JAN 28

January 28, 2022 · by harveyorgan · in Uncategorized · Leave a comment ·Edit

GOLD; DOWN $8.30 to $1785.90

SILVER: $22.31 DOWN 36 CENTS

ACCESS MARKET: GOLD: 1792.00..

SILVER: $22.46

Bitcoin: morning price: 36,291 up 198

Bitcoin: afternoon price: 37,343 UP 854

Platinum price: closing down $14.45 to $1008.95

Palladium price; closing up $24.70 at $2381.80

END

end

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comex notices//JPMorgan notices filed COMEX//NOTICES: 1/13

EXCHANGE: COMEX

CONTRACT: JANUARY 2022 COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES

SETTLEMENT: 1,793.300000000 USD
INTENT DATE: 01/27/2022 DELIVERY DATE: 01/31/2022
FIRM ORG FIRM NAME ISSUED STOPPED

435 H SCOTIA CAPITAL 10
624 H BOFA SECURITIES 12
661 C JP MORGAN 1
905 C ADM 3 TOTAL: 13 13
MONTH TO DATE: 5,720

NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR JAN. CONTRACT: 13 NOTICE(S) FOR 1300 OZ (0.0404 TONNES)

total notices so far: 5720 contracts for 572,000 oz (17.7916 tonnes)

SILVER NOTICES:

10 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR 50,000 OZ/

total number of notices filed so far this month 3032 : for 15,150,000 oz

GLD

WITH GOLD DOWN $8.30

WITH RESPECT TO GLD WITHDRAWALS: (OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS): NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD..

GOLD IS “RETURNED” TO THE BANK OF ENGLAND WHEN CALLING IN THEIR LEASES: THE GOLD NEVER LEAVES THE BANK OF ENGLAND IN THE FIRST PLACE. THE BANK IS PROTECTING ITSELF IN CASE OF COMMERCIAL FAILURE

ALSO INVESTORS SWITCHING TO SPROTT PHYSICAL (phys) INSTEAD OF THE FRAUDULENT GLD//

CLOSING INVENTORY: 1014.26 TONNES/

Silver//SLV

WITH NO SILVER AROUND AND SILVER DOWN 36 CENTS:/: NO CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//

AT THE SLV//

INVESTORS ARE SWITCHING SLV TO SPROTT’S PSLV

CLOSING INVENTORY SLV/ TONIGHT: 535.003 MILLION OZ

Let us have a look at the data for today

SILVER//OUTLINE

SILVER COMEX OI FELL BY A STRONG 2182 CONTRACTS TO 149,689 AND RESTS CLOSER TO THE NEW RECORD OF 244,710, SET FEB 25/2020 AND THIS SMALL GAIN IN OI WAS ACCOMPANIED WITH OUR SMALL $0.07 LOSS IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX ON THURSDAY. OUR BANKERS WERE SUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN (IT FELL BY $1.13) AND WERE SUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING OUT A FEW SILVER LONGS AS WE HAD A SMALL LOSS OF 195 CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES .

WE MUST HAVE HAD:
I) HUGE BANKER SHORT COVERING AS THEY ARE VERY ANXIOUS TO GET OUT OF DODGE!!/. II)WE ALSO HAD SOME REDDIT RAPTOR BUYING//. iii) A STRONG ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS iiii) A HUGE INITIAL SILVER STANDING FOR COMEX SILVER MEASURING AT 10.505 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 145,000 OZ QUEUE. JUMP //NEW STANDING 15.275 MILLION OZ V) STRONG SIZED COMEX OI LOSS.

I AM NOW RECORDING THE DIFFERENTIAL IN OI FROM PRELIMINARY TO FINAL:

THE DIFFERENTIAL FROM PRELIMINARY OI TO FINAL OI SILVER TODAY: CONTRACTS -103

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS JAN. ACCUMULATION FOR EFP’S SILVER/JPMORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES/STARTING FROM FIRST DAY/MONTH OF JAN:

TOTAL CONTACTS for 19 days, total contracts: : 16,967 contracts or 84.835 million oz OR 4.463 MILLION OZ PER DAY. (8393CONTRACTS PER DAY)

TOTAL NO OF OZ UNDERGOING EFP TO LONDON 16,967 CONTRACTS X 5,000 PER CONTRACT:

EQUATES TO: 84.835 MILLION OZ

LAST 8 MONTHS TOTAL EFP CONTRACTS ISSUED IN MILLIONS OF OZ:

MAY 137.83 MILLION

JUNE 149.91 MILLION OZ

JULY 129.445 MILLION OZ

AUGUST: MILLION OZ 140.120

SEPT. 28.230 MILLION OZ//

OCT: 94.595 MILLION OZ

NOV: 131.925 MILLION OZ

DEC: 100.615 MILLION OZ

RESULT: WE HAD A STRONG SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 2182 WITH OUR $1.13 LOSS SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX// THURSDAY THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A STRONG SIZED EFP ISSUANCE OF 1884 CONTRACTS( 1884 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR MAR AND 1884 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS) WHICH EXITED OUT OF THE SILVER COMEX TO LONDON AS FORWARDS THE DOMINANT FEATURE TODAY: /HUGE BANKER SHORT COVERING AS THEY GET OUT OF DODGE//// WE HAVE A GOOD INITIAL SILVER OZ STANDING FOR JAN OF 10.505 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 145,000 OZ QUEUE JUMP //NEW STANDING 15.275, MILLION OZ// .. WE HAD A SMALL SIZED LOSS OF 298 OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES FOR 1.490 MILLION OZ//

WE HAD 10 NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR 50,000 OZ

GOLD//OUTLINE

IN GOLD, THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST FELL BY A STRONG SIZED 11,481 TO 542,799 AND FURTHER FROM OUR NEW RECORD (SET JAN 24/2020) AT 799,541 AND PREVIOUS TO THAT: (SET JAN 6/2020) AT 797,110.

THE DIFFERENTIAL FROM PRELIMINARY OI TO FINAL OI IN GOLD TODAY: -1073 CONTRACTS

THE STRONG SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI CAME WITH OUR STRONG LOSS IN PRICE OF $36.15//COMEX GOLD TRADING/THURSDAY/.AS IN SILVER WE MUST HAD SOME COMEX SPREADER LIQUIDATION FOLLOWED BY HUGE BANKER/ALGO SHORT COVERING ACCOMPANYING OUR STRONG SIZED EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE. WE HAD ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION AS THE TOTAL LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES TOTALED A FAIR SIZED 3317 CONTRACTS…WITH THE ENTIRE TOTAL LOSS COMING FROM SPREADER LIQUIDATION.

WE ALSO HAD A HUGE INITIAL STANDING IN GOLD TONNAGE FOR JAN AT 3.5614 TONNES FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 0 OZ QUEUE. JUMP //NEW STANDING: 17.7912 TONNES

YET ALL OF..THIS HAPPENED WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $36.15 WITH RESPECT TO THURSDAY’S TRADING

WE HAD A FAIR SIZED LOSS OF 4396 OI CONTRACTS (13.673 PAPER TONNES) ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES

E.F.P. ISSUANCE

THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALLED A STRONG SIZED 7091 CONTRACTS:

FOR FEB 7091 ALL OTHER MONTHS ZERO//TOTAL:7091

The NEW COMEX OI FOR THE GOLD COMPLEX RESTS AT 542,799.

IN ESSENCE WE HAVE A FAIR SIZED DECREASE IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 4396, WITH 11,487 CONTRACTS DECREASED AT THE COMEX AND 7091 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS TOTAL OI LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 3317 CONTRACTS OR 10.307TONNES.

CALCULATIONS ON GAIN/LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES

WE HAD A STRONG SIZED ISSUANCE IN EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (7091) ACCOMPANYING THE STRONG SIZED LOSS IN COMEX OI (10,408): TOTAL LOSS IN THE TWO EXCHANGES 3317 CONTRACTS. WE NO DOUBT HAD 1) HUGE BANKER SHORT COVERING ,2.) HUGE INITIAL STANDING AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR JAN. AT 3.7262 TONNES//FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S NIL OZ QUEUE JUMP .//NEW STANDING 17.7912 TONNES 3)ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION AS ENTIRE TOTAL LOSS WAS DUE TO INITIATION OF SPREADER LIQUIDATION,4) STRONG SIZED COMEX OI. LOSS 5) STRONG ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL

SPREADING OPERATIONS

(/NOW SWITCHING TO GOLD) FOR NEWCOMERS, HERE ARE THE DETAILS

SPREADING LIQUIDATION HAS NOW COMMENCED AS WE HEAD TOWARDS THE NEW ACTIVE FRONT MONTH OF FEB.WE ARE NOW INTO THE SPREADING OPERATION OF GOLD

HERE IS A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HOW THE CROOKS FLEECE UNSUSPECTING LONGS IN THE SPREADING ENDEAVOUR ;MODUS OPERANDI OF THE CORRUPT BANKERS AS TO HOW THEY HANDLE THEIR SPREAD OPEN INTERESTS:HERE IS HOW THE CROOKS USED SPREADING AS WE ARE NOW INTO THE NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF JAN HEADING TOWARDS THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF FEB, FOR GOLD:

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

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN 2021 INCLUDING TODAY

JAN

ACCUMULATION OF EFP’S GOLD AT J.P. MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES: (EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL) FOR THE MONTH OF JAN : 75,720 CONTRACTS OR 7,572,000 oz OR 235.52 TONNES 19 TRADING DAY(S) AND THUS AVERAGING: 3985 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS : THIS MONTH IN 19 TRADING DAY(S) IN TONNES: 235.52 TONNES

TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2020, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES

THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS 235.32/3550 x 100% TONNES 6.61% OF GLOBAL ANNUAL PRODUCTION

ACCUMULATION OF GOLD EFP’S YEAR 2021 TO DATE

JANUARY/2021: 265.26 TONNES (RAPIDLY INCREASING AGAIN)

FEB : 171.24 TONNES ( DEFINITELY SLOWING DOWN AGAIN)..

MARCH:. 276.50 TONNES (STRONG AGAIN/

APRIL: 189..44 TONNES ( DRAMATICALLY SLOWING DOWN AGAIN//GOLD IN BACKWARDATION)

MAY: 250.15 TONNES (NOW DRAMATICALLY INCREASING AGAIN)

JUNE: 247.54 TONNES (FINAL)

JULY: 188.73 TONNES FINAL

AUGUST: 217.89 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE.

SEPT 142.12 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE ( LOW ISSUANCE)_

OCT: 141.13 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE (LOW ISSUANCE)

NOV: 312.46 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE//NEW RECORD!! (INCREASING DRAMATICALLY)//SIGN OF REAL STRESS//SURPASSING THE MARCH 2021 RECORD OF 276.50 TONNES OF EFP

DEC. 145.12 TONNES//FINAL ISSUANCE//

JAN:2022 213.46 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, FELL BY A STRONG SIZED 2182 CONTRACTS TO 151,720 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 4 1/2 YEARS AGO.

EFP ISSUANCE 1884 CONTRACTS

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

MAR 1884 ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 1884 CONTRACTS. EFP’S GIVE OUR COMEX LONGS A FIAT BONUS PLUS A DELIVERABLE PRODUCT OVER IN LONDON. IF WE TAKE THE COMEX OI LOSS OF 2182 CONTRACTS AND ADD TO THE 1884 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S,

WE OBTAIN A SMALL SIZED LOSS OF 298 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACT FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES.

THUS IN OUNCES, THE GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 1.490 MILLION OZ,

OCCURRED WITH OUR $1.13 LOSS IN PRICE.

OUTLINE FOR TODAY’S COMMENTARY

1/COMEX GOLD AND SILVER REPORT

(report Harvey)

2 ) Gold/silver trading overnight Europe,

(Peter Schiff,

3. Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,

4. Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries

5. Other gold commentaries

6. Commodity commentaries/cryptocurrencies

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

i)FRIDAY MORNING// THURSDAY NIGHT

SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 32.81 PTS OR 0.97% //Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 256.92 PTS OR 1.08% /The Nikkei closed UP 547.04 PTS OR 2.09% //Australia’s all ordinaires CLOSED UP 2.13% /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed UP 6.3620 /Oil DOWN TO 87.22 dollars per barrel for WTI and UP TO 90.56 for Brent. Stocks in Europe OPENED ALL RED // ONSHORE YUAN CLOSED UP AGAINST THE DOLLAR AT 6.3622. OFFSHORE YUAN CLOSED UP ON THE DOLLAR AT 6.3710: /ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN AND OFF SHORE TRADING STRONGER AGAINST USA DOLLAR

A)NORTH KOREA//USA/OUTLINE

b) REPORT ON JAPAN

OUTLINE

3 C CHINA

OUTLINE

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

OUTLINE

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

OUTLINE

6.Global Issues

OUTLINE

7. OIL ISSUES

OUTLINE

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES

COMEX DATA//AMOUNTS STANDING//VOLUME OF TRADING/INVENTORY MOVEMENTS

GOLD

LET US BEGIN:

THE TOTAL COMEX GOLD OPEN INTEREST FELL BY A STRONG SIZED 11,487 CONTRACTS AND FURTHER FROM THE 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 COMEX DECREASE OCCURRED WITH OUR STRONG LOSS OF $36.15 IN GOLD PRICING THURSDAY’S COMEX TRADING. WE ALSO HAD A STRONG SIZED EFP (7091 CONTRACTS). . THEY WERE PAID HANDSOMELY NOT TO TAKE DELIVERY AT THE COMEX AND SETTLE FOR CASH. LOOKS LIKE OUR BANKERS ARE FINALLY BAILING OUT

WE NORMALLY HAVE WITNESSED EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS ISSUED BEING SMALL AS IT JUST TOO COSTLY FOR THEM TO CONTINUE SERVICING THE COSTS OF SERIAL FORWARDS CIRCULATING IN LONDON. HOWEVER, MUCH TO THE ANNOYANCE OF OUR BANKERS, THE COMEX IS THE SCENE OF AN ASSAULT ON GOLD AS LONDONERS, NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND ANY PHYSICAL ON THAT SIDE OF THE POND, EXERCISE THESE CIRCULATING EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN LONDON AND FORCING DELIVERY OF REAL METAL OVER HERE AS THE OBLIGATION STILL RESTS WITH NEW YORK BANKERS. IT SEEMS THAT ARE BANKERS FRIENDS ARE EXERCISING EFP’S FROM LONDON AND NOW THEY ARE LOATHE TO ISSUE NEW ONES.

EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE

WE ARE NOW MOVING TO THE NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF JAN.. THE CME REPORTS THAT THE BANKERS ISSUED A STRONG SIZED TRANSFER THROUGH THE EFP ROUTE AS THESE LONGS RECEIVED A DELIVERABLE LONDON FORWARD TOGETHER WITH A FIAT BONUS.,

THAT IS 7091 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED: ;: , DEC : 0 & FEB. 7091 & ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:

TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 7091 CONTRACTS

WHEN WE HAVE BACKWARDATION, EFP ISSUANCE IS VERY COSTLY BUT THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE SCARCITY OF METAL AND IT IS FAR BETTER FOR OUR BANKERS TO PAY OFF INDIVIDUALS THAN RISK INVESTORS ESPECIALLY FROM LONDON STANDING FOR DELIVERY. THE LOWER PRICES IN THE FUTURES MARKET IS A MAGNET FOR OUR LONDONERS SEEKING PHYSICAL METAL. BACKWARDATION ALWAYS EQUAL SCARCITY OF METAL!

ON A NET BASIS IN OPEN INTEREST WE LOST THE FOLLOWING TODAY ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES: A FAIR SIZED 3317 TOTAL CONTRACTS IN THAT 7091 LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE HAD A STRONG SIZED COMEX OI LOSS OF 10,408 CONTRACTS..THE ENTIRE TOTAL LOSS WAS DUE TO THE CONTINUING SPREADER LIQUIDATION

// WE HAVE A STRONG AMOUNT OF GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR JAN (17.7912),

HERE ARE THE AMOUNTS THAT STOOD FOR DELIVERY IN THE PRECEDING 12 MONTHS OF 2021:

DEC 2021: 112.217 TONNES

NOV. 8.074 TONNES

OCT. 57.707 TONNES

SEPT: 11.9160 TONNES

AUGUST: 80.489 TONNES

JULY: 7.2814 TONNES

JUNE: 72.289 TONNES

MAY 5.77 TONNES

APRIL 95.331 TONNES

MARCH 30.205 TONNES

FEB ’21. 113.424 TONNES

JAN ’21: 6.500 TONNES.

TOTAL SO FAR THIS YEAR (JAN- DEC): 601.213 TONNES

THE BANKERS WERE SUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE //// (IT FELL $36.15) BUT THEY WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN FLEECING ANY LONGS AS, EVEN THOUGH THE TOTAL LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES REGISTERED A STRONG 11.673 TONNES ACCOMPANYING OUR HUGE GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR JAN (17.7916 TONNES)…THE ENTIRE LOSS WAS DUE TO THE CONTINUING OF SPREADER LIQUIDATION

WE HAD – 1073 CONTRACTS REMOVED FROM COMEX TRADES. THESE WERE REMOVED AFTER TRADING ENDED LAST NIGHT

NET LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 4396 CONTRACTS OR 439,600 OZ OR 11.673 TONNES

Estimated gold volume today: 240,021 /// poor

Confirmed volume yesterday: 422,930 contracts very good (spreaders)

INITIAL STANDINGS FOR JAN ’22 COMEX GOLD //JAN 28

Gold	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory in oz*	nil oz
Withdrawals from Customer* Inventory in oz*	5079.415 oz Brinks HSBC 133kilobars//Brinks
Deposit to the Dealer* Inventory in oz*	nilOZ
Deposits to the Customer* Inventory, in oz*	nil
No of oz served (contracts) today	13 notice(s)1300 OZ 0.0404 TONNES
No of oz to be served (notices)	0 contracts 0 oz 0.000 TONNES
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month	5720 notices 572,000 OZ 17.7916 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

For today:

No dealer deposit 0

No dealer withdrawal 0

0 customer deposit

total deposit: nil oz

2 customer withdrawals

i) Out of BRINKS: 4276,09 0z (133 KILOBARS)

ii) Out of HSBC 803.325 oz

total withdrawals: 5079,415 oz

ADJUSTMENTS: 0

CALCULATIONS FOR THE AMOUNT OF GOLD STANDING FOR JANUARY.

