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EXCHANGE: COMEX EXCHANGE:EXCHANGE:

COMEX

no. of contracts issued by JPMorgan: 180/204

EXCHANGE: COMEX
CONTRACT: JUNE 2022 COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES
SETTLEMENT: 1,809.500000000 USD
INTENT DATE: 06/14/2022 DELIVERY DATE: 06/16/2022
FIRM ORG FIRM NAME ISSUED STOPPED

118 C MACQUARIE FUT 200 1
323 C HSBC 4
363 H WELLS FARGO SEC 3
435 H SCOTIA CAPITAL 1
624 H BOFA SECURITIES 5
657 C MORGAN STANLEY 4
661 C JP MORGAN 180
700 C UBS 3
709 H BARCLAYS 1
732 C RBC CAP MARKETS 2
800 C MAREX SPEC 3
905 C ADM 1

TOTAL: 204 204
MONTH TO DATE: 22,811

_____________________________________________________________________________________

NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR JUNE CONTRACT 204 NOTICE(S) FOR 20,400 Oz//0.6345 TONNES)

total notices so far: 22,811 contracts for 2,281,100 oz (70.951 tonnes)

SILVER NOTICES:

19 NOTICE(S) FILED 95,000 OZ/

total number of notices filed so far this month 1691 : for 8,455,000 oz

END

Russia is a major supplier of silver to London while Mexico supplies the COMEX

With the sanctions, London has no way to obtain silver other than compete with NY.

GLD

WITH GOLD UP $6.50

WITH RESPECT TO GLD WITHDRAWALS: (OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS):

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//

BIG CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.65 TONNES FROM THE GLD//

INVENTORY RESTS AT 1063.74 TONNES

Silver//SLV

WITH NO SILVER AROUND AND SILVER UP 44 CENTS

AT THE SLV// HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV://NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//

INVESTORS ARE SWITCHING SLV TO SPROTT’S PSLV

CLOSING INVENTORY: 544.399 MILLION OZ

Let us have a look at the data for today

SILVER//OUTLINE

SILVER COMEX OI FELL BY A HUGE SIZED 3305 CONTRACTS TO 151,979 AND FURTHER FROM THE NEW RECORD OF 244,710, SET FEB 25/2020 AND THE HUGE LOSS IN OI WAS ACCOMPLISHED WITH OUR $0.32 LOSS IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX ON TUESDAY. OUR BANKERS WERE SUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN (IT FELL BY $0.32) AND WERE SUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING OFF SOME SILVER LONGS.

WE MUST HAVE HAD:
I) HUGE SPECULATOR 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 STRONG INITIAL SILVER STANDING FOR COMEX SILVER MEASURING AT 7.635 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S QUEUE JUMP OF 20 CONTRACTS OR 100,000 OZ//NEW STANDING: 8,770,000 / // V) GIGANTIC SIZED COMEX OI LOSS/(SPECULATOR COVERING)

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

THE DIFFERENTIAL FROM PRELIMINARY OI TO FINAL OI SILVER TODAY: CONTRACTS :-1038

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

TOTAL CONTACTS for 11 days, total 9162, contracts: 45.810 million oz OR 4.16 MILLION OZ PER DAY. (833 CONTRACTS PER DAY)

TOTAL EFP’S FOR THE MONTH SO FAR: 45.810 MILLION OZ

LAST 11 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

JAN 2022// 90.460 MILLION OZ

FEB 2022: 72.39 MILLION OZ//

MARCH: 207.430 MILLION OZ//A NEW RECORD FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND WE ARE STILL GOING STRONG THIS MONTH.

APRIL: 114.52 MILLION OZ FINAL//LOW ISSUANCE

MAY: 105.635 MILLION OZ//

JUNE: 45.810 MILLION OZ

RESULT: WE HAD A HUGE SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 3305 WITH OUR HUGE $0.32 LOSS IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX// TUESDAY.,. THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A STRONG SIZED EFP ISSUANCE CONTRACTS: 1150 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR JULY AND 0 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 HUGE INITIAL SILVER OZ STANDING FOR JUNE. OF 7.635 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 100,000 QUEUE JUMP //NEW STANDING: 8,770,000 OZ // .. WE HAD A STRONG SIZED LOSS OF 1116 OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES FOR 5.580 MILLION OZ WITH THE LOSS IN PRICE.

WE HAD 19 NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR 95,000 OZ

THE SILVER COMEX IS NOW BEING ATTACKED FOR METAL BY LONDONERS ET AL.

GOLD//OUTLINE

IN GOLD, THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST FELL BY A FAIR 2411 CONTRACTS TO 497,456 AND FURTHER 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: -2727 CONTRACTS.

THE SMALL GAIN IN COMEX OI CAME DESPITE OUR HUGE FALL IN PRICE OF $18.80//COMEX GOLD TRADING/TUESDAY / WE MUST HAVE HAD SOME SPECULATOR SHORT COVERING ACCOMPANYING OUR STRONG SIZED EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE. WE HAD ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION //AND SOME SPECULATOR SHORT COVERING

WE ALSO HAD A HUGE INITIAL STANDING IN GOLD TONNAGE FOR JUNE AT 69.26 TONNES ON FIRST DAY NOTICE /FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 20,400 OZ QUEUE JUMP //NEW STANDING: 74.696 TONNES

YET ALL OF..THIS HAPPENED WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $18.80 WITH RESPECT TO TUESDAY’S TRADING

WE HAD A FAIR SIZED GAIN OF 3085 OI CONTRACTS 9.595 PAPER TONNES) ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES..

E.F.P. ISSUANCE

THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALED A STRONG SIZED 5496 CONTRACTS:

The NEW COMEX OI FOR THE GOLD COMPLEX RESTS AT 500,183

IN ESSENCE WE HAVE A FAIR SIZED INCREASE IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 3085, WITH 2411 CONTRACTS DECREASED AT THE COMEX AND 5496 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS TOTAL OI GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 3085 CONTRACTS OR 9.595 TONNES.

CALCULATIONS ON GAIN/LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES

WE HAD A STRONG SIZED ISSUANCE IN EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (5496) ACCOMPANYING THE FAIR SIZED LOSS IN COMEX OI (2411,): TOTAL GAIN IN THE TWO EXCHANGES 3085 CONTRACTS. WE NO DOUBT HAD 1) SOME SPECULATOR SHORT COVERING AND SOME ADDITION TO SPECULATOR SHORTS ,2.) STRONG INITIAL STANDING AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR JUNE. AT 69.26 TONNES FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S QUEUE JUMP OF 20,400 OZ//NEW STANDING: 74.696 TONNES / 3) ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION//SOME SPECULATOR SHORT COVERING//SOME SPECULATOR SHORT ADDITIONS //.,4) SMALL SIZED COMEX OI GAIN 5) STRONG ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL/

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN 2022 INCLUDING TODAY

JUNE

ACCUMULATION OF EFP’S GOLD AT J.P. MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES: (EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL) FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE :

47,535 CONTRACTS OR 4,753,500 OZ OR 147.85 TONNES 11 TRADING DAY(S) AND THUS AVERAGING: 4321 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS : THIS MONTH IN 11 TRADING DAY(S) IN TONNES: 147.85 TONNES

TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2021, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES

THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS 147.85/3550 x 100% TONNES 3.69% OF GLOBAL ANNUAL PRODUCTION

ACCUMULATION OF GOLD EFP’S YEAR 2021 TO 2022

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. 175.62 TONNES//FINAL ISSUANCE//

JAN:2022 247.25 TONNES //FINAL

FEB: 196.04 TONNES//FINAL

MARCH: 409.30 TONNES INITIAL( THIS IS NOW A RECORD EFP ISSUANCE FOR MARCH AND FOR ANY MONTH.

APRIL: 169.55 TONNES (FINAL VERY LOW ISSUANCE MONTH)

MAY: 247,44 TONNES FINAL//

JUNE: 147.85 TONNES

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 JUNE. WE ARE NOW INTO THE SPREADING OPERATION OF SILVER

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 APRIL HEADING TOWARDS THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF MAY, FOR SILVER:

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 (JULY), 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.”

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 HUGE SIZED 3305 CONTRACT OI TO 151,979 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 5 YEARS AGO.

EFP ISSUANCE 1150 CONTRACTS

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

JULY 1150 ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 0 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 3305 CONTRACTS AND ADD TO THE 1150 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S,

WE OBTAIN A STRONG SIZED LOSS OF 2155 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES.

THUS IN OUNCES, THE LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 10.275 MILLION OZ

OCCURRED WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $0.32 .

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

end

5. Other gold commentaries

end

6. Commodity commentaries//

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

i)WEDNESDAY MORNING// TUESDAY NIGHT

SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 16.50 PTS OR 0.50% //Hang Sang CLOSED UP 240.22 PTS OR 1.14% /The Nikkei closed DOWN 303.70 OR 1.14% //Australia’s all ordinaires CLOSED DOWN 1.39% /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed UP 6.7053 /Oil DOWN TO 117.53 dollars per barrel for WTI and UP TO 120.29 for Brent. Stocks in Europe OPENED ALL GREEN // ONSHORE YUAN CLOSED UP AGAINST THE DOLLAR AT 6.7053 OFFSHORE YUAN CLOSED UP ON THE DOLLAR AT 6.7154: /ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING STRONGER AGAINST US DOLLAR/OFFSHORE STRONGER/

a)NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA

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 FAIR SIZED 2411 CONTRACTS TO 497,456 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 INCREASE OCCURRED DESPITE OUR HUGE LOSS OF $18.80 IN GOLD PRICING TUESDAY’S COMEX TRADING. WE ALSO HAD A STRONG SIZED EFP (5496 CONTRACTS). . THEY WERE PAID HANDSOMELY NOT TO TAKE DELIVERY AT THE COMEX AND SETTLE FOR CASH. IT NOW SEEMS THAT THE COMMERCIALS HAVE GOADED THE SPECS TO GO SHORT BIG TIME AND THEY ADDED TO THEIR SHORT POSITIONS

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 ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF JUNE.. 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 5496 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED: ;: , . 0 AUG :5496 & ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:

TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 5496 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 GAINED THE FOLLOWING TODAY ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES: A FAIR SIZED TOTAL OF 3085 CONTRACTS IN THAT 5496 LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE HAD A SMALL SIZED COMEX OI LOSS OF 2411 CONTRACTS..AND THIS GAIN ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES HAPPENED DESPITE OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF GOLD $18.80.

// WE HAVE A STRONG AMOUNT OF GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR MAY (74.696),

HERE ARE THE AMOUNTS THAT STOOD FOR DELIVERY IN THE PRECEDING 12 MONTHS OF 2021-2022:

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

YEAR 2022:

JANUARY 2022 17.79 TONNES

FEB 2022: 59.023 TONNES

MARCH: 36.678 TONNES

APRIL: 85.340 TONNES FINAL.

MAY: 20.11 TONNES FINAL

JUNE: 74.696 TONNES

THE BANKERS WERE SUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE //// (IT FELL $18.80) BUT WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING OFF SPECULATOR LONGS/COMMERCIAL LONGS BUT SPECULATOR SHORTS CONTINUED TO ADD TO THEIR POSITIONS//// WE HAVE REGISTERED A GOOD SIZED GAIN OF 18.077 TONNES ON TOTAL OI FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES, ACCOMPANYING OUR HUGE GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR JUNE (74.696 TONNES)…

WE HAD 2727 CONTRACTS REMOVED FROM COMEX TRADES. THESE WERE REMOVED AFTER TRADING ENDED LAST NIGHT

NET GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 3085 CONTRACTS OR 308,500 OZ OR 9.575 TONNES

Estimated gold volume 91,432/// poor/

final gold volumes/yesterday 181,703 /poor

INITIAL STANDINGS FOR JUNE ’22 COMEX GOLD //JUNE 15

Gold	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory in oz*	nil oz
Withdrawals from Customer* Inventory in oz*	42,768.488 oz Manfra Brinks HSBC Int. Delaware. 529 kilobars
Deposit to the Dealer* Inventory in oz*	nil OZ
Deposits to the Customer* Inventory, in oz*	nil
No of oz served (contracts) today	204 notice(s) 20,400 OZ 0.6345 TONNES
No of oz to be served (notices)	1204 contracts 18,400 oz 5.7322 TONNES
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month	22811 notices 2,281,100 OZ 70.951 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

total dealer deposit 0

No dealer withdrawals

0 customer deposits

total deposits: nil oz

4 customer withdrawals:

i) Out of Brinks 20,464.700 oz

ii) Out of HSBC: 8006.55 oz

iii) Out of Int. Delaware 321.51 oz 1 kilobar

iv) Out of Manfra: 16,975.728 oz (528 kilobars)

total withdrawal: 45,768.488 oz

ADJUSTMENTS: 2 dealer to customer

Brinks: 5497.819 oz

Int. Delaware 6,462.351 oz

CALCULATIONS FOR THE AMOUNT OF GOLD STANDING FOR JUNE.

For the front month of JUNE we have an oi of 1408 contracts having LOST 350 contracts

We had 554 notices filed on TUESDAY so we GAINED 204 contracts or an additional 20,400 oz will stand for gold in this very active month of June

July has a LOSS OF 160 OI to stand at 1880

August has a loss of 5701 contracts DOWN to 413,535 contracts

We had 204 notice(s) filed today for 20400 oz FOR THE JUNE 2022 CONTRACT MONTH.

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 equate to 204 contract(s) of which 0 notices were stopped (received) by j.P. Morgan dealer and 180 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 JUNE /2021. contract month,

we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (22,811) x 100 oz , to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of (JUNE 1408 CONTRACTS ) minus the number of notices served upon today 204 x 100 oz per contract equals 2,401,500 OZ OR 74.696 TONNES the number of TONNES standing in this active month of JUNE.

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

No of notices filed so far (22,811) x 100 oz+ (1408) OI for the front month minus the number of notices served upon today (204} x 100 oz} which equals 2,401,500 oz standing OR 74.696 TONNES in this active delivery month of JUNE.

TOTAL COMEX GOLD STANDING: 74,082 TONNES (A STRONG STANDING FOR A JUNE ( ACTIVE) DELIVERY MONTH)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

COMEX GOLD INVENTORIES/CLASSIFICATION

NEW PLEDGED GOLD:

241,794.285 oz NOW PLEDGED /HSBC 5.94 TONNES

204,937.290 PLEDGED MANFRA 3.08 TONNES

83,657.582 PLEDGED JPMorgan no 1 1.690 tonnes

265,999.054, oz JPM No 2

1,152,376.639 oz pledged Brinks/

Manfra: 33,758.550 oz

Delaware: 193.721 oz

International Delaware:: 11,188.542 o

total pledged gold: 2,419,784.828 oz 75.26 tonnes

TOTAL OF ALL GOLD ELIGIBLE AND REGISTERED: 34,288,311.082 OZ

TOTAL ELIGIBLE GOLD: 16,775,361.357 OZ

TOTAL OF ALL REGISTERED GOLD: 17,512,948.725 OZ

REGISTERED GOLD THAT CAN BE SERVED UPON: 15,093154.0 OZ (REG GOLD- PLEDGED GOLD)

END

JUNE 2022 CONTRACT MONTH//SILVER//JUNE 15

Silver	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory*	NIL oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory	808,919.200 oz Brinks Delaware JPMorgan HSBC
Deposits to the Dealer* Inventory*	nilOZ
Deposits to the Customer Inventory	602,231.700 oz CNT
No of oz served today (contracts)	19CONTRACT(S)95,000 OZ)
No of oz to be served (notices)	63 contracts (315,000 oz)
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts)	1691 contracts 8,455,000 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

i) 0 dealer deposits

total dealer deposits: 0 oz

i) We had 0 dealer withdrawal

total dealer withdrawals: nil oz

We have 1 deposit into the customer account

i) Into CNT: 602,231.700 oz

total deposit: 602,231.700 oz

JPMorgan has a total silver weight: 170.237 million oz/336.708 million =50.57% of comex

Comex withdrawals: 4

i) Out of Brinks 195,455.000 oz

ii) Out of Delaware 929.900 oz
iii) Out of JPMorgan: 597,263.200 oz

iv) Out of HSBC: 15,271.100 oz

total withdrawal 808,919.200 oz

0 adjustments:

the silver comex is in stress!

TOTAL REGISTERED SILVER: 71.395 MILLION OZ

TOTAL REG + ELIG. 336.708 MILLION OZ

CALCULATION OF SILVER OZ STANDING FOR JUNE

silver open interest data:

FRONT MONTH OF JUNE OI: 82 HAVING LOST 37 CONTRACTS.

WE HAD 57 NOTICES FILED ON TUESDAY SO WE GAINED 20 CONTRACTS OR AN ADDITIONAL 100,000 OZ WILL STAND IN THIS NON ACTIVE

DELIVERY MONTH OF JUNE

JULY HAD A LOSS OF 5060 CONTRACTS DOWN TO 65,791 CONTRACTS.

AUGUST GAINED 11 CONTRACTS TO STAND AT 1003

SEPTEMBER HAD A GAIN OF 1678 CONTRACTS UP TO 68,040 CONTRACTS.

TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR TODAY: 19 for 95,000 oz

Comex volumes:39,935// est. volume today// poor

Comex volume: confirmed yesterday: 76,978 contracts ( good )

To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in JUNE we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at 1691 x 5,000 oz = 8,455,000 oz

to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of JUNE(82) and the number of notices served upon today 19 x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.

Thus the standings for silver for the JUNE./2022 contract month: 1691 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for front month of JUNE (82) – number of notices served upon today (19) x 5000 oz of silver standing for the JUNE contract month equates 8,770,000 oz. .

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:

JUNE 15/WITH GOLD UP $6.50/BIG CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.65 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1063.74 TONNES

JUNE 14/WITH GOLD DOWN $18.80/NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1065.39 TONNES

JUNE 13/WITH GOLD DOWN $41.55: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1065.39 TONNES

JUNE 10/WITH GOLD UP $21.40: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1065.39 TONNES

JUNE 9/WITH GOLD DOWN $3.50: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 2.32 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1065.39 TONNES

JUNE 8/WITH GOLD UP $4.75: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1063.07 TONNES

JUNE 7/WITH GOLD UP $7.45: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1063.07 TONNES

JUNE 6/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.85: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1066.04 TONNES

JUNE 3/WITH GOLD DOWN $19.75//A BIG CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.16 TONNES FROM THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1066.04 TONNES

JUNE 2/WITH GOLD UP $22.50: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.64 TONNES FROM THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1067.20 TONNES

JUNE 1/WITH GOLD UP $1$ HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: AWITHDRAWAL OF 1.45 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1068.36 TONNES

MAY 31/WITH GOLD DOWN $15.10: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1069.81 TONNES

MAY 27/WITH GOLD UP $4.95//NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1069.81 TONNES

May 26/WITH GOLD UP $2.10/A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.74 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1069.81 TONNES

MAY 25/WITH GOLD UP @$2.70: A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 11.89./INVENTORY RESTS AT 1068.07 TONNES

MAY 20/WITH GOLD UP $7.75: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 6.97 TONNES INTO THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1056.18 TONNES

MAY 19/WITH GOLD UP $24.20; NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1049.21 TONNES//

MAY 18/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.55//A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 4.07 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1049.21 TONNES

MAY 17/WITH GOLD UP $5.40:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.61 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1053.28 TONNES

MAY 16/WITH GOLD UP $5.40: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 4.93 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1055.89 TONNES

MAY 13/ WITH GOLD DOWN $16.25//A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 5.8 TONNES FROM THE GLD.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1060.82 TONNES

MAY 12/WITH GOLD DOWN $26.50: A BIG CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.99 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1066.62 TONNES

MAY 11/WITH GOLD UP $9.85//BIG CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 7.25 TONNES FROM THE GLD/////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1068.65 TONNES

MAY 10//WITH GOLD DOWN $16.90: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A MASSIVE WITHDRAWAL OF 6.10 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1075.90 TONNES

MAY 9/WITH GOLD DOWN $24.05: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.98 TONNES FROM THE GLD..//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1082.00 TONNES

MAY 6/WITH GOLD UP $7.95: A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 4.06 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1084.98 TONNES

MAY 5/WITH GOLD UP $6.60 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1089.04 TONNES

MAY 4//WITH GOLD UP 70 CENTS TODAY; A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.19 \TONNES FROM THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1089.04 TONNES

MAY 3/WITH GOLD UP $6.05: A BIG CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/ A WITHDRAWL OF 2.32 TONNES//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1092.23

MAY 2/WITH GOLD DOWN $46.20: A BIG CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.17 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1094.55 TONNES

GLD INVENTORY: 1063.75 TONNES

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

JUNE 15/WITH SILVER UP 44 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 544.399 MILLION OZ

JUNE 14/WITH SILVER DOWN 32 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 544.399 MILLION OZ//

JUNE 13/WITH SILVER DOWN 62 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 544.399 MILLION OZ//

JUNE 10.WITH SILVER UP 13 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 830,000 Z FROM THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 544.399 MILLION OZ//

JUNE 9/WITH SILVER DOWN 27 CENTS TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 923,000 OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 545.229 MILLION OZ

JUNE 8/WITH SILVER DOWN 8 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 544.306 MILLION OZ//

JUNE 7/WITH SILVER UP 6 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 544.306 MILLION OZ/

JUNE 6/WITH SILVER UP 20 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 6.459 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 547.167 MILLION OZ//

JUNE 3/WITH SILVER DOWN $.34: A SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITTHDRAWAL OF 246,000 OZ FORM THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 553.626 MILLION OZ..

