed to run the Senate Intel for the past 3 years.
Trump called out GOP Sen. Graham for running his mouth incessantly but not do anything.
@realDonaldTrump: If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama. He knew EVERYTHING. Do it @LindseyGrahamSC, just do it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk!
Graham shoots down Trump’s call for Obama testimony on Russia probe origins
“I don’t think now’s the time for me to do that. I don’t know if that’s even possible. I have grave concerns about the role of executive privilege and all kinds of issues,”…
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/14/lindsey-graham-obama-testimony-russia-258170
CBS legal analyst @JonathanTurley: Judge Sullivan has now appointed a retired judge to look into “whether the Court should issue an Order to Show Cause why Mr. Flynn should not be held in criminal contempt for perjury.”… Judge Sullivan was previously criticized for suggesting that Flynn could be charged with treason. He is now allowing third parties to make arguments in a criminal case on an unopposed motion… These extraordinary moves by the court are increasingly discomforting… There comes a point where the Court appears too invested in the punishment of a defendant and too active in creating alternatives to dismissal. As a criminal defense attorney, I find these moves unnerving, particularly when prosecutorial abuse has been raised by DOJ and others.
Judge Sullivan Disregards Two Controlling Precedents by Appointing Amicus in Flynn Case
One week ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 9-0 decision, authored by Justice Ginsburg, that took judges to task for similar amicus antics… Judge Sullivan’s actions this week raise serious doubt whether he paid attention to this recent, unanimous decision…
Four years ago, in a precedent even more squarely on point, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (per J. Srinivasan) granted mandamus against a different D.C. district court judge for refusing a government charging decision. J. Sullivan seems poised to ignore the lessons from that higher court ruling, too… https://www.forbes.com/sites/markchenoweth/2020/05/14/judge-sullivan-disregards-two-controlling-precedents-by-appointing-amicus-in-flynn-case/#4425b93e6f0a
In court filing, FBI accidentally reveals name of Saudi official suspected of directing support for 9/11 hijackers
@paulsperry_: Partially declassified FBI document ties 9/11 conspiracy directly to Saudi Embassy … and former Ambassador Prince Bandar (who is very tight with the Bushes and Bill Clinton)
@the hill [which leans left]: Joe Biden: “We’re in the middle of a pandemic that has cost us more than 85,000 jobs as of today. Lives of millions of people, millions of people, millions of jobs…”
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1261021660318179328
Babylon Bee: 68% Say Lockdown Shouldn’t End Until All Diseases Are Eradicated And There Is No War, Hunger, Or Suffering
END
Let us close this tumultuous week with this offering courtesy of Greg Hunter
Obamagate Intensifies, MSM Cover Up Again, Crop Report
By Greg Hunter On May 15, 2020
President Trump is calling out former President Obama about the soft coup he was pushing. Evidence is mounting the Obama Administration was conspiring to kick Trump out of office with lies about his ties to Russia. Trump is simply calling it Obamagate and is doing so to his nearly 80 million Twitter followers.
The mainstream media (MSM) falsely told us all how President Trump was a Russian spy for nearly three years. It was a HUGE LIE as evidence shows that the Obama Administration simply made it all up. Trump is asking the Senate to bring former President Obama in to tell what he knew and when he knew it.
The crop growing season has gotten off to a cold wet start in the Midwest. Is this going to negatively affect food supply and prices this coming year? Greg will talk about what’s going on in farm country.
Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he talks about these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.
Well that is all for today
I will see you MONDAY night.