For the front month of JANUARY we have an oi of 13 stand for JANUARY LOSING 56 contracts. We had 56 notices filed on THURSDAY, so we GAINED 0 contracts or an additional NIL oz will stand for

gold in this very non active delivery month of January.

FEBRUARY LOST 24,875 CONTRACTS TO 31,971

March GAINED 237 contracts to stand at 3859..

We had 13 notice(s) filed today for 1300 oz FOR THE JAN 2022 CONTRACT MONTH. WE HAVE ONE MORE READING DAY BEFORE FIRST DAY NOTICE JAN 31/2022

We will probably have around 50 tonnes of gold standing for February.

Today, 0 notice(s) were issued from J.P.Morgan dealer account and 0 notices were issued from their client or customer account. The total of all issuance by all participants equates to 13 contract(s) of which 0 notices were stopped (received) by j.P. Morgan dealer and 1 notice(s) was (were) stopped/ Received) by J.P.Morgan//customer account and 0 notice(s) received (stopped) by the squid (Goldman Sachs)

To calculate the INITIAL total number of gold ounces standing for the JAN /2021. contract month,

we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (5720) x 100 oz , to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of (JAN: 13 CONTRACTS ) minus the number of notices served upon today 13 x 100 oz per contract equals 572,000 OZ OR 17.7912 TONNES the number of TONNES standing in this NON active month of JAN. (numbers corrected from yesterday)

thus the INITIAL standings for gold for the JAN contract month:

No of notices filed so far (5720) x 100 oz+ (13) OI for the front month minus the number of notices served upon today (13} x 100 oz} which equals 572,000 oz standing OR 17.7912 TONNES in this NON active delivery month of JAN.

We GAINED 0 contracts or an additional 5300 oz of gold will stand for metal on this side of the pond.

TOTAL COMEX GOLD STANDING: 17.7912 TONNES (HUGE FOR A JANUARY DELIVERY MONTH)

IF THIS HOLDS TO THE END OF THE MONTH, THIS WILL BE THE HIGHEST EVER RECORDED GOLD STANDING FOR A JANUARY, GENERALLY A VERY POOR DELIVERY MONTH.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

COMEX GOLD INVENTORIES/CLASSIFICATION

NEW PLEDGED GOLD:

157,392.690, oz NOW PLEDGED /HSBC 4.89 TONNES

125,410.592 PLEDGED MANFRA 2.90 TONNES

54,339.114oz PLEDGED JPMorgan no 1 1.690

288,481,604, oz JPM No 2 8.97 TONNES

898,821.330 oz pledged Brinks/27,96 TONNES

12,249,333 oz International Delaware: 0..3810 tonne

Loomis: 18,615.429 oz

total pledged gold: 1,555,310.092 oz 48.376 tonnes

TOTAL REGISTERED AND ELIZ GOLD AT THE COMEX: 33,404,722.479 OZ (1039,02 TONNES)

TOTAL ELIGIBLE GOLD: 15,833,441.448 OZ (492.48 tonnes)

TOTAL OF ALL REGISTERED GOLD: 17,571,281.031 OZ (546.54 tonnes)

REGISTERED GOLD THAT CAN BE SERVED UPON: 16,015,971.0 OZ (REG GOLD- PLEDGED GOLD) 498.16 tonnes

END

JANUARY 2022 CONTRACT MONTH//SILVER

INITIAL STANDING FOR SILVER//JAN 28

Silver	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory*	NIL oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory	40,014.628 oz DelawareCNT
Deposits to the Dealer* Inventory*	nilOZ
Deposits to the Customer Inventory	nil oz
No of oz served today (contracts)	10 CONTRACT(S) 50,000 OZ)
No of oz to be served (notices)	23 contracts (115,000 oz)
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts)	3032 contracts 15,160,000 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*

And now for the wild silver comex results

we had 0 deposits into the dealer

total dealer deposits: nil oz

i) We had 0 dealer withdrawal

total dealer withdrawals: nil oz

We have 0 deposits

JPMorgan has a total silver weight: 185.232 million oz/354.345 million =52.27% of comex

ii) Comex withdrawals: 2

a) out of Delaware: 6,974.428 oz

b) out of CNT: 33,040.200 oz

total withdrawal 40,014.628 oz

we had 1 adjustments:

a) dealer to customer

i) Manfra 176,294.550 oz

the silver comex is in stress!

TOTAL REGISTERED SILVER: 82.278 MILLION OZ

TOTAL REG + ELIG. 354.345 MILLION OZ

TOTAL NO OF CONTRACTS SERVED UPON THIS MONTH: 2838 CONTRACTS FOR 14,190,000 OZ

CALCULATION OF SILVER OZ STANDING FOR JANUARY

NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED TODAY: 10 NOTICES OR 50,000 OZ

silver open interest data:

FRONT MONTH OF JAN//2022 OI: 33 CONTRACTS LOSING 57 contracts on the day

We had 86 notices filed for THURSDAY so we GAINED 29 contracts or 145,000 additional oz will stand for delivery in this non active delivery month of January.

FOR FEB WE HAD A LOSS OF 16 CONTRACTS FALLING TO 855

FOR MARCH WE HAD A LOSS OF 3347 CONTRACTS UP TO 109,881 CONTRACTS.

TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR TODAY: 10 for 50,000 oz

Comex volumes: 61,936// est. volume today//fair

Comex volume: confirmed YESTERDAY: 88,406 contracts (good)

To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in JANUARY. we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at 3032 x 5,000 oz =. 15,160,000 oz

to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of JAN (33) and the number of notices served upon today 10 x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.

Thus the standings for silver for the JAN./2021 contract month: 3032 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for front month of JAN (33) – number of notices served upon today (10) x 5000 oz of silver standing for the JAN contract month equates 15,275,000 oz. .

We GAINED 29 contracts or an additional 145,000 oz will stand for delivery on this side of the pond.

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

END

GLD AND SLV INVENTORY LEVELS:

GLD

JAN 28/WITH GOLD DOWN $8.30//NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1014.26 TONNES

JAN 27/WITH GOLD DOWN $36.15//ANOTHER HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.16 TONNES INTO THE GLD.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1014.26 TONNES

JAN 26/WITH GOLD DOWN $21.60 A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 4.65 TONNES INTO THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1013.10 TONNES

JAN 25/WITH GOLD UP $10.40 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1008.45 TONNES

JAN 24/WITH GOLD UP $10.10 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: AN UNBELIEVABLE DEPOSIT OF 27.59 TONNES INTO THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1008.45 TONNES

JAN 21/WITH GOLD DOWN $10.80 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 980.86 TONNES

JAN 20/WITH GOLD UP $.20 TODAY: A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .58 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 980.86 TONNES

JAN 19/WITH GOLD UP $29.65 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//A DEPOSIT OF 5.27 TONNES INTO THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 981.44 TONNES

JAN 18/WITH GOLD DOWN $3.25//NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 14/ WITH GOLD DOWN $5.25/NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 13/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.75: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 12/WITH GOLD UP $8.65//NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 11/WITH GOLD UP $19.25/A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .87 TONNES FROM THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 10/WITH GOLD UP $2.00/NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 977.08 TONNES

JAN 7/WITH GOLD UP $8.15//A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWLA OF 1.16 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 978.83 TONNES

JAN 6/WITH GOLD DOWN $35.30//A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//A WITHDRAWAL OF .32 TONNES/INVENTORY RESTS AT 979.99 TONNES

JAN 5/WITH GOLD UP $10.30: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 980.31 TONNES

Jan 4/WITH GOLD UP $14.00//A HUGE CHANGE OF 4.65 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 980.31 TONNES

JAN 3/WITH GOLD DOWN $26.70: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 975.66 TONNES

DEC 31/WITH GOLD UP $14.05 : NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 975.66 TONNES

DEC 30/WITH GOLD UP $7.75 NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 975.66 TONNES

DEC 29/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.00 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 2.03 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 975.66 TONNES

DEC 28/WITH GOLD UP $2.00 TODAY; NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 973.63 TONNES

DEC 27/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.05: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 973.63 TONNES.

DEC 23/WITH GOLD UP $9.85 TODAY//A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 4.94 TONNES FROM THE GLD/// INVENTORY RESTS AT 973.63 TONNES

DEC 22/WITH GOLD UP $12.85 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 978.57 TONNES

DEC 21/WITH GOLD DOWN $7.05 TODAY, NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 978.57 TONNES

DEC 20/WITH GOLD DOWN $9.65 TODAY; A BIG CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.37 TONNES INTO THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 977.20 TONNES

DEC 17/WITH GOLD UP $7.05 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 977.20 TONNES

CLOSING INVENTORY: 1014.26 TONNES

Now the SLV Inventory/( vehicle is a fraud as there is no physical metal behind them

SLV

JAN 28/WITH SILVER DOWN 36 CENTS : NO CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 535.003 MILLION OZ//

JAN 27/WITH SILVER DOWN $1.13 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 535.003 MILLION OZ//

JAN 26/WITH SILVER DOWN 7 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 535.003 MILLION OZ//

JAN 25/WITH SILVER UP 10 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 2.311 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 535.003 MILLION OZ/

.JAN 24/WITH SILVER DOWN 48 CENTS TODAY: A MASSIVE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 4.8 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 532.692 MILLION OZ//.

JAN 21/WITH SILVER DOWN 41 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 527.792 MILLION OZ

JAN 20/WITH SILVER UP 52 CENTS TODAY: A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 1.998 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 527.792 MILLION OZ

JAN 19/WITH SILVER UP 71 CENTS TODAY: A BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 1.942 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 525.804 MILLION OZ

JAN 18/WITH SILVER UP 51 CENTS TODAY: TWO HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: 2 WITHDRAWALS OF 1.11 MILLION OZ AND 1.424 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 527.246 MILLION OZ//

JAN 14/WITH SILVER DOWN 21 CENTS: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 529.780 MILLION OZ//

JAN 13/WITH SILVER DOWN 2 CENTS: A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 832,000 OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 529.780 MILLION OZ

JAN 12/WITH SILVER UP 38 CENTS TODAY : NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ//

JAN 11/WITH SILVER UP 33 CENTS TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ/.

JAN 10/WITH SILVER UP 9 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ//.

JAN 7/WITH SILVER UP 17 CENTS TODAY:NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ//.

JAN 6/WITH SILVER DOWN 94 CENTS TODAY: A SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL PF 226,000 OZ FROM THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ?/

JAN 5/WITH SILVER UP 8 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.838 MILLION OZ//

JAN 4/WITH SILVER UP 21 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.838 MILLION OZ//

JAN 3/WITH SILVER DOWN 45 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.219 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.838 MILLION OZ//

DEC 31/WITH SILVER UP 29 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 533.057 MILLION OZ//

DEC30/WITH SILVER UP 14 CENTS TODAY; HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A HUGE WITHDRAWAL OF 4.624 MILLILON OZ FROM THE SLV.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 533.057 MILLION OZ//

DEC 29/WITH SILVER DOWN 22 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 537.681 MILLION OZ/

DEC 28/WITH SILVER UP 9 CENTS TODAY; A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.682 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 537.681 MILLION OZ//

DEC 27/WITH SILVER UP 6 CENTS TODAY NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 537.681

DEC 23/WITH SILVER UP 19 CENTS TODAY:A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.202 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 537.681 MILLION OZ//

DEC 22/WITH SILVER UP 29 CENTS TODAY; A HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.202 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 538.883 MILLION OZ/

DEC 21/WITH SILVER UP 19 CENTS: A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 2.728 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 540.085 MILLION OZ

DEC 20/WITH SILVER DOWN 22 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 538.282 MILLION OZ

DEC 17/WITH SILVER UP 9 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 538.282 MILLION OZ//

CLOSING INVENTORY: 535.003 MILLION OZ

PHYSICAL GOLD/SILVER STORIES

1.PETER SCHIFF

Peter Schiff: “We’re Screwed & The Fed Knows It”

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 10:40 AM

Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,

The Federal Reserve wrapped up its first Federal Open Market Committee meeting of the year this week without any real surprises. Despite everybody screaming about an inflation problem, the Fed will keep its loose, inflationary monetary policy in play for at least two more months.

Interest rates remain locked at zero. But the FOMC said it will likely raise rates “soon.”

With inflation well above 2 percent and a strong labor market, the Committee expects it will soon be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate.”

Most analysts expect “soon” to be at the March meeting.

But Jerome Powell left some wiggle-room in the trajectory of the Fed’s monetary policy, saying, “At this time, we haven’t made any decisions about the path of policy. I stress again that we’ll be humble and nimble.”

Powell also indicated that the Fed would be “data-dependent.” As Peter Schiff said in his podcast, “If the Federal Reserve was depending on the data, they would have raised interest rates a long time ago, and they would now be much higher than zero.”

It’s important to reiterate that despite the inflation freight train, the Fed left interest rates at zero. If the central bank was really ready to go to war with inflation, why wait until March? Why is it still pouring gasoline on the inflation fire?

The FOMC also offered some more details on “significantly reducing” the Fed’s massive balance sheet. The central bankers said the plan was to reduce the balance sheet primarily by limiting how much principal it rolls over from maturing bonds. But the FOMC did not set a specific date for the beginning of quantitative tightening, nor did it offer any hint on how much it would ultimately pair down its nearly $9 trillion balance sheet.

But the FOMC said it was not only going to reduce the size of the balance sheet. It also plans to change the makeup, shifting away from mortgage-backed securities and weighing its holdings more toward US Treasuries. This comes as no surprise given that the federal government needs to Fed to keep its thumb on the Treasury market in order to finance its massive deficits.

During his press conference, Powell said balance sheet reduction would begin at the “appropriate time.” But he then said he didn’t have a specific timeline and that the FOMC hadn’t discussed it.

“Really?” Peter asked in a tweet.

What exactly do they talk about when they meet, sports? We’re screwed and they know it.”

The last time the Fed attempted “double-tightening” – balance sheet reduction and interest rate hikes – was in 2018. The central bank was forced to abandon both when the stock market tanked. By the end of 2019, the Fed had cut rates and had pivoted back to quantitative easing. It seems highly unlikely that the Fed will be able to pull off double-tightening today with an even bigger stock market bubble and an economy even more levered up with debt. Even the mainstream has realized raising rates will exacerbate a global debt crisis.

But Powell claims the economy is much stronger now than it was the last time the Fed tightened. In another tweet, Peter said the economy is not stronger.

It’s just a much bigger bubble. Even a smaller pin would produce a larger financial crisis.”

Quill Intelligence CEO Danielle DiMartino Booth told Kitco News that she thinks this tightening cycle could quickly plunge the economy into a recession.

I think that [a recession] could happen in a very compressed way because we have seen, as opposed to an economic recovery that stretches out over ten or 11 years, we’ve seen a very compressed economic cycle this time and the Fed has shifted from a loosening stance to a tightening stance in what feels like record time, so there’s absolutely no reason to think that the market will not start to anticipate the inversion of the yield curve and even move up expectations for when the economy slides into recession.”

In an interview on the Wharton Business Daily podcast, Peter said he thinks we’re on the path to stagflation.

I think inflation is ultimately going to push the economy into a recession as consumers are forced to spend more and more of what they have on food and energy and insurance and just the basics. They’re not going to have discretionary spending. And when they have to cut back, that means a lot of other people lose their incomes, lose their jobs. This is going to be stagflation.”

END

2.LAWRIE WILLIAM//,//Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,James RICKARDS

3.Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries

Brought this to your attention but it is worth repeating: Wall Street megabanks sought out non banks to sell crooked derivatives that neither understood but one where the non banks would surely lose

(Pam and Russ Martens/Wall Street on Parade/GATA)

Pam and Russ Martens: Wall Street megabanks have shifted their derivative exposure to corporations

Submitted by admin on Thu, 2022-01-27 11:19 Section: Daily Dispatches

By Pam and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade
Thursday, January 27, 2022

The last thing a volatile stock market needs right now is more surprises from the dark corners of Wall Street. Unfortunately, we can guarantee you that more surprises are coming in the way of uncleared derivatives blowing up on the balance sheets of publicly-traded corporations.

How do we know this?

The information comes from a study quietly released last July by the Office of Financial Research. That’s the federal agency that provides research to bank regulators to prevent systemic financial contagion from taking down the Wall Street megabanks and the U.S. economy in another replay of 2008.

What the study actually shows, however, is that neither Congress nor bank regulators have done anything meaningful to prevent derivatives from once again blowing up the world’s largest economy. Instead, the watchdogs have simply allowed a rearrangement of the deck shares on the Titanic. …

… For the remainder of the report:

A Government Study Shows that Wall Street Megabanks Have Dramatically Shifted their Derivative Exposure to Corporations

end

This is a big story: Chinese citizens bought a total of 1120.9 tonnes of gold last year. The country mines around 420 tonnes so the remainder was bought from abroad.

(Reuters/GATA)

China’s 2021 gold consumption jumps by a third in year as economy grows

Submitted by admin on Thu, 2022-01-27 11:53 Section: Daily Dispatches

By Emily Chow
Reuters
Thursday, January 27, 2022

BEIJING — China’s 2021 gold consumption rose by over a third from the previous year, as its economy rebounded from the coronavirus impact, the China Gold Association said today.