JUNE 2/WITH SILVER UP 57 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.261 MILLION OZ FORM THE SLV.//INVENTORY RESTS T 553.872 MILLION OZ

JUNE 1/WITH SILVER UP 19 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.538 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 556.133 MILLION OZ//

MAY 31/WITH SILVER DOWN $.41 TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY REST S AT 558.071 MILLION OZ//

MAY 27/WITH SILVER UP 10 CENTS TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 558.071 MILLION OZ///

MAY 26/WITH SILVER UP 8 CENTS TODAY; HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.515 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 558.071 MILLION OZ

MAY 25/WITH SILVER UP 20 CENTS TODAY; A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF .922 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV/ //INVENTORY RESTS AT 561.486 MILLION OZ//

MAY 20.WITH SILVER DOWN 20 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WIHDRAWAL OF .785 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 565.085 MILLION OZ//

MAY 19/WITH SILVER UP 34 CENTS: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY REST AT 565.085 MILLION OZ//

MAY 18/WITH SILVER UP $0.04 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV// A WITHDRAWAL 1.892 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 565.085 MILLION OZ//

MAY 17/WITH SILVER UP $.22 TODAY; HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.508 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 565.085 MILLION OZ//

MAY 16/WITH SILVER UP $.52 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.546 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 568.593 MILLION OZ//

MAY 13/WITH SILVER UP 31 CENTS TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 570.439 MILLION OZ/

MAY 12/WITH SILVER DOWN 88 CENTS TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 570.439 MILLION OZ//

May 11/WITH SILVER UP 8 CENTS TODAY: BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 5.487 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 570.439 MILLION OZ//

MAY 10.//WITH SILVER DOWN 40 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 575.977 MILLION OZ//

MAY 9/WITH SILVER DOWN 50 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 575.977 MILLION OZ

MAY 6/WITH SILVER DOWN 6 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 575.977 MILLION OZ//

MAY 5/WITH SILVER UP 6 CENTS TODAY: A SMALL CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF .93 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 575.977 MILLION OZ//

MAY 4/WITH SILVER DOWN 27 CENTS TODAY: A SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF .851 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 576.900 MILLION OZ

MAY 3/WITH SILVER UP 4 CENTS TODAY: A SMALL CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//A DEPOSIT OF.877 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV.

MAY 2/WITH SILVER DOWN 47 CENTS: A SMALL CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 554,000 OZ FROM THE SLV.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 575.171 MILLION OZ//

INVENTORY TONIGHT RESTS AT 544.399 MILLION OZ/

PHYSICAL GOLD/SILVER STORIES

1.PETER SCHIFF

2. Lawrie Williams//Pam and Russ Martens/Jim Rickards/Mathew Piepenburg

END

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

The BIS is getting out of the gold swap business as May showed a drop of 45 tonnes. They are down to 270. They must be compliant with BASEL iii by December.

(Robert Lambourne/GATA)

Robert Lambourne: BIS gold swaps fell substantially again in May

Submitted by admin on Tue, 2022-06-14 12:15Section: Daily Dispatches

By Robert Lambourne
Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Another substantial reduction in the gold swaps of the Bank for International Settlements is indicated by the bank’s statement of account for May:

Click to access statofacc220531.pdf

In March the reduction in swaps was about 112 tonnes, bringing the swaps down from about 472 tonnes as of February 28 to about 360 tonnes at March 31. There was another reduction of 45 tonnes in April, bringing the swaps total down to 315 tonnes. In May the reduction was about 45 tonnes, bringing the bank’s total volume of swaps to 270 tonnes.

This is the lowest level of swaps for the bank since November 2019.

These totals compare to the relatively recent record high estimated at 552 tonnes as of February 28, 2021. The decline in swaps since January 31, 2022 is 231 tonnes or around 46%.

Once again it is evident that the BIS remains an active trader of significant volumes of gold swaps on a regular basis, and the recent data suggests that a downward trend in the bank’s swaps has begun. A continuation of this trend would indicate that an exit from the swaps is underway, potentially due “Basel III” regulations.

The BIS rarely comments publicly on its gold activities, but its first use of gold swaps was considered important enough to cause the bank to give some background information to the Financial Times for an article published July 29, 2010, coinciding with publication of the bank’s 2009-10 annual report.

The general manager of the BIS at the time, Jaime Caruana, said the gold swaps were “regular commercial activities” for the bank, and he confirmed that they were carried out with commercial banks and so did not involve central banks. It also seems highly likely that the BIS’ remaining swaps are still all made with commercial banks, because the BIS annual report has never disclosed a gold swap between the BIS and a major central bank.

The swap transactions potentially create a mismatch at the BIS, which may end up being long unallocated gold (the gold held in BIS sight accounts at major central banks) and short allocated gold (the gold required to be returned to swap counterparties). This possible mismatch has not been reported by the BIS.

The gold banking activities of the BIS have been a regular part of the services it offers to central banks since the establishment of the bank 90 years ago. The first annual report of the BIS explains these activities in some detail:

http://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/archive/ar1931_en.pdf

A June 2008 presentation made by the BIS to potential central bank members at its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, noted that the bank’s services to its members include secret interventions in the gold and foreign exchange markets:

https://www.gata.org/node/11012

The use of gold swaps to take gold held by commercial banks and then deposit it in gold sight accounts held in the name of the BIS at major central banks doesn’t appear ever to have been as large a part of the BIS’ gold banking business as it has been in recent years.

As of March 31, 2010, excluding gold owned by the BIS, there were 1,706 tonnes held in gold sight accounts at major central banks in the name of the BIS, of which 346 tonnes or 20% were sourced from gold swaps from commercial banks.

The BIS now operates a much smaller gold banking business, with an estimated 695 tonnes of gold deposited in gold sight accounts as of April 30. (This excludes 102 tonnes of the gold owned by the BIS itself.) The present-day role of gold swaps in this smaller business is proportionately far greater.

In May, excluding the 102 tonnes of gold owned by the BIS, some 39% of the gold held in sight accounts at major central banks on behalf of the BIS came from gold swaps instead of from other central banks. The proportion of this unallocated gold sourced via gold swaps is now declining as the use of gold swaps by the BIS has fallen.

If the BIS was adopting the level of disclosure made by publicly held companies, such as commercial banks, some explanation of these changes probably would have been required by the accounting regulators. This irony may not be lost on those dealing with regulatory activities at the BIS. Presumably the shrinkage of the BIS’ gold banking business shows that even central banks now prefer to hold their own gold or hold it in earmarked form — that is, as allocated gold.

A review of Table B below highlights recent BIS activity with gold swaps, and despite the recent declines, the latest position estimated from the BIS monthly statements remains large and the volume of trades is significant.

No explanation for this continuing use of swaps has been published by the BIS. Indeed, no comment on the bank’s use of gold swaps has been offered since 2010.

This gold is supplied to the BIS by bullion banks via the swaps. The gold is then deposited in BIS gold sight accounts (unallocated gold accounts) at major central banks such as the Federal Reserve.

The reasons for this activity have never been fully explained by the BIS and various conjectures have been made as to why the BIS is facilitating it. One conjecture is that the swaps are a mechanism for gold secretly supplied by central banks to cover shortfalls in the gold markets to be returned to the central banks. The use of the BIS to facilitate this trade suggests of a desire to conceal the rationale for the transactions.

The BIS’ use of gold swaps and other gold derivatives is still quite extensive despite the recent declines.

Table B below shows that the BIS continues to trade significant volumes of gold swaps regularly. As can be seen in Table A below, the BIS has used gold swaps extensively since its financial year 2009-10.

No use of swaps is reported in the bank’s annual reports for at least 10 years prior to the year ended March 2010.

The February 2021 estimate of the bank’s gold swaps (552 tonnes) is higher than any level of swaps reported by the BIS at its March year-end since March 2010. The swaps reported at March 2021 are at the highest year-end level reported, as is clear from Table A.

———————-

Table A — Swaps reported in BIS annual reports

March 2010: 346 tonnes.
March 2011: 409 tonnes.
March 2012: 355 tonnes.
March 2013: 404 tonnes.
March 2014: 236 tonnes.
March 2015: 47 tonnes.
March 2016: 0 tonnes.
March 2017: 438 tonnes.
March 2018: 361 tonnes.
March 2019: 175 tonnes
March 2020: 326 tonnes
March 2021: 490 tonnes

———————-

The table below reports the estimated swap levels since August 2018.

It can be seen that the BIS is actively involved in trading gold swaps and other gold derivatives with changes from month to month reported in excess of 100 tonnes in this period.

———————-

Table B – Swaps estimated by GATA from BIS monthly statements of account

Month ….. Swaps
& year … in tonnes

May-22 ….. /270
Apr-22 ….. /315
Mar-22 …. /360
Feb-22 …. /472
Jan-22 ….. /501
Dec-21…. /414
Nov-21…. /451
Oct-21…. /414
Sep-21 …. /438
Aug-21 …. /464
Jul-21 …. /502
Jun-21 …./471
May-21 …./517
Apr-21 …. /472
Mar-21…. /490±
Feb-21 …../552
Jan-21 …. /523
Dec-20 …. /545
Nov-20 …. /520
Oct-20 …. /519
Sep-20…../ 520
Aug-20…../ 484
Jul-20 ….. / 474
Jun-20 …. / 391
May-20 …. / 412
Apr-20 …. / 328
Mar-20 …. / 326*
Feb-20 …. / 326
Jan-20 …. / 320
Dec-19 …. / 313
Nov-19 …. / 250
Oct-19 …. / 186
Sep-19 …. / 128
Aug-19 …. / 162
Jul-19 ….. / 95
Jun-19 …. / 126
May-19 …. / 78
Apr-19 ….. / 88
Mar-19 …. / 175
Feb-19 …. / 303
Jan-19 …. / 247
Dec-18 …. / 275
Nov-18 …. / 308
Oct-18 …. / 372
Sep-18 …. / 238
Aug-18 …. / 370

± The estimate originally reported by GATA was 487 tonnes, but the BIS annual report states 490 tonnes, It is believed that slightly different gold prices account for the difference.

* The estimate originally reported by GATA was 332 tonnes, but the BIS annual report states 326 tonnes. It is believed that slightly different gold prices account for the difference.

GATA uses gold prices quoted by USAGold.com to estimate the level of gold swaps held by the BIS at month-ends.

—–

As noted already, the BIS in recent times has refused to explain its activities in the gold market, nor for whom the bank is acting:

https://www.gata.org/node/17793

Despite this reticence the BIS is almost certainly acting on behalf of central banks in taking out these swaps, as they are the BIS’ owners and control its Board of Directors.

This refusal to explain prompts some observers to believe that the BIS acts as an agent for central banks intervening surreptitiously in the gold and currency markets, providing those central banks with access to gold as well as protection from exposure of their interventions.

A recent report published by Bullion Star’s Ronan Manly on the Bank of Portugal’s use of its gold reserves reinforces this point as the Bank of Portugal confirms that 20 tonnes of its gold is stored with the BIS:

https://www.gata.org/node/21950

This disclosure seems a little economic with the truth as the BIS has no gold storage facilities of its own. Gold held by the BIS on behalf of central banks is either deposited into a BIS gold sight (unallocated) account or a BIS earmarked (allocated) gold account and deposited normally with one of the central banks based at a major gold trading center, such as the Federal Reserve in New York.

Since Manly shows that the Bank of Portugal is focused on earning income from its gold, it seems highly likely that this gold is held in a BIS sight account, though its ultimate location is unclear.

It is possible that the swaps provide a mechanism for bullion banks to return gold originally lent to them by central banks to cover bullion bank shortfalls of gold. Some commentators have suggested that a portion of the gold held by exchange-traded funds and managed by bullion banks is sourced directly from central banks.

—–

Robert Lambourne is a retired business executive in the United Kingdom who consults with GATA about the involvement of the Bank for International Settlements in the gold market.

* * *

end

4.OTHER GOLD/SILVER COMMENTARIES

end

5.OTHER COMMODITIES //LITHIUM

END

COMMODITIES IN GENERAL/

END

6.CRYPTOCURRENCIES

7. GOLD/ TRADING

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

ONSHORE YUAN: CLOSED UP 6.7093

OFFSHORE YUAN: 6.7154

HANG SANG CLOSED UP 240.22 PTS OR 1.14%

2. Nikkei closed DOWN 303.70% OR 1.14%

3. Europe stocks ALL CLOSED ALL GREEN

USA dollar INDEX UP TO 104.61/Euro RISES TO 1.0484

3b Japan 10 YR bond yield: FALLS TO. +.227/ !!!!(Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese yen vs usa cross now at 134.49/JAPANESE FALLING APART WITH YEN FALTERING AS WELL AS LONG TERM YIELDS RISING BREAKING THE JAPANESE CENTRAL BANK.

3c Nikkei now ABOVE 17,000

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

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

3f 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.

3g Oil DOWN for WTI and DOWN FOR Brent this morning

3h European bond buying continues to push yields lower on all fronts in the EMU. German 10yr bund DOWN TO +1.649%/Italian 10 Yr bond yield FALLS to 3.91% /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD FALLS TO 2.92%…ALL BLOWING UP!!

3i Greek 10 year bond yield FALLS TO 4.31//

3j Gold at $1832.16 silver at: 21.56 7 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $30.00

3k USA vs Russian rouble;// Russian rouble DOWN 1/8 roubles/dollar; ROUBLE AT 56.74

3m oil into the 117 dollar handle for WTI and 120 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 134.49DESTROYING 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 0.9992– as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF 1.0466well 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: 3.381 DOWN 10 BASIS PTS

USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 3.377 DOWN 6 BASIS PTS

USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 17.29

Futures Rise As ECB Panics And Fed Looms

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 07:53 AM

After five days of non-stop losses, US index futures finally bounced modestly along with stocks in Europe as the ECB announced it would hold an emergency meeting to undo the damage done by its meeting from last week, and ahead of the Fed which today will hike by 75bps, the most since 1994, and will then scramble to undo the damage from pushing the US into a recession in coming days and weeks.

Contracts on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 posted modest gains, rising 0.8% and 1% respectively, ahead of the Fed, with markets fully pricing in the biggest rate hike since 1994 amid worries about the outlook for the economy. Europe’s Stoxx Europe 600 index jumped more than 1%, snapping a six-day losing streak, while the euro strengthened and the region’s bonds advanced as the European Central Bank’s Governing Council started an emergency meeting. Treasury yields dipped and the dollar retreated from a two-year high.

In premarket trading, major technology and internet stocks are higher in premarket trading along with US stock futures ahead of Wednesday’s Federal Reserve announcement, with investors expecting a 75 basis-point increase in rates. Bank stocks were also higher in premarket trading. Here are some other notable premarket movers:

Spotify (SPOT US) shares gain 2.2% in premarket trading as Wells Fargo upgraded the stock to equal-weight, saying the music streaming firm’s recent investor day laid out a more profitable company than the brokerage has modeled historically.
Chinese tech stocks are mostly higher in US premarket trading, with education shares continuing their winning streak since peer Koolearn’s livestreaming hit went viral. Alibaba (BABA US) +1.9%, Baidu (BIDU US) +3.6%, Pinduoduo (PDD US) +2.3%, New Oriental Education (EDU US) +8.4%, TAL Education (TAL US) +4.5%.
iQIYI (IQ US) shares decline 3.9% in US premarket trading as Baidu is in talks to sell its majority stake in the streaming service in a deal that could value all of iQIYI at $7 billion, Reuters reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
Cryptocurrency-related stocks fell in premarket trading on Wednesday as Bitcoin and Ethereum tumbled. MicroStrategy (MSTR US) -7.6%, Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA US) -7.6%, Riot Blockchain (RIOT US) -7%, Coinbase (COIN US) -6.6%.
Apple (AAPL US) and other consumer computer-hardware stocks may be in focus today as Morgan Stanley cut its price targets for such shares due to risks related to a potential slowdown in consumer spending.
Moderna’s (MRNA US) shares rose 1.2% in US after-hours trading on Tuesday, while analysts said that the unanimous verdict from an FDA panel, which supported the biotech firm’s Covid vaccine for children, came as no surprise.
Qualcomm (QCOM US) stocks could be in focus after the company won a European Union court bid to topple a 997 million-euro antitrust fine for allegedly pressuring Apple to only buy its 4G chips.

Fears of stagflation have driven stocks into a bear market and triggered a stunning selloff in bonds in recent days. Uncertainty is elevated heading into the Fed decision: increments of 50 basis points, 75 basis points and even 100 basis points have all been chewed over by commentators. Parts of the US yield curve remain inverted, signaling concerns that restrictive monetary policy will lead to an economic downturn.

Today’s main event is of course the Fed decision which is expected to include a 75bp rate hike, with latest forecasts released at the same time. Swaps market is currently pricing in around 70bp of rate hikes for the meeting with a combined 202bp of additional hikes priced for the June, July and September meetings. From the forecasts, focus will be on revisions to the Fed’s long-term rate; swaps market is currently pricing a rate peak at around 3.90% by the middle of next year (full preview here).

“Markets are poised for aggressive rate hikes, but what of US economic growth?” said Nema Ramkhelawan-Bhana, an economist at Rand Merchant Bank in Johannesburg. “It might not be in recessionary territory just yet, but the landing is not going to be as soft as the Fed predicates. Anything less than 75 basis points or at least a strong willingness to make more significant adjustments will likely turn the market on its head, eroding total returns of global bonds and equities even further.”

European equities trade well but off session highs. FTSE MIB outperforms, rallying as much as 3.3% before stalling. Stoxx 600 rises as much as 1.2% with travel, banks and insurance names doing much of the heavy lifting, while the euro strengthened and the region’s bonds advanced as the European Central Bank’s Governing Council started an emergency meeting. While new stimulus may not be on the agenda, officials will discuss a crisis strategy and the reinvestment of bond purchases conducted under the now-halted pandemic emergency program, Bloomberg reported. Here are the biggest European movers:

Rate-sensitive sectors such as financials and technology gained in Europe as the ECB holds an ad hoc meeting to discuss market conditions and the Fed concludes its two-day policy meeting. Finecobank shares rise as much as 8.4%, Intesa Sanpaolo +7.5%, Assicurazioni Generali +5.3%.

Europe auto stocks are among outperforming sectors in the wider equity gauge, led by French part suppliers Faurecia and Valeo, and carmaker Renault. Faurecia shares gain as much as 8.7%, Valeo +6.5%, Renault +5.6%
Whitbread shares rise as much as 6.4% after the hotel operator reported quarterly sales, with Barclays noting the company’s “upbeat tone.”
Gerresheimer shares rise as much as 17% after a Bloomberg report that the German maker of packaging for drugs and cosmetics rejected an informal takeover approach from Bain Capital in recent weeks.
Nordic and European forestry and paper mill companies’ shares rebound, breaking sharp declines triggered after brokers cut their respective outlooks for the sector in the past week. Smurfit Kappa stock rises as much as 5.3%, BillerudKorsnas +4.8%, Huhtamaki +5.6%
H&M shares drop as much as 6.4% with uncertainty about the margin outlook and ongoing cost pressures overshadowing the apparel retailer’s 2Q sales beat.
Getinge shares fall as much as 18% after the medical technology firm lowered guidance, projecting flat organic sales growth for the year. Nordea and JPMorgan downgraded their recommendations.
Elia Group shares fell as much as 12% after the electricity transmission company laid out plans for a rights offering.
Autoneum shares drop as much as 5.2% after the car- parts maker warned on profits. Vontobel analyst Arben Hasanaj noted the firm’s difficulty in passing on higher costs, along with further likely delays in car production recovery.
Voltalia slumps as much as 9.1% after Oddo downgrades to neutral in note as it questions what level of growth is possible after 2023.

“The ECB is between rock and a hard place, like most other central banks,” said Marija Veitmane, a senior strategist at State Street Global Markets. “Inflation is very high and shows little signs of quickly declining, while the economy is increasingly fragile, particularly with the war in Europe and ever-rising energy costs. So anything the ECB can announce to reduce systemic risk is very welcome.”

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks posted modest declines as sentiment improved from earlier in the week, with Chinese shares rising after domestic economic data showed pockets of recovery. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was down 0.4% as of 6:07 p.m. in Singapore, as losses in regional tech hardware shares offset advances in China’s internet giants. South Korea and the Philippines led declines, while Japanese stocks fell ahead of a central bank policy meeting this week. Gains in China and Hong Kong helped offset losses elsewhere as data showed the country’s industrial production unexpectedly increased in May. Meanwhile the nation’s central bank kept a key policy rate unchanged, avoiding further policy divergence as the Federal Reserve tightens.

“A more accommodative policy and fiscal environment together with stronger corporate fundamentals should be positive for Chinese equity assets,” said Jessica Tea, an investment specialist at BNP Paribas Asset Management. The MSCI Asia gauge dropped almost 4% over the previous two sessions as inflation data from the US fueled bets of a 75-basis-point rate hike by the Fed at Wednesday’s meeting. Still, the index has outperformed a measure of global peers this year, with the latter now in a bear market.