Consumption in the world’s largest gold consumer rose 36.53% year-on-year to 1,120.9 tonnes. It was also up 11.78% compared with consumption in 2019, before the pandemic

“In 2021, under the remarkable results of China’s overall economic development and epidemic prevention and control, domestic gold consumption generally maintained a recovery trend and achieved rapid growth compared with the same period” in 2020, the association said in a statement.

… For the remainder of the report:

https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/chinas-2021-gold-consumption-jumps-by-third-on-year-economy-grows-2022-01-27/

end

Your weekend reading material and it is very important: why central bank digital currencies may never happen

(Alasdair Macleod)

Alasdair Macleod: Why central bank digital currencies may never happen

Submitted by admin on Thu, 2022-01-27 17:25 Section: Daily Dispatches

By Alasdair Macleod
GoldMoney, Toronto
Thursday, January 27, 2022

The Federal Reserve has just released its first public consultation paper on a dollar-based central bank digital currency. For many, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are a means of heading off private-sector cryptos, but coincidentally the prices of bitcoin and others have collapsed, losing half their value since early November.

The CBDC proposition is being sold to us by the central banks as keeping up with the times and taking advantage of the opportunities presented by new technologies to evolve payment system

The Bank for International Settlements has been coordinating research into CBDCs, and this article gives a brief description of how the BIS and its committee members see them evolving. It is early, and there are several important issues yet to be tackled, such as whether CBDCs will pay interest and what will be the likely reaction of commercial banks to seeing central banks muscle in on their territory.

There are also two separate CBDC functions to consider. There is retail, whereby individuals have direct access to their central bank as counterparty, and a wholesale function for financial intermediaries for international settlement.

Whether CBDCs will come into existence is doubtful.

To have credibility, their introduction will have to be coordinated at the G20 level, and they are unlikely to be widely issued before the end of the decade. That will probably be too late to save the world from a developing financial and monetary crisis that threatens to change everything.

Furthermore, the Americans will need to be convinced that their dollar hegemony will not be compromised. And what will almost certainly stop it is the powerful U.S. banking lobby, likely to remind politicians presented with the necessary legislation that a political survivor is one who once bought, stays bought. …

… For the remainder of the analysis:

https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/why-dollar-cbdcs-may-never-happen?gmrefcode=gata

end

4.OTHER GOLD/SILVER COMMENTARIES

Live from the Vault: Episode 59.

Hi Harvey,

In this week’s Live from the Vault, Andrew Maguire reveals the two main reasons behind the current bullish shift in gold and silver and elaborates further on the fragile ETF flywheel, with gold set to rally.

The precious metals expert continues to monitor the influence of Basel III on the markets and explains the mechanisms behind futures market backwardation in response to ever-tightening physical supply.Watch the video via the button below, or listen on Apple podcasts or Spotify.WATCH NOW

Support

Live chat

END

Andy Schectman:

Silver premiums spike as COMEX paper silver crashes & burns

As the pressure on the COVID Deep State banking system mounts, physical silver premiums have spiked, while COMEX paper silver is crashing and burning.

And to offer you a view from the frontlines of the physical silver market, Andy Schectman of Miles Franklin joined me on the show to share what’s happening at this very minute.

So if you want to know what’s really going on with the silver price, click to watch this timely video now!

https://lemetropolecafe.com/pfv.cfm?pfvID=17440

5.OTHER COMMODITIES/

end

Your early currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings FRIDAY morning 7:30 AM

ONSHORE YUAN: CLOSED UP AT 6.3622

OFFSHORE YUAN: 6.3710

HANG SANG CLOSED DOWN 256.82 PTS OR 1.08%

2. Nikkei closed UP 547.04 PTS OR 2.08%

3. Europe stocks ALL RED

USA dollar INDEX UP TO 97.44/Euro FALLS TO 1.1131-

3b Japan 10 YR bond yield: RISES TO. +.169/ !!!!(Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese yen vs usa cross now at 115.63/ 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//

3c Nikkei now ABOVE 17,000

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

3e WTI:: 87.22 and Brent: 90.56-

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

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 RISES TO -.0.006%/Italian 10 Yr bond yield RISES to 1.36% /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD RISES TO 0.73%…ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD/GERMAN BUND: 1.37: DANGEROUS FOR THE ITALIAN BANKING SYSTEM

3j Greek 10 year bond yield RISES TO : 1.88

3k Gold at $1788.80 silver at: 22.55 7 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $30.00

3l USA vs Russian rouble;// Russian rouble UP 50/100 in roubles/dollar AT 77.47

3m oil into the 87 dollar handle for WTI and 90 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 115.63 DESTROYING JAPANESE CITIZENS WITH HIGHER FOOD INFLATION

30 SNB (Swiss National Bank) still intervening again in the markets driving down the FRANC. It is not working: USA/SF this morning .9327– as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF 1.0382 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.

USA 10 YR BOND YIELD: 1.847 UP 4 BASIS PTS

USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 2.1420 UP 5 BASIS PTS

USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 13.61

Neurotic Futures Tumble Despite Record Apple Quarter

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 08:07 AM

If you thought that yesterday’s blowout, record earnings from Apple would be enough to put in at least a brief bottom to stocks and stop the ongoing collapse in risk assets, we have some bad news for you: after staging a feeble bounce overnight, S&P futures erased earlier gains as traders ignored the solid results from Apple and instead focused on the risk of higher interest rates hurting economic growth. Contracts in S&P 500 dropped as negative sentiment continued to prevail, while Nasdaq 100 futures erased earlier gains after strong Apple earnings. As of 730am, Emini futures were down 48 points or 1.12% to 4,269, Dow futures were down 335 points or 0.99% and Nasdaq futs were down 77 or 0.6%. The dollar was set for a fifth straight day of gains, the longest streak since November, 19Y TSY yields were up 3bps to 1.83%, gold and bitcoin both dropped.

Markets have been whiplashed by volatility this week as the Federal Reserve signaled aggressive tightening, adding to investor concerns about geopolitical tensions and an uneven earnings season. Also sapping sentiment on Friday were weak data on the German economy and euro-area confidence. Meanwhile, geopolitical tensions were still on the agenda with a potential conflict in Ukraine not yet defused.

“Market expectations for four to five rate hikes this year will not derail growth or the equity rally,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management. “We expect an eventual relaxation of tensions between Russia and Ukraine,” he added. Expected data on Friday include personal income and spending data, as well as University of Michigan Sentiment, while Caterpillar, Chevron, Colgate-Palmolive, VF Corp and Weyerhaeuser are among companies reporting earnings.

Money markets are now pricing in nearly five Fed hikes this year after a hawkish stance from Chair Jerome Powell. That’s up from three expected as recently as December.

“Tighter liquidity and weaker growth mean higher volatility,” Barclays Plc strategists led by Emmanuel Cau wrote in a note. The “current growth scare looks like a classic mid-cycle phase to us, while a lot of hawkishness is priced in.”

In premarket trading, Apple shares rose 4.5% as analysts rose their targets to some of the most bullish on the Street, after the iPhone maker reported EPS and revenue for the fiscal first quarter that beat the average analyst estimates. Watch Apple’s U.S. suppliers after the iPhone maker posted record quarterly sales that beat analyst estimates, a sign it was able to work through the supply-chain crunch. Peers in Asia rose, while European suppliers are active in early trading. Tesla shares also rise as much as 2% in premarket, set to rebound from yesterday’s 12% slump following a disappointing set of earnings and outlook. Other notable premarket movers:

Visa (V US) shares gain 5% premarket after company reported adjusted earnings per share for the first quarter that beat the average analyst estimate.
Cryptocurrency-exposed stocks gain as Bitcoin and other digital tokens rise. Riot Blockchain (RIOT US) +3.7%, Marathon Digital (MARA US) +3.3%, Bit Digital (BTBT US) +1.6%, Coinbase (COIN US) +0.5%.
Robinhood (HOOD US) shares tumbled 14% in premarket after the online brokerage’s fourth-quarter revenue and first-quarter outlook missed estimates. Some analysts cut their price targets.
Atlassian (TEAM US) shares jump 10% in extended trading on Thursday, after the software company reported second-quarter results that beat expectations and gave a third-quarter revenue forecast that was ahead of the analyst consensus.
U.S. Steel (X US) shares fall as much as 2.4% aftermarket following the steelmaker’s earnings release, which showed adjusted earnings per share results missed the average analyst estimate.

The U.S. stock market is priced “quite aggressively” versus other developed nations as well as emerging markets, and valuations in the latter can be a tailwind rather than a headwind as in the U.S., Feifei Li, partner and CIO of equity strategies at Research Affiliates, said on Bloomberg Television.

European equity indexes are again under pressure, rounding off a miserable week, and set for the worst monthly decline since October 2020 as corporate earnings failed to lift the mood except in the retail sector. The Euro Stoxx 50 dropped over 1.5%, DAX underperforming at the margin. Autos, tech and banks are the weakest Stoxx 600 sectors; only retailers are in the green. Hennes & Mauritz shares climbed on a profit beat, while technology stocks continued to underperform. Here are some of the biggest European movers today:

LVMH shares rise as much as 5.8% after analysts praised the French conglomerate’s full-year results, with several noting improved performance at even minor brands such as Celine.
Signify gains as much as 15% after saying it expects to grow in 2022 even as the supply chain problems that caused its “worst ever” quarter continue.
H&M climbs as much as 7.4% after posting a strong margin in 4Q which impressed analysts. Analysts also lauded the Swedish retailer’s buyback announcement and target to double sales by 2030.
Stora Enso rises as much as 6.2% on 4Q earnings with the CEO noting paper capacity closures have helped boost its pricing power, contributing to a turnaround in the unprofitable business.
SCA gains as much as 5.5% in Stockholm, the most since May 2020, after reporting better-than-expected Ebitda earnings and announcing a SEK3.25/share dividend — higher than analysts had estimated.
AutoStore rises as much as 18% after a German court halts Ocado’s case against the company. Ocado drops as much as 8.1%.
Henkel slides as much as 10% after the company’s forecast for organic revenue growth of 2% to 4% in 2022 was seen as cautious.
Wartsila falls as much as 9% after posting 4Q earnings that analysts say showed strong order intake overshadowed by lagging margins.
Alstom drops as much as 7.3% after Exane BNP Paribas downgrades to neutral, citing risk that the company might resort to raising equity financing to forestall a possible credit-rating cut.

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks rose after slumping to their lowest since November 2020, with Japan and Australia leading the rebound as turbulence over the highly anticipated U.S. monetary tightening eased. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed as much as 1% on Friday following a 2.7% slide the day before. Industrials and consumer-discretionary names provided the biggest boosts to the measure. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average was among the best performers in the region after enduring its worst daily drop in seven months. “It’s undeniable that stock markets last year — as well as the real economy — were supported by continued monetary easing, considering which, more share-price correction could be anticipated,” said Tetsuo Seshimo, a portfolio manager at Saison Asset Management in Tokyo. Even so, “stocks fell too much yesterday.” The Asian benchmark is down almost 5% this week, and set to cap its biggest such drop since February last year. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank was ready to raise interest rates in March and didn’t rule out moving at every meeting to tackle inflation, triggering a broad selloff in global equities Thursday. Japan’s Topix and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained after slipping into technical correction earlier this week. South Korea’s Kospi also added almost 2% after sliding into a bear market Thursday. Meanwhile, Chinese shares extended a rout of nearly $1.2 trillion this month.

Japanese equities rose, trimming their worst weekly loss in two months, as some observers saw the selloff on concerns over higher U.S. interest rates as having gone too far. Electronics and auto makers were the biggest boosts to the Topix, which rose 1.9%, paring its weekly decline to 2.6%. Fast Retailing and Shin-Etsu Chemical were the largest contributors to a 2.1% rise in the Nikkei 225. The yen was little changed after weakening 1.3% against the dollar over the previous two sessions. “Looking at the technical indicators like RSI, you can see that Japanese equities have been oversold,” said Nobuhiko Kuramochi, a market strategist at Mizuho Securities. “Shares have fallen too much considering the not-bad corporate earnings and also when compared with U.S. equities.” U.S. futures rallied in Asian trading hours, after a volatile cash session that ended in losses as investors continued to reprice assets on the Fed’s pivot to tighter policy. Apple provided a post-market lift with record quarterly sales that sailed past Wall Street estimates.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 index rose 2.2% to 6,988.10 at the close in Sydney, bouncing back after slipping into a technical correction on Thursday. The benchmark gained for its first session in five as miners and banks rallied, trimming its weekly slide to 2.6%. Champion Iron was a top performer after its 3Q results. Newcrest was one of the worst performers after its 2Q production report, and as gold extended declines. In New Zealand, the S&P/NZX 50 index fell 1.6% to 11,852.15.

India’s benchmark index edged lower on Friday to extend its decline to a second consecutive week as investors grapple with volatility created by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s rate-hike plan. The S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.1% to 57,200.23 in Mumbai on Friday, erasing gains of as much as 1.4% earlier in the session. The NSE Nifty 50 Index ended flat. For the week, the key gauges ended with declines of 3.1% and 2.9%, respectively. All but five of the 19 sector sub-indexes compiled by BSE Ltd. climbed on Friday, led by a measure of health-care companies. BSE’s mid- and small-sized companies’ indexes outperformed the benchmark by rising 1% and 1.1%. “Selling pressure has now cooled off, markets will now focus on local triggers such as expectations from the budget,” said Prashant Tapse, an analyst with Mumbai-based Mehta Equities. Investors will also monitor corporate-earnings reports for the December quarter to gauge demand and inflation outlook. Of the 21 Nifty 50 companies that have announced results so far, 12 either met or exceeded expectations, eight missed, while one can’t be compared. Kotak Mahindra Bank continued the strong earnings run by lenders, reporting fiscal third-quarter profit ahead of the consensus view, while Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories missed the consensus estimate. ICICI Bank contributed the most to the Sensex’s decline, falling 1.6%. Out of 30 shares in the Sensex index, 14 rose and 16 fell.

In rates, bonds trade poorly again with gilts and USTs bear steepening, cheapening 3-3.5bps across the back end. Treasuries are weaker, same as most European bond markets, with stock markets under pressure globally and S&P 500 futures lower but inside weekly range. Treasury yields are cheaper by 4bp-5bp from intermediate to long-end sectors, 10-year around 1.84%, inside weekly range; though front-end outperforms, 2-year yield reaches YTD high 1.22%, steepening 2s10s by ~1bp. Gilts underperformed as traders price in a more aggressive path of rate hikes from the BOE. Treasury curve is steeper for first day in four, lifting spreads from multimonth lows. Globally in 10-year sector, gilts lag Treasuries by 0.5bp while bunds outperform slightly. Bunds bear flatten with 5s30s near 52bps after two block trades but subsequently recover above 54bps. IG dollar issuance slate empty so far; Procter & Gamble priced a $1.85b two-tranche offering Thursday, the first since Wednesday’s Fed meeting.

In FX, Bloomberg Dollar Spot pushes to best levels for the week. Scandies and commodity currencies suffer the most. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was set for a fifth straight day of gains, the longest streak since November, and near its strongest level in 17 months as the greenback was steady or higher against all of its Group-of-10 peers. The euro steadied near a European session low of $1.1121 while risk-sensitive Australian and Scandinavian currencies led the decline. Sweden’s krona sank, despite data showing the Nordic nation’s economy grew more than expected in the final quarter of 2021, fueling speculation that the central bank could soon start to take its foot off the stimulus pedal. Australia’s dollar dropped to the lowest level in 18 months as the Reserve Bank of Australia lags behind many of its peers in signaling monetary tightening. Treasuries sold off, led by the belly; Bunds also traded lower, yet outperformed Treasuries, and Germany’s 5s30s curve flattened to 52bps after two futures blocks traded. Italian government bonds underperformed with the nation’s parliament voting twice on Friday to elect a new president, as the lack of progress after four days of inconclusive ballots adds to pressure to end a process that’s left the country in limbo.

In commodities, Crude futures hold a narrow range, just shy of Asia’s best levels. WTI trades either side of $87, Brent just shy of a $90-handle. Spot gold drops near Thursday’s lows, close to $1,791/oz. Base metals are under pressure; LME copper underperforms peers, dropping over 1.5%.

Crypto markets were rangebound in which Bitcoin traded both sides of the 37,000 level. Russia’s government drafted a roadmap for cryptocurrency regulation, according to RBC.

To the day ahead now, and data releases include Germany’s Q4 GDP, US personal income and personal spending for December, as well as the Q4 employment cost index and the University of Michigan’s final consumer sentiment index for January. Earnings releases include Chevron and Caterpillar.

Market Snapshot

S&P 500 futures up 0.1% to 4,323.75
STOXX Europe 600 down 1.0% to 465.51
MXAP up 0.5% to 182.48
MXAPJ little changed at 597.31
Nikkei up 2.1% to 26,717.34
Topix up 1.9% to 1,876.89
Hang Seng Index down 1.1% to 23,550.08
Shanghai Composite down 1.0% to 3,361.44
Sensex down 0.1% to 57,197.94
Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 2.2% to 6,988.14
Kospi up 1.9% to 2,663.34
Brent Futures up 0.4% to $89.71/bbl
Gold spot down 0.3% to $1,792.52
U.S. Dollar Index up 0.13% to 97.38
German 10Y yield little changed at -0.05%
Euro down 0.1% to $1.1132

Top Overnight News from Bloomberg

The euro-area economy kicked off 2022 on a weak footing, with pandemic restrictions taking a toll on confidence and growing fears that Germany may be on the brink of a recession for the second time since the crisis began. A sentiment gauge by the European Commission fell to 112.7 in January, the lowest in nine months, driven by declines in most sectors and among consumers. Employment expectations dropped for a second month
Germany’s economy shrank 0.7% in the fourth quarter with consumers spooked by another wave of Covid-19 infections and factories reeling from supply-chain problems.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that the American proposal to defuse tensions with Ukraine contained “rational elements,” even though some key points were ignored
A U.K. government probe into alleged rule-breaking parties in Boris Johnson’s office during the pandemic could be stripped of key details at the request of police, potentially handing the prime minister a boost as he tries to persuade his Conservatives not to mount a leadership challenge
Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the Bank of Japan won’t be switching its bond yield target until inflation rises high enough to warrant exit talks
Seven straight jumps in the so- called “fear gauge” for the S&P 500 is a signal that it may be time to wager against volatility, if history is any guide. Only 10 times in the past two decades has the Cboe Volatility Index – – better known as the VIX — risen for that many trading sessions in a row

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

Asian stocks eventually traded mixed although China lagged ahead of holiday closures next week. ASX 200 (+2.2%) was lifted back up from correction territory. Nikkei 225 (+2.1%) gained on a weaker currency and with corporate results driving the biggest movers. KOSPI (+1.9%) was boosted by earnings including from the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker SK Hynix. Hang Seng (-1.1%%) and Shanghai Comp. (-0.9%) lagged with a non-committal tone in the mainland ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday closures and with Hong Kong pressured by losses in blue chip tech and health care

Top Asian News

Asia Stocks Rise, Still Head for Worst Week Since February
Kuroda Hints No Chance of Switching Yield Target Until Exit
China Fintech PingPong Said to Mull $1 Billion Hong Kong IPO
Biogen Sells Bioepis Stake for $2.3 Billion to Samsung Biologics

European bourses have conformed to the downbeat APAC handover with losses in the region extending following the cash open, Euro Stoxx 50 -1.7%. Sectors were mixed with Tech and Banking names the laggards while Personal/Household Goods and Retail outperformer following LVMH and H&M respectively; since then, performance has deteriorated though the above skew remains intact. US futures are moving in tandem with European-peers; however, magnitudes are more contained as the ES is only modestly negative and NQ continues to cling onto positive territory following Apple earnings. Apple Inc (AAPL) Q1 2022 (USD): EPS 2.10 (exp. 1.89), Revenue 123.95bln (exp. 118.66bln), iPhone: 71.63 bln (exp. 68.34bln), iPad: 7.25bln (exp. 8.18bln), Mac: 10.85bln (exp. 9.51bln), Services: 19.52bln (exp. 18.61 bln), according to Businesswire. +3.5% in the pre-market, trimming from gains in excess of 5.0% earlier

Top European News

German Economy Contracted Amid Tighter Virus Curbs, Supply Snags
H&M CEO Sets Target to Double Retailer’s Sales by 2030
Telia Sells Tower Stake for $582 Million, Cuts Costs
U.K. ‘Partygate’ Probe May Be Watered Down at Police Request

In FX, buck bull run continues as DXY takes out another July 2020 high to leave just 97.500 in front of key Fib resistance. Aussie feels the heat of Greenback strength more than others amidst risk-off positioning and caution ahead of next week’s RBA policy meeting. Kiwi also lagging and Loonie losing crude support after the BoC’s hawkish hold midweek. Euro and Yen reliant on some hefty option expiry interest to provide protection from Dollar domination. BoJ Governor Kurdoa if times come to debate the exit of policy, then targeting shorter maturity JGBs could become an option; at this stage its premature to raise yield target or take steps to steepen yield curve.

In commodities, WTI and Brent are consolidating somewhat after yesterday’s choppy price action, but remain towards the lowend
of a circa. USD 1.00/bbl range. Focus remains firmly on geopols as Russia is set to speak with French and German officials on Friday, though rhetoric, remains relatively familiar. Spot gold and silver are pressured as the yellow metal loses the 100-DMA, and drops to circa. USD 1780/oz as the USD rallies, and ahead of inflation data while LME copper follows the equity downside.

In Geopolitics:

US President Biden reaffirmed in call with Ukraine’s President the readiness of US to respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine, according to Reuters.
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov says Russia is analysing NATO and US proposals and will decide on how to respond to them, via Reuters; additionally, Lavrov will speaking with German Foreign Minister Baerbock on Friday, via Ifx.
Russia’s Kremlin says President Putin’s talks with Chinese President Xi will give attention to security in Europe and Russia-US dialoged, according to Reuters; Kremlin does not rule out that Putin will provide some assessments on response to Russian proposals.
US requested a public UN Security Council meeting for Monday to discuss the build up of Russian forces on Ukraine border, according to Reuters citing diplomats.
US bipartisan group of Senators have reportedly been meeting to create legislation that would dramatically increase presence of US military aid for Ukraine, according to Reuters sources.
Lithuania and Germany are in discussions to increase the presence of the German military, given current events, according to Reuters

US Event Calendar

8:30am: 4Q Employment Cost Index, est. 1.2%, prior 1.3%
8:30am: Dec. Personal Income, est. 0.5%, prior 0.4%
- Dec. PCE Core Deflator YoY, est. 4.8%, prior 4.7%; PCE Core Deflator MoM, est. 0.5%, prior 0.5%
- Dec. PCE Deflator YoY, est. 5.8%, prior 5.7%; PCE Deflator MoM, est. 0.4%, prior 0.6%
8:30am: Dec. Personal Spending, est. -0.6%, prior 0.6%; Real Personal Spending, est. -1.1%, prior 0%
10am: Jan. U. of Mich. Sentiment, est. 68.8, prior 68.8
- Current Conditions, est. 73.2, prior 73.2; Expectations, est. 65.9, prior 65.9
- 1 Yr Inflation, est. 4.9%, prior 4.9%; U. of Mich. 5-10 Yr Inflation, prior 3.1%

DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

What a week we’ve had. Yesterday saw another market whipsaw as markets continued to try to digest the aftermath of Chair Powell’s press conference. In particular, there was growing speculation that the Fed would embark on back-to-back hikes in order to get inflation under control, with Fed funds futures now pricing 2 full hikes over the next two meetings in March and May, in line with our US econ team’s updated call. Assuming this is realised, then this would be a much faster pace of hikes than anything seen over the last cycle, when the initial hike in December 2015 wasn’t followed by another for an entire year, and the fastest things got was a consistent quarterly pace when the Fed hiked 4 times in 2018. This time, we almost have 4 hikes priced between March and September alone. Of course however, it’s worth noting that today they face a very different set of circumstances, since the last hiking cycle actually began with inflation beneath the Fed’s target, and was a pre-emptive one given their belief that inflation would rise from that point. By contrast, this cycle of rate hikes is set to begin with inflation at levels not seen since the early 1980s, with the Fed seeking to regain credibility after consistently underestimating inflation over the last year. As we’ve highlighted in our work over the last 6-9 months this is a very, very, very different cycle to the last one and we should therefore expect different inflation and Fed outcomes. We repeat a few slides on this in the chart book so feel free to dip in.

These growing expectations of near-term hikes supported the more policy-sensitive 2yr Treasury yield, which rose a further +3.8bps to a fresh post-pandemic high after the previous day’s massive +13.3bps advance. And the number of hikes priced for 2022 as a whole actually rose to a new high of its own at 4.8 hikes. However, a -6.4bps decline in the 10yr yield to 1.80% meant that there was a further flattening of the yield curve, with the 2s10s down to its flattest level in over a year, at just 60.9bps. This is only adding to the late-cycle signals we’ve been discussing of late, particularly when you consider that the yield curve historically tends to flatten in the year after the Fed begins hiking rates, so an inversion over the next 12 months would be no surprise on a historic basis followed perhaps by a 2024 recession? See the chart book for more on this. Indeed, some parts of the curve are even closer to inverting than the 2s10s, with the 5s10s slope at just 14.1bps yesterday, which is the flattest it’s been since the initial market panic about Covid back in March 2020.

The implications of this hawkish push could also be seen in FX markets, where the dollar index strengthened +0.81% to levels not seen in over 18 months. Conversely though, the Fed’s more aggressive posture on inflation significantly hurt precious metals, with gold (-1.22%) falling by more than -1% for a second consecutive session.

Transatlantic equity performance was a mixed bag yesterday. The STOXX 600 fell -1.47% immediately after the European open, just as US futures were pointing to additional losses on top of the previous day’s. However, sentiment turned into the European afternoon, with the major indices on both sides of the Atlantic moving into positive territory, leaving the STOXX 600 +0.65% higher. True to recent form though, the S&P 500 reversed course after the European optimists called it a day, drifting lower to end the day at -0.54%. Sector performance was fairly split, with five sectors in the red: discretionary (-2.27%) and real estate (-1.75%), industrials (-0.93%), financials (-0.92%), and tech (-0.69%). Energy (+1.24%) was again the outperformer, but didn’t do enough to drag the entire index into the green. Tesla was a big driver of the discretionary drawdown. After bouncing around following its earnings release the evening before, Tesla declined -11.55% yesterday on the back of potential supply chain issues, and to a 3-month low. The NASDAQ underperformed the S&P, declining -1.40%, bringing it -16.84% below its all-time high. The Russell 2000 of small caps (-2.29%) fell into “bear market” territory and is now down -20.94% from its highs in early November. The Vix index of volatility closed modestly lower (-1.37ppts) for the first time in almost two weeks, but remained elevated at 30.59.

Apple reported fourth quarter earnings after the close. Like other goods manufactures, they continued to be besot by supply chain issues, but that did not stop them from beating sales and earnings estimates, posting their best quarter of revenues ever. The stock was more than +5% higher in after-hours trading following the release. Prior to this they were down around -10% YTD. This has helped the S&P 500 (+0.7%) and Nasdaq (+1.1%) futures rebound as we hit the last day of a tough and very volatile week.

Overnight in Asia, equity markets are also recovering some of their recent losses with the Nikkei rebounding (+2.17%), after falling nearly -3% in the previous session, followed by the Kospi (+1.44%). Meanwhile, the Shanghai Composite (+0.05%) and CSI (0.08%) are trading flattish as we type. On the other hand, the Hang Seng (-0.94%) is extending its recent losses this morning ahead of the release of Hong Kong’s Q4 GDP report scheduled in a few hours.

Early morning data showed consumer prices in Tokyo fell to +0.5% y/y in January from +0.8% in December while the core CPI inflation (+0.2% y/y) in January failed to exceed market expectations (+0.3%) after increasing +0.5% last month. Elsewhere, South Korea’s industrial output surprisingly advanced +4.3% m/m in December against economist expectations of -0.3%. It follows November’s upwardly revised +5.3% increase.

Back in Europe, sovereign bond yields rose for the most part, having been closed at the time of Chair Powell’s press conference the previous day. Those on 10yr bunds (+1.6bps), OATs (+0.7bps) and gilts (+3.1bps) all moved higher, and that rise in gilt yields comes ahead of next week’s Bank of England decision, where overnight index swaps are now pricing in a 94% chance of another rate hike, which is also our UK economist’s expectation.

One factor supporting sentiment yesterday was a decent set of economic data, with the US economy growing by an annualised rate of +6.9% in Q4 2021 (vs. +5.5% expected). That’s the fastest quarterly pace since Q3 2020 when the economy rebounded sharply from the various lockdowns, and left growth for the full year 2021 at +5.7%, the fastest since 1984. Meanwhile, the weekly initial jobless claims for the week through January 22 subsided to 260k (vs. 265k expected), ending a run of 3 consecutive weekly increases.

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

i)FRIDAY MORNING// THURSDAY NIGHT

3 a./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA

///NORTH KOREA

3B JAPAN

end

3c CHINA

CHINA/COVID

China expands its lockdown in Beijing prior to the Winter Olympics. Cases detected among Olympic personnel

(zerohedge)

CCP Expands Beijing Lockdown As More Cases Detected Among Olympics Personnel

THURSDAY, JAN 27, 2022 – 08:40 PM

The other day, the English-language press picked up on a rumor that President Xi of China had implored his ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, not to invade Ukraine until after the Winter Games. Anonymously-sourced leaks like these are often propaganda, not truth. But as the Games draw near, the Communist government is tightening the screws on the city of Beijing as COVID continues to spread – albeit, more slowly – despite their draconian measures.

Reuters reports that the CCP has expanded its localized lockdowns in Beijing, restricting movement to those who live within a growing number of neighborhoods and housing complexes, and prohibiting outsiders from entering.

For example, Beijing’s Fengtai district said late on Wednesday residents in a new swath of areas should not leave their residential compounds for unnecessary reasons and must be tested daily for COVID.

Beijing has some reason to target the district: it has produced more local cases than any others, at least going by what the CCP has admitted publicly.

The area had already locked down some compounds that house tens of thousands of people, while several other city districts have restricted the mobility of their residents.

China’s NHC said Beijing saw just five locally transmitted infections confirmed for Wednesday, down from 14 a day earlier.

Locals who spoke with Reuters anonymously indicated that they are all terrified of getting COVID for fear of provoking the government’s wrath.

“I’m anxious everyday because the virus situation is still quite serious,” said a traveler surnamed Wang at Beijing Railway Station. “I don’t want to bring trouble to my hometown. Now I’m tested negative, but what if it changes to positive?”

Beijing has already locked down some compounds that house tens of thousands of people. Several other city districts have imposed mobility restrictions in certain areas. Meanwhile, elsewhere in China, travel has surged during the Lunar New Year holiday. Travel during the first ten days of the holiday season has risen 46% from last year.

Local authorities in charge of the Winter Games said 23 new cases were detected among Games-related personnel on Jan. 26, including eight among those already in the closed-loop Olympics bubble. The rest were discovered upon arrival at the airport.

China isn’t alone. Cases are climbing elsewhere in Asia. For example, in Japan, Tokyo is reportedly facing “an explosive infection situation due to an omicron-fueled wave that’s driving daily case numbers to record highs. Top Japanese health authority Norio Omagari said newly recorded daily infections in Tokyo could exceed 24K in a week if the current trend continues. The capital city reported 16.5K cases on Thursday.

END

China becoming more belligerent as they warn the USA over Ukraine. They also blast the USA for interference in the ongoings of the Beijing Olympics.

(zerohedge)

China Warns US Over Ukraine & Blasts “Interference” In Beijing Olympics

THURSDAY, JAN 27, 2022 – 09:20 PM

China on Thursday blasted the US for continuing to interfere in its affairs, further saying nothing has fundamentally changed, but instead charging there’s been “new shocks” since the Biden-Xi virtual summit of two months ago.

The scathing rebuke came on Thursday as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a phone call with his counterpart Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Importantly, Wang took the opportunity to for the first time side with Russia in the direct communication with the US top diplomat, saying Moscow has “reasonable security concerns” over Ukraine that must be “taken seriously”. Chinese state media and Beijing-linked pundits have also become increasingly vocal on the issue, charging NATO with overstepping…

He urged calm on the part of all sides but specifically called on the West to “abandon its Cold War mentality”. It’s been no secret that Washington sanctions and punitive actions against officials in both countries have served to make Russia and China unlikely allies against a common enemy.

“All parties should completely abandon the Cold War mentality and form a balanced, effective and sustainable European security mechanism through negotiation,” Wang spelled out in the call with Blinken, according to AFP.

The tough rhetoric echoed the words of Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian during a Wednesday press briefing. In response to US claims that Russia is likely to invade Ukraine during the Beijing Winter Olympics, Zhao said, “As the world’s largest military alliance, NATO should abandon the outdated Cold War mentality and ideological bias, and do things that are conducive to upholding peace and stability.”

He suggested that NATO is outdated and contributes to instability: “China firmly opposes all kinds of small cliques,” he added, and urged “fully consider each other’s legitimate security concerns, avoid antagonism and confrontation, and properly address differences and disputes through equal consultation on the basis of mutual respect.”Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi: TASS

Wang focused much of his Thursday call with Blinken on the “urgent priority” that the “US should stop interfering in the Beijing Winter Olympics.” The swipe appeared not just aimed at Washington’s continued emphasis on China’s human rights abuses, including allegations of detention centers and “genocide” targeting Uighur Muslims, but in response to the words the day prior from Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.

Sherman had unexpectedly linked the Ukraine crisis with the Olympic games hosted by China:

“We all are aware that the Beijing Olympics begin on Feb. 4, the opening ceremony, and President Putin expects to be there. I think that, probably, [Chinese] President Xi Jinping would not be ecstatic if Putin chose that moment to invade Ukraine, so that may affect his timing and his thinking,” Sherman said in a virtual conference.

She said this even as Ukraine’s leaders have stressed that it doesn’t appear an invasion is “imminent” – as the White House has been asserting.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has essentially rejected the US assessment, stating at the start of the week when the US Embassy in Kiev began reducing staff: “In fact, there have been no radical changes in the security situation recently: the threat of new waves of Russian aggression has remained constant since 2014, and the accumulation of Russian troops near the state border began in April last year,” the ministry said.

Meanwhile, in the South China Sea…

Already there’s a US diplomatic boycott of the games, which means no US government official can attend, despite America being represented in the games through its athletes.

END

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

//AUSTRIA/COVID/

cryptogon.com » Austria to Lift Lockdown for Unvaccinated Residents

Inbox

What a change
https://www.cryptogon.com/?p=63196

end

UK/WALES/VACCINE MANDATE

END

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

UKRAINE/RUSSIA/USA/ EU/UK/NATO

CNN in total meltdown over the Biden-Ukraine phone call fiasco

a good read..

(zerohedge)

CNN In Meltdown Mode Over Biden-Ukraine Phone Call Fiasco

THURSDAY, JAN 27, 2022 – 08:24 PM

Update (2023ET): CNN journos doing damage control after the network’s Natasha Bertrand panicked and deleted tweets containing harsh comments reportedly made by President Biden to Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky – namely that a Russian invasion was “imminent,” that the Capital city of Kyiv could be “sacked,” and to “prepare for impact.”

Now – none of that apparently happened according to CNN‘s Jim Sciutto, the White House, and apparently Ukraine itself. Of note, CNN claims their source was a “senior Ukrainian official.”