Japanese stocks dropped ahead of a Federal Reserve rate decision. A Bank of Japan review on Friday is also on the radar. The Topix Index fell 1.2% to close at 1,855.93 while the Nikkei gauge declined 1.1% to 26,326.16. Keyence Corp. contributed the most to the Topix Index’s decline, decreasing 3.9%. Out of 2,170 shares in the index, 288 rose and 1,829 fell, while 53 were unchanged. “The sharp decline in JGBs is also contributing to the drop in stock prices as uncertainty mounts ahead of the BOJ meeting,” said Hajime Sakai, chief fund manager at Mito Securities Co

Indian stocks fell after swinging between gains and losses for the most part of the session, as concerns over higher inflation and likely tighter monetary policy measures weighed on sentiment. The S&P BSE Sensex slipped 0.3% to close at 52,541.39 in Mumbai to its lowest level since July 28. The NSE Nifty 50 Index also slipped by a similar magnitude. Reliance Industries Ltd. posted its longest run of losses in more than a month and was the biggest drag on the Sensex, which had 17 of 30 member stocks trading lower. Ten of the 19 sector sub-indexes compiled by BSE Ltd fell, led by a gauge of power stocks. Retail inflation in India held above the central bank’s target in May, while wholesale prices accelerated for a third-straight month as input costs continue to rise, hurting company earnings. “Commodity prices continue to remain elevated and despite passing on the costs to consumers, India Inc. is still facing margin pressures,” Mitul Shah, head of research at Reliance Securities wrote in a note.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index fell 1.3% to close at 6,601.00, the fourth straight day of declines. All sectors finished lower, with mining stocks and banks the biggest drags on the index. During early trade, Australia’s industrial relations umpire raised the minimum wage by 5.2% from July 1, a larger-than-expected increase, affirming speculation of faster tightening by the central bank. Meanwhile, in New Zealand, the S&P/NZX 50 index was little changed at 10,635.92., after entering a bear market Tuesday. The gauge has shed more than 20% from its January 2021 peak.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell as the greenback weakened against all of its Group-of-10 peers apart from the Canadian dollar. Risk-sensitive Scandinavian currencies and the Aussie dollar lead gains. The euro rose by as much as 0.9% to 1.0508, and the yield on 10-year Italian bonds fell as much as 30bps after the ECB announced the Governing Council would hold an ad-hoc meeting on Wednesday “to discuss current market conditions.” ECB officials will be invited to sign off on the reinvestment of bond purchases conducted under the now-halted pandemic emergency program, a crisis response that they flagged in their decision last week, according to people familiar with the matter. Three-month euribor fixes higher by the most in more than two years, climbing to the highest since April 2020 as funding rates seek to mirror ECB rate hike expectations. Japanese bond futures drop most since 2013 as traders ramp up bets BOJ will give in to tweak policy. Australian bonds slumped with three-year yields posting steepest two-day climb since 1994. The Aussie extended an advance after the Fair Work Commission said the minimum wage will be increased by 5.2%. Earlier, the RBA said it “will do what’s necessary” to bring inflation back down to its 2-3% target as Goldman sees three more half-point hikes.

In rates, Treasuries pared a recent drop, with yields falling up to 8bps led by shorter maturities amid a TSY rally in Asia and early European sessions, leaving yields richer by as much as 12.5bp across front-end leading into US session. Markets are pricing in 73bps worth of hikes from the Fed today. US 10-year yields around 3.36%, richer by 10bp on the day while front-end outperformance steepens 2s10s, 5s30s spreads by 3bp and 6.5bp respectively. Curve steepens as long-end lags front-end rally and some rate hike premium eases out the swaps market ahead of 2pm ET Fed policy decision. European bonds rallied after ECB announces emergency meeting to discuss market conditions, with French and UK outperforming along with Italy and other peripherals.

In commodities, crude futures drop back toward the lows for the week. WTI falls 1.2% near $117.50. Most base metals trade in the green; LME tin rises 2.3%, outperforming peers. Spot gold rises roughly $16 to trade near $1,825/oz

Looking to the day ahead, the main highlight will likely be the aforementioned FOMC decision and Chair Powell’s subsequent press conference. There’s also an array of ECB speakers, including President Lagarde, as well as the ECB’s Holzmann, Nagel, Centeno, Muller, De Cos, Panetta and Knot. Otherwise, data releases include Euro Area industrial production for April, US retail sales for May, the NAHB housing market index for June and the Empire State manufacturing survey for June.

Market Snapshot

S&P 500 futures up 0.8% to 3,768.50
STOXX Europe 600 up 1.2% to 412.15
MXAP down 0.4% to 159.27
MXAPJ little changed at 529.71
Nikkei down 1.1% to 26,326.16
Topix down 1.2% to 1,855.93
Hang Seng Index up 1.1% to 21,308.21
Shanghai Composite up 0.5% to 3,305.41
Sensex up 0.2% to 52,797.58
Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 1.3% to 6,601.03
Kospi down 1.8% to 2,447.38
Brent Futures down 0.2% to $120.90/bbl
Gold spot up 0.6% to $1,818.80
U.S. Dollar Index down 0.56% to 104.93
German 10Y yield little changed at 1.77%
Euro up 0.6% to $1.0479
Brent Futures down 0.2% to $120.90/bbl

Top Overnight News from Bloomberg

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who’s carefully telegraphed interest rate hikes over four years, looks likely to abandon gradualism and move more forcefully to stamp out inflation along with growing concerns that it will persist
The European Central Bank’s Governing Council is ready to step in if it considers moves in government bond markets to be unjustified, according to Belgium’s Pierre Wunsch, as the ECB prepared for an emergency meeting on recent euro-zone bond turbulence
The European Union is restarting infringement proceedings against the UK and will launch two new legal actions after London proposed legislation to override part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, according to an EU official
The first batch of a Chinese offshore yuan sovereign bond sale saw the strongest demand in nearly two years, defying a recent stream of outflows at a time when the global debt market is showing deepening levels of stress
Even after central banks recognized they got their inflation calls wrong last year, they’ve continued to flub their policy guidance, threatening greater damage to their credibility, roiling markets and undermining the pandemic recovery

A more detailed look at markets courtesy of Newsquawk

Asia-Pac stocks traded mixed amid cautiousness heading into the FOMC with markets pricing in a more than 90% chance of a 75bps rate hike, while the region also digested better-than-expected Chinese activity data. ASX 200 was led lower by energy, resources and tech, despite a 5.2% national minimum wage increase. Nikkei 225 failed to benefit from strong Machinery Orders data amid the ongoing currency-related jitters. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp. were positive with encouragement from the latest activity data that showed surprise growth in Industrial Production and a narrower than feared contraction in Retail Sales, while attention was also on the PBoC which rolled over CNY 200bln through its 1-year MLF with the rate unchanged.

Top Asian News

PBoC injected CNY 200bln via 1-year MLF vs. CNY 200bln maturing with the rate kept at 2.85%, as expected.
China’s stats bureau said the main indicators show marginal improvement and the economy shows good recovery momentum, but added that the economic recovery still faces many difficulties and challenges. Furthermore, it said policies to stabilise economic growth gained traction and it expects economic performance to improve further in June due to policy support, but noted recovery is still at an initial stage and main indicators are at low levels, according to Reuters.
Hong Kong reports 1047 new COVID cases. Appears to be the first time since early April that cases have surpassed the 1k mark.

European equities are firmer across the board ahead of the impromptu ECB meeting, Euro Stoxx 50 +1.0%; unsurprisingly, periphery-nation indexes are outperforming, FTSE MIB +3.0%, given upside in banking names. As such, the Banking sector outperforms with most of its peers also in the green, though the Energy sector lags amid benchmark pricing. Stateside, futures are firmer across the board deriving impetus from European performance, but with overall action somewhat more contained ahead of the Fed and uncertainty around 75bp, ES +0.3%. Baidu (BIDU) is in discussions with potential suitors to offload its 53% stake in video-streaming name Iqiyi, according to Reuters sources. +3.8% in the pre-market.

Top European News

UK PM Johnson is reportedly determined to reverse Chancellor Sunak’s planned GBP 15bln tax raid on business as he tries to firm up support following last week’s confidence vote, according to The Times.
UK PM Johnson is understood to have told his cabinet to ‘de-escalate’ the Northern Ireland Protocol stand-off with the EU, according to The Telegraph.
UK exports to the EU during H1 of last year fell by 15.6% amid Brexit frictions, according to a study by Aston University cited by FT.
Swiss SECO Forecasts (summer): Inflation: 2022 2.5% (prev. 1.9%), 2023 1.4% (prev. 0.7%). GDP: 2022 2.8% (prev. 3.0%), 1.6% (prev. 1.7%)

Central Banks

BoJ offers an additional emergency bond buying operation; to buy unlimited amounts of 10yr JGBs on June 16th & 17th at 0.25%.
Fall in JGB futures has triggered a circuit breaker at the Tokyo stock exchange, via Japan Exchange Group.
Japan’s Securities Dealer Association’s Morita says the JPY may have weakened too much, via Reuters.
8/9 members (vs. 3/9 at the May meeting) of the Times’ shadow MPC believe that the BoE should raise rates by 50bps at its policy meeting tomorrow, according to the Times.

Buck backs off from best levels into FOMC and US data awaiting confirmation of the hawkish hype or half point hike signalled pre-hot CPI; DXY slips from 105.650 peak on Tuesday into 105.380-104.700 range.
Aussie rebounds on risk grounds and more aggressive RBA tightening calls, AUD/USD reclaims 0.6900+ status.
Yen takes note of latest verbal intervention and Hong Kong Dollar supported by more physical HKMA buying to keep it pegged; USD/JPY sub-134.50 vs 135.50+ overnight.
Euro extends recovery rally as ECB holds ad hoc meeting to discuss fragmenting debt markets and Wunsch contends that gradualism does not rule out larger than 25 bp moves; EUR/USD pops over 1.0500 from just below 1.0400 yesterday.
Yuan gleans impetus from better than expected or feared Chinese industrial production and retail sales, USD/CNH nearer 6.7200 than 6.7600, USD/CNY close to 6.7100 and not far from 21 DMA at 6.6965 today.

Fixed Income

Decent bear market retracement in debt approaching the FOMC.
Bunds up to 143.79 at best vs new 143.25 cycle low, Gilts towards top of 112.48-111.88 band and 10 year T-note closer to 115-06 than 114-10.
BTPs markedly outperform after near 3 full point bounce from Tuesday close in anticipation of an anti-fragmentation tool from the ECB as GC meets for crisis talks.

Commodities

Currently, WTI and Brent are lower by circa. USD 1.00bbl but reside within comparably narrow ranges of around USD 2.00bbl vs, for instance, yesterday’s USD +6.00/bbl parameters.
Curtailed amid COVID updates from China and Hong Kong alongside Biden’s reported push for an explanation from producers over why supply isn’t increasing.
US President Biden has demanded an explanation from oil companies over why they are refraining from putting additional gasoline on the market and wants concrete ideas as to how they can increase supplied, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
US Energy Inventory Data (bbls): Crude +0.7mln (exp. -1.3mln), Cushing -1.1mln, Gasoline -2.2mln (exp. +1.1mln), Distillates +0.2mln (exp. +0.3mln)
US DoE announced contract awards and issued the fourth emergency sale of crude oil from SPR (as previously announced), in which contracts were awarded to nine including Chevron (CVX), Exxon (XOM) and Marathon Petroleum (MPC).
Kazakhstan has capped wheat exports at 550k tonnes and wheat flour at 370k tonnes until September 30th, according to the Agriculture Ministry, via Reuters.
Spot gold derives impetus from the USD’s retreat and is now back above USD 1820/oz but still shy of yesterday’s USD 1831/oz best and the subsequent 200-, 10- & 21-DMAs ahead at USD 1842, 1843 & 1845 respectively.

US Event Calendar

07:00: June MBA Mortgage Applications +6.6%, prior -6.5%
08:30: May Import Price Index YoY, est. 11.9%, prior 12.0%; MoM, est. 1.1%, prior 0%
- May Export Price Index YoY, prior 18.0%; MoM, est. 1.3%, prior 0.6%
08:30: May Retail Sales Advance MoM, est. 0.1%, prior 0.9%
- May Retail Sales Ex Auto MoM, est. 0.7%, prior 0.6%
- May Retail Sales Control Group, est. 0.3%, prior 1.0%
08:30: June Empire Manufacturing, est. 2.2, prior -11.6
10:00: April Business Inventories, est. 1.2%, prior 2.0%
10:00: June NAHB Housing Market Index, est. 67, prior 69
14:00: June FOMC Rate Decision
16:00: April Total Net TIC Flows, prior $149.2b

DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

In these crazy days for markets, I’m willing to stake my reputation that I’ve done something in the last 24 hours that no-one else reading this did. Yes, after a business trip to Europe yesterday, I watched the original Top Gun on my iPad on the plane ride home for the very first time, some 36 years after it came out. My wife wants to watch the sequel, so I thought I ought to see what all the fuss was about. She’s seen it around 20 times and always asks what I was doing in my teenage years that’s made me miss all the films of her youth. The truth is I was either studying or playing cricket or golf. Not much else. My review is that it was a decent film, but Mavericks’ courting technique doesn’t really age very well.

I’m not sure Maverick and Goose would have been able to get out of the tight spot that the Fed are in at the moment very easily. After the astonishing price action over the previous 2 business days, markets have settled somewhat over the last 24 hours, but overall have continued to struggle as they await today’s all-important Federal Reserve decision. Up until the CPI report last Friday, that decision seemed like a lock in favour of a second consecutive 50bp hike, not because that was the right move, but because the Fed had firmly guided us to such an outcome. The CPI report raised doubts as to whether they could hold that line over the summer, but the WSJ article on Monday night broke the levee as a 75bps move tonight is now suddenly pretty much consensus. Our economics team agrees and have now updated their previously street leading view to have a +75bp hike tonight followed by another +75bp increase in July. The team believes fed funds will reach 3.5% by the end of the year, and hit a terminal rate of 4.1% in Q1 2023, sooner than they thought before the WSJ story. See their full updated call, available here.

As we hit this big day, markets now fully price in a 75bps hike today. Indeed, 76.3bps is priced, so that actually incorporates a small risk of 100bps, something former New York Fed President Bill Dudley was openly considering yesterday, which may have contributed to the sentiment that drove the next leg of the selloff in the New York afternoon. A total of 289bps worth of rate hikes by year-end is now priced. So quite the turnaround from a few weeks back when some were even floating the strange idea of a “pause” in September. Clearly the 75bp call is mostly based on a WSJ article so we can’t be certain but you would have thought the Fed would have tried to leak out a rebuttal if that wasn’t what they wanted to guide the market towards. We will see.

Whilst the size of any rate hike will be the focal point, today also brings the latest dot plot from the FOMC and offers an insight into the potential pace of rate hikes over the months ahead. Our US economists expect that to undergo substantial revisions, with the median dot likely rising to 3.5% and 3.8% for 2022 and 2023 respectively. Meanwhile on the economic projections, they think they’ll also show further movements towards a “softish landing”, with growth revised lower throughout the forecast, albeit stopping short of anticipating a recession.

Ahead of all that, US equities slipped to fresh lows yesterday with the S&P 500 (-0.37%) falling to its lowest closing level since January 2021. Tech stocks outperformed, in contrast to the recent trend, with the NASDAQ (+0.18%) and the FANG+ Index (+1.97%) bouncing off of recent lows. Small-caps fared less well today and the Russell 2000 (-0.39%) fell to its lowest closing level since November 2020. Over in Europe, equities similarly fell to fresh lows and the STOXX 600 (-1.26%) likewise fell to levels unseen since March 2021.

Rates sold off by a smaller magnitude than the previous two sessions (low bar to clear), but an initial rally gave way to a selloff in the European afternoon that continued to gather pace into the New York close. Yields on 10yr Treasuries were up +11.3bps to a fresh post-2011 high of 3.47%, supported by a further rise in the 10yr real yield (+13.7bps) that took it up to a 3-year high of 0.82 The 2s10s curve just about clambered out of inversion territory where it’d closed on Monday, steepening by +3.8bps to end the day at just 3.6bps. But even the Fed’s preferred yield curve measure of the near-term forward spread fell to its flattest level in 3 months, even if it’s still well out of inversion territory for now. This spread will likely collapse in the months ahead. As we go to press, yields on 10yr USTs (-4.63 bps) are moving lower to 3.42% with 2yrs -5.6bps.

Today’s focus may be on the Fed, but over at the ECB we had Isabel Schnabel of the Executive Board give a significant speech last night about policy fragmentation. Recall, one of the key takeaways from last week’s ECB meeting was the apparent lack of progress on anti-fragmentation tools, shining a spotlight on Schnabel’s remarks last night. As our European economists emphasised last week, Schnabel argued that any tool would be reactionary, that is in response to more spread widening. She did not offer new details of any potential tool last night, instead echoing President Lagarde that PEPP purchase flexibility would be used to ensure smooth policy transmission in the interim. However, Schnabel also re-emphasised the ECB’s commitment to ensure smooth policy transmission. That Schnabel, a relative hawk on the committee and one that has expressed trepidation about a new facility in the past, so willingly supported the idea of doing what was needed to support policy implementation was an important shift for the ECB. The language Schnabel used last night may support the notion that the spread widening seen to date may already be approaching levels inconsistent with smooth policy transmission. It may not take much more pressure for the ECB to act but we are still in the dark on how they will.

Earlier in the day, Dutch central bank governor Knot made some incredibly hawkish comments, saying that if “conditions remain the same as today, we will have to raise rates by more than 0.25 points” in September, and that “our options are not necessarily limited” to a 50bps move, so openly floating the potential to move by even more, which hasn’t been something discussed by the ECB to date.

European sovereign bonds sold off significantly against that backdrop, with fresh multi-year highs seen for yields on 10yr bunds (+11.9bps), OATs (+13.7bps) and BTPs (+14.9bps). Peripheral spreads hit new post-Covid highs too, with the gap between Italian and German 10yr yields widening to 241bps. And there were some significant milestones on the credit side as well, with iTraxx Crossover widening +10.4bps to a fresh 10 year high of 544bps outside of 2-months around peak covid, and in North America we saw the CDX IG spread move above 100bps in trading for the first time since April 2020, before settling back at 99.0bps.

In Asia markets are mixed with the Hang Seng (+1.44%) trading up boosted by technology stocks following the Nasdaq’s overnight gain. Likewise, stocks in mainland China are also higher in early trade with the Shanghai Composite (+1.41%) and CSI (+1.57%) edging higher as the economy showed a slightly better than expected recovery in May (see below). However, the Nikkei (-0.73%) and the Kospi (-1.54%) are trading lower, extending earlier session losses. Outside of Asia, US equity futures are reversing losses this morning with contracts on the S&P 500 (+0.38%) and NASDAQ 100 (+0.59%) trading up.

Early this morning, data released showed that China’s industrial production unexpectedly rebounded +0.7% y/y in May (v/s -0.9% expected), against a drop of -2.9% in April, whilst retail sales slid -6.7% in the period, less than -7.1% projected decline and slightly better than April’s -11.1% plunge. Meanwhile, Fixed-asset investment grew +6.2% in the first 5 months of the year (v/s +6.0% expected). Elsewhere, Japan’s core machinery orders strongly beat at +10.8% m/m in April, its fastest pace in 18 months (v/s -1.3% market consensus and +7.1% in March).

Yesterday we also heard that the Bank of Japan had bought a record ¥2.2tn in government notes through its fixed-rate operation as they seek to defend their yield curve target and keep 10-year JGB yields beneath their stated limit of 0.25%. This has continued to put pressure on the Yen however, which fell to a closing level of 135.47 per dollar yesterday, thus moving beneath its 2002 closing low of 134.71 and leaving it at levels unseen since 1998. We’re at just above 135 this morning after a small rally back. Speaking of currencies under pressure, Bitcoin fell to a 17-month low of $21,966 yesterday, having been trading around $30,000 just prior to the CPI release on Friday. This morning it’s at $21,100.

Elsewhere, brent crude and WTI futures reversed mid-day gains of near 2% to close -0.90% and -1.65% lower, respectively, following reports that the Biden Administration may pose a surtax on oil company profit margins, as another sign Biden is looking high and low for potential actions to curb oil gains into this year’s mid-terms. The big moves were seen in natural gas however, where US futures were down -16.5% and European futures were up +16.12% after the operator Freeport LNG said that they aiming for a partial resumption of operations at one of their Texas export terminals in 90 days, and that full operations wouldn’t return until late 2022. That’s a longer delay than was expected, and by keeping gas in the US led to that decline in US futures and the rise in European ones.

Looking at yesterday’s data, the Fed got a fresh reminder about inflation pressures from the PPI release for May, where the monthly headline gain in prices rose to +0.8% in line with expectations, up from +0.4% in April. That left the year-on-year measure at +10.8% (vs. +10.9% expected), which does mark a second consecutive decline in that measure from its peak of +11.5% in March. One positive for the Fed ahead of today’s meeting is that elements that comprise a larger share of core PCE, such as healthcare, showed some softness, but time will tell.

Separately, the UK employment data saw the number of payrolled employees in May grow by +90k (vs. +70k expected), but unemployment ticked up to 3.8% in the three months to April (vs. 3.6% expected). Finally, the ZEW survey from Germany saw an improvement relative to May’s readings, with expectations up to -28.0 (vs. -26.8 expected), and the current situation up to -27.6 (vs. -31.0 expected).

To the day ahead now, and the main highlight will likely be the aforementioned FOMC decision and Chair Powell’s subsequent press conference. There’s also an array of ECB speakers, including President Lagarde, as well as the ECB’s Holzmann, Nagel, Centeno, Muller, De Cos, Panetta and Knot. Otherwise, data releases include Euro Area industrial production for April, US retail sales for May, the NAHB housing market index for June and the Empire State manufacturing survey for June.

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

i)WEDNESDAY MORNING// TUESDAY NIGHT

3 a./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA

///NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA/

3B JAPAN

One of the world’s largest hedge funds, BlueBay, has made a huge bet against the Bank of Japan by shorting Japanese bonds. They expect the bank and their MMT will break

(zerohedge)

Giant Hedge Fund Goes “Soros” On Bank Of Japan: Bets Billions That Japan, And MMT, Will Break

TUESDAY, JUN 14, 2022 – 11:25 PM

Less than a week ago, we wrote that “As Yen Crash Accelerates, It Puts Catastrophic End Of MMT Experiment In The Spotlight” a less than cheerful assessment about the endgame in Japan echoed on Monday morning by Bloomberg, which wrote that “Japan Starting to Crack as Yen Tumbles With Stocks and Bonds” in which it wrote that despite the yen crashing to a 24-year low (for the same reasons we have repeated again and again, namely you can’t keep your 10Y yield at 0.25% and avoid a currency collapse in a scorching inflationary environment), Tokyo stocks were down the most since March (the plunged again on Tuesday).