Human Events‘ Jack Posobiec lays it out:

Bertrand apparently didn’t get the message to CNN‘s Jake Tapper and Senior International Correspondent Matthew Chance, who repeated the now-disputed report – which CNN just deleted.

And the White House disputes:

Now, Posobiec reports that Zelensky’s office is also denying CNN’s report.

CNN‘s Alexander Marquardt gives a master class in walking back misinformation:

* * *

In their Thursday afternoon phone call which the White House called “a check-in”, it seems President Joe Biden took the opportunity to continue with an alarmist posture as he told his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy that a Russian invasion is “now highly certain” – according to CNN.

Further, “President Biden reaffirmed the readiness of the United States along with its allies and partners to respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine,” according to the White House call readout. But it remains that two conflicting narratives have emerged, given just prior to the call it was being reported that Zelensky was expected to request that the US be more cautious in its messaging surrounding a potential Russian attack, per source–particularly the word “imminent,” as it risks causing panic and negative economic consequences for Ukraine. That was also according to CNN.

But the statement immediately after the call of Zelensky himself was much more toned down compared to the White House rhetoric…

“Discussed recent diplomatic efforts on de-escalation and agreed on joint actions for the future,” Zelenskiy said in a tweet. “Thanked President Joe Biden for the ongoing military assistance,” he said, also affirming that the US offered further financial support to Ukraine, which was highlighted in the Biden statement.

CNN and mainstream media in general have of late seemed intent on hyping and stoking tensions to the point of armed conflict.

The “long phone conversation” with Biden was Zelensky’s second one this month. Again, compare the low key statement of Ukraine’s president himself with what Biden reportedly said to him concerning the “level” of the threat, supposedly with Kiev itself in the crosshairs…

The Ukrainian side appears to have leaked that Biden informed Zelensky that it’s “virtually certain” that Ukraine’s capital could be “sacked” and that Russian forces are looking to occupy it.

Here’s more from CNN:

Zelensky has been particularly concerned about the US’ rhetoric that war could be “imminent” — a word White House press secretary Jen Psaki used earlier this week to describe the US’ assessment of Russia’s plans — and the recent disclosures of intelligence to US media, the source said, which “is causing panic and economic disaster for Ukraine.”
Zelensky is expected to convey to Biden that he believes the US and its allies have to be more careful with their messaging surrounding the conflict, the source added.

Zelensky during the call reportedly told the US president to calm down…

It seems the two leaders were openly at odds over the true level of the threat, with the White House now being accused of grossly inflating the threat. Indeed this has been the messaging of the Ukrainians all week, especially after the US took the dramatic step of telling some of its embassy staff in Kiev to leave the country over the Russian troop build-up near Ukraine.

On this issue, Biden had some explaining to do which likely didn’t make matters any better. Biden “made clear that despite the departure of American family members of embassy personnel, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, remains open and fully operational,” according to the US readout.

end

NATO Response To Russia’s Proposals ‘Embarrassing’: Lavrov

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 12:45 PM

At this point Moscow has received two written responses to its security proposals submitted early this month. US Ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan on Wednesday hand delivered the answers to Russia’s foreign ministry – one coming from Washington, and the other from NATO headquarters in Brussels.

While both appeared to either reject or avoid addressing Russia’s key demand of legal guarantees of no further Russia expansion eastward, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov blasted NATO’s response in particular as ’embarrassing’. Image: AP

“Compared to the paper that was sent to us from NATO, the American answer is almost a model of diplomatic decency,” the Russian foreign minister said Friday of NATO written feedback in particular. “The response from NATO is so ideological, it has such a sense of exceptionalism of the North Atlantic Alliance, its special mission, its special purpose, that I even felt a little embarrassed for those who wrote it.”

After Western media inundated readers with breathless predictions of a “Russian invasion” of Ukraine, dangerous rhetoric which Ukraine’s government itself is now trying to reign in, all sides including the Russians have confirmed that dialogue and negotiations will continue.

“I can’t say that the negotiations are over,” Lavrov said. “The Americans and NATO, as you know, have been studying our extremely simple proposals for more than a month… but there are grains of rationality there.”

Over in Washington earlier this week, the State Department said that dialogue and diplomacy remain open. Spokesman Ned Price, however, still called Russia’s core demands “absolutely non-starters” – affirming with Blinken that NATO’s door would remain open.

“But there are other areas that – where dialogue and diplomacy could help improve our collective security, transatlantic security,” Price had said in an earlier briefing. “The key point in that is that any steps that we would take would not be concessions. They would need to be on a reciprocal basis, meaning that the Russians would also have to do something that would help improve our security – our security posture.”

END

6// GLOBAL COVID ISSUES/VACCINE MANDATE ISSUES/

CORONAVIRUS/UPDATE/VACCINE MANDATE

Chinese scientists have discovered a potentially deadly new strain. So far it has not jumped to humans but it could. This strain would be immune to vaccines and your natural immunity.

(zerohedge)

Chinese Scientists From Wuhan Discover “Potentially Deadly” New Strain Of Coronavirus

THURSDAY, JAN 27, 2022 – 05:25 PM

Here we go again.

A team of Chinese scientists from Wuhan have discovered a new strain of coronavirus that they fear could make the jump from animals to humans. Shortly after another team of Chinese scientists published new research claiming that the omicron strain may have gestated inside mice, this other team has warned about the “potential bio-safety threat” represented by a new strain of COVID.

The team of researchers from Wuhan University claimed to have “unexpectedly” stumbled upon the new strain, which they’re calling “the NeoCoV strain” (should it become a serious enough threat to warrant a “variant of concern” label, the WHO will grant the mutant strain a new Greek letter name).

The strain was originally discovered in South Africa and is a “close relative” of omicron.

Keep in mind, this isn’t the first new strain to emerge since omicron was first discovered by a team in South Africa. The world has already faced down “deltacron”, a mutant with attributes of both strains, that caused a splash in global press when it was first discovered.

But the fact that a team of scientists from Wuhan has zeroed in on this strain certainly doesn’t bode well.

The new strain “can efficiently use some types of bat Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and, less favorably, human ACE2 for entry.”

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, was first discovered in Wuhan before it spread throughout the world as millions of Chinese traveled for the Lunar New Year holiday. The timing of the latest discovery comes amid this year’s holiday.

While the strain presently targets bats, the scientists said it has the capability to infect humans as well. And should that happen, it appears the new strain “could not be cross-neutralized by antibodies targeting SARS-CoV-2 or MERS-CoV” meaning natural immunity and vaccine-induced immunity would likely be powerless to stop it.

Although NeoCoV “remains enigmatic,” the scientists warned of a “potential bio-safety threat” for humans “with both high fatality and transmission rate.”

Interested parties can read the pre-print about the discovery below:

2022.01.24.477490v1.full (1) by Joseph Adinolfi Jr. on Scribd

Worldwide Exclusive: Embalmers Find Veins & Arteries Filled with Never Before Seen Rubbery Clots

Inbox

end

Nobody Talking About Dead Pilots: Military Command, Media, Airline Execs Ignoring Air Terror

Inbox

end

CANADA

Update on the Canadian Convoy as these guys head to Ottawa.

(zerohedge)

Trudeau Slams “Unacceptable Views” Of Anti-Vaxx Truckers, GoFundMe Blocks Access To ‘Freedom Convoy’ Donations

THURSDAY, JAN 27, 2022 – 06:05 PM

A massive convoy of Canadian truckers is nearing the capital of Ottawa to protest the cross-border COVID-19 vaccine mandates severely affecting the trucking industry.

Top government officials, big technology companies, and mainstream media are downplaying the protest, dubbed the “Freedom Convoy” that began in Vancouver on Sunday and is expected to reach Ottawa, Canada’s capital, on Saturday.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the protest and its supporters a “small fringe minority” with “unacceptable views.”

“The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa are holding unacceptable views that they’re expressing, do not represent the views of Canadians who have been there for each other who know that following the science and stepping up to protect each other is the best way to continue to ensure our freedoms, rights, and values as a country,” Trudeau told reporters Wednesday.

The president has called anyone unvaccinated racist and misogynistic extremists.

Meanwhile, big tech companies are taking aim at the movement to limit their mobility ahead of reaching Ottawa.

GoFundMe froze an account linked to the group that organized the protest. The GoFundMe page raised CAD 6 million as of Thursday morning from 76,000 people. “We are asking for donations to help with the costs of fuel first, and hopefully food and lodgings to help ease the pressures of this arduous task,” the GoFundMe page says.

But GoFundMe spokeswoman Rachel Hollis sparked significant backlash after the tech company froze distributions of the fund after requesting organizers to show documentation “about how funds will be properly distributed.”

It makes sense why Trudeau, big tech, and corporate media are downplaying and limiting the group’s mobility – that is because the movement is massive, anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 Canadian truckers. The convoy could easily shut down Ottawa this weekend.

Truckers are furious after a vaccine mandate that began on Jan. 15 required unvaccinated truckers crossing back into Canada to be tested and quarantined for a week. The US enacted a similar policy on Jan. 22. These two mandates instantly took 20% of the 160,000 cross-border American and Canadian truckers off the road due to noncompliance in both countries.

Joe Rogan sums it up, Canada “is in revolt.”

The convoy is expected to reach Ottawa in the next 48 hours.

END

Truckers Across Planet Unite In Convoys Against Medical Tyranny

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 02:00 PM

The 50,000 strong truck drivers heading to Ottawa, Canada’s capital, expected to arrive as early as Saturday, may break a world record for the longest convoy. Called the “Freedom Convoy,” the truck drivers oppose the federal government’s vaccine mandates for cross-border activity and have inspired others worldwide.

Truck drivers from Canada to the US to Australia to Europe are banding together in protests worldwide against their respective governments’ overreach of public health, especially forced vaccine mandates.

Freedom convoys from America are expected to join tens of thousands of truckers in Ottowa on Saturday to get the government to repeal cross-border COVID vaccine passports.

A Facebook group in Australia called “2022 Official Convoy to Canberra” has more than 66k members and is preparing a convoy to arrive in the capital by Jan. 31 to protest vaccine mandates.

Multiple convoys across Europe are being organized at this very moment that will converge on Brussels at an unspecified date. A Telegram group with more than 14,500 members assembles convoys across the continent to meet in the capital.

Europe Convoy is for no vaxx passports, health freedom, no medical apartheid, and for a whole host of European officials to resign.

Are trucker convoys underway in Italy?

And Brazil?

It’s clear and straightforward, and as the famous podcaster Joe Rogan recently put it, “Canada is in Revolt.”

Even the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, chimed in yesterday and said he supports the Canadian truckers to his 71.8 million followers.

The tide could be turning as truckers are the beating heart of any economy, and a revolt among these groups of people can send economies of the world tumbling back into recession.

Maybe governments will wake up to the power truckers have as the movement spreads like wildfire across the globe could be what is needed to regain some medical freedom and at least put an end to forced vaccinations.

end

Very sensible: how COVID 19 can be stopped without massive vaccination

(Peter McCullough//Lee/EpochTimes)

COVID-19 Can Be Stopped Without Massive Vaccination: Dr. Peter McCullough

THURSDAY, JAN 27, 2022 – 09:40 PM

Authored by Harry Lee and Steve Lance via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

COVID-19 can be stopped without massive vaccination, renowned cardiologist and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough told NTD’s “Capitol Report” program during the “Defeat the Mandates” march in Washington D.C., on Jan. 23.

According to McCullough, early treatment and natural immunity are safe and effective against COVID-19, but federal health agencies have ignored these in a push for vaccines, the broad use of which is not needed.

“The government has certainly been in an oblivion in terms of early treatment,” he said.

Thousands of people turned out to march in protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates—one of the largest U.S. events against the mandates since the start of the pandemic.

“Our CDC, FDA, and NIH have had no effective messaging on early treatment, even the emergency use authorized monoclonal antibodies, which are safe and effective,” McCullough said. “And even on the new Merck and Pfizer drugs, which they’re basically absent in terms of the media, despite being recently distributed across the United States.”

Early effective treatment of any disease can help avert progression to more serious illness, with an additional benefit of reducing the burden on health care systems, and in a seperate interview, McCullough claimed that 95% of the COVID deaths could have been prevented by early treatment…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated on its website that according to the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), “current clinical management of COVID-19 consists of infection prevention and control measures and supportive care, including supplemental oxygen and mechanical ventilatory support when indicated.”

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved one drug, remdesivir (Veklury), to treat COVID-19 in hospitalized patients, the CDC continued.

On Monday, the FDA announced that it is restricting the use of two monoclonal antibody treatments for COVID-19, saying data show such treatments are “highly unlikely” to be active against the Omicron variant.A crowd gathers at Lincoln Memorial for the “Defeat the Mandates” rally in Washington on Jan. 23, 2022. (Lynn Lin/NTD)

McCullough said that highly qualified doctors have done the research and have shown that “early treatment can end this pandemic by reducing the intensity and severity of disease and reducing the chances of hospitalization and death in our highest risk seniors.”

“This basically means that the vaccines broadly used aren’t needed. And in fact, we have seen far too many vaccine injuries and now vaccine failures. With the Omicron variant, there’s effectively no coverage of these vaccines against the newest form of the virus,” McCullough said, adding 22 studies showed vaccines ran out of efficacy after six months.

McCullough gave the example of how ivermectin, a Nobel prize-winning, FDA-approved drug that many studies and doctors claim is effective in treating COVID-19 patients, was dismissed by federal health agencies.Dr. Peter McCullough in an interview with NTD’s Capitol Reports program during “Defeat The Mandate” rally in Washington D.C., on Jan. 23, 2022. (Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

The FDA has been saying the drug was approved to treat internal and external parasites, and currently no data shows its effectiveness against COVID-19.

McCullough also claimed that the federal health agencies have ignored natural immunity, which is “robust, complete, and durable in terms of the lethal strains of the virus.”

“It was only until it got to the Omicron variant, which there was a breakthrough, and individuals who are previously immune could get a mild Omicron syndrome. But natural immunity is the end of the pandemic,” McCullough continued. “Remember, as we all become naturally immune, COVID-19 is no longer a threat to our lives.

“And the failure of our governmental agencies to recognize natural immunity has basically created unnecessary suffering, unnecessary testing, unnecessary masking and social distancing. Unnecessary compliance with all kinds of measures that are designed for the susceptible. Those who are naturally immune are no longer susceptible to fatal disease.”

McCullough expressed doubt about the claim that COVID-19 vaccines could reduce hospitalization and deaths.

“All we have at this point of time is bias-confounded, and I think invalid hospitalization data. The U.S. agencies still make the claim that the vaccines protect against hospitalization, whereas we see no evidence of that in the UK, Germany, South Africa, and the rest of the world,” McCullough said. “And I can tell you, the United States is not that different than the rest of these countries. Something is wrong. And I can tell you something is wrong with an incorrect, invalid claim that the vaccines reduce hospitalization. I don’t think it’s supportable.”

On Jan. 19, the CDC published a study showing that people who had not gotten a vaccine but did have a prior infection, also known as natural immunity, were less likely to land in a hospital than the vaccinated without natural immunity.

The Epoch Times has contacted CDC for additional comment.

Last month, President Joe Biden announced new measures to battle COVID-19, the top three of which are boosters for all adults, vaccinations to protect kids, and expanding free at-home testing. Biden did talk about the new treatment, saying that “if and when any new COVID-19 treatment pills have been found to meet FDA’s scientific standards, they are equitably accessible to all Americans.”

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.

END

Read this: Sweden correctly will not recomment vaccinating children under 12 due to lack of clear benefit

(zerohedge)

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 02:45 AM

Last week, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist admitted that there’s no evidence that healthy children need booster doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Now, the Swedish government has declined to recommend the vaccine for children under the age of 12 after concluding that there would be little medical benefit.

In a Thursday press release, Sweden’s Public Health Agency said that the medical benefit of the vaccine for those aged 5-11 years-old is “currently small,” and that while the benefits are “constantly” under assessment, they will have decided against a general recommendation for children under the age of 12 for spring 2022, according to Reuters.

“With the knowledge we have today, with a low risk for serious disease for kids, we don’t see any clear benefit with vaccinating them,” said Health Agency official Britta Bjorkholm during a news conference.

The agency’s Director General, Karin Tegmark, said that guidance would be once again updated before the fall term.

“A general vaccination from the age of 5 is also not expected to have any major effect on the spread of infection at present, neither in the group of children aged 5–11 nor among other groups in the population,” reads the press release.

The Swedish government currently recommends vaccination for children over the age of 12, as well as for high-risk children between the ages of 5-11.

The move comes roughly three weeks after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) approved booster shots for adolescents aged 12 to 17, while Israel is now offering boosters to children as young as 12.

end

VACCINE IMPACT

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Vaccine Impact

Michael Every

on the major topics of the day

Michael Every…

Rabobank: “Prepare For Impact”

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 09:46 AM

By Michael Every of Rabobank

“Prepare For Impact”

This is not a Friday brimming with positive developments, to put it mildly. However, at time of writing Asian stocks were following US futures higher on what looks to my jaded eye to be nothing more than a good key earnings report. Here’s a Friday thought: perhaps we should dump all our chattering economic data and burbling/shilling financial reporting and just have the earnings and share price of one firm as a proxy for everything everywhere, the apotheosis of the agglomeration that globalized financial capitalism drives: but why am I even saying “perhaps” when one reads all the rest of the news that apparently doesn’t matter?

For example, US natural gas prices leaped 72% overnight before retreating. Thin markets, yes, and a short squeeze into options expiry. Regardless, hardly the kind of calm trading in a key commodity that already-rattled markets wanted to see. And hardly a bearish price signal.