Meanwhile, also on Monday, Deutsche Bank’s head of FX George Saravelos came the closest of any establishment banker to warn what we have been saying for years – the great MMT experiment is ending, and its unwind will begin in Japan, that “Guniea Pig” for all major central bank experiments (first ZIRP, first QE, first ZIRP, first central bank buying of ETFs, etc).

In a piece titled, “The printer is on overdrive“, Saravelos wrote that if the current pace of buying persists, “the bank will have bought approximately 10 trillion yen in June. To put that number in context, it is roughly equivalent to the Fed doing more than $300bn of QE per month when adjusting for GDP!”

Saravelos also echoed what we said in our preview of the end of MMT, writing that he worries that “the currency and Japanese financial markets are in the process of losing any sort of fundamental-based valuation anchor” adding that “the more global inflation picks up, the more the BoJ prints. But the more easing accelerates, the higher the need to press hard on the brake when the (inflation) cliff approaches and the more dangerous it becomes. As a result, we will soon enter a phase where dramatic and unpredictable non-linearities in Japanese financial markets would kick in.” The DB strategist concluded by asking “if it becomes obvious to the market that the clearing level of JGB yields is above the BoJ’s 25 basis point target, what is the incentive to hold bonds any more?”

Of course, without skin in the game all these perceptive observations are just that, and meanwhile – well – only money talks… and when it comes to Japan, so many have been steamrolled when their money talked and shorted Japanese bonds, only to be crushed by the world’s most famous “widowmaker” trade.

But this time is different: at least that’s the view of BlueBay Asset Management – one of the world’s biggest hedge funds – as it gears up to become this generation’s George Soros caught in a crushing battle with the ~~Bank of England~~ Bank of Japan.

As the BOJ escalates attempts to keep a lid on bond yields, BlueBay is betting that our thesis laid out in March is right, and that the central bank will be forced to abandon a policy that’s increasingly out of sync with global peers. Echoing what we said just a few days ago, Mark Dowding, BlueBay’s London-based chief investment officer, said that the BOJ’s so-called yield curve control is “untenable.”

“We have a sizable short on JGBs,” Dowding, whose firm oversees about $127 billion across hedge funds and other fixed income products, said in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday. BlueBay started shorting Japan’s sovereign debt when the yen slid close to the 130 per dollar level several weeks ago, not too long after we wrote that “Yen At Risk Of “Explosive” Downward Spiral With Kuroda Trapped.“

Dowding is not the only one to agree with our core thesis that the beginning of the end of MMT will start in Japan: he joins other market veterans such as former Goldman “BRIC” economist Jim O’Neill and JPM’s Seamus Mac Gorain in predicting the BOJ will eventually alter its stance on yields, just as Australia’s central bank did last November.

As we noted on Monday, as global yields have exploded higher ahead of the Fed’s first 75bps rate hike since 1994, yields on 10-year Japanese bonds breached the upper, 25bps bound of the BOJ’s target on Monday and have remained at elevated levels even after the central bank accelerated its planned bond-purchase operations and included longer maturities.

“The last man standing continues to be the BOJ and to be honest the more the market attacks the Fed and the ECB the more likely it is that the BOJ own forward guidance (in the form of YCC) will end very messily with huge implications for global rates,” Deutsche Bank macro strategist Jim Reid added to the pile up in Tuesday note to clients.

Ten-year yen swap rates have also surged, breaking their close relationship with domestically driven yields. At over 0.50%, the former have pushed well past the central bank’s 0.25% ‘line in the sand’ for benchmark bonds, suggesting international traders believe higher yields and a policy change in Japan are inevitable.

There is “little downside to being short Japan rates via futures or yen swaps,” Dowding said. “Yield curve control is designed so that the more the Fed hikes, the more the BOJ is going to need to ease and grow its balance sheet. This is what makes it untenable.”

He is correct of course, and at some point the BOJ will pull a BOE, or SNB, and will decide that waste billions more to defend a largely arbitrary level is not worth it, at which point Japanese yields will spike higher… only instead of stopping at the next barrier, they will continue rising higher and higher, as traders from around the globe pile on in what may be the biggest central bank failure of the 21st century. Of course, it won’t be the last, because the inevitable loss by the BOJ will also be a loss for the idiotic economic theory behind much of modern economics, MMT. And when that too is discredited, all bets are off as the entire fiat financial system becomes unglued.

All this will happen… but not just yet. For now, Japan’s central bankers are dutifully defending their yield target. The central bank boosted scheduled purchases of five-to-10-year debt to 800 billion yen ($6 billion) Tuesday from an expected 500 billion yen after the benchmark yield climbed to 0.255%. It also announced an unscheduled operation to buy longer-dated debt after the 30-year yield surged to 1.28% — the highest since 2016. Japan’s central bank also bought 2.2 trillion yen worth of government notes through its fixed-rate operation on Tuesday, the biggest amount on record since the program began in 2016.

Meanwhile, since defense of YCC means continued collapse of the yen (or vice verse), the yen tumbled to a fresh 24-year low of 135.60 per dollar amid the growing policy divergence between the BOJ and the Fed.

“We do think that the BOJ will be forced to capitulate at some point,” Russel Matthews, senior portfolio manager at BlueBay, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. And while a normal response would be for the yen to spike even as yields surge, what will be the worst possible outcome is for both the yen and JGBs to both plunge at the same time.

If and when that happens, it’s game over for Japan, MMT and fiat.

end

Japanese bond futures suffer biggest rout since 2013 on news of BlueBay Soros bet. Others follow their lead.

(zerohedge)

Japanese Bond Futures Suffer Biggest Rout Since 2013, Trigger Circuit-Breakers After ‘Soros’-Style Bets Build

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 08:21 AM

Circuit-breakers were triggered overnight in the Japanese bond futures markets as the death-match between bond traders and The Bank of Japan played out on its largest scaled yet.

“It’s a challenge by foreign players to YCC or moves based on their views the BOJ will tweak policy,” said Katsutoshi Inadome, a strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities in Tokyo.
“Tension is heightening toward Friday’s BOJ decision.”

Ten-year JGB futs crashed by the most since 2013 as traders bet that the BOJ will be forced to abandon its pledge to cap yields at 0.25%.

Even after the BoJ ramped up its “unlimited” buying ‘intervention’ to maintain the cap on yields…

JGB futs were smashed lower in price, clearly signaling the market’s belief that the BoJ will fold on its unlimited bond buying curve control program.

“It depends on what comes out of FOMC tonight but if overseas yields keep rising, the BOJ will continue doing that it’s been doing, buying unlimited amounts for 10-year or seven-year JGBs,” said Takenobu Nakashima, chief rates strategist at Nomura Securities in Tokyo.

This move comes after we reported that BlueBay Asset Management – one of the world’s biggest hedge funds – as it gears up to become this generation’s George Soros caught in a crushing battle with the ~~Bank of England~~ Bank of Japan.

“We do think that the BOJ will be forced to capitulate at some point,” Russel Matthews, senior portfolio manager at BlueBay, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. And while a normal response would be for the yen to spike even as yields surge, what will be the worst possible outcome is for both the yen and JGBs to both plunge at the same time.

If and when that happens, it’s game over for Japan, MMT and fiat.

3c CHINA

CHINA/TESLA

Tesla in Shanghai back at full capacity

(zerohedge)

Tesla Shanghai Back At Full Capacity While China Mulls Additional EV Tax Breaks

TUESDAY, JUN 14, 2022 – 09:05 PM

Tesla’s Shanghai plant has reportedly found itself back at full capacity, according to Ministry of Industry and Information Technology deputy Minister Xin Guobin, who made the statement during a press conference this week.

At the same conference, he talked about how China would begin an industry carbon neutrality campaign and that China is still working on deciding whether or not it will extend tax breaks for the purchase of EVs, a Bloomberg wrap up on Tuesday morning noted.

The country has been mulling whether or not to extend EV subsidies after announcing last year that it was going to conclude them in 2023. Since then, Beijing has been re-thinking the idea amidst slowing demand for autos. Less than a week ago we reported that Chinese auto sales were down 17% year over year.

China continues to face tough comps, as last year’s demand was robust due to pull forward of demand aiming to capture EV subsidies and this year has slowed again due to a new round of Covid lockdowns, we noted.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk has been lamenting a “tough” Q2, blaming Tesla’s challenges on China.

We won’t know until Tesla reports its Q2, but for now one of the company’s patented leaked internal emails reportedly contains Musk warning his workers that the EV maker needs to get “back on track”.

The email reportedly says: “This has been a very tough quarter, primarily due to supply chain and production challenges in China. So we need to rally hard to recover!”

Recall, we just highlighted a Wedbush note from Dan Ives last month that said Tesla’s shutdown in China was an “epic disaster” for its June quarter. Ives said he expects to see “modest delivery softness”.

Ives also said he is expecting a “slower growth trajectory” in China into the second half of the year and called the headwinds out of Asia “hard to ignore”. He also commented that the ongoing Twitter drama “may be a distraction” for Musk at a time when his attention should be focused on dealing with Tesla’s issues.

Recall, we noted weeks ago that “no vehicles were sold in Shanghai last month [April]” as a result of the lockdown, according to an auto-seller association in the city.

Additionally, it was reported last month that Tesla would be recalling over 100,000 vehicles in China. 107,293 vehicles in China will be recalled “due to safety risks”, according to the China People’s Daily.

The recall, which relates to a defect in the central touchscreen during fast charging, “involves Model 3 and Model Y vehicles produced in the country between Oct 19, 2021, and April 26, 2022,” the report said.

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS//UK AFFAIRS/

ECB//EU/

Amazing: ECB holds an emergency meeting to discuss market turmoil amid fragmentation on European interest rates. It looks like the ECB’s announcement of phasing out QE will initiate the start of other rounds of QE. As Jim Sinclair states: QE to infinity.

(zerohedge)

ECB Holds Emergency Meeting To Discuss Market Turmoil

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 07:10 AM

Last week, shortly after the ECB’s latest meeting disappointed markets and concluded without a discussion of Europe’s growing bond market fragmentation (which is to be expected since QE – the glue that held the Euro area’s bond market together – is ending) and which has since sent Italian bond yields soaring above 4%, we joked that “at this rate the ECB would make an emergency rate cut” just hours after announcing an end to QT and guiding to a July rate hike.

Once again, our “joke” was spot on because on Wednesday morning, just hours before the Fed’s first 75bps rate hike sine 1994, and with Italian bonds in freefall, European Central Bank “unexpectedly” announced it would hold an emergency, ad hoc meeting of its rate-setters starting 11am CET in which it would “discuss current market conditions.” It wasn’t immediately clear if a statement would be published after the confab.

The meeting, which comes less than a week after the rate-setting governing council’s last vote, raised investor expectations that the central bank is preparing to announce a policy instrument to stave-off another debt crisis in the region, which can only come in the form of more QE… which is ironic at a time when the ECB just announced it was phasing out all QE!

Italian government bonds rallied in price following news of the planned meeting, reversing some of the recent sell-off that analysts said brought the country’s borrowing costs towards the “danger zone”. Gilles Moec, chief economist at Axa, an insurer, said the “stakes are high” for the ECB “now that everyone is dusting off their debt sustainability spreadsheets for Italy, they probably need to go up an extra notch”.

Commenting on the move, SocGen’s Kit Juckes writes that “the ECB’s carefully-communicated strategy was to end asset purchases, then raise rates, starting in small increments and accelerating if needed. That would allow an escape from the current extraordinary policy regime. This strategy is in all sorts of trouble today as the ECB meet to discuss their anti-fragmentation policy and tools.“

He added that while “the euro likes the news, because BTPs like it and as peripheral spreads narrow, the euro can bounce.” But the need to prepare the ground to defend the Eurozone bond market highlights the ECB’s dilemma: “How can you use monetary policy both to target inflation and to target bond market stability? And how can you stave off fragmentation without easing monetary conditions through additional bond purchases? If the stability of the bond market is more important than the ECB’s inflation mandate, it can stymie monetary policy normalisation, until there’s a fiscal, as opposed to a monetary solution to the euro’s Achilles Heel.”

Indeed, as we have been joking for months, for the ECB this boils down to a choice between fighting inflation and keeping the Eurozone from disintegrating.

The 10-year yield on Italian government bonds fell about 0.2 percentage points in choppy early trading on Wednesday to about 3.87 per cent, according to Tradeweb data. It had risen to almost 4.2% in the previous session from just over 1 per cent at the end of 2021.

‘Italeave’ risks remain extremely elevated relative to post-crisis history…

Breathing a sigh of relief that the ECB won’t let the eurozone implode, the euro reversed some of its losses, rising 0.6% against the dollar to $1.047 early on Wednesday after the ECB statement was reported by newswires. European bank shares also rose on Wednesday. The Euro Stoxx Banks index gained 3.7 per cent with big Italian lenders UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo jumping more than 6 per cent.

ECB executive board member Isabel Schnabel indicated in a speech on Tuesday evening that the central bank was getting closer to the point where it would intervene in bond markets, saying “some borrowers have seen significantly larger changes in financing conditions than others since the start of the year”.

She added: “Such changes in financing conditions may constitute an impairment in the transmission of monetary policy that requires close monitoring.”

Schnabel, the ECB executive who oversees its market operations and one of the most influential voices on its board, said the central bank’s commitment to the euro had no limits. “And our track record of stepping in when needed backs up this commitment,” she added.

But wait, this means… more QE at a time when the ECB just vowed… less QE!!??

And while we wait for the dazed and confused ECB to announce its decision which is due any minute, we can’t help but agree with Bloomberg which notes that “the risk for markets is that the central bank over-delivers. The sources stories we have seen this morning, plus the comments from Wunsch, suggest that this may end up being something of a damp squib. Italy’s 10-year yield is currently trading just below 4%, and is still 60 bps above Thursday’s pre-decision level. If markets have this right and there’s not much new coming today, then there has to be questions asked about why the meeting is being held at all. An emergency meeting that amounts to little more than re-reading from last week’s press conference would only further damage the central bank’s already creaking credibility. Presuming that the governing council members know this, they also know that they are in a position where over-delivering is the only way to maintain credibility.”

We don’t know about any of that, we just know that the central bank is trapped, and that any further push to contain inflation will mean the continent’s bonds will only accelerate their free fall; alternatively if the ECB – like the BOJ – picks bond market stability, it can kiss its inflation mandate goodbye, as the world reverts to a reality where much higher structural inflation is the norm.

END

SWEDEN/FINLAND/TURKEY//NATO

(zerohedge)

Turkey Rejects NATO Offer Of Trilateral Talks As Finland, Sweden Say Applications Could ‘Freeze’

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 09:45 AM

Turkey has rejected a NATO offer to hold trilateral talks with Sweden and Finland toward resolving Turkish objections to the Scandinavian countries’ membership bids, FT is reporting Wednesday.

Addressing these latest efforts by Brussels to assuage Turkish roadblocks, which center on the Nordic countries’ alleged support for anti-Turkish Kurdish groups (particularly their failure to condemn the PKK), Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan again charged that “terrorist organizations” are able to “act freely” especially in Sweden. Erdogan in the speech went so far as to say he won’t let the “blood of martyrs be spilled” – and thus will continue to object to the countries’ accession into NATO.

“While the fallen of our country are tearing our hearts out on a daily basis, no one can expect concessions from us on this issue. Let me underline that Turkey has no time to lose with expectations or ambivalent remarks regarding the issue,” he asserted.

While Turkey has voiced that it “appreciates” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg’s attempts to deal seriously with Turkey’s security concerns, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said Wednesday that Sweden and Finland have still failed to deliver a “concrete response” following a formal written letter earlier this month listing Turkish demands.

The formal application by Finland and Sweden was made on May 18, and since then on a weekly basis Turkey has not once softened its stance, but instead its list of “demands” has only grown.

Meanwhile, Stoltenberg at a conference of NATO allies at The Hague told a press conference: “I welcome the serious steps already taken to address Turkey’s concerns. Our dialogue continues, to find a united way forward.” Stoltenberg days ago for the first time called many of Turkey’s concerns “legitimate” – as he and the US appear to be seeking a diplomatic way forward while handling Ankara with kid gloves:

“These are legitimate concerns. This is about terrorism, it’s about weapons exports,” Stoltenberg told a joint news conference on Sunday with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto in Naantali, Finland.
Stoltenberg said Turkey was a key NATO ally due to its strategic location on the Black Sea between Europe and the Middle East, and he cited the support Ankara has provided to Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24.

The NATO chief further added this dubious line: “We have to remember and understand that no NATO ally has suffered more terrorist attacks than Turkiye” – ironically coming at a moment Erdogan has readied more major cross-border anti-Kurdish military operations in Syria.

Turkey has of course also long supported al-Qaeda linked factions in Idlib and the northern Syria region. In prior years, during the height of the so-called Islamic State, Turkey was also widely accused of facilitating jihadists’ entry into Syria in order to topple Assad.

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin acknowledged this week that the applications appear stalled. “I think it’s very important to go forward at this stage. If we don’t solve these issues before Madrid, there is a risk that the situation will freeze,” Marin said Wednesday of an upcoming NATO summit in Madrid, scheduled for June 28.

“We don’t know for how long but it might freeze for a while,” Marin told a press conference while on a trip to Sweden.

END

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS/

UKRAINE/RUSSIA/USA

More laundered money coming back to the uSA

(zerohedge)

Biden To Announce Nearly $1BN More In Arms For Ukraine, Including Anti-Ship Missiles

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 10:59 AM

At a moment Ukrainian forces are on the brink of total defeat in Luhansk province in the country’s east, and with the Kremlin now claiming almost 100% control of the region, given its army has the final key city of Severodonetsk completely surrounded and Russian troops have reached the town’s center, the White House is rolling out yet another new high price tag weapons transfer to Kiev.

“The White House is expected as soon as Wednesday to announce around $1 billion dollars worth of new weapons aid for Ukraine, including anti-ship rocket systems, artillery rockets, and rounds for howitzers, people familiar with the packages said,” Reuters reports Wednesday morning.

The anti-ship rocket systems in particular will be viewed from Moscow as another serious escalation, also given the mid- April sinking of the Moskva by Neptune anti-ship missiles. It was a humiliating blow to Russian forces given it was the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

This new expected weapons aid package could thus set the stage for more devastating Ukrainian attacks on Russian navy ships off Ukrainian harbors and ports.

Earlier in the morning Bloomberg too reported that Biden admin is looking at the new tranche of US weaponry to be more than $650 million worth.

Bloomberg is reporting further that the new package is to “include, for the 1st time, vehicle-mounted Harpoon anti-ship missiles.”

The Zelensky government has been begging Washington and the West for more arms, saying the fate of the Donbas is on the line as it’s clear at this point Russian forces are steadily advancing and solidifying their hold over the east, and increasingly over southern regions too, potentially threatening Odesa.

Meanwhile, Biden doesn’t want any criticism of “reckless spending” as “we’re changing people’s lives!”… apparently:

6//GLOBAL COVID ISSUES/VACCINE MANDATE

Interesting: UK health agency now states that 99% of Monkeypox cases are in gay men. Exactly what happened with AIDS..same scenario: their auto immune system is destroyed.

UK Health Agency: 99% Of Monkeypox Cases Are Gay Men

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 02:00 AM

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A survey of monkeypox cases by the UK Health Agency has found that 151 out of 152 participants are men who “identify as gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men.”

The survey found that 311 (99% of 314) cases were men, with just 3 confirmed female cases.

“One hundred and fifty-two cases participated in more detailed questionnaires, implemented from 26 May 2022, and used retrospectively,” the survey found.

“In this data, 151 of the 152 men interviewed identified as gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM), or reported same sex contact, and the remaining individual declined to disclose this information.”

Early outbreaks of monkeypox originated at a gay sauna in Spain and a fetish festival in Belgium.

Despite monkeypox cases being overwhelmingly gay men, some critics have suggested that encouragement by health authorities for gay men who suspect they may have caught the virus to refrain from having sex is “homophobic” and a form of “stigmatization.”

As we previously highlighted, the first monkeypox patient to go public revealed that he caught the virus from having gay sex with “around 10 new partners” after being deported from Dubai for testing positive for HIV.

Despite monkeypox spreading via close contact and the World Health Organization saying summer festivals should be limited to stop the spread of the virus, a WHO spokesperson later clarified that gay pride parades should go ahead as normal.

“Though most of the world was put on lockdown over covid with tens of millions of people losing their jobs, public health authorities have made it abundantly clear that asking gay men to stop having sex with dozens of strangers to stop the spread of monkeypox is untenable,” writes Chris Menahan.

The UK Health Agency survey survey also found that 81 per cent of cases were people resident in London.

As we previously discussed, the NHS in the UK posted a message on its website urging people to not touch or consume ‘bush meat’, which is available on the black market in ethnically diverse areas of London and can cause the spread of monkeypox.

end

GLOBAL ISSUES/SUPPLY CHAINS

The Economic Meltdown Has Roots In Lockdown

TUESDAY, JUN 14, 2022 – 10:05 PM

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

American’s capacity for denial is truly a thing to behold.

For at least 27 months, it should have been obvious that we were headed for a grave crisis. Not only that: the crisis was already here in March 2020.

For weird reasons, some people, many people, imagined that governments could just shut down an economy and turn it back on without consequence. And yet here we are.

Historians of the future, if there are any intelligent ones among them, will surely be aghast at our astounding ignorance. Congress enacted decades of spending in just two years and figured it would be fine. The printing presses at the Fed ran at full tilt. No one cared to do anything about the trade snarls or supply-chain breakages. And here we are.

Our elites had two years to fix this unfolding disaster. They did nothing. Now we face terrible, grim, grueling, exploitative inflation, at the same time we are plunging into recession again, and people sit around wondering what the heck happened.

I will tell you what happened: the ruling class destroyed the world we knew. It happened right before our eyes. And here we are.

Last week, the stock market reeled on the news that the European Central Bank will attempt to do something about the inflation wrecking markets. So of course the financial markets panicked like an addict who can’t find his next hit of heroin. This week already began with more of the same, for fear that the Fed will be forced to rein in its easy-money policy event further. Maybe, maybe not; but recession appears impending regardless.

The bad news is everywhere. Even in the midst of very tight labor markets and very low unemployment (mostly mythical when you consider labor force participation), companies have started to lay off workers. Why? To prepare for recession and the prospect of more economic chaos ahead.

High-flying tech giants are curbing their enthusiasm too. Facebook apparently got tricked into paying big-time news outlets to let FB users have free access to articles — no doubt to those that reinforced government propaganda, since Mark Zuckerberg volunteered his entire company to be messengers for the regime back in 2020. FB got robbed and is now rethinking. No more freebies.

This might as well be the theme of American life. No more charity. No more kindness. No more doing something for nothing. In inflationary times, everyone becomes more grasping. Morality takes a back seat and generosity is no more. It’s every man for himself. This can only get more brutal.

There was something of a psychological break last Friday on the news of the CPI. It was not better than last month. It was not the same as last month. It was worse: 8.6% year-over-year, the worst it has been in 40 years. Honestly, everyone sort of knew this already in their heart of hearts but there is something about the official announcement that codified it.

But let’s say we stack the data at two years rather than one year. What does it look like? It comes in at 13.6%. We have never seen anything like that. And it is truly starting to hurt as never before. Gas is above $5 and rents are more than $2,000 a month on average. The raises at work have stopped coming too. On the contrary, employers are expecting more productivity for ever less money in real terms.

Prices have a very long way to go to wash out the paper sloshing around the world economy. Here is the wave of printing compared with current price trends. No way is this getting better before it gets much worse.

Put it all together, especially with declining financials, along with supply-chain breakages and other economic dislocations, and this is why it feels like the walls are closing in. It’s because they are. And there truly is no way out for anyone at this point.

No one should be shocked by any of this. It was all in the cards, an outcome guaranteed by ghastly policy over two presidential administrations, all enacted by a government that knows nothing about economics and cares nothing for basic commercial and human rights. You dispense with these things and you court disaster.

And this is how you get the worst consumer confidence rating ever recorded.

What makes today different from the 1970s is the pace at which this has all unfolded. Even a year ago, administration officials were claiming that everything would be just fine. Many people believed them, despite every bit of data pointing to exactly the opposite. Truly it feels like our lords and masters believe that their fantasies are more reality than reality itself. They say it and it somehow becomes true.

Can you imagine that only last month, the Biden administration concocted the idea of establishing a “Disinformation Governance Board”? It was designed to script the truth to all social media and mainstream media outlets, censoring all dissent. The plan blew up only because it was too overtly Orwellian for public consumption. What matters here is the intent, which is nothing short of totalitarian.

Politics is good fun for many people, a real sport and a good distraction from real life. But politics becomes a very serious business once personal finance makes the good life ever less viable. Right now everyone is searching for someone to blame and most people have hit on the old guy in the White House, who they somehow believe should do something about all these problems despite a lifelong career of knowing nothing and doing nothing about anything.

What an astounding thing to see unfold before our eyes, and so quickly! The “malaise” of 1979 was a long time coming but the meltdown of 2022 has hit many people like a hurricane that somehow evaded detection from the radar. And yet it might be far from over.

In 2020 and following, money appeared like magic in bank accounts all over the country. A third of the workforce had gotten used to languishing at home, pretending to work. Students started Zooming instead of learning. Adults who had spent a lifetime embracing the normal disutilities of labor gained for the first time a vision of a life of luxury without work.

One result was a huge boom in personal savings, if only for a brief time. Some of the money was spent on Amazon, streaming services, and food delivery but also much of it landed in bank accounts as people started saving money as never before, most likely because the opportunities to spend on entertainment and travel dried up. Personal savings soared to over 30 percent. It felt like we were all rich!

That feeling could not last. Once the economy opened up again, and people were ready to get out and spend their new riches, a strange new reality presented itself. The money they thought they had was worth far less. Also there were strange shortages in goods they once took for granted. Their new riches turned into vapor in a matter of months, with each month worse than the previous month.

As a result, people had to deplete their savings and turn to debt finance just to keep up with the decline in purchasing power, even as their income in real terms turned dramatically south. In other words, government took away what it gave.

The long period of denial seems suddenly over. People of all political persuasions are fuming in anger. The crime everywhere these days is not incidental or accidental. It is a mark of civilizational decline. Something has to give and will give at some point. The ruling class in this country and their friends around the world have caused tremendous wreckage.

Here is the purchasing power of the dollar since 2018. Behold what our rulers have done!

And yet, what do our rulers have to say to us? They tell us to rely more on wind and sun — Janet Yellen’s exact words to the Senate last week. I used to think she was a smart cookie but I guess power turns even good minds to mush. Mush is exactly what they have created out of a once prosperous and hopeful nation.

The most frustrating aspect of all of this is the rampant failure to connect cause and effect. The cause should be clear: this was all kicked off by the most egregious, arrogant, irresponsible, foolhardy, and brutal policies ever perpetrated on the whole of American life, all in the name of disease control. I’ve yet to see evidence that any of the people and agencies who did this to us are willing to reassess their decisions. Quite the contrary.

There must be a reckoning.

It was not the poor, the working classes, or the person on the street who did this. These policies were not an act of nature. They were never even voted upon by legislatures.

They were imposed by men and women with unchecked administrative power under the mistaken belief that they had it all under control. They never did and they do not now.

end

VACCINE INJURY

Vaccine Impact

Florida Gov. DeSantis Wants CPS to Take Children Away from Parents Attending “Drag Shows” but Not from Parents Attempting to Murder Their Children with COVID-19 Shots

June 14, 2022 6:37 pm

Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis criticized a “family friendly” drag show held at a gay bar in Dallas, Texas. And while most parents in the U.S. would probably agree with the Governor on this issue, it is what he said next that should concern every parent in America who values parental rights. When asked by reporters whether he would support proposed legislation from a Florida state representative that would punish parents who take their children to such performances, the governor said he has asked his staff to look into the idea. “We have child protective statutes on the books,” the governor said. “We have laws against child endangerment.” Threatening parents who do not conform with a politician’s view about what constitutes being a good parent or not by having their children kidnapped by the State and put into the nation’s lucrative child trafficking network called “foster care” by government “child protection” agents, is something everybody should be against, regardless of your political views. As we have documented numerous times over the past many years, putting children into the nation’s child trafficking network called “foster care” has disastrous and deadly results, as many of these children are raped and sexually abused in foster care, and nationwide studies have shown that children who are left with their biological families, even in troubled homes, fare much better than children forced to be separated from their families and put into the foster care system. Where is the outrage from Gov. DeSantis against the parents who are trying to abuse or kill their children by forcing them to take a COVID-19 “vaccine” that is today maiming and killing so many children, including children in the “Red” State of Florida? This is something Gov. DeSantis has the power to stop, NOT by threatening to take away their children, but by issuing an executive order stating that Florida will not follow the FDA and CDC recommendations for injecting children with the COVID-19 shots to be implemented in their State. These recommendations from the FDA and CDC are just that: recommendations. They are NOT laws!

Michael Every//

Michael Every on the day’s most important topics

Rabo: The Key Questions Now Are Which Awful Choice The Fed Makes

TUESDAY, JUN 14, 2022 – 10:45 PM

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Big Bear, Big Bird, Big Bad

So, a bear market. A BIG bear market. And a BIG bear market in almost everything.

The S&P is -22.1% year-to-date (y-t-d). The Nasdaq worse, -30.1%. Equity carnage is widespread in the US and globally too. All those who had gone long risk again, having no idea what is actually happening in the real economy, are in tears.

US 2-year Treasury yields has leaped over 60bps to top 3.40% since Friday’s CPI print, driven higher by a Wall Street Journal ‘Fed whisperer’ saying a 75bps hike this week, not July, is on the cards. That’s an entire mini-cycle. In short, most of the curve is inverted from 5s onwards, and is then also as flat as a pancake: which is how US stock and bond bulls are feeling.

In Europe, German 2-year yields leaped almost 60bps since Thursday’s ECB statement to 1.23% and 10s by 43bps to 1.76%. The last time Germany was here was almost a decade ago, when the “whatever it takes thing” was still working its temporary magic. Far more worrying for the ECB, Italian 2s soared 100bps to 2.13% and 10s 86bps to 4.18% since Lagarde’s words failed to soothe. The latter is even higher than the spike seen in the bad old days of Italian political risk in 2018, and just a month ago, said 10s were trading at 2.89%. Does anybody think the Italian economy can take that kind of increase in borrowing costs? What exactly is the ECB plan, beyond hope, prayer, rhetoric, and playing the UEFA champions league theme? To step in and buy peripheral bonds?

In Japan, the BOJ’s 10-year JGB yield peg held, barely, due to huge official bond buying. JPY had crashed through 135 before recovering slightly as offshore selling in everything saw some Japanese capital repatriated. However, given Wednesday may see the Fed go 75bps and flag more, while the BOJ on Friday will only flag more bond buying, JPY is not going to stay at these levels for long. It’s going to get much, much worse.

Australian 3-year yields are now 3.63%: just months ago they were pegged at 0.10%. Aussie 10s are at 4.10%, racing after Italy, higher than the pre-Covid peaks of below 3%. The Aussie housing gods will not be pleased with this offering.

Despite the above, commodities held up well and energy went*up*, meaning the physical cost of production/supply of almost everything from food to goods will too, with a lag. Then either wages do, and it’s a wage-price spiral; or wages don’t, and we are all much poorer. Anecdotally, funds are still chasing commodities as both an inflation hedge and a flight to safety, which makes sense. Yet it also means the Fed has to keep raising rates more than markets thought they would…. and even the threat of a 75bps hike didn’t buck that trend yesterday.

Naturally, the US dollar went up sharply. DXY is now above 105 again and shows no likely cause to head sustainably lower. That makes commodities even more expensive for everyone not using the dollar (or producing and hoarding them). The broader Bloomberg FX index incorporating emerging markets is up 7.9% y-t-d: next is surely the 2020 peak.

The crypto complex is proving to the anti-commodity as a ‘haven’ from volatility, inflation, and to preserve capital. Bitcoin alone is trading this morning in Asia at around $22,000, having been above $30,000 just 3 days ago. As one crypto-shill tweeted in 2020, “Bitcoin is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy.” Well, higher Fed funds are pest control, and Celsius is freezing.

Watch the likes of big pension funds scramble to explain to real money clients really underwater that what lies ahead is a ‘slow-down’ or a ‘correction’. Also watch them predict this ‘unforecastable’(!) event will be rapidly reversed because their DSGE GDP models automatically mean revert to growth. Meanwhile, in the real world, if commodity (and goods) supply does not adjust upwards –which will take *years*– then there is no way to see a V-shaped growth profile without a V-shaped inflation profile to match.

Ordinarily, what we have seen in the last two sessions would be enough for a Fed U-turn. Indeed, Wednesday could still see ‘merely’ a 50bps move and a misplaced relief rally. Yet the Fed cannot U-turn properly to save 401Ks without ensuring the dollar tanks, pushing imported inflation higher, while commodities soar as an inflation hedge, and supply-side inflation becomes entrenched, with wage-price spirals to follow, i.e., structural CPI of perhaps 4-5%, not 2%.

It would also flag a staggering decline in US geoeconomic and geopolitical power. On which, a Twitter thread doing the rounds, sees @d_jaishankar note that from recent Chatham House conferences he has attended:

“I was left with the strong impression that traditional US elites are still very preoccupied with their domestic politics, and haven’t internalized the enormity of the geopolitical challenge they face. They’re trapped in the 1990s. There’s a reluctant acknowledgment that the neoliberal model is discredited, but the answers to how to address inequality, immigration, and trade is… more neoliberalism, immigration, and trade. There’s a grudging understanding that state management might be back.”

The key questions now are which awful choice the Fed makes; and if it opts to hike, if it also throws in help for key parts of the *real* economy at the same time – i.e., quasi-MMT slash China-style economics slash a pumped-up ECB acronymtastic band aid.

Many readers may find this either very uncomfortable or very hard to grasp. Allow me to use a Twitter meme to explain. @Rainmaker1973 shares, “Crested mynas, as many other birds, are born altricially, which means young are underdeveloped at the time of birth, therefore fed by parents. When they grow up, they have to learn that food doesn’t simply jump into their beaks”. Click the link and watch the myna bird walk around with its mouth open waiting for the worm to jump in.

The bird has to feed itself now. So do we. Even the mighty American Eagle will go hungry if it doesn’t realize that fact. And yet traditional economists and market participants, like big birds, are waiting for juicy returns to jump into their mouths as the Fed saves them, if not this week, then next month, next quarter, next year, etc. That may no longer be how the real world works.

A final point on this all. I am on record as saying ‘Bretton Woods 3 Won’t Work’. I reiterate that despite the present mess, it won’t, because there is nothing to ‘work’ globally – just breakdown, chaos, and even higher geopolitical tensions. Indeed, Bretton Woods 3 is just old-fashioned military mercantilism – and once upon a time, the West was very good at it. It will need to be again, and soon. That will shake markets even further as it happens. If we have a Big Bear and big birds, that geopolitical backdrop is our overarching Big Bad.

end

Rabobank: The Fed Must Act Because The US Is Losing The Dollar’s Power As Global Collateral To Commodities

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 10:15 AM

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Fed day – and what a Fed day! In the space of a few trading sessions the market has swung from expectations of a 50bps hike, eyebrow-raising a few weeks ago, to 75bps, a weapon last wheeled out in 1994, with some whispers of 100bps.

75bps was actually one of the smaller Volcker hikes, the largest being a staggering 525bps in March 1980. In short, the last time US inflation got out of control on the supply and demand side, it dwarfed present volatility.

True, the US is not seeing a demand boom now even if the rich are in fine fettle, and some see a post-Covid carpe diem, borrow-and-live-now, pay-later attitudes. Yet supply is constrained, and higher oil output is not helped by suggestions of a 21% windfall tax on energy companies; or lower tariffs on Chinese bicycles, which President Biden apparently favours. Our Philip Marey also sees a wage-price spiral in place that will continue if policy is not tightened.

The irony is that if the Fed ‘only’ goes 50bps, we might get a relief rally. Yet what if we get 75bps and indications of more to come via the dot-plot? Is that already fully priced in?

As a run-up to today, markets tried to force an equity and bond bounce: both largely failed, as the S&P closed lower, and bond yields went higher. US Treasury 2s are now 3.42% when they stood at 2.82% three days ago; 10s are at 3.47% when they were 3.05%; and 30s at 3.42% versus 3.16%. Needless to say, DXY was higher at 105.2 at time of writing. In Europe, German 2s are 1.22%, up 39bps in three days, and 10s are 1.75%, up 33bps. Italian 2s are 2.12%, up 73bps(!), and 10s 4.17%, up 56bps. Equally needless to say, EUR/USD was lower. These are the kind of bond moves one might normally project over a year or two or three, not the same number of days.

As I was trying to argue last night, badly, through a head cold, and at the end of a 15-hour day, this is unprecedented for post-Volcker developed markets (DM). However, it’s standard fare for emerging markets (EM), which regularly see pick-ups in demand or supply shocks lead to balance of payments shortfalls, then synchronized sell-offs across asset classes. Is what we are seeing in DM just central-bank over-reaction, or that a deliberately supply-constrained world makes DM look either Volcker-ish or like EM?

It’s just a view: but if it’s right anyone punching said argument is going to end up like the chap in this Twitter meme picking on a ‘banana man’, not a strawman. Bloomberg are at least running from the on-rushing waters shouting ‘World’s Central Banks Got it Wrong, and Economies Pay the Price,’ over the shoulder.

DM are DM because they traditionally controlled supply chains. If EM made what they needed, they wouldn’t be EM. Yet if DM now don’t make what they need, how do they expect to stay DM – just by making the economic rules? What if others say no? Ask yourself that as Russia turns off the gas taps to Europe to try to force them to drop sanctions, as the US Freeport LNG terminal says it will be out for 90, not 21 days. So, EU gas prices soar; more inflation; more balance of payments deficits; and less room for ECB policy maneuver.

As a commentator noted this week, the post-1945 global institutions the West created, in all their double-standard glory, are not the source of Western power: Western power is the source of institutions with double-standard glory. Indeed, arguably the real difference between DM and EM is that: “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception,” as the DM UK argues to the EU while ironically doing a great impression of being an EM.

That concept matters more than markets want to see: why can some act and others not? “Because some markets”? There is open pushback against the global system from those providing key inputs into it. The West either pushes back or gets pushed off the stage.

The quote just mentioned actually originates from Carl Schmitt, chief jurisprudence source for the Nazis; and Wang Huning, one of the CCP’s most brilliant intellectuals, draws on Schmitt for how China should act. His fellow academic Jiang Shigong also argues:

“…we are living in an age of chaos, conflict, and massive change in which world empire 1.0 is in decline and trending toward collapse, while we are as yet unable to imagine world empire 2.0… We cannot deny that these ages of historical transition have also created the opportunity for each civilization to construct world empire 2.0… We see the reconstruction of Chinese civilization and the reconstruction of the world order as a mutually re-enforcing whole.”

This really isn’t about cheap bicycles.

Indeed, ‘Xi signs outlines that direct China’s military operations other than war’ active from today. This refers to disaster relief, humanitarian aid, maritime escorts, peacekeeping, counter-terrorism, anti-pirate and peacekeeping missions, preventing spillover effects of regional instabilities from affecting China, securing vital transport routes for strategic materials like oil, or safeguarding China’s overseas investments, projects and personnel. In short, much more of the PLA globally. Hopefully not a “special military operation” too.

(As an aside, we also see reports that after freezing $6 billion in deposits and seeing angry crowds trying to get their money back, banks in China’s Henan are stopping affected depositors from physically going in to branches by turning their Covid Health Code ‘red’, which bars them from public space. “Zero-Covid is just about public health.”)

Back to the Fed. When we looked at how Modern Monetary Theory works we flagged if an economy runs large trade and current account surpluses, or is the global hegemon and reserve FX, they are “sovereign”: if they don’t, they aren’t, they just get higher inflation and a weaker currency. Did we not just establish that fact in reality? Is China not demonstrating it with how they run their economy – albeit as they also want to break away from the Eurodollar somehow? DM are not immune to that iron logic: look at Japan ahead of this week’s BOJ meeting.

So far, the Fed has been immune to all of this. Yet on energy, or at least refined fuels, it no longer is. Neither is the US on many manufactured goods. All it has left is the rules set up by Western power that is no longer so powerful. So, act the Fed must, says the geopolitical logic: which is why while some are being swept away by this market tsunami, those thinking the US would have to choose the US dollar over the US economy or US markets have intellectually far drier feet. If the US loses the power of the dollar as global collateral to commodities as collateral, then its economy and markets will soon follow. Maybe that logic doesn’t hold: but a hawkish Fed today suggests it does.

To be blunt, there is real EM schadenfreude in current Western struggles. In 1997, and long before that in Latin America, EM crises were treated thus: raise rates; cut state spending; force recession; sell off state assets (to the West); and sell off private-sector assets at fire-sale prices (to the West). Yet when the West faced its own crisis in 2008, what did it do? Cut rates; do QE; and bail everyone guilty out. If the Fed now has to keep hiking in 75bps steps and can’t cut rates and do more QE without inflationary consequences, then West perhaps faces a 2008 redux without a safety net.

Unless the Fed does to commodities what they just did to crypto, where Coinbase is laying off 18% of its staff. The Bloomberg NFT index is also collapsing. Who knew that monkeys in sunglasses don’t provide much in the way of realpolitik sovereignty when push comes to shove?

Of course, you can’t eat schadenfreude, served hot or cold (or crypto). DM may hate the surge in commodity prices, the dollar, and Eurodollar rates, but for many EM it is an outright calamity.

If the Fed keeps tightening, we face global pain, most so in EM. If the Fed backs off “because markets”, we face global inflation. Either way today, après Fed, the deluge.

7. OIL ISSUES//NATURAL GAS//ELECTRICITY ISSUES/USA//GLOBE

(TINA: THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE!)

The natural gas market is clearly causing problems for Europe and the uSA due to policies created

(Mish Shedlock/Mishtalk)

The Harsh Reality Of Energy ‘TINA’ Strikes The US And Europe

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 06:30 AM

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Hello EU and President Biden “There Is No Alternative” to Russian energy…

Natural gas chart courtesy of Trading Economics, annotations by Mish.

Some European Factories, Long Dependent on Cheap Russian Energy, Are Shutting Down

The Wall Street Journal reports Some European Factories, Long Dependent on Cheap Russian Energy, Are Shutting Down

For decades, European industry relied on Russia to supply low-cost oil and natural gas that kept the continent’s factories humming.
Now Europe’s industrial energy costs are soaring in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine, hobbling manufacturers’ ability to compete in the global marketplace. Factories are scrambling to find alternatives to Russian energy under threat that Moscow could abruptly turn off the gas spigot, bringing production to a halt.
Europe’s producers of chemicals, fertilizer, steel and other energy-intensive goods have come under pressure over the last eight months as tensions with Russia climbed ahead of the February invasion. Some producers are shutting down in the face of competition from factories in the U.S., the Middle East and other regions where energy costs are much lower than in Europe. Natural-gas prices are now nearly three times higher in Europe than in the U.S.

The Sanction Impact

Global map from Nations Online Project, annotations by Mish

De-Globalization: New Supply Chains Are Inefficient and Will Drive Up Inflation

On April 4, I wrote De-Globalization: New Supply Chains Are Inefficient and Will Drive Up Inflation

What I called “proposed” then is happening now.