Moreover, the Fed might go 50bp in March to get ahead of market expectations and prove that it is still capable of taking its official inflation mandate seriously, mutters a Bloomberg headline. Expect markets to then cling to the meme that if the Fed goes 50, it will mean they don’t then have to keep going 25. Which makes no real sense given we are talking about supply-side inflation the Fed isn’t in control of anyway, at which point the conversation will jump back to agglomerated globalized financial capitalism’s next earning report.

For cryptonites, the US is to regulate Bitcoin and other crypto assets over “national security”, says Barron’s. The White House apparently won’t issue recommendations, but all related government agencies would be given three to six months to come up with proposals, with the White House acting as a policy coordinator. Some will say this is bullish, because: 1) it might give the assets a seal of approval; and 2) it might thin out the competition in a market in which you can create a new ‘currency’ overnight. Both are logical. Yet so is scrutiny of everything crypto then does, and taxation of every transfer, which means it won’t be able to operate at the scale required to ever emerge as a day-to-day rival to state-backed fiat currency and their more efficient, untaxed payment systems. How many times has this Daily warned that while it’s a wonderful feeling to give The Man the finger, The Man has four of his own, and a thumb, and clenched into a fist? (On which note, GameStop fun and games and meme stonks madness was a year ago this week: and RobinHood is today looking a far less merry man.)

Still being underplayed by markets, US President Biden called Ukrainian President Zelensky and reportedly told him to “prepare for impact” as Russian invasion is “inevitable” in February once the ground freezes, and Kyiv might be “sacked”. Many journalists have been leaked details of this call from both sides, and there is disagreement on what was said over the probability of war. Some report it was not stated as “inevitable”, just “virtually certain”; another only “a distinct possibility”. Most agree the call was “tense and difficult”, and that Zelensky disagreed with the US assessment. The Russian foreign ministry has also just stated war with Ukraine is “impossible”. Logically, somebody is either being dishonest or is very badly informed – and either option on either side is of concern for markets given war would imply something similar to what we just saw in US natural gas prices.

On the geoeconomic front, China has been given permission by the WTO to impose retaliatory tariffs on the US. Expect these to now be used as trade war weapons aimed at disarmament. Which we have a lot of right now, and not going well. Also expect fury against the WTO from some in D.C., even if they aren’t running things now. Meanwhile, the EU are to proceed with a WTO case against China over the latter’s actions against Lithuania, saying that Beijing’s actions threaten the integrity of the single market, with even the German Federation of Industry backing this action. China says it is following all WTO rules: Europe says deleting Lithuania entirely because of a political/foreign policy decision is not one of them. Of course, nothing will happen quickly on this front, but it again shows more trade/geopolitical tensions ahead.

It also shows that German Chancellor calling people in Brussels saying ‘Don’t do it’ didn’t do it, which speaks to shifting intra-EU power dynamics: and both global tensions and shifting intra-EU power are evident in French President Macron calling an Indo-Pacific summit on 22 February that has invited everyone from Japan, India, and South Korea through to Comoros and Micronesia – except China!

Potentially the second most significant news after the “inevitability” of war was this shipping headline: “US to get an open register based out of the Virgin Islands”. 2021’s ‘In Deep Ship’ focused on the geopolitical drivers of the global shipping/supply-chain crisis and, by looking at maritime history/grand strategy, proposed logical US actions as the ‘ship of things to come’ if it wanted to match its military control of the oceans with commercial power:

Raise tariffs
Use the US market to force global carriers to change pricing/practices to its benefit
Build a rival to China’s marine Belt and Road with others
Force vessels to re-flag to the US
Build a new US merchant marine
Refuse to take goods from some carriers or ports
Charter private firms to bring home key materials (i.e., privateering); and
The US Navy stops protecting certain sea lanes, forcing cost onto others

We already saw #1 a few years ago; the Ocean Shipping Reform Act before Congress addresses #2; there is a lot of talk about #3; and the headline above now speaks to #4.

The rationale for the new US shipping flag/registry is firmly aimed at the established biggest names in the business, noting they have grown too large for true compliance oversight:

“50% of the ships that traverse our international waterways are registered in just three jurisdictions –Panama, Liberia, and the Marshall Islands– where loosely enforced regulations and lack of due diligence and oversight has created enormous risk to the US and global shipping industry and facilitated illicit activity on the high seas.”

It seems the US will soon ‘incentivise’ vessels to reflag to where they can be better regulated – to US needs/purposes. Having a regulatory hand on the maritime wheel is a necessary but not sufficient condition to take back control of supply chains. Also note this comes at a time when the US already admits it couldn’t fight a major war if it needed to as it couldn’t get the military cargo to do so there via Sealift.

Lastly, the UK is still waiting for ’50 Shades of Gray/Cake’ to decide the fate of PM BYO. And Italy is still unable to decide on a president: what happens constitutionally if we stay in this limbo forever? (I am asking for a friend.)

Happy Friday – and prepare for impact.

END

7. OIL ISSUES

NatGas Soars As 45 Million Americans Face Winter Storm Threat

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 10:58 AM

A powerful Nor’easter has put 45 million Americans under winter storm watches and warnings Friday into Saturday from the Carolinas to northeastern Maine. The prospects of the storm and cold weather have sent U.S. natural gas futures soaring Friday morning.

The National Weather Service (NWS) warned about a “powerful Nor’easter is expected to develop off the Mid-Atlantic coastline on Friday before impacting eastern parts of the Northeast and New England this weekend.” Heavy snow is expected across eastern Long Island/New England with gusty winds that could produce blizzard conditions.

AccuWeather meteorologists believe the storm will strengthen into a “bomb cyclone,” a weather pattern we noted on Wednesday that had a very strong possibility playing out across the Northeast late Friday into Saturday. As early as Monday, we told readers multiple meteorologists sounded the alarm on the possible development of the weekend storm.

Now it appears the storm could dump as much as 36 inches in parts of Long Island and pummel Wantagh to Westhampton with 12 to 18 inches. New York City is on the edge of the storm and could receive six inches or fewer.

Saturday snowfall rates per hour (at the height of the storm) could exceed 3 to 4 inches per hour in eastern Massachusetts. The latest snowfall total project map shows coastal areas will receive the heaviest snow.

NWS Boston points out the “exact storm track” has yet to be determined, which means if the storm travels closer to the coast, the heaviest snowfall could occur more inland. https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NwYWNlX2NhcmQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib2ZmIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1486878211862532096&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fweather%2F45-million-americans-under-winter-storm-threat-0&sessionId=891f473e5644d20cf124b6b403e9c8e61f8eec88&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=75b3351%3A1642573356397&width=550px

A cold front is expected to pour into East Coast. We noted parts of South Florida are bracing for a rare freeze that could damage citrus crops on Saturday morning.

U.S. natural gas futures have risen for the sixth day ahead on prospects of a winter storm and colder weather. Futures for March delivery were up more than 13% to $4.786 around 0900 ET.

We must point out yesterday’s epic squeeze in February’s contracts ahead of expiration which rippled through later-month contacts (as seen below, highlighted in the orange box).

Shedding more light on what happened yesterday is Goldman Sachs’ Samantha Dart, who told clients Friday that yesterday’s squeeze in February’s contracts was not driven by fundamentals but a short covering trades in limited liquidity.

While we don’t yet have full clarity on what drove today’s 46% rally in US natural gas prices to $6.27/mmBtu during the last 30 minutes of trading before the close, we do not believe it was supported by fundamentals. The more likely explanation is that the rally reflected limited liquidity during short covering trades near the close as the February contract expired. Accordingly, we expect a correction lower from here to align NYMEX gas more closely with physical markets. Assuming 10-year-average weather for the remainder of winter, we maintain our $3.65/$3.45/mmBtu Bal winter/Sum22 Nymex gas price forecast, vs forwards currently at $4.28/$4.29/mmBtu.

Commodity analysts at Rabobank added their take on yesterday’s squeeze:

For example, US natural gas prices leaped 72% overnight before retreating. Thin markets, yes, and a short squeeze into options expiry. Regardless, hardly the kind of calm trading in a key commodity that already-rattled markets wanted to see. And hardly a bearish price signal.

Forecasts are becoming more locked in as this could only mean one thing for folks trying to fly out of the Northeast on Saturday: expect elevated flight delays and cancellations.

8 EMERGING MARKET& AUSTRALIA ISSUES

Australia//// NEW ZEALAND/ SOUTH AFRICA/BRAZIL//COVID/VACCINES/LOCKDOWNS

AUSTRALIA

END

* * *

Your early currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings FRIDAY morning 7:30 AM

Euro/USA 1.1131 DOWN .0014 /EUROPE BOURSES //ALL RED

USA/ YEN 115.63 UP 0.278 /NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT .11% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…

GBP/USA 1.3381 DOWN 0.0005

Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED DOWN 32.81 OR 0.97%

Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 256.32 PTS OR 1.08%

AUSTRALIA CLOSED DOWN 1.84% // EUROPEAN BOURSES OPENED ALL RED

Trading from Europe and ASIA

I) EUROPEAN BOURSES ALL RED

2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang SANG CLOSED DOWN 256.92 OR 1.08%

/SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 32.81 PTS OR 0.97%

Australia BOURSE CLOSED UP 2.13%

(Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED UP 547,94 PTS OR 2.09%

INDIA’S SENSEX IN THE RED

Gold very early morning trading: 1785.45

silver:$22.44-

USA dollar index early FRIDAY morning: 97.44 UP 18 CENT(S) from THURSDAY’s close.

THIS ENDS FRIDAY MORNING NUMBERS

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And now your closing FRIDAY NUMBERS 1: 00 PM

Portuguese 10 year bond yield: 0.62% UP 3 in basis point(s) yield from YESTERDAY/

JAPANESE BOND YIELD: +0.169% UP 1 AND 0/10 BASIS POINTS from YESTERDAY/JAPAN losing control of its yield curve/

SPANISH 10 YR BOND YIELD: 0.70%// UP 3 in basis points yield from yesterday.

ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD 1.28 DOWN 1 points in basis points yield from yesterday./

the Italian 10 yr bond yield is trading 58 points higher than Spain.

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD: RISES TO -0.042% IN BASIS POINTS ON THE DAY//

THE IMPORTANT SPREAD BETWEEN ITALIAN 10 YR BOND AND GERMAN 10 YEAR BOND IS 1.32% AND NOW ABOVE 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 1.1167 UP .0019 or 19 basis points

USA/Japan: 115.17 DOWN 0.179 OR YEN UP 18 basis points/

Great Britain/USA 1.3420 UP 33 BASIS POINTS

Canadian dollar DOWN 10 pts to 1.2757

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The USA/Yuan, CNY: closed ON SHORE (CLOSED UP)..6.3610

THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE: (YUAN CLOSED (UP)..6.3651

TURKISH LIRA: 13.54 EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WISH/HYPERINFLATION TO BEGIN.

the 10 yr Japanese bond yield at +0.169

Your closing 10 yr US bond yield DOWN 2 IN basis points from WEDNESDAY at 1.782% //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%) very problematic

USA 30 yr bond yield: 2.092 DOWN 1 in basis points

Your closing USA dollar index, 97.13 DOWN 12 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 THURSDAY: 12:00 PM

London: CLOSED DOWN 81.83 PTS OR 1.08%

German Dax : CLOSED DOWN 197.32 points or 1.27%

Paris CAC CLOSED DOWN 60,85PTS OR 0.87%

Spain IBEX CLOSED DOWN 92,00PTS OR 1.06%

Italian MIB: CLOSED DOWN 287.85 PTS OR 1.07%

WTI Oil price 87.95 12: EST

Brent Oil: 90.79 12:00 EST

USA /RUSSIAN / RUBLE FALLS: 77.99 THE CROSS HIGHER BY 11 RUBLES/DOLLAR (RUBLE LOWER BY 11 BASIS PTS)

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD; -.042

CLOSING NUMBERS: 4 PM

Euro vs USA: 1.1143 DOWN .0001 OR 1 BASIS POINTS

British Pound: 1.3388 UP .0002 or 2 basis pts

USA dollar vs Japanese Yen: 115.21 DOWN .142

USA dollar vs Canadian dollar: 1.2780 UP .0037 (cdn dollar DOWN 37 basis pts)

West Texas intermediate oil: 87.02

Brent: 90.23

USA 10 yr bond yield: 1.774 down 3 points

USA 30 yr bond yield: 2.079 down 2 pts

DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE: UP 564.69 PTS OR 1.65%

NASDAQ 100 UP 451.50 OR 3.22%

VOLATILITY INDEX: 27.50 DOWN 2.99 PTS//9.81% DOWN

GLD/NYSE CLOSING PRICE $167.10 down $0.50 OR 0.30%

SLV/NYSE CLOSING PRICE: $20.71// down $.31 OR 1.47%

end)

USA trading day in Graph Form

S&P Suffers Worst Start To A Year Since 1939 As Yield Curve Yells ‘Recession’

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 04:02 PM

Before we start, let’s make this clear right from the start – despite today’s panic-buying, this is the worst start to a year for the S&P 500 since 1939 (and on course for its worst January ever)…

Nasdaq is down 5 straight weeks (16% from its highs) – the longest losing streak since 2012 – while Small Caps are down 22% from their highs (in a bear market)…

Source: Bloomberg

Everything was going so well too… “smooth sailing” they said! “Fed Put” they said! “Transitory inflation” they said…

Today was just a little bit turbo as it seems ugly sentiment data (10 year lows) and plunging growth expectations (Q1 GDP forecasts collapsed), was the ‘bad news’ the dip-buyers needed to reassure themselves that uber-hawkish Powell wouldn’t execte on his plan to crush inflation into a recessionary environment. We have one word for them – stagflation, and it leave Powell in an ugly box.

Atlanta Fed GDP expectations crashed to zero for Q1…

Source: Bloomberg

And as that happened, rate-hike expectations shifted dovishly lower (modestly at the time)…

Source: Bloomberg

Which helped send stocks soaring (particularly hyper-growth, long duration stocks). But that all came to an abrupt end at 1400ET today (for no obvious reason)… which was immediately met with a wall of dip-buyers amid the total lack of liquidity. Then all the majors just went vertical into the last 10 minutes as a significant buy-imbalance appeared (all helped by AAPL’s explosive gains today). Nasdaq was up a shocking 3% today (from down 1% pre-open). The S&P was up 2.5% today (from down 1% pre-open). Russell 2000 closed up almost 2% today from down 2% pre-open…

As one veteran trader noted, “today was a shitshow, no liquidity, gamma-driven gappy jumps everywhere… it was all algos and no average joes.”

Well that idiotic rampage managed to get the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq unchanged on the week (which appears to be all that mattered to the machines)…

Just look at the volatility (but Monday’s puke lows held… and so did Wednesday’s pre-Fed highs).

Growth stocks were flat on the week as Value was bid (mostly benefitting on Thursday)…

Source: Bloomberg

Both Defensive and Cyclical stocks were hammered equally this week (while obviously cyclicals were more volatile)…

Source: Bloomberg

Today’s bounce was not really triggered by a short-squeeze as the size of the swing higher is very modest and unsustained…

Source: Bloomberg

The energy sector is the only one up in January while Tech and Consumer Discretionary are down hard MTD…

Source: Bloomberg

Real yields continue to rise (to their highest since June 2020 – but still negative), and have recoupled with gold…

Source: Bloomberg

…but have completely decoupled from stocks (Nasdaq should be significantly lower relative to Russell 2000)…

Source: Bloomberg

Notably, if real yields keep rising, then valuations are going to come under significant pressure…

Credit markets saw very little of the chaotic chop in stocks this week as they just fell with HYG (HY Corporate Bond ETF) at its lowest since Nov 2020…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were extremely mixed on the week with the short-end exploding higher and long-end actually coming all the way back to unchanged…

Source: Bloomberg

This week saw 2Y yields jump most since Oct 2019 (up for the 6th week in a row to the highest since Feb 2020).

Source: Bloomberg

The yield curve was crushed this week, triggered by The Fed’s hawkish tilt…

Source: Bloomberg

…with 7s10s at almost record flats, 20s30s still inverted, and 2s30s at its flattest since March 2020… all screaming The Fed is about to make a big mistake and hinting strongly at recessionary risks rising fast…

Source: Bloomberg

Short-term markets are now fully pricing in 5 rate-hikes by year-end (and a 25% chance of 50bps hike in March)

Source: Bloomberg

Perhaps even more notably, the forward OIS market is pricing in rate-cuts between 2024 and 2025…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar soared higher for the 5th straight week (best week since June 2021), closing at its highest since July 2020. NOTE, the dollar took out the December USD spike highs and faded…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos had a nasty drop on Monday, along with stocks, and another puke after The Fed, but bitcoin ended the week modestly higher, while Ether was down around 5%…

Source: Bloomberg

Commodities were very mixed this week with most lower by hawkish tilts (Silver slammed 8% on the week) while crude rallied on geopolitical tensions…

Source: Bloomberg

Silver dropped back below $23…

WTI came very close to $89 intraday during the week, its highest since Oct 2014 (up for the 6th straight week in a row)…

NatGas went supersonic this week amid chaotic settlement and a new cold front, breaking above the early Jan highs (and up 19%, its best week since Aug 2020)…

Finally, just in case you think the market can handle all this vol, think again – liquidity in the most-liquid global equity futures contract (ES) is at its lowest since the COVID crash in 2020…

Simply put, a moderate-sized order moves ES 10 ticks so how do you think it’s going to handle all the fintwit/tiktokkers “paper hands” puking out of their Robinhood accounts?