The EU does not want to use Russian oil or natural gas.

So instead, the EU gets oil from Saudi Arabia and has turned to the US for liquid natural gas (LNG).

This economic madness is driving up the price of natural gas in the US as well.

LNG Explosion

The price of natural gas in the US has stabilized at a high level thanks to an explosion at a US LNG terminal. Instead of sending LNG overseas, it will be used here.

But that won’t last long. On June 10, NBC reported the Freeport liquefied natural gas terminal will be shut down for three weeks. [ZH: It has just bee reported that Freeport will be out of service for at least 90 days, which sent US NatGas prices hurtling lower, and EU NatGas prices soaring higher.]

Then we will resume taking US NG, liquefying it, shipping it across the ocean to the EU, enabling the EU to wean itself off natural gas at a very high price.

In response, Russia is busy building pipelines to China.

Both India and China are willing to take Russian energy.

Texas Breaks Power Demand Record During June Heat Wave

Please note Texas Breaks Power Demand Record During June Heat Wave.

Power demand surpassed 75 gigawatts at around 5:15 p.m., surpassing the previous record of 74.8 gigawatts in August 2019. Still, the state’s capacity remained well above that, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
The massive demand was unusual for two reasons. First, it came in June, which tends to be slightly less hot than the state’s warmest late-summer months. It also came on the weekend, when electricity demand tends to be slightly lower as many office buildings are empty.

Energy Grid Operator Alerts About Possible Summer Blackouts

Also note Energy Grid Operator Alerts About Possible Summer Blackouts

Tuscon Electric warns Conserve power to avoid blackouts this summer

With summer temperatures in Tucson hitting triple digits, Tucson Electric Power Co. is again asking customers to conserve power between 3 and 7 p.m. to help curb peak demand and avoid blackouts.

Think things are bad under Biden? Get ready for the blackouts.

That headline is not at all surprising. But where it comes from certainly is.

The Washington Post reports Think things are bad under Biden? Get ready for the blackouts.

First came the worst border crisis in U.S. history. Then came the worst inflation in four decades and record-high gas prices. Then came the baby formula shortage.
Next up? Blackouts.
That’s right, just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, add rolling blackouts to the rolling disasters President Biden has unleashed upon the country. The Post reported Thursday that the United States won’t have enough power to get through the summer heat wave, leaving us at risk of widespread power outages — particularly across the Midwest region, stretching from Minnesota to Louisiana, which has enjoyed stable electricity for decades.

Over Twenty Million Households Struggle to Pay Energy Bills, It Will Get Worse

Yesterday, I reported Over Twenty Million Households Struggle to Pay Energy Bills, It Will Get Worse

On June 9, I commented Why Are Energy Prices High? Blame President Biden

It’s not “all” Biden’s fault, but he’s pretending to have zero responsibility. Expect a huge summer of discontent and politicians are largely to blame.

The very best thing Biden could do right now is end the sanctions and work out a deal to get Ukrainian wheat to the global markets.

The sooner we realize “Energy TINA” the better.

END

LIBYA

Libya is still in a mess. Their fragile peace is in jeoparday and a major oil risk is at hand

(Simon Watkins/OiPrice.com)

Libya’s Fragile Peace Is A Major Oil Market Risk

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 05:00 AM

Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com,

The relentless oil price is causing economic havoc around the world, and Libya represents a major supply risk that could send prices even higher.
The recent failed attempt by Bashagha to take power in Tripoli has heightened tensions in the country and could lead to significant supply outages.
Until there is genuine progress on the issue of fair distribution of oil revenues within the country, this risk of major supply outages will continue to plague markets.

The economic pain for many countries being caused by still-high crude oil (and gas) prices may be exacerbated by another extensive series of blockades of key oil facilities in Libya.

This follows the very recent failed attempt by Fathi Bashagha – appointed prime minister of the ‘alternative government’ in the east of the country three months ago – to take over power in Tripoli. Bashagha, and the Nawasi Brigade militia who accompanied him, were eventually driven out of the city by various other of many factions fighting there. This occurred amid the ongoing refusal of the Government of National Unity’s (GNU) Prime Minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah – who was appointed through a United Nations (U.N.)-led process in 2021 – to hand over power until such a time as a properly elected government is voted into office by the people of Libya. Bashagha, who has led three such coup attempts in three months, is unlikely to stop his current attempts to seize power, given the distinct possibility that talks held in Egypt at the behest of U.N. envoy Stephanie Williams to reach an agreement on a new constitutional framework and a timeline for elections might see him sidelined. Even if Bashagha is successfully removed from any legal or quasi-legal basis of power and accepts the decision, the fault lines that run through Libya, and permeate into its oil sector, are too deep and broad to just disappear with him.

Since the removal of long-time leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011, as analyzed in-depth in my new book on the global oil markets, the multi-factional civil conflict that has ensued found genuine relief only in the September 2020 agreement signed between Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the rebel Libyan National Army (LNA), and elements of Tripoli’s U.N.-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA). However, even back then, a key part of this deal was an in-principle agreement to look into establishing a commission not only to determine how oil revenues across Libya are distributed but also to consider the implementation of a number of measures designed to stabilize the country’s perilous financial position. Just prior to the September 2020 agreement, there had been yet another series of long-running oil blockades that had cost the country an estimated US$9.8 billion in lost hydrocarbon revenues.

Both before this 2020 agreement and after it began to break down, Libya’s oil sector has been subject to various-scale blockades of its key oil facilities, and even now around half or slightly more of Libya’s oil production is offline, according to various estimates. Prior to this, following the National Oil Company (NOC) declaring a legal state of ‘force majeure’ because “it is impossible to implement its commitments towards the oil market,” Libyan crude oil production had seen an extended loss of around 550,000 bpd of its oil production as a result of blockades on major fields and export terminals. These included the closure of the Zueitina port, whose crude loadings average around 90,000 bpd, with production also stopped at Abuatufol, Al-Intisar, Anakhla, and Nafura. Just prior to this, the Sharara field in the west of the country, which can pump around 300,000 bpd, was also shut down, and just prior to this the El Feel oil field, which produces 70,000 bpd, was closed, as was the 60,000 bpd Brega operation. These sites are key suppliers of mostly high-quality light, sweet crude oil, notably including the Es Sider and Sharara export crudes.

It is easy to forget that before Gaddafi’s removal in 2011, Libya had been easily able to produce around 1.65 million bpd of mostly high-quality light, sweet crude oil. Production had additionally been on a rising production trajectory, up from about 1.4 million bpd in 2000, albeit well below the peak levels of more than 3 million bpd achieved in the late 1960s. This said, the NOC had plans in place before 2011 to roll out enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques to increase crude oil production at maturing oil fields. Even up until the most recent major production blockades of its western fields and eastern ports ended, Libya had been producing around 1.2 million bpd. From that level, there still appeared scope to increase this to the 2.1 million bpd targeted by Libya’s Oil Ministry, and to hit the informal interim targets of 1.45 million bpd by the end of 2022, and 1.6 million bpd by the end of 2023. It is apposite to remember at this point that Libya still has around 48 billion barrels of proved crude oil reserves – the largest in Africa.

Given this potential, there was, and to some degree still is, the prospect of major international participation in Libya’s oil sector. Earlier this year, the Oil Ministry had begun discussing exploration and development options with several international oil companies, with an agreement of sorts being struck with TotalEnergies. This saw the French firm commit to continue with its efforts to increase oil production from the giant Waha, Sharara, Mabruk, and Al Jurf oil fields by at least 175,000 bpd and to make the development of the Waha-concession North Gialo and NC-98 oil fields a priority, according to the NOC. The Waha concessions – in which TotalEnergies took a minority stake in 2019 – have the capacity to produce at least 350,000 bpd together, according to the NOC. The second deal was the approval by Libya’s GNU of the sale of the 8.16 percent stake in the country’s giant Waha oil concessions held by the U.S.’s Hess Corporation to the remaining stakeholders – again, TotalEnergies (with a 16.3 percent share), and also ConocoPhillips (also 16.3 percent), each of which was offered first refusal on half of Hess’s stake.

At the core of Libya’s short-, medium-, and long-term crude oil production outlook, though, and again reiterated behind the scenes in the very recent Cairo talks by the U.S., is that there must be genuine progress on the issue of fair distribution of oil revenues, the promise of which had successfully underpinned the 2020 agreement for longer than anyone expected.

According to a Washington-based legal source spoken to by OilPrice.com at the time of the September 2020 agreement and reiterated recently, the NOC had been working on “alternative banking arrangements for the oil revenues that may or may not involve the input on final dispersal of more players.”

Part of this process would be the creation of technical committees with representatives drawn from all sides of the civil conflict.

These separate committees would deal with field awards, in tandem with the oil and gas ministry, and the dispersal of oil and gas revenues, in tandem with the ministry and the Central Bank of Libya (in which the revenues are physically held). As it stands, neither the GNA nor the Central Bank of Libya has publically and unequivocally agreed to its core principles as yet, and during the last major series of blockades of Libya’s oil infrastructure, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Richard Norland, urged the country’s central bank to safeguard oil revenue from misappropriation.

end

Europe//ISA//Natural Gas

EU NatGas Soars On Gazprom Flow-Cuts, Goldman Hikes US NatGas Price Target

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 11:48 AM

Goldman Sachs commodity analysts Samantha Dart and Damien Courvalin revised their US and European natural gas price targets due to last week’s explosion at the Freeport LNG Terminal in Quintana, Texas.

On Tuesday, Freeport released a statement about how the expected three-week closure at the LNG terminal would only be partially restarted in 90 days (a complete surprise to the energy analysts). This sent US NatGas prices in the US tumbling as much as 25% since the explosion. Inversely, European NatGas has soared by more than 40% because fewer exports from the US will crunch European supplies amid weening attempts from Russian fossil fuels.

EU NatGas is surging even more this morning after Russian natural gas deliveries through Nord Stream to Europe will drop by around 40% this year.

State-controlled energy giant Gazprom said Tuesday that the flow has been restricted after Canadian sanctions over the war in Ukraine prevented German partner Siemens Energy from delivering overhauled equipment.

“Gas supplies to the Nord Stream gas pipeline can currently be provided in the amount of up to 100 million cubic meters per day (compared to) the planned volume of 167 million cubic meters per day,” Gazprom said in a statement.

As AP reports, Siemens Energy said a gas turbine that powers a compressor station on the pipeline had been in service for more than 10 years and had been taken to Montreal for a scheduled overhaul. But because of sanctions imposed by Canada, the company has been unable to return the equipment to the customer, Gazprom.

“Against this background we informed the Canadian and German government and are working on a sustainable solution,” Siemens Energy said in a statement.

It did not provide a timeline for the planned drop in gas flows and that sent EU NatGas prices soaring. (The chart below shows ‘energy equivalent’ comps to enable better comparisons price premia)

The Freeport explosion was a significant enough problem that Goldman’s Dart and Courvalin couldn’t overlook. They readjusted their price targets for US and EU NatGas higher.

The longer-than-previously-announced outage at Freeport, which reduces our expected US LNG exports to the rest of the world, raises our US end-Oct22 storage estimates and lowers storage in NW Europe vs our previous expectations.
As we incorporate these changes into our balances, we modestly raise our natural gas prices forecasts, with 3Q22 TTF at 90 EUR/MWh vs 85 EUR previously and Bal Sum22/Win22-23 Henry Hub at $7.15/$6.40/mmBtu vs $6.80/$5.60 previously.

The analysts explained why they shifted up the price target for US NatGas, indicating the decision to raise “US natural gas forecasts may seem counter-intuitive”:

1. The outage impact on US gas inventories vs. our Apr expectations is partly offset by hotter temperatures and stronger-than-expected power and residential demand;
2. The tightening risk to balances coming from weather for the remainder of summer has increased relative to what we had in Apr, given 1 standard deviation for balance-of-summer temperatures is worth 1.2 bcf/d vs the 0.5 bcf/d equivalent to 1 standard deviation for the whole summer, and (3) the gas price level required to trigger gas-to-Appalachia-coal substitution has increased from about $11 to over $12/mmBtu, as Appalachia coal prices have followed international coal higher.

Dart and Courvalin said the Freeport outage would impact European supplies and decrease global LNG availability. That was the main reason why they increased the EU NatGas price target.

The 5 EUR price response in Europe to the Freeport announcement is consistent with our estimated demand elasticity estimates. Specifically, as we discussed recently, because of the buffer built summer to date in NW European storage, the Freeport outage would need to last more than 70 days before taking storage below the 90% full target.
The current outlook for the facility implies this will be the case, taking end-Oct storage in NW Europe 0.4 Bcm (or approximately 1%) below the 90% full threshold. This can be offset with a 3 mcmd drop in demand for the remainder of summer, which our estimated elasticity of 1 mcm/d change in NW European gas demand for a 1.8 EUR/MWh move in TTF prices suggest requires a 5 EUR/MWh increase in prices, consistent with what we’ve seen in the market. Accordingly, we raise our 3Q22 TTF price forecast by 5 EUR to 90 EUR/MWh, vs current forwards at 97.60 EUR.

They said, “the next nine months as the tightest part of the US gas forward balances of the next few years given the still relatively low inventories in 2022 and the slow pace of production growth observed year to date,” adding US NatGas production should increase in the second half of the year and will set the stage for a more balanced market in 2023/24.

As a reminder, the Texas terminal is the fourth largest in the US regarding export flows. This is bullish for NatGas supplies in the US (hampering prices) and very bearish for Europe (sending prices higher).

8 EMERGING MARKET& AUSTRALIA ISSUES

Australia//// NEW ZEALAND/ SOUTH AFRICA/BRAZIL/ARGENTINA/INDIA/PAKISTAN

Australia

Thousands of Sydney homes plunged into darkness after an Aussie price cap policy sparks an energy shortage

(Nguyen/EpochTimes)

1000s Of Sydney Homes Plunged Into Darkness As Aussie ‘Price Cap’ Policy Sparks Energy Shortage

TUESDAY, JUN 14, 2022 – 06:05 PM

Authored by Nina Nguyen via The Epoch Times,

Thousands of homes on Australia’s east coast were plunged into darkness on Monday as electricity suppliers struggled to meet demand as the country teeters on the edge of an energy shortage.

On Monday night, multiple areas in Sydney’s north and along the affluent Northern Beaches were sent into darkness, after the energy market operator warned of power disruption across the states of New South Wales and Queensland.

Affected suburbs include Beacon Hill, Frenchs Forest, Narraweena, Cromer and Dee Why in New South Wales (NSW), according to Ausgrid—Australia’s largest electricity distributor on the east coast. Power was available later in the day.

Households were encouraged to use less power as leading energy provider Powerlink Queensland warned of an “unusual combination” of unexpected generator outages plus cool winter temperatures and high demand for electricity.

“Gas supplies are sufficient however very high gas prices means [the Australian Energy Market Operator] has already triggered its market generation response mechanisms,” Powerlink said in a statement on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) on Tuesday confirmed that some energy generators have “revised their market availability” in NSW and Queensland due to a new $300/MWh price cap, a result of increased wholesale electricity prices.

In the gas markets, gas prices remained capped at $40/GJ after reaching cumulative high price thresholds in Victoria and Sydney.

“As a consequence of the administered price cap in Queensland, AEMO has seen generation bids reduce,” AEMO said in a media release on Monday.
“The price cap … will only remain in place if the cumulative price threshold is still exceeded.”
“It is possible that other states may also reach the threshold in the near term.”

A spokesperson for the Australian Energy Council, which represents major power generators including AGL, EnergyAustralia and Origin, said its members faced a “complex issue” but were seeking solutions to the power crunch, as they battle coal prices that are soaring because of sanctions on Russian exports..

“The price cap unintentionally means that some plants can’t recover their fuel costs. Participants are legitimately seeking ways to resolve the problem,” the spokesperson said.

The power outages came as former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull urged the current federal Labor government to work with the states and National Energy Market to impose export controls on gas and limit prices for a 90-day period.

Turnbull said this would push major LNG producers to concede and make cheaper gas available.

“This will involve imposing force majeure on contracts,” he told ABC Radio on Monday.
“It’ll be resented bitterly by the industry … but we have a crisis at the moment, and hopefully, it won’t go on for too long.
“The minute they say they’re going to do it, the gas companies will find the gas … they will agree to offer it at lower prices.”

In Queensland, households were also warned of possible power outages between 5.30p.m. to 8p.m. on Monday, but these were averted.

Powerlink Queensland encouraged households to save energy including suggestions to consider how much heating was being used, turn off or place into standby electronics like TVs, computers, and household appliances, and to also switch-off pool pumps.

Businesses were told to consider their use of indoor and outdoor lighting and to turn off water heating systems.

“By carefully managing electricity use at home and in your workplace, the community can help ensure that power system security is maintained in Queensland,” Powerlink CEO Paul Simshauser said.

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

Euro/USA 1.0484 UP 0.0049 /EUROPE BOURSES //ALL GREEN

USA/ YEN 134.49 DOWN 0.791 /NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT .11% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…

GBP/USA 1.2109 UP 0.0099

Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED UP 16.50 POINTS UP 0.50%

Hang Sang CLOSED UP 240.22 PTS OR 1.14%

AUSTRALIA CLOSED DOWN 31.3% // EUROPEAN BOURSES ALL GREEN

Trading from Europe and ASIA

I) EUROPEAN BOURSES ALL GREEN

2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang SANG CLOSED UP 240.22 PTS OR 1.14%

/SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 16.50 PTS UP 0.50%

Australia BOURSE CLOSED DOWN 1.39%

(Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED DOWN 303.70 OR 1.14%

INDIA’S SENSEX IN THE RED

Gold very early morning trading: 1827.40

silver:$21.49

USA dollar index early WEDNESDAY morning: 104.61 DOWN 73 CENT(S) from TUESDAY’s close.

WEDNESDAY MORNING NUMBERS ENDS

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And now your closing WEDNESDAY NUMBERS 1: 00 PM

Portuguese 10 year bond yield: 2.83% DOWN 28 in basis point(s) yield

JAPANESE BOND YIELD: +0.227% DOWN 1 AND 5/10 BASIS POINTS /JAPAN losing control of its yield curve/

SPANISH 10 YR BOND YIELD: 2.88%// DOWN 28 in basis points yield

ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD 3.91 DOWN 35 points in basis points yield ./

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD: FALLS TO +1.64%

END

IMPORTANT CURRENCY CLOSES FOR WEDNESDAY

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

Euro/USA 1.0404 DOWN 0.0032 or32 basis points

USA/Japan: 134.49 DOWN .786 OR YEN UP 79 basis points/

Great Britain/USA 1.20678 UP 0.0057 OR 57 BASIS POINTS

Canadian dollar DOWN .0013 OR 13 BASIS pts to 1.2948

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The USA/Yuan, CNY: closed ON SHORE (CLOSED ..UP 6.7142

THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE: (YUAN CLOSED (UP)..6.7196

TURKISH LIRA: 17.28 EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WISH/HYPERINFLATION TO BEGIN.

the 10 yr Japanese bond yield at +0.227

Your closing 10 yr US bond yield DOWN 8 IN basis points from TUESDAY at 3.400% //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%) very problematic

USA 30 yr bond yield 3.400 DOWN 3 in basis points

Your closing USA dollar index, 105.17 DOWN 17 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 WEDNESDAY: 12:00 PM

London: CLOSED UP 95.86 PTS OR 1.33%

German Dax : CLOSED UP 185.10 POINTS OR 1.39%

Paris CAC CLOSED UP 65.84 PTS OR 1.45%

Spain IBEX CLOSED UP 117.30 OR 1.45%

Italian MIB: CLOSED UP 616.44 PTS OR 2.82%

WTI Oil price 118.10 12: EST

Brent Oil: 120.43 12:00 EST

USA /RUSSIAN /// RUBLE FALLS TO: 57.03 DOWN 4/10 RUBLES/DOLLAR

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD; +1.635

CLOSING NUMBERS: 4 PM

Euro vs USA: 1.0449 UP .0010 OR UP 10 BASIS POINTS

British Pound: 1.2183 UP .0176 or 176 basis pts

USA dollar vs Japanese Yen: 133.69 DOWN 1.617//YEN UP 162 BASIS PTS

USA dollar vs Canadian dollar: 1.2877 up .0061 (CDN dollar UP 70 basis pts)

West Texas intermediate oil: 116.79

Brent OIL: 119.87

USA 10 yr bond yield: 3.358 DOWN 13 points

USA 30 yr bond yield: 3.398 DOWN 3 pts

USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 17.27

USA DOLLAR VS RUSSIA//// ROUBLE: 56.60 DOWN .4 / ROUBLES

DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE: UP 303.44 PTS OR 1.00%

NASDAQ 100 UP 282.09 PTS OR 2.41%

VOLATILITY INDEX: 29.31 DOWN 3.38 PTS (10.34)%

GLD: 168.61 UP 2.26 PTS OR 1.34%

SLV/ 19.98 UP .61 PTS OR 3.15%

end)

USA trading day in Graph Form

Stocks, Bonds, & Bullion Rally After Powell’s Perjury-Prone Presser

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 04:01 PM

The Fed hiked rates by 75bps – the most since 1994 – and the dotplot signaled a much more aggressive Fed rate trajectory than at the last SEP release… but The Fed sees only marginal impacts of these aggressive “strongly committed” inflation-fighting rate-hikes on the unemployment rate.

Former NY Fed president Bill Dudley said “I think the Fed’s forecasts are still remarkably optimistic… This is a very ‘soft landing’ sort of forecast.”

Powell prevaricated all over the place during his presser to persuade listeners that the US economy the US economy “is in a strong position” and “well-positioned to deal with higher interest rates.”

He then shifted from prevarication to total perjury when – on the day that retail sales printed negative and the Atlanta Fed GDPNOW model forecast tumbled to 0.0% – he dared to utter the following words:

“There is no sign of a broader slowdown in the economy that I can see.”

There’s just one thing, the US economic data has done nothing but signal collapse for over a month now… (remember when he kept saying that inflation was “transitory’ too?)

Source: Bloomberg

If everything’s so awesome, why are major firms announcing mass layoffs? And cutting guidance?

Anyway, it’s unclear if the markets paid much attention to anything he said as it all sounded like noise as stocks rallied, bond yields tumbled, the dollar plunged, and gold ripped…

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3JlZnNyY19zZXNzaW9uIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6Im9mZiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0Zndfc2Vuc2l0aXZlX21lZGlhX2ludGVyc3RpdGlhbF8xMzk2MyI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJpbnRlcnN0aXRpYWwiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3R3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdF9taWdyYXRpb25fMTM5NzkiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoidHdlZXRfcmVzdWx0IiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1537155181204455425&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmarkets%2Fstocks-bonds-bullion-rally-after-perjuring-powells-presser&sessionId=00ef4d461d433241e0f3d723199754c2f3206d03&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=b45a03c79d4c1%3A1654150928467&width=550px

The Nasdaq rallied over 3.8% at its peak today and was the best performer while The Dow managed solid gains over 2% at its best but was the laggard. The last 15-30 minutes saw profit-atking on the post-fed kneejerk

Treasuries were aggressively bid with the short-end yields crashing almost 25bps (while the long-end only fell around 4-5bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

The yield curve steepened dramatically with 5s30s un-inverting for the first time since CPI…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar index puked on the statement…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold ripped after the FOMC statement…

Oil prices extended losses today…

US NatGas prices were up modestly while EU NatGas prices soared on the back of further restrictions in gas flows into Europe from Gazprom…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, why wouldn’t you be a buyer of stocks and bonds when the country is on the verge of the worst recessionary stagflation since the 70s…

Source: Bloomberg

Bear in mind that the next two days have a massive $3.4 trillion of options expiring…

Do we think today’s 4% buying panic in Nasdaq is for feeding or fading?

Ultimately SpotGamma thinks this OPEX (plus the June 30th) removes a lot of put hedges, which we think opens the market to lower lows heading into July.

Over the past year, the S&P 500 Index moved higher after six out of eight Fed rate decisions… only to make new lows.

I) / EARLY AFTERNOON TRADING/FOMC/

Fed Hikes Rates By The Most In 28 Years, Signals Volcker-Era Is Back

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 02:04 PM

Tl;dr: The Fed hiked rates by a stunning (but expected) 75bps – the biggest hike since 1994. Esther George dissented (preferring 50bps). Fed expresses that is “strongly committed” to fighting inflation.

* * *

Since the last FOMC statement on May 4th, all hell has broken loose in global capital markets (and economies).

US equities have collapsed (Nasdaq -15%) and US Treasury yields have exploded higher. Gold is down around 3% since the last FOMC, mirroring the 3% or so gain the USDollar Index…(NOTE everything shifted after last Friday’s CPI)

Source: Bloomberg

The ugliness in bond-land was led by the short-end (with 2Y yields up almost 60bps since the last FOMC and 30Y yields up 40bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

…pushing the yield curve back into inversion once again…

Source: Bloomberg

While the last FOMC statement crowed of the underlying strength of the US economy, macro data has dramatically and serially disappointed in the month or so since…

Source: Bloomberg

Rate-hike expectations overall have soared higher since the last FOMC statement, mostly driven in the last week post-CPI…

Source: Bloomberg

With the market now pricing in 100% odds of 75bps today and in July, and 40% chance of 75bps in September too

Source: Bloomberg

Today will also see the release of new forecasts by Fed members. The current market expectations are dramatically above The Fed’s last dot-plot, so we expect significant changes…

Source: Bloomberg

Here’s what The Fed did:

The Fed raised its benchmark rate by 75 basis points — the biggest increase since 1994 — to a range of 1.5%-1.75%, in line with investors’ and economists’ expectations
Kansas City Fed President Esther George dissented in favor of a 50 basis-point hike
FOMC adds a line saying it’s “strongly committed to returning inflation to its 2% objective” and removes prior language that said the FOMC “expects inflation to return to its 2% objective and the labor market to remain strong”
Reiterates path on balance-sheet reduction that took effect June 1, shrinking bond portfolio by $47.5 billion a month and stepping up to $95 billion in September

The Fed shifted its dots up to the market…

New dot-plot projections showed sharp increase from March, with federal funds target rising to 3.4% by year-end – implying another 175 basis points of tightening this year – and 3.8% in 2023, before falling to 3.4% in 2024; prior forecasts in March were for a 1.9% rate this year and 2.8% in 2023 and 2024

Additionally, The Fed’s economic projections showed a much bumpier soft landing expected, with the unemployment rate rising from 3.7% at end-2022 to 4.1% in 2024; growth forecasts were cut to 1.7% in 2022 and 2023, from 2.8% and 2.2% in March; Fed officials still expect inflation to come down significantly in 2023

* * *

Full Redline below:

ii) USA DATA

Atlanta Fed Slashes Q2 GDP Forecast To Zero Confirming Technical Recession

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 12:26 PM

Curious why stocks are soaring today ahead of an expected 75bps rate-hike by The Fed (further tightening financial conditions as QT starts shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet)?

The answer comes courtesy of the Atlanta Fed which just confirmed the economy is in technical recession.

After a week of rampant jawboning to adjust the market’s expectation for The Fed’s actions later today (after last Friday’s unexpected resurgence in CPI), the continued erosion in economic data (most notably retail sales this morning) has prompted The Atlanta Fed to slash its forecast for Q2 GDP growth from +0.9% to 0.0%, meaning the US is now right on the verge of a technical recession (after Q1’s contraction).

According to the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model estimate for real GDP, growth in the second quarter of 2022 has been cut to just 0.0%, down from +0.9% on June 6, down from 1.3% on June 1, and down from 1.9% on May 27.

As the AtlantaFed notes, “After recent releases from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US Census Bureau, and the US Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the nowcasts of second-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth, second-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth, and second-quarter real government spending growth decreased from 3.7 percent to 2.6 percent, -8.5 percent to -9.2 percent, and 1.3 percent to 0.9 percent, respectively.”

In short: the US consumer is getting tapped out, just as we have been warning repeatedly.

Which also fits with Jamie Dimon’s recent “downgrade” of the economy from “storm clouds” to “hurricane”… and also makes some sense given the recent collapse in macro data relative to expectations…

And longer-term, the trend towards stagflation could not be clearer…

And thus increasingly problematic for The Fed, as the jawboning is driving rate-hike expectations higher once again

Meaning The Fed is now hiking rates into a recession… and the market is already pricing in 2-3 rate-cuts to address that recession.

END

Not good for GDP: retail sales unexpectedly tumbles in May

(zerohedge)

US Retail Sales Unexpectedly Tumble In May

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 08:35 AM

Amid record low consumer sentiment, crashing asset markets, and tumbling savings rates, it is no surprise that May retail sales were a disappointment but the 0.3% plunge was remarkable relative to a 0.1% expected rise and downwardly revised 0.7% MoM rise in April.

That is the first negative print since Dec 2021.

Source: Bloomberg

Auto sales dropped 3.5% in May, reinforcing data from Ward’s Automotive Group that showed sales dropped the most since August in the month. Meantime, spending at gas stations rose 4%, likely reflecting higher fuel pricesin the month. Excluding those categories, retail sales rose 0.1%, the smallest gain in five months.

Remember, retail sales data is nominal – and so an inflationary impulse is actually ‘helping’ put some lipstick on this headline pig. Whiule adjusting retail sales by CPI directly is somewhat oranges to apples (due to different weightings tec), it gives some general sense of the state of ‘real’ retail sales. May was the third straight month of declines for real retail sales…

The Control Group – used in the GDP calculation – printed a blank (0.0% MoM). Additionally the Control Group retail sales data from April was revised dramatically lower from +1.0% MoM to +0.5% MoM suggesting Q2 GDP could be heading into contraction and the dreaded ‘technical’ recession looms.

Finally, as a reminder, the myth of the ‘strong consumer’ is dead as Americans are surviving by eating into their savings and piling up credit card debt as inflation sends the cost of living to the moon…

Source: Bloomberg

All of which is Putin’s fault of course.

END

Not good: homebuilder sentiment tumbles back below pre COVID levels due to lack of affordability (high mortgage rates)

Homebuilder Sentiment Tumbles Back Below Pre-COVID Levels

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 10:08 AM

The headline NAHB sentiment index fell in June from 69 to 67 (as expected), with all three sub-indices tumbling back below pre-COVID levels. The group’s gauge of prospective buyer traffic fell five points to 48, the lowest since June 2020. The measure of present sales also declined to a two-year low, and sales expectations for the next six months dropped to the lowest since May 2020.

Source: Bloomberg

That is the sixth straight month of declines and the headline is now at the lowest in two years.

“The housing market faces both demand-side and supply-side challenges,” Robert Dietz, chief economist at the NAHB, said in a statement.
“Residential construction material costs are up 19% year-over-year with cost increases for a variety of building inputs.”
“On the demand-side of the market, the increase for mortgage rates for the first half of 2022 has priced out a significant number of prospective home buyers,” he said.

By region, builder sentiment declined in three of four regions. Sentiment improved in the Midwest.

Homebuilder sentiment has a long way to go to catch down to homebuyer sentiment…

Source: Bloomberg

But as Upton Sinclair is often cited as saying: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

END

IIB) USA COVID/VACCINE MANDATES

New study concludes lockdowns in the USA has caused at least 170,000 excess deaths

(Watson/SummitNews)

New Study Concludes Lockdowns Caused At Least 170,000 Excess Deaths In US

BY TYLER DURDEN

TUESDAY, JUN 14, 2022 – 09:25 PM

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News (emphasis ours),

Yet another study has concluded that restrictive lockdowns contributed to a massive spike in excess deaths, with a 26% jump in mortality rate for working-age adults in America.

The study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that there were conservatively 170,000+ non-Covid excess deaths in the U.S. through 2020 and 2021.

The study notes that the real number is likely closer to 200,000 because over 70,000 so called “unmeasured Covid deaths,” that is people who may have died only with the virus and not from it, were not taken into account.

The researchers wrote that “Summing our estimates across causes and age groups, we estimate 171,000 excess non-Covid deaths through the end of 2021 plus 72,000 unmeasured Covid deaths. The Economist has assembled national-level mortality data from around the world and obtains a similar U.S. estimate, which is 199,000 (including any unmeasured Covid) or about 60 persons per 100,000 population (Global Change Data Lab 2022).”

[ZH: As the authors note, “This paper reports significant and historic health harms experienced in the U.S. during the pandemic, apart from those directly caused by Covid.]

They added that “While Covid deaths overwhelmingly afflict senior citizens, absolute numbers of non-Covid excess deaths are similar for each of the 18-44, 45-64, and over-65 age groups, with essentially no aggregate excess deaths of children. Mortality from all causes during the pandemic was elevated 26 percent for working-age adults (18-64), as compared to 18 percent for the elderly.”

The level of excess deaths dovetails with findings from other studies across the globe that found everywhere that locked down experienced a similar spike in mortality rates.

The NBER researchers state that “For the European Union as a whole, the estimate is near-identical at 64 non-Covid excess deaths per 100K.”

They also point out that “In contrast, the estimate for Sweden is -33, meaning that non-Covid causes of death were somewhat low during the pandemic.”

“We suspect that some of the international differences are due to the standard used to designate a death as Covid, but perhaps also Sweden’s result is related to minimizing the disruption of its citizen’s normal lifestyles,” the researchers add.

In other words, Sweden did not lock down and also did not experience an increase in non-COVID mortality rates.

Figures released by the World Health Organization last month show that Sweden had fewer COVID deaths per capita than much of Europe despite refusing to enforce strict lockdowns and mask mandates like numerous other nearby countries.

“In 2020 and 2021, the country had an average excess death rate of 56 per 100,000 – compared to 109 in the UK, 111 in Spain, 116 in Germany and 133 in Italy,” reported the Telegraph.

A study conducted by Johns Hopkins University and released in February concluded that global lockdowns have had a much more detrimental impact on society than they have produced any benefit, with researchers urging that they “are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

“While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted,” the researchers concluded.

Reporting on the new study, the New York Times noted “the rate of death from all causes for younger adults has risen by a bigger percentage than has the rate of death from all causes for old people.”

end

Anthony Fauci Has COVID

WEDNESDAY, JUN 15, 2022 – 03:40 PM

The nation’s top infectious disease specialist, Anthony Fauci, has contracted Covid-19.

Fauci, who is fully vaccinated and twice boosted, is experiencing mild symptoms according to a Wednesday statement from the NIH.

“Dr. Fauci will isolate and continue to work from home,” reads the statement, which adds “He has not recently been in close contact with President Biden or other senior government officials.”

Fauci, Biden’s chief medical advisor, is 81-years-old.

According to the statement, Fauci will follow Covid-19 guidelines from the CDC, and “medical advice from his physician and return to NIH when he tests negative.”

The infectious disease expert has been the public face of the response to Covid since the pandemic began in earnest in the United States in March 2020.
Fauci’s promotion of coronavirus mitigation efforts, including social distancing, wearing masks and, when they became available, vaccinations, made him a hero to many. But he also drew criticism from others who believed official responses to Covid were too heavy-handed. –CNBC

In May, Fauci told CNN that he would step down as White House chief medical advisor if Donald Trump – a frequent critic of Fauci – was elected again in 2024.

“If you look at the history of what the response was during the [Trump] administration, I think, you know, at best you could say it wasn’t optimal,” he said, adding “And I think just history will speak for itself about that.”

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And of course…

iii)a. USA economic stories

What on earth is going on here? another USA food processing plant erupts in flames.

(zerohedge)

Another US Food Processing Plant Erupts In Flames

TUESDAY, JUN 14, 2022 – 11:45 PM

Another food processing plant went up in flames. According to local news Stevens Point Journal, a fire ripped through a pizza-making plant in Wisconsin on Monday.

More than 70 firefighters from multiple fire departments battled a massive fire at Festive Foods in eastern Portage County that began around 0900 local time. The American Red Cross arrived on the scene shortly after to provide food and water to firefighters. They snapped two pictures of the blaze, showing flames erupting from the facility’s roof and a column of thick dark smoke pouring into the air.

Firefighters were able to get the blaze under control in the early evening, and damage to the food processing plant has yet to be fully assessed. However, Festive Foods’ Facebook page indicates the plant is “temporarily closed.”

“Today festive foods experienced a heartbreaking event. As many of you have seen in the news we have had a terrible fire run through our plant,” a post on Festive Foods’ Facebook read.

Festive Foods manufactures frozen pizzas for supermarkets in a 120,000 sq. feet facility and considers itself a “leading co-packer of USDA-certified frozen-topped pizza, sandwiches, dough products, and stuffed appetizers.” The company sells its products to supermarkets nationwide.

Walmart is a seller of at least one of the company’s brands.

While the fire seems insignificant, it’s part of a much larger issue of a spate of “accidental fires,” one by one, taking out America’s food supply chain over the past year (source of the list via The Gateway Pundit):

1/11/21 A fire that destroyed 75,000-square-foot processing plant in Fayetteville
4/30/21 A fire ignited inside the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Monmouth, IL
7/25/21 Three-alarm fire at Kellogg plant in Memphis, 170 emergency personnel responded to the call
7/30/21 Firefighters on Friday battled a large fire at Tyson’s River Valley Ingredients plant in Hanceville, Alabama
8/23/21 Fire crews were called to the Patak Meat Production company on Ewing Road in Austell
9/13/21 A fire at the JBS beef plant in Grand Island, Neb., on Sunday night forced a halt to slaughter and fabrication lines
10/13/21 A five-alarm fire ripped through the Darigold butter production plant in Caldwell, ID
11/15/21 A woman is in custody following a fire at the Garrard County Food Pantry
11/29/21 A fire broke out around 5:30 p.m. at the Maid-Rite Steak Company meat processing plant
12/13/21 West Side food processing plant in San Antonio left with smoke damage after a fire
1/7/22 Damage to a poultry processing plant on Hamilton’s Mountain following an overnight fire
1/13/22 Firefighters worked for 12 hours to put a fire out at the Cargill-Nutrena plant in Lecompte, LA
1/31/22 a fertilizer plant with 600 tons of ammonium nitrate inside caught on fire on Cherry Street in Winston-Salem
2/3/22 A massive fire swept through Wisconsin River Meats in Mauston
2/3/22 At least 130 cows were killed in a fire at Percy Farm in Stowe
2/15/22 Bonanza Meat Company goes up in flames in El Paso, Texas
2/15/22 Nearly a week after the fire destroyed most of the Shearer’s Foods plant in Hermiston
2/16/22 A fire had broken at US largest soybean processing and biodiesel plant in Claypool, Indiana
2/18/22 An early morning fire tore through the milk parlor at Bess View Farm
2/19/22 Three people were injured, and one was hospitalized, after an ammonia leak at Lincoln Premium Poultry in Fremont
2/22/22 The Shearer’s Foods plant in Hermiston caught fire after a propane boiler exploded
2/28/22 A smoldering pile of sulfur quickly became a raging chemical fire at Nutrien Ag Solutions
2/28/22 A man was hurt after a fire broke out at the Shadow Brook Farm and Dutch Girl Creamery
3/4/22 294,800 chickens destroyed at farm in Stoddard, Missouri
3/4/22 644,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland
3/8/22 243,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in New Castle, Delaware
3/10/22 663,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, MD
3/10/22 915,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Taylor, IA
3/14/22 The blaze at 244 Meadow Drive was discovered shortly after 5 p.m. by farm owner Wayne Hoover
3/14/22 2,750,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Jefferson, Wisconsin
3/16/22 A fire at a Walmart warehouse distribution center has cast a large plume of smoke visible throughout Indianapolis.
3/16/22 Nestle Food Plant extensively damaged in fire and new production destroyed Jonesboro, Arkansas
3/17/22 5,347,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Buena Vista, Iowa
3/17/22 147,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Kent, Delaware
3/18/22 315,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland
3/22/22 172,000 Turkeys destroyed on farms in South Dakota
3/22/22 570,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska
3/24/22 Fire fighters from numerous towns are battling a major fire at the McCrum potato processing facility in Belfast.
3/24/22 418,500 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska
3/25/22 250,300 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Franklin, Iowa
3/26/22 311,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
3/27/22 126,300 Turkeys destroyed in South Dakota
3/28/22 1,460,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Guthrie, Iowa
3/29/22 A massive fire burned 40,000 pounds of food meant to feed people in a food desert near Maricopa
3/31/22 A structure fire caused significant damage to a large portion of key fresh onion packing facilities in south Texas
3/31/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Osceola, Iowa
3/31/22 5,011,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Osceola, Iowa
4/6/22 281,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina
4/9/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/9/22 208,900 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/12/22 89,700 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina
4/12/22 1,746,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Dixon, Nebraska
4/12/22 259,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Minnesota
4/13/22 fire destroys East Conway Beef & Pork Meat Market in Conway, New Hampshire
4/13/22 Plane crashes into Gem State Processing, Idaho potato and food processing plant
4/13/22 77,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/14/22 Taylor Farms Food Processing plant burns down Salinas, California.
4/14/22 99,600 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/15/22 1,380,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Lancaster, Minnesota
4/19/22 Azure Standard nation’s premier independent distributor of organic and healthy food, was destroyed by fire in Dufur, Oregon
4/19/22 339,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/19/22 58,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Montrose, Color
4/20/22 2,000,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Minnesota
4/21/22 A small plane crashed in the lot of a General Mills plant in Georgia
4/22/22 197,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/23/22 200,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/25/22 1,501,200 chickens destroyed at egg farm Cache, Utah
4/26/22 307,400 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania
4/27/22 2,118,000 chickens destroyed at farm Knox, Nebraska
4/28/22 Egg-laying facility in Iowa kills 5.3 million chickens, fires 200-plus workers
4/28/22 Allen Harim Foods processing plant killed nearly 2M chickens in Delaware
4/2822 110,700 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
4/29/22 1,366,200 chickens destroyed at farm Weld Colorado
4/30/22 13,800 chickens destroyed at farm Sequoia Oklahoma
5/3/22 58,000 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Beadle S Dakota
5/3/22 114,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Lyon Minnesota
5/7/22 20,100 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
5/10/22 72,300 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania
5/10/22 61,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/10/22 35,100 Turkeys destroyed Muskegon, Michigan
5/13/22 10,500 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
5/14/22 83,400 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/17/22 79,00 chickens destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/18/22 7,200 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/19/22 Train carrying limestone derailed Jensen Beach FL
5/21/22 57,000 Turkeys destroyed on farm in Dakota Minnesota
5/23/22 4,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/29/22 A Saturday night fire destroyed a poultry building at Forsman Farms
5/31/22 3,000,000 chickens destroyed by fire at Forsman facility in Stockholm Township, Minnesota
6/2/22 30,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
6/7/22 A fire occurred Tuesday evening at the JBS meat packing plant in Green Bay.
6/8/22 Firefighters from Tangipahoa Fire District 1 respond to a fire at the Purina Feed Mill in Arcola
6/9/22 Irrigation water was canceled in California (the #1 producer of food in the US) and storage water flushed directly out to the delta.
6/12/22 Largest Pork Company in the US Shuts Down California Plant Due to High Costs
6/13/22 Fire Breaks Out at a Food Processing Plant West of Waupaca County in Wisconsin

END

iii b USA//inflation stories/log jams etc/

END

end

iv)swamp stories

end

King Report

The King Report June 15, 2022 Issue 6781Independent View of the News Japan Starting to Crack as Yen Tumbles with Stocks and Bonds
With the yen at a 24-year low, Tokyo stocks down the most since March and bond yields hitting its ceiling, the Bank of Japan is under duress having to defend a policy the rest of the world is quickly moving on from… BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, 77, said Monday that the recent abrupt slide of the currency is bad for the economy, while the central bank reinforced efforts to keep a lid on yields…
https://www.yahoo.com/now/yen-hits-key-135-level-010546618.html

The grossly misguided BoJ is trying to peg its JGB rates like central banks used to try to peg currencies. Financial history shows that eventually pegs blowup spectacularly.