The good news is that US COVID cases are following the same trajectories at UK and South Africa and tumbling…

Source: Bloomberg

Nevertheless, as we noted above, GDP in Q1 could well print contractionary.

end

I) MORNING/AFTERNOON TRADING/

II) USA DATA

Fed’s “Favorite” Inflation Indicator Highest In 38 Years, Personal Spending Drops Most Since Feb

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 08:43 AM

Analysts expected a mixed picture from income and spending data in December (with spending expected to drop and incomes rise – an odd pairing during the Christmas month) and they were right with incomes rising 0.3% MoM (slightly less than expected) but spending tumbling 0.6% MoM (meeting expectations). That is the first drop in spending since Feb 2021…

Source: Bloomberg

On the income side, private workers wage growth continues to slow…

Wages of private workers up 10.0% Y/Y, down from 10.2% in Nov and the lowest since March 2021
Wages of public workers up 4.4% Y/Y, up from 4.2% in Nov (which was lowest since march 2021)

Of course, adjusted for inflation, real personal spending was down 1.0% MoM (after being down 0.2% MoM in November). Real Personal Spending is still up 7.1% YoY however…

Source: Bloomberg

Which – in a fiscally responsible way – is a positive for Americans’ pocketbooks as the savings rate picked up…

With all eyes on The Fed’s next steps, today’s Q4 Employment Cost Index (wages and benefits measures) data are of particular interest which saw ECI QoQ slow modestly from +1.3% to +1.0% (still the second highest since 2006). On a YoY basis, employment costs rose 4.0% – the highest since 2001…

Source: Bloomberg

While the base case forecast from Powell is for inflation to recede in the second half of the year as more supply chain pressures ease, the Fed chair was cognizant of the more structural upside risks to inflation that would stem from persistent wage growth. So, today’s ECI will be critical for assessing whether the more aggressive policy tightening is warranted.

SGH Macro’s Tim Duy recently noted that “it will be challenging to manage wage inflation greater than 5% with 2% inflation (unless there has been a big boost in trend productivity growth), and there will be pressure this year from labor looking to be compensated for high inflation.“
Duy warns, “My central concern is that the Fed expects wage growth to slow largely endogenously whereas historically it hasn’t outside of a recession.”

Today’s modest slowdown in the pace of ECi is a positive (at the margin).

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, The Fed’s favorite inflation indicator – Core PCE Deflator – surged more than expected to +4.9% YoY, its highest since April 1983…

Source: Bloomberg

Not much here for the doves to cling to… which probably explains why the markt is now pricing in 5 full rate-hikes by year-end…

end

UMich Sentiment Drops Further In Jan, Weakest In A Decade

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 10:11 AM

After preliminary January data showed a further weakening in University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment survey, the final print weakened even further with the headline dropping from 70.6 in December to 68.8 flash to 67.2 final. Both current conditions and future expectations also deteriorated during the month

Source: Bloomberg

This is the lowest headline and current conditions print since 2011.

Democrats’ confidence dropped to its lowest since the election and Independents confidence are at their weakest since 2012 (as Repuboican sentiment ticked up modestlY)

Source: Bloomberg

However all parties expectations worsened…

Source: Bloomberg

…as overall confidence in government economic policies is at its lowest level since 2014, and the major geopolitical risks may add to the pandemic active confrontations with other countries.

Source: Bloomberg

Buying attitudes worsened to new record lows for large household durables and vehicles and housing buying attitudes limped back lower after a modest rebound….

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, and perhaps most importantly in the current environment, inflation expectations rose to 4.9% (for the next year) and 3.1% for the next 5-10 years – the highest since 2008 and 2011 respectively…

Source: Bloomberg

It looks like two years of “transitory” preaching has un-anchored the religious belief that The Fed has everything under control.

Get back to work Mr.Powell.

END

Late in the day, this shocker: Atlanta Fed on verge of contraction

(zerohedge)

Atlanta Fed Shocker: US Economy On Verge Of Contraction

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 12:13 PM

Nothing says “BTFD in stocks” like collapsing sentiment (UMich 10 year lows this morning) and crashing growth expectations and no lesser entity than The Atlanta Fed just released its latest GDPNOW forecast for Q1 economic growth in the US… and it’s a doozy.

US macro data has been disappointing recently…

All of which have sent the initial GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2022 to just 0.1 percent on January 28, i.e. on the verge of contraction.

This is dramatically below consensus (for now), but as we recently noted, BofA is already hinting at a recession being imminent.

And that has sent rate-hike expectations lower (though only modestly for now)…

Is bad news, good news for stocks? Hard to say when inflation’s over 7% and consumer expectations for inflation are at multi-decade highs. This is the absolute definition of The Fed’s nemesis – Stagflation.

How quickly will the suddenly hawkish Fed Speakers of the last few weeks get religion and turn back to the dark-side of lower-for-longer… Get back to work Mr.Powell!

end

IIb) USA COVID/VACCINE MANDATE STORIES

Finally this state gets it right: proposed law would make it illegal to rquest a person’s vaccine status

(Philips/EpochTimes)

Proposed State Law Would Make It Illegal To Request A Person’s Vaccine Status

THURSDAY, JAN 27, 2022 – 07:00 PM

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A newly proposed South Carolina law would make it illegal for certain institutions to ask a person for their COVID-19 vaccination status.

“The government has no place in making you or telling you to take the vaccination or threatening your livelihood if you don’t,” said state Rep. William Chumley, a co-sponsor of the bill, known as H.4848.A Department of Health and Human Services employee holds a COVID-19 vaccine record card in Washington on Nov. 13, 2020. (EJ Hersom/DoD)

A representative of a public, private, or nonprofit entity who asks about a person’s COVID-19 vaccination status should be fined more than $14,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both, according to the text of the bill.

“South Carolina didn’t want to get in this fight,” Chumley told local media outlets. “It was brought to us by the federal government.”

The bill is currently being discussed in a state House committee.

Lawmakers who sponsored the bill said they support the measure because it can serve as a bulwark against government coercion.

“It’s about protecting people from being forced or coerced into getting a vaccine for purposes of employment, admission to schools, or government services,” state Rep. Wayne Long, a Republican, told Channel 2 News.

“I get calls from people literally every week begging the legislature to take some kind of action to protect people’s rights, to protect their privacy, and to keep them from being forced or coerced into getting a vaccine that they frankly don’t want to get,” Long added. “And even for people who have gotten the vaccine, I’ve spoken with many of them, it’s really a privacy issue.”

South Carolina labor law attorney Jeremy Summerlin told local media that he believes the bill would be very difficult to implement.

“You put employers in an impossible position,” Summerlin remarked. “You’ve got a (proposed) state law now that says that if you ask about that, and try to comply with federal law, then you are going to jail,” he added.

“What if you ask your coworker about their vaccination status, and you are just having a conversation?” he said. “What if you are a nurse, and you ask a fellow nurse about it? Do you want the local law enforcement to go in and arrest them because of this law?”

The proposed law comes two weeks after the Supreme Court, in a 6–3 majority opinion, blocked an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) emergency temporary standard that required employees at companies with 100 or more workers to either get the vaccine or submit to weekly testing. And on Tuesday, OSHA published an announcement saying it would formally withdraw the rule Wednesday.

END

Dr Mengele Fauci decrees that kids under 4 will get 3 coivd vaccines.

(Watson/SummitNews)

Watch: Fauci Decrees Kids Under Four Will Get Three COVID Vaccines

THURSDAY, JAN 27, 2022 – 07:40 PM

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Appearing during a White House press briefing Wednesday, Anthony Fauci decreed that children under the age of four will eventually be subjected to a “three-dose regimen” of COVID vaccines.

“Dose and regimen for children 6 months to 24 months worked well, but it turned out the other group from 24 months to 4 years did not yet reach the level of non-inferiority, so the studies are continued,” Fauci noted.

He added, “It looks like it will be a three-dose regimen. I don’t think we can predict when we will see an EUA [Emergency Use Authorization] with that.”

He told reporters that he couldn’t give an exact timetable on when this would happen, but was adamant it would.

“We need to be patient,” he said, adding “That’s why the system works. The FDA is very scrupulous in their ability and in their effort to make sure that, before something gets approved for any age, and especially with children … that they will be safe, and that they will be effective.”

Watch:

Last week, Fauci suggested that he wants to see the FDA authorise the vaccines for toddlers within a month.

“My hope is that it’s going to be within the next month or so and not much later than that, but I can’t guarantee that,” Fauci said during an interview.
“I can’t out guess the FDA. I’m going to have to leave that to them,” he added.

However, after the interview, Fauci sent CNBC a statement “clarifying that he’s not involved in the decision making process at the FDA and didn’t know when the agency will clear the shots.”

“I did not at all mean to imply that the authorization would come within a month,” Fauci said, adding “I meant that we do not know … I am not involved in that decision.”

CDC Data has shown that children make up less than 0.1 percent of Covid deaths since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020.

Source

To date, 259 of around 860,000 recorded U.S. Covid deaths have been among children under the age of five.

A study out of the University of Utah last October (before Omicron) found that exactly 50 percent of children who contract the virus have asymptomatic cases.

The World Health Organization’s Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan previously said that the body does not see it as necessary for healthy children to take Covid booster vaccines.

“The aim is to protect the most vulnerable, to protect those at highest risk of severe disease and dying, those are our elderly population, immunocompromised with underlying conditions and also health care workers,” Swaminathan said last week.

end

You knew that this was coming!
(zerohedge)

Virginia AG Says State Universities Can’t Mandate Vaccine For Students

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 10:20 AM

Virginia’s new Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) has come out of the gate swinging since being sworn in just weeks ago.

First, he cleaned house – firing dozens of lawyers, including those in the Civil Rights division, while at the same time announcing investigations into Loudon County Public Schools and the Virginia Parole Board.

Then, he fired Democrat attorneys from the University of Virginia and George Mason University, saying he “wants the university counsel to return to giving legal advice based on law, and not the philosophy of a university,” adding: “We plan to look internally first for the next lead counsel.”

Now, Miyares has issued a legal opinion that public universities in Virginia cannot mandate the Covid-19 vaccine for students.

“There is no question that the General Assembly could enact a statute requiring the COVID-19 vaccine for in-person school attendance,” he wrote in Friday press release, adding “As of this writing, they have not done so.”

“Although the General Assembly specifically authorized public institutions of higher education to assist the Department of Health and local health departments in the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine, the legislation did not grant such institutions power to impose vaccine requirements.“

Virginia follows Tennessee, Alabma, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Montana, Arizona, Utah and Florida, all of which have banned universities from requiring vaccinations.

iiiA) important USA economic stories for you tonight

Baltimore in chaos!

Murder Chaos Overruns Baltimore As Liberals Fail To Maintain Law And Order

THURSDAY, JAN 27, 2022 – 10:40 PM

We want to ask our readers: Why is it that the most liberal metro areas have some of the worst violent crime in the country if liberals are so peaceful and loving?

We gravitate to Baltimore City, where the city’s top prosecutor halted prosecuting minor crimes in early 2021. Before the new policing approach, the metro area had already been overtaken by a violent crime wave since the 2015 riots. And it’s only getting worse.

According to local news WMAR-TV, 25 days into the new year, there have already been 31 homicides.

“We’re not even a full month into the new year and already Baltimore City has seen more homicides this year than there have been days,” the local news station said.

At the moment, the city is averaging a homicide per day. Violent crime is worsening and spreading into the downtown district filled with major financial institutions, bar and restaurant district(s), and tourist areas.

The 2022 homicide trend is well above all years dating back to 2017.

Newly elected Mayor Brandon Scott and Police Commissioner Michael Harrison have said the police department is “doing their job by aggressively and relentlessly pursuing these violent offenders. The department works around the clock to solve these crimes, make arrests and improve the quality of life in our city.”

“Those who commit these violent acts will be held accountable and we will use all resources at our disposal to ensure the safety of Baltimore residents. The violence must stop, and we need everyone’s support to achieve sustainable reductions of violence in our city,” said Harrison.

What’s shocking is that “no arrests have been announced for any of these 31 homicides,” the news station reported.

Mosby’s focus to no longer prosecute drug paraphernalia possession, minor traffic offenses, open container violations, and defecating in public, among other petty crimes, has failed to lower the violent crime rate as promised.

On top of all this, the police department is struggling with staffing shortages that have strained patrols and made homicide investigations harder.

As violent crime surges, liberal cities need to rethink policing to restore law and order.

END

Pittsburgh Bridge Collapses Hours Before Biden Visit

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 09:07 AM

10 people were injured when a snow covered bridge in Pittsburgh collapsed Friday morning, just hours before President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit for a previously arranged trip to discuss infrastructure.

According to Pittsburgh Fire Chief Darryl Jones, three people were taken to local hospitals though none had life-threatening injuries.Photo Credit: Jeremy Habowski

“It sounded like a huge snow plow … pushing along the surface with no snow,” said neighbor Wendy Stroh. “I didn’t know what it was … It was very frightening.”

Several cars and a Port Authority bus – which contained the three individuals who have been hospitalized – were involved in the collapse.

And of course, Mayor Ed Gainey used the collapse to highlight the city’s infrastructure funding needs!

Just hours before President Joe Biden’s scheduled speech in Pittsburgh about the historic $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said the bridge over Hot Dog Dam Dog Park was inspected just last September.
“This bipartisan infrastructure law is critical,” Gainey said. “At the end of the day it’s critical that we get this funding.” –CBS2 Pittsburgh

Two huge shortages that threaten our global economy in 2022: fertilizer and chips

(Michael Snyder)

Two Shortages That Threaten To Absolutely Eviscerate The Global Economy In 2022

FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 – 06:30 AM

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

This was supposed to be the year that things “got back to normal”, but here we are at the end of January and things have only gotten worse.

As we move forward into February and beyond, there are two key global shortages that we are going to want to keep a very close eye on.

One of them is the rapidly growing fertilizer shortage. A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal ominously warned that “high fertilizer prices are weighing on farmers across the developing world”…

From South America’s avocado, corn and coffee farms to Southeast Asia’s plantations of coconuts and oil palms, high fertilizer prices are weighing on farmers across the developing world, making it much costlier to cultivate and forcing many to cut back on production.
That means grocery bills could go up even more in 2022, following a year in which global food prices rose to decade highs. An uptick would exacerbate hunger—already acute in some parts of the world because of pandemic-linked job losses—and thwart efforts by politicians and central bankers to subdue inflation.

According to the International Fertilizer Development Center, exceedingly high fertilizer prices could result in a reduction of agricultural output in Africa alone “equivalent to the food needs of 100 million people”.

So this is a really, really big deal.

And this crisis is going to deeply affect us here in the United States too. The following comes from a recent piece authored by U.S. Senator Roger Marshall…

It’s no secret farmers are faced with a fertilizer crisis. Prices for phosphorus-based and potassium-based (potash) fertilizers have more than doubled in Kansas while Nitrogen-based fertilizers have more than quadrupled. Fertilizer is vital to feeding not only the country, but the world. It contains essential nutrients for plant life, and without it, American agricultural yields will quickly suffer as well as food prices in local grocery stores.

As I discussed the other day, these crazy prices for fertilizer are going to make it impossible for many U.S. farmers to profitably plant crops this year.

That means that a lot less food is going to be grown.

On the other side of the world, the North Korean government is asking their citizens to start creating “homemade” fertilizer from their own waste…

State-run media has also been encouraging people to make “homemade” manure, The Daily Beast reported. A source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK that residents had started “producing fertilizer from human waste” after authorities launched a 10-day drive to increase production.

Perhaps U.S. citizens should give this a try, because a lot of us are certainly full of crap.

The other major shortage that I want to highlight in this article is the ongoing computer chip shortage.

According to a report that was just put out by the Department of Commerce, chip inventories around the nation have become dangerously thin…

Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce released the results from the Risks in the Semiconductor Supply Chain Request for Information (RFI) issued in Sept. 2021. Key findings from the report provided data-driven information about the depths of the semiconductor shortage and underscored the need for the President’s proposed $52 billion in domestic semiconductor production.
The RFI showed that median inventory held by chips consumers (including automakers or medical device manufacturers, as examples) has fallen from 40 days in 2019 to less than 5 days in 2021. If a COVID outbreak, a natural disaster, or political instability disrupts a foreign semiconductor facility for even just a few weeks, it has the potential to shut down a manufacturing facility in the U.S., putting American workers and their families at risk.

At this point, computer chips used to produce automobiles and medical devices are particularly in short supply.

In a blog post, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimando explained that a lack of chips resulted in “$210 billion in lost revenue” for automakers in 2021…

“In 2021, auto prices drove one-third of all inflation, primarily because we don’t have enough chips,” Raimando wrote in her blogpost. “Automakers produced nearly 8 million fewer cars last year than expected, which some analysts believe resulted in more than $210 billion in lost revenue.”

If there is additional disruption to chip production this year, 2022 could easily be even worse.

Many may wonder why we just don’t plop down a bunch of factories and start pumping out more chips.

Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy. Chip factories take a very long time to build, and we are being warned that it could take “until 2023” before things return to normal…

But industry executives aren’t optimistic that the funding would help alleviate the crisis, the Washington Post reported. They argued federal funding could help build up the long-term supply of chips but wouldn’t help in the short term because chip factories take years to build.
Chip consumers that were surveyed by the department similarly estimated that shortages wouldn’t go away in the next six months, and some suggested it could take until 2023.

We should have never become so dependent on chip production in Asia.

Today, Taiwan accounts for a whopping 63 percent of all computer chip production in the world…

The majority of chip factories are currently based in Asia, which houses about 87% of the market share of semiconductor factories (with Taiwan alone accounting for some 63%), separate industry data indicates. The political climate in the region, and tensions between Taiwan and China, has come under renewed scrutiny as the shortage has exposed how much U.S. industry relies on these sources.

So what is going to happen to our economy if China invades Taiwan and our main supply of computer chips gets completely cut off?

I have been warning for years that military conflict with China is coming, and now we are closer than ever.

What is our economy going to look like if a Chinese invasion of Taiwan this year instantly puts us into a state of war with the Chinese?

How in the world will we even be able to function as a society?

You might want to start thinking about such questions, because what was once “unimaginable” threatens to become reality in 2022.

* * *

iii)B USA inflation commentaries//LOG JAMS//

Kraft Heinz again raises prices on dozens of products as inflation continues to rise

(zerohedge)

Kraft-Heinz Again Raises Prices On Dozens Of Products As Inflation Continues To Bite

THURSDAY, JAN 27, 2022 – 10:00 PM

As some on Wall Street warn that the Fed remains dangerously behind the inflation curve (a fear that was given voice yesterday when Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s comments on inflation during the post-FOMC press conference appeared to send stocks spiraling lower), one of America’s biggest makers of food and consumer goods has warned that more price hikes are coming.

To wit, Kraft-Heinz (in which Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owns a big stake) said in a letter to customers that it will raise prices in March on dozens of its most popular products. The hikes will affect brands including Oscar Mayer cold cuts, hot dogs, sausages, bacon, Velveeta cheese, Maxwell House coffee, TGIF frozen chicken wings, Kool-Aid and Capri Sun, CNN reported.

Increases range from 6.6% on 12oz packs of Velveeta to a whopping 30% hike on a package of Oscar-Mayer turkey bacon.

Most cold cuts and beef hot dogs will go up around 10% and coffee around 5%. Some Kool-Aid and Capri Sun drink packs will increase by about 20%.

“As we enter 2022, inflation continues to dramatically impact the economy,” Kraft Heinz said in a letter dated January 24 to at least one of its wholesale customers that was viewed by CNN Business. The wholesaler shared the letter on the condition of anonymity to protect the company’s relationship with its suppliers.

Kraft Heinz is just the latest consumer manufacturer to announce plans to boost prices early in the year. Last week, P&G said that it would raise prices on Tide and Gain laundry detergents, Downy fabric softener and Bounce dryer sheets by an average of about 8% in February. Conagra, which makes such brands as Slim Jim, Marie Callender’s and Birds Eye, has said it plans to raise prices later this year.

The question now is how much of these price hikes will retailers pass on to customers? Given the thin margins that grocery stores operate on, it’s likely that most, if not all, of the hike will be incorporated into prices on the shelf.

For Kraft-Heinz, this isn’t the first time prices have been raised since the start of the latest ~~“transitory”~~ inflation wave. The brand just announced a 9% price hike on its beef, lean beef, hot dogs and some other products back in November.

Headline consumer prices surged 7% in December according to the most recent CPI data release, which was the strongest level in nearly 40 years. Food prices alone rose 0.5% MoM.

Beyond the US, global food prices have soared to levels unseen in a decade led by surging demand for wheat and dairy products following a year of severe drought and other environmental factors limiting production.

The question now is how many more times will K-H and its competitors hike prices before inflationary pressures finally ease?

END

iv)swamp stories

END

KING REPORT/SWAMP STORIES

end

Well that is all for today, I will see you MONDAY night


The King Report January 28, 2022 Issue 6687	Independent View of the News
Chinese Fund Managers Heed State Call to Invest After Stocks Stumble *CSI 300 hits its lowest point since September 2020* On Thursday, at least seven of China’s 10 biggest fund-management companies, including E Fund Management Co. and GF Fund Management Co., said they had put some of their own capital into in-house domestic stock funds… The onshore Chinese market will be closed all of next week for the Lunar New Year holiday. https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-fund-managers-heed-state-call-to-invest-after-stocks-stumble-11643280263 Who else is rigging and manipulating stocks? What private entities, due to astronomical leverage, are in trouble? The type of volatility that has been occurring is an indication that there is trouble in the system. After opening higher on Wednesday night, ESHs declined sharply during Asian trading. After China closed at 2 ET, ESHs staged the usual rally for the 3 ET European open. After a robust two-hour rally ESHs and stocks went inert for three hours. At 8:50 ET, the rally for the NYSE opening commenced. ESHs then soared, hitting 4422.00 at 10:13 ET. ESHs had soared 159 handles from their low!!! By 10:41 ET, ESHs had declined 54 handles. US Q4 GDP jumped to 6.9%; 5.5% was expected. HOWEVER, inventory growth added 4.90 percentage points to GDP. This will be an enormous drag on the US economy in coming quarters! PS – Inflation induces pre-emptive buying and stocking. Corporate executives since the early ‘80s have been taught that ‘just in time inventory’ was optimal. But that is less than optimal when inflation appears. Consumption is 3.3%; 3.4% was expected. The GDP Index is 6.9%; 6% was expected. Bonds and the dollar soared while gold tumbled over 2% due to the troubling inventory building up, other soft economic data, and Powell’s pledge to halt inflation. Pending Home Sales Slide 3.8% in December (-0.4% was consensus). Month-over-month, the Northeast PHSI fell 1.2% to 98.2 in December, a 10.5% decline from a year ago. In the Midwest, the index dropped 3.7% to 112.8 last month, down 1.2% from December 2020. Pending home sales transactions in the South slid 1.8% to an index of 145.2 in December, down 3.9% from December 2020. The index in the West decreased 10.0% in December to 95.0, down 16.2% from a year prior… https://t.co/go6xjAve9b Durable Goods Orders declined 0.9% m/m for December; -0.6% was expected. Ex-Trans Orders increased 0.4%; 0.3% was consensus. Nondefense Ex-Air Orders were unchanged; +0.4% was exp. Prepare for an Unsettling Monetary Tightening Cycle *Unlike in previous cycles, inflation is too high and the Fed isn’t holding the market’s hand* If you were born after 1980, the monetary tightening that the Fed says will begin in March will be unlike any you’ve seen. This is for two reasons, both unsettling for markets. First, when the Fed began raising interest rates in 1994, 1999, 2004, and 2015, inflation was near or below its desired level (now formally enshrined as 2%). The tightening was thus pre-emptive… Today, inflation is too high. The second way this cycle will be different… The Fed won’t hold the market’s hand by committing to a particular path of rate increases…It’s been a long time since markets had to grapple with a Fed behind the curve and unwilling to commit to an interest-rate path… https://t.co/28uizrleZ4 Unhappy meal: McDonald’s says inflation means more expensive burgers https://t.co/iAh43rM1Q7 @Peoples_Pundit: “Cost of Living / Inflation” has officially overtaken “Economy and Jobs” as the Most Important Voting Issue for 2022. Coronavirus has fallen to a distant and tenuous third place, statistically tied with “Immigration”, which is now on the rise. @TheLeadCNN: *A senior Ukrainian official says the Biden-Zelensky call ‘did not go well’ and Biden told Zelensky a Russian invasion is virtually certain warning the country should prepare for impact* https://twitter.com/TheLeadCNN/status/1486848578370912260 @JackPosobiec: *Ukrainian president had to correct Biden multiple times on their call today* when he insisted Kyiv was about to be ‘sacked’ by Russian forces. At one point he even asked Biden to calm down. *Apparently, Biden was unaware of the talks going on this week in Paris between Germany, France, Russia, and Ukraine.* https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1486833159996071936/photo/1 @JackPosobiec: Hi @NatashaBertrand (CNN)! Why did you delete this? https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1486852207949586433 Did the White House demand CNN delete this report? We may have just caught a CNN reporter deleting a war report that exposed the truth about the White House and Ukraine. And it now looks like the White House pressured them to pull it. The American people deserve the truth. Pretty clear the IC is playing wag the Biden on this Ukraine call leak. (Biden pushing war; Zelensky advocating calm.) @JudiciaryGOP: *RELEASE THE BIDEN/ZELENSKY CALL TRANSCRIPT.* @JackPosobiec: BREAKING: We now have reports a CCP scientist has defected to the West through Hong Kong carrying technical details of the hypersonic glide vehicle that allows Chinese missiles to circumnavigate the globe and strike undetected Russia says U.S., NATO responses fail to satisfy ‘main issue’ on Ukraine “The main issue is our clear position on the inadmissibility of further expansion of NATO to the East and the deployment of strike weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation,”… https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/01/27/Russia-says-US-NATO-responses-fail-satisfy-main-issue-Ukraine/4721643321579/ Sweden decides against recommending COVID vaccines for kids aged 5-12 *The benefits did not outweigh the risks…* https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sweden-decides-against-recommending-covid-vaccines-kids-aged-5-12-2022-01-27/ Fauci says children younger than 4 will get three doses of COVID vaccines https://trib.al/OFpxUjZ (With a 99.9987% survival rate & unknown side effects? Despicable!!!) New Harvard, Yale & Stanford Data Show 4 Out of 5 Americans Had Covid ‘Prior Infections’ & Survived with ‘Natural Immunity’ https://beckernews.com/444-harvard-yale-stanford-data-natural-immunity-43898/ New poll shows Americans’ trust in science is now deeply polarized https://t.co/F2yaYKPvAa FDA Stonewalls after Judge Refused to Give It 75 Years to Produce Vaccine Data, Pfizer Has Now Intervened https://beckernews.com/fda-stonewalls-after-judge-refused-to-give-it-75-years-to-produce-vaccine-data-pfizer-has-now-intervened-43887/ @SteveDeaceShow: Ask yourself why they don’t want to immediately disclose this information, and then realize all the potential answers to that question are bad. White House Wants Crypto Rules as a Matter of National Security The Biden administration is preparing to release an executive action that will task federal agencies with regulating digital assets such as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a matter of national security… https://www.barrons.com/articles/white-house-executive-action-regulate-cryptos-national-security-51643312454 Early data show January losses for stock picking hedge funds http://reut.rs/3H7w3HR Fed balance sheet: -$7.349B; MBS -$25.44B; Treasuries +$22.86B https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/20220127/ Apple reported splendid Q1 result after the close: EPS 2.10, 1.90 consensus; Revenue of $123.95B, $119.05B expected. Apple CEO Tim Cook refused to project results beyond the current quarter due to supply chain issue. Apple rallied as much as 5% in after-hour trading. Top Pa. Dems to miss Biden visit, cite scheduling conflicts (The Big Guy is toxic!) The high-profile absences come as Democrats in other states have begun taking modest steps to distance themselves from the first-term president, whose approval ratings have fallen sharply in recent months… https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-pittsburgh-pennsylvania-campaigns-biden-cabinet-186e7a811c3c713c85d12d792b7e2ac9 @ForAmerica: Joe Biden did that thing again where he couldn’t remember the joke he was telling so he just quit. https://twitter.com/ForAmerica/status/1486756344287879176 @townhallcom: BIDEN: It would be “inappropriate” to take questions with the justice here… https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1486759381299511296 “I’ve made no decision except one: The person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications…That person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court,” Pres. Biden announces. https://abcn.ws/3KOFzBB Rep. Jim Clyburn FORCED Biden to publicly vow to appoint black woman to SCOTUS – *in return for his endorsement during 2020 South Carolina primary… https://trib.al/2K2udL4 If The Big Guy wants a more minorities on the SCOTUS, why did he vote against Clarence Thomas? Dem Sen. Mazie Hirono: I want a justice who won’t base her decisions solely on law* https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2022/01/27/mazie-hirono-i-want-a-justice-who-wont-base-her-decisions-solely-on-law-n444546 McConnell Could Block Biden from Replacing Justice Breyer on Supreme Court “Well, in a little-noticed backroom deal that took more than a month to hammer out, McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to a power-sharing plan in February that splits committee membership, staffs and budgets in half.” “If all 11 Republican members of the Judiciary Committee oppose Biden’s pick and all 11 Democrats back her, the nomination goes inert. The nomination doesn’t die, but it does get parked until a lawmaker—historically, the Leader of the party—brings it to the floor for four hours of debate,” the report added. “A majority of the Senate—51 votes, typically—can then put debate about the issue on the calendar for the next day. But that’s the last easy part. When the potential pick comes to the floor again, it’s not as a nomination. At that point, it’s a motion to discharge, a cloture motion that requires 60 votes. In other words, 10 Republicans would have to resurrect the nomination of someone already blocked in the Judiciary Committee.”… https://thegreggjarrett.com/report-mcconnell-could-block-biden-from-replacing-justice-breyer-on-supreme-court/ @ProfMJCleveland: I’m still jaw-dropped over what the Special Counsel’s filing suggested re OIG not sharing info (hiding? covering up?) as well as Joffe re “seeing” (watching? tracking?) gov’t computer. HOW is there not broader media coverage? 6 New Revelations from The John Durham Spygate Probe *When the OIG office provided Durham’s team the “forensic report,” it represented “that it had ‘no other file[] or other documentation’ relating to this cyber matter.”* However, one week ago, Sussmann’s attorneys informed Durham’s team that Sussmann had, in fact, personally met with the DOJ’s inspector general in March 2017, when he passed on the tip about the OIG employee’s connection to a foreign VPN. While Sussmann had not told the OIG his client’s name at the time, last week his lawyers informed Durham’s team that it was Tech Executive-1, i.e., Joffe, who had discovered the OIG employee’s computer connecting to a VPN in a foreign country… First, why did the OIG not inform the special counsel’s office that Sussmann had met with both the inspector general and his then-general counsel? And why did the OIG falsely represent that there was no “further documentation”? Sure, it could have been accidental, but given that Durham’s attorneys publicly exposed this “mistake,” it suggests something more is afoot… https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/26/6-new-revelations-from-the-john-durham-spygate-probe/ @HouseGOP: Fox News reports that the Biden administration has been releasing illegal immigrants with criminal convictions including “assault, DUI, drug possession, and illegal reentry” into our communities for the past year. https://t.co/QBl5w1GQPa Amid violent crime wave, permissive, Soros-funded prosecutors under fire nationwide *Progressive district attorneys facing backlash while accused of misconduct, being soft on crime* https://email.justthenews.com/t/y-l-bgdiky-idyulhjjut-y/ 3 Houston police officers shot, officials say *The suspects fled shooting scene in a white Mercedes and have not yet been arrested* https://www.foxnews.com/us/3-houston-police-officers-shot-officials-say @BuzzPatterson: More Americans are dying from fentanyl than are dying from COVID. Pop quiz: Guess where the fentanyl is coming from? And via which border? NY’s 42nd Infantry Division liberated Dachau 75 years ago “Up until April 29, 1945, the majority of us in my unit were not aware of the Nazi efforts to exterminate the Jews – certainly not its scope, nor its effect on the world; and certainly none of us were aware of the Dachau Concentration Camp,” said Lt. Jack Westbrook, a member of the 222nd Infantry Regiment in the 2015 Sam Dann collection of memories in “Dachau 29 April 1945: The Rainbow Liberation Memoirs.”… *“Nothing you can put in words would adequately describe what I saw there,”* Bohnen said in a letter to home on May 1, 1945. “The human mind refuses to believe what the eyes see. All the stories of Nazi horrors are underestimated rather than exaggerated.”… https://t.co/4vAIP0HjbW

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JAN 28

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NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR JAN. CONTRACT: 13 NOTICE(S) FOR 1300 OZ (0.0404 TONNES)

total notices so far: 5720 contracts for 572,000 oz (17.7916 tonnes)

10 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR 50,000 OZ/

1/COMEX GOLD AND SILVER REPORT

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

b) REPORT ON JAPAN

3 C CHINA

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

6.Global Issues

7. OIL ISSUES

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES

Peter Schiff: “We’re Screwed & The Fed Knows It”

Pam and Russ Martens: Wall Street megabanks have shifted their derivative exposure to corporations

China’s 2021 gold consumption jumps by a third in year as economy grows

Alasdair Macleod: Why central bank digital currencies may never happen

Your early currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings FRIDAY morning 7:30 AM

Neurotic Futures Tumble Despite Record Apple Quarter

3 a./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA

3c CHINA

CCP Expands Beijing Lockdown As More Cases Detected Among Olympics Personnel

China Warns US Over Ukraine & Blasts “Interference” In Beijing Olympics

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

cryptogon.com » Austria to Lift Lockdown for Unvaccinated Residents

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

CNN In Meltdown Mode Over Biden-Ukraine Phone Call Fiasco

NATO Response To Russia’s Proposals ‘Embarrassing’: Lavrov

6// GLOBAL COVID ISSUES/VACCINE MANDATE ISSUES/

Chinese Scientists From Wuhan Discover “Potentially Deadly” New Strain Of Coronavirus

Worldwide Exclusive: Embalmers Find Veins & Arteries Filled with Never Before Seen Rubbery Clots

Nobody Talking About Dead Pilots: Military Command, Media, Airline Execs Ignoring Air Terror

Trudeau Slams “Unacceptable Views” Of Anti-Vaxx Truckers, GoFundMe Blocks Access To ‘Freedom Convoy’ Donations

Truckers Across Planet Unite In Convoys Against Medical Tyranny

COVID-19 Can Be Stopped Without Massive Vaccination: Dr. Peter McCullough

Sweden Won’t Recommend Vaccinating Children Under 12 Due To Lack Of ‘Clear Benefit’

Vaccine Impact

Michael Every

Rabobank: “Prepare For Impact”

“Prepare For Impact”

7. OIL ISSUES

NatGas Soars As 45 Million Americans Face Winter Storm Threat

8 EMERGING MARKET& AUSTRALIA ISSUES

Your early currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings FRIDAY morning 7:30 AM

S&P Suffers Worst Start To A Year Since 1939 As Yield Curve Yells ‘Recession’

Fed’s “Favorite” Inflation Indicator Highest In 38 Years, Personal Spending Drops Most Since Feb

UMich Sentiment Drops Further In Jan, Weakest In A Decade

Atlanta Fed Shocker: US Economy On Verge Of Contraction

Proposed State Law Would Make It Illegal To Request A Person’s Vaccine Status

Watch: Fauci Decrees Kids Under Four Will Get Three COVID Vaccines

Virginia AG Says State Universities Can’t Mandate Vaccine For Students

Murder Chaos Overruns Baltimore As Liberals Fail To Maintain Law And Order

Pittsburgh Bridge Collapses Hours Before Biden Visit

Two Shortages That Threaten To Absolutely Eviscerate The Global Economy In 2022

Kraft-Heinz Again Raises Prices On Dozens Of Products As Inflation Continues To Bite

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