US May PPI +0.8% m/m as expected, 10.8% y/y, 10.9% y/y expected; PPI Core 0.5% m/m (0.6% expected), 8.3% y/y, 8.6% y/y expected. The BLS had gasoline only +8.4%!

The Cost of Wishful Thinking on Inflation Is Going Up Too – Op-ed in WJS
First it wasn’t real. Then it was ‘transitory.’ Now we’re told the Fed will cure it with a few rate hikes.
    We have clearly now reached the wishful-thinking phase of our leaders’ management of the crisis.
For almost a year we were told—by the president, the Treasury secretary and the Federal Reserve chairman, that unholy trinity of economic wisdom—that it wasn’t happening, or if it was, it was “transitory.” They soon progressed from denial to complacency. It will be fine, they insisted—it was all the fault of capitalist cupidity and rapacious Russians and could be dealt with accordingly…
    To be fair to Mr. Biden, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell apparently shares the dismiss-the-worst-and-hope-for-the-best strategy. He and his colleagues seem to believe that the gentlest of monetary squeezes will be enough to kill inflation without hurting the rest of the economy…
    The median forecast of members of the Fed’s monetary-policy-setting Open Market Committee, was that an increase in the federal-funds rate from the current 1% to just 2.8% would be sufficient to bring their favored measure of projected inflation down from 4.3% to 2.3% by 2024, with unemployment remaining at its current low and the economy continuing to grow…
https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-transitory-federal-reserve-treasury-biden-prices-rate-hikes-basis-points-11655151991

NFIB May 2022 Report: Small Business Owners’ Expectations for the Future at 48-year Low
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index was unchanged in April, remaining at 93.2 and the fourth consecutive month below the 48-year average of 98. Small business owners expecting better business conditions over the next six months decreased one point to a net negative 50%, the lowest level recorded in the 48-year-old survey.
    Inflation continues to be a problem for small businesses with 32% of small business owners reporting it’s their single most important problem in operating their business, the highest reading since the fourth quarter of 1980…  https://www.nfib.com/surveys/small-business-economic-trends/

Caterpillar Leaves Illinois After Decades to Relocate to Texas
The transition comes five years after Caterpillar shifted its headquarters within Illinois from its long-time foothold in Peoria to Deerfield outside of Chicago, a move at the time that rattled citizens of the town in which it had built a global empire for more than 100 years…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/caterpillar-leaves-illinois-decades-relocate-163813033.html

OPEC Oil Output Fell in May, Adding to Pressure on Cartel
Oil prices jump, with Brent crude reaching its highest level in three months
    Output among the 13 countries that make up OPEC dropped by 176,000 barrels a day last month to average roughly 28.5 million barrels a day, data from the cartel released Tuesday showed…
https://www.wsj.com/articles/opec-oil-output-falls-in-may-adding-to-pressure-on-cartel-11655210338

Supply from the cartel fell month over month in May by 176kb/d, with supply form the “core Group of 10” rising only 35kb/d, versus a quota increase of 277kb/d… Saudi growth was ~50kb.d below quota; Nigerian production saw the country miss by a full 491kb/d in May… (Seeking Alpha)

Oil prices gain as output disruptions in Libya tighten global supplies – DJ 11:00 ET

ESUs peaked near 1:00 ET at 3807.50. They then tumbled until the US bond market open at 8 ET. The pre-NYSE open rally took ESMs from 3758.00 to 3788.00 by 8:42 ET. ESUs then sank to 3747.00 at 8:41 ET. Conditioned dip buyers then drove ESUs to 3781.50 at 9:58 ET. Alas, sellers then got aggressive. ESUs sank to a session low of 3733.50 at 10:41 ET.

A spasm rally pushed ESUs to 3761.48 at 10:48 ET. By 11:19 ET, ESUs were at 3734.00. ESUs jumped 21 handles for the European close rally. ESUs rolled over just before noon ET and sank to a new daily low of 3728.25 at 12:36 ET. Someone then forced ESUs to 3763.75 at 13:18 ET.

ESUs then tumbled to 3729.25 at 13:48 ET probably on a report that Senate Finance Com Chair Wyden (D-OR) has proposed a 21% windfall profit tax on energy companies.

ESUs then rallied 18 handles by 14:08 ET. Tuesday was the last day of trading for June VIX options. After a modest retreat into the 14:15 ET VIX Fix, ESUs commenced a rally. It was tepid and short lived. ESUs and stocks then vacillated in a modest range until they broke to new lows at 14:48 ET.

With 43 minutes remaining in NYSE trading, someone forced ESU 44 handles higher in 25 minutes. ESUs then vacillated frenetically until ESUs sank 17 handles in 5 minutes. ESUs limped into the close.

USUs peaked at 134 3/32 (+1 18/32) at 3:10 ET. They then tumbled to 131 11/32 (-1 6/32) at 11:44 ET.

2s hit 3.433% near 12:25 ET. The USU midday rally was modest and ended at 12:50 ET. USUs then sank to a new low of 131 9/32 (-1 8/32) at 13:30 ET. USUs hit a new low (131 03/32, -1 14/32) at 15:20 ET. 2s hit 3.452%.

The US Department of Energy offered 45 million barrels of SPR in a new sale tender. (15:19 ET) This is Biden’s 4^th emergency SPR release/depletion.
https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-announces-contract-awards-and-issues-fourth-emergency-sale-crude-oil-strategic

Interestingly, WTI Oil commenced a tumble at 13:04 ET, over 2 hours before the news hit the tape. After the DoE announcement, WTI Oil sank to a low of 116.62; the session high was 123.68.

@WardDPatrick: 3 WH officials will be heading to the hill on Thursday to discuss “messaging on the economy” with the full House Dem Caucus. The meeting is focused on “message strategy on the economy, fighting inflation and reducing costs for the American people”, per @kellyfphares

Politicians can equivocate and spin, but results are modest at best. However, propagating blatant, intelligence-insulting whoppers is counterproductive.

White House says Biden has sparked ‘historic economic BOOM’ https://trib.al/Z295DE0

Babylon Bee: Biden says the economy is as vibrant and healthy as he is

Biden (angrily shouting at the AFL-CIO yesterday): “I don’t want to hear any more of these lies about reckless spending. We’re changing people’s lives!”
https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1536730915921084416

@townhallcom: BIDEN (angrily): The American Rescue Plan “helped 41 million people put food on their table. Remember? They were having trouble putting food on the table!…”
https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1536729075166896130

@townhallcom: BIDEN (angrily): “I’m doing everything in my power to blunt Putin’s gas price hike. Just since he invaded Ukraine, it’s gone up $1.74/gallon. Because of nothing else BUT that!”
https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1536731672103866369

@bennyjohnson: BIDEN: “President Obama used to give me all the good assignments. I remember one day he walked in, not a joke, said ‘Joe, fix Detroit’… You think I’m kidding, you think I’m kidding!”
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1536731061673250816

The Big Guy angrily complaining about the “Maga Party”, the “Ultra Maga Party”
(Abjectly delusional Joe continues to believe that Maga Party and Ultra Maga Party are demeaning.)
https://twitter.com/RealMacReport/status/1536735881989586947

Joe at the AFL-CIO “was angry that day, my friends – like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli.”

Biden knocks Wall Street, defends economic plans amid recession fears https://t.co/uEP15jY7ev
Often raising his voice to a yell, Biden vowed to continue to pursue billionaires and corporations that his administration says underpay billions of dollars in taxes each year, and to pursue economic policies aimed at shrinking U.S. inequality… (Wall St. and billionaires are overwhelmingly Dem.)

President Joe Biden blamed “the last guy,” former President Donald Trump for economic troubles at an AFL-CIO speech on Tuesday. “Can you remember what our economy looked like when we took office?…” ($2.42 avg gasoline, CPI 1.4% y/y, 2-year 0.11%, yada, yada, yada)  https://bit.ly/3mOnuck

@charliespiering: Biden proclaims June 15 as “World Elder Abuse Awareness Day” (Not a parody!)
https://twitter.com/charliespiering/status/1536767643759288320

FedEx said it would raise its quarterly dividend by 53% to $1.15… The company also added three directors in an agreement with DE Shaw and aid it would focus on shareholder returns and would tie executive compensation, in part, to those returns… https://www.barrons.com/articles/fedex-stock-dividend-51655211568

Positive aspects of previous session
Robust overnight ESU and USU rallies
The DJTA (FedEx soared) and Fangs rallied sharply
A late ESU manipulation occurred

Negative aspects of previous session
Bonds, the DJIA, DJUA, and the S&P 500 Index declined

Ambiguous aspects of previous session
Commodities declined again – recession angst or inflation ebbing or liquidity squeeze?

First Hour/Last Hour Action [S&P 500 Index]: 1st Hour from NYSE open: Down; Last Hour: Up

Pivot Point for S&P 500 Index [above/below indicates daily trend to traders]: 3739.80
Previous session High/Low: 3778.18; 3705.68

Andrew Bostom, MD, MS (@andrewbostom): Pfizer’s Covid-19 “vaccine efficacy” in RCT of <5yos is cynically manufactured, with excess severe cases in vaxxed (6 vaxxed; 1 pbo): “of 375 Sars-Cov-2 infections in the trial, 365 occurred before the 3rd dose. Only 10 occurred after the 3rd dose”
    Alex Berenson: That 80 percent figure for efficacy you’ve seen reported is worse than a joke, it’s essentially a fabrication. Here’s what the Food and Drug Administration and Pfizer did; they only counted cases after the THIRD mRNA dose. But of the 375 Sars-Cov-2 infections in the trial, 365 occurred before the third dose. Only 10 occurred after the third dose. Yes, you are reading that right. The efficacy figure is based on 3 PERCENT OF ALL THE INFECTIONS IN THE TRIAL. (Which is why the confidence intervals are so large.)  https://t.co/mWrThR9wZL

@zerohedge last night: JPM’s Kolanovic “Fed may surprise dovishly”. 2 hours later, JPM’s Feroli “Fed will hike 75bps, surprise would be 100bps hike”. Do these people even try anymore?

The FT: US oil producers ignore Biden’s rallying call to drill
Capital discipline, supply chain woes and soaring input costs keep production far below pre-pandemic peak – “When the White House started calling around in a panic, they thought shale oil production could grow sharply in the near term…“They were shocked to learn that that’s like asking for blood from a stone…”… https://www.ft.com/content/2d92c841-0a66-464a-9762-02994ac41f7d

The price of US natural gas sank 16% after Freeport LNG announced that it would take at least 90 days to repair its export terminal. European natural gas soared 20% to over €100/MWH.

Dem sniping at The Big Guy is increasing.

‘Pariah’ no more? Democrats grit their teeth over Biden’s Saudi trip
“I just don’t see any evidence that Saudi Arabia is really stepping up or has stepped up in a situation like this to get relief to people who are just getting clobbered by the cost of gas,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who has argued that Biden should have punished the crown prince more directly after declaring that he ordered the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. “And I see the human rights violations so clear and profound in terms of what they represent for our values.”…
    Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said he is “deeply against” any meeting with the crown prince, whom U.S. intelligence agencies implicated in Khashoggi’s murder. “I think it’s atrocious. I’d meet with other Saudi officials, but not that murderer.” (Khashoggi was a Virginia resident.)///
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/08/democrats-biden-saudi-trip-00037891

@zerohedge: This is the 20th bear market of past 140 years. Average peak to trough bear decline = 37.3%; Average duration 289 days; According to BofA, if history is a guide today’s bear market would end on Oct 19th, 2022, with the S&P 500 at 3000

“Panics do not destroy capital; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works.” — John Mills, 1867

Today is Fed Day. The market expects the Fed to hike rates by 75bps. A majority of the Street expects, or hopes, that Powell will save the markets with a slightly dovish press conference. Unless Powell is unexpectedly hawkish, trapped longs will try to affect a relief rally.

Today is also VIX June expiration. Tuesday was the last day of trading for June options; but today’s Fix at 14:15 ET is the settlement price. Normally there would be some manipulation into the 14:15 ET VIX Fix. However, the Fix is between the FOMC Communique release at 14:00 ET and Powell’s 14:30 ET press conference. This could mute manipulation for the Fix.

@bespokeinvest: The S&P 500 rallied 3% on the last Fed Day on May 4th and has fallen 13% since.

ESMs are +19.00 at 20:00 ET; USUs are +17/32, and the 2-year is 3.427%.

Expected economic data: FOMC Communique 14:00 ET, Powell Presser at 14:30 ET; June Empire Mfg 2.3; May Retail Sales 0.1% m/m, ex-Auto 0.7%, ex-Auto & Gas 0.4%; May Import Prices 1.1% m/m, Export Prices 1.3% m/m; April Business Inventories 1.2% m/m

S&P 500 Index 50-day MA: 4166; 100-day MA: 4289; 150-day MA: 4417; 200-day MA: 4433
DJIA 50-day MA: 33,079; 100-day MA: 33,709; 150-day MA: 34,392; 200-day MA: 34,556

S&P 500 Index – Trender trading model and MACD for key time frames
Monthly: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 4925.61 triggers a buy signal
Weekly: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 4261.31 triggers a buy signal
Daily: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 3999.94 triggers a buy signal
Hourly: Trender is negative; MACD is positive – a close above 3827.81 triggers a buy signal

DNC fundraiser featuring Kamala Harris moved from May to September because they couldn’t sell enough tickets   https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2022/06/14/report-dnc-fundraiser-featuring-kamala-harris-moved-from-may-to-september-because-they-couldnt-sell-enough-tickets/

Ex-FBI senior official Michael Steinbach had numerous contacts with media: watchdog
A top FBI official repeatedly violated bureau policy by hobnobbing with journalists while overseeing the controversial investigation into Donald Trump’s suspected ties to Russia — and then retired before he could be interviewed by ethics probers, a newly released Justice Department report revealed…
https://nypost.com/2022/06/14/fbis-michael-steinbach-had-numerous-contacts-with-media-watchdog/

Antifa Members Who Brutally Beat, Robbed Two Latino Marines Will Get No Jail Time – All Felony Charges Dropped by Soros-Backed Philly DA   https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/06/antifa-members-beat-two-latino-marines-will-get-no-jail-time-felony-charges-dropped-soros-backed-philly-da/

High-profile voter fraud prosecutions pile up as election integrity debate rages on
From a former Democrat congressman to mayors and city council members, evidence of ballot rigging schemes is unmasked in court filings.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/government-officials-recently-charged-plead-guilty-election-fraud-2020

Jan. 6 panel gets caught spreading a whopper worthy of Russia collusion, Biden laptop
Capitol police chief says there is ‘no evidence,’ as Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney alleged, that a GOP lawmaker ran a reconnaissance mission for Jan. 6 protesters
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/jan-6-panel-gets-caught-spreading-whopper-worthy-russia-collusion

January 6 committee abruptly postpones hearing scheduled for Wednesday
Thursday hearing to go on as planned.
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/january-6-committee-abruptly-postpones-hearing-scheduled-wednesday

The MSM gleefully promoted renowned liar Dem Rep. Adam Schiff’s latest whopper: The Jan 6 Committee had ample evidence to get Trump indicted. The mendacious Schiff issued the statement on a Sunday morning talking-head show.

Schiff claims ‘powerful evidence’ against Trump in J6 probe
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has claimed the Democrat-controlled January 6 Committee could come up with criminal charges against former President Donald Trump. The California Democrat alleged Sunday that he has “very powerful” evidence that Trump was responsible for clashes at the US Capitol…
https://www.oann.com/schiff-claims-powerful-evidence-against-trump-in-j6-probe/

DOJ should investigate Trump for possible crimes in election plot, Rep. Schiff says
The member of the House’s Jan. 6 committee believes there’s “credible evidence.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/doj-investigate-trump-crimes-election-plot-rep-schiff/story?id=85329710

Evidence gathered by Jan. 6 panel enough to indict Trump, committee says
Schiff appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” Raskin spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union,” and Kinzinger was on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”  https://www.fox5dc.com/news/january-6-hearings-trump-indictment-adam-schiff

On Monday night, the Jan 6 Chair refuted Schiff, Cheney et al.

@NBCNews: The chair of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot says that the panel will not make any criminal referrals. (Liz Cheney went apoplectic): “The committee has not issued a conclusion regarding potential criminal referrals. We will announce a decision on that at an appropriate time,” she said in a statement on Twitter…
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/jan-6-committee-will-not-make-criminal-referrals-chairman-says-rcna22325

Adam Schiff lied about the Trump investigation — and the media let him   May 8, 2020
As the grand impresario of collusion, Schiff has filled print and broadcast media since January 2017 claiming that he has seen “more than circumstantial evidence” of a Trump-Putin conspiracy. Obviously there was none in the transcripts, or he’d have pulled back the curtain years ago. But Schiff didn’t want to hand control of the narrative to one of Trump’s most effective deputies, so on Thursday they finally went live. They show exactly what you’d expect them to show: None of the former Obama administration officials who took to the airwaves immediately after Trump’s election to claim collusion had any evidence of it…  https://nypost.com/2020/05/08/adam-schiff-lied-about-the-trump-probe-and-the-media-let-him/

Fox grand sage Brit Hume echoes our view that at best the Jan 6 Committee will damage Trump, but that would benefit the GOP in 2024.

Brit Hume Says ‘Many Republicans Would Privately Be Very Glad’ If Jan. 6 Committee Damages Trump – “…If they succeed – either by damaging him or staining him such that he is either unable or for legal or for political reasons to run again – they might end up finding out that they’ve done the Republican Party a great service, because I think a great many Republicans think they can’t win with Trump at the head of the ticket again. They are afraid of his supporters and don’t want to come out against him directly. But they’d like him to go away. If the effect of this committee is to make his possible candidacy go away, I think a great many Republicans would privately be very glad.” https://t.co/K4U5QMehbu

@RNCResearch: Far-left Democrat Rep. Jamaal Bowman says Republican victories in November would lead to “civil war” (Exercising liberal privilege, no chance of rebuke)
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1536499044771586050

@ClayTravis: The White House spokesperson got asked about the baby formula shortage and couldn’t find a pre-written answer in her massive binder. This is embarrassing. How is everyone in the Biden White House so awful at their jobs?  https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1536454854457032704

Uvalde covers up records on top cop Pete Arredondo who led the bungled police response to the school shooter as city tries to wriggle out of divulging information requested by DailyMail.com and others under Texas sunshine laws
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10905145/City-Uvalde-trying-cover-records-police-chief-bungled-response.html

@PaulSperry30: It was AG Barr who reached out to an AP reporter–not the other way around–to declare claims of election fraud baseless in that Dec. 1, 2020, AP story. Barr arranged a lunch with the reporter, he confessed to J6 lawyers. Clearly, Barr was trying to get Trump to fire him

Tucker Carlson: “Is anyone going to ‘red-flag’ Hunter Biden, who lied on a federal drug form, who was a drug addict carrying an illegally obtained weapon? No, of course not. Because red flag laws aren’t designed to punish the politically loyal.” https://t.co/tMFafcgtlD

@JerryDunleavy: Listen to a Dec. 2018 recording of Hunter Biden bragging that Joe Biden will “talk about anything that I want him to” & that “dad respects me more than he respects anyone in the world” & “I’m better than my dad” & that Joe Biden “thinks I’m a god.”  https://t.co/o2Or7Wb5d8

@RetroTechNoir: Scandal erupts as Paul Pelosi DUI booking photo metadata shows the photo was taken TEN DAYS AFTER his arrest. Pelosi was apparently allowed to go home for 10 days to heal his facial injuries- explaining the strange time delay in releasing the photo

Leaked internal messages show Twitter employees debating whether to ban us
Concern is then raised about fiduciary duties, but an ultra-woke tweep fires back: “How dare you bring up fiduciary duties while trans people are literally being wiped off the face of the earth!” Like a good little ally, the rebuked tweep apologizes and promises to do better in the future…
https://www.libsoftiktok.com/p/leaked-internal-messages-show-twitter?s=w

Human Events Daily host Jack Posobiec slammed NBA star LeBron James for not demanding justice in the death of Ethan Liming, the 17-year-old boy who was beaten to death at a school founded by James in Cleveland… (The narrative is opposite of what libs want.)
https://thepostmillennial.com/posobiec-lebron-james-must-stand-up-and-demand-justice-for-ethan-liming

Greg Hunter interviewing Bill Holter

Game Over, They’re Pulling the Plug – Bill Holter

Game Over, They’re Pulling the Plug – Bill Holter

By Greg Hunter On June 14, 2022 In Market Analysis3 Comments

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

Precious metals expert and financial writer Bill Holter said in early April that he thought we did not have much time until the financial meltdown started. He gave it 60 days. Two months later, the meltdown started in earnest right on time. The world is at debt levels never seen before, and Holter contends rising interest rates are the key driver here and now. Holter explains, “Interest rates are the key to the whole collapse. Mortgage rates, as of right now, are about 6.15%. Mortgage rates started the year just over 3%. In the fourth quarter of last year, we had mortgage rates as low as 2.75%. What that tells you is if you qualified for a $1 million mortgage at the end of last year, you only qualify for a $500,000 mortgage now. If you are a property owner, that means the pool of potential buyers is far less than 6 months ago, simply because interest rates have basically doubled. Holter also says that means property values are dramatically cut.

Interest rates have been on a more than 40-year downward trend since Fed Head Paul Volker raised a key rate to 20% in the early 1980’s. Holter points out, “We basically just went through a 40-year bull market on bonds where interest rates did nothing but go downward for 40 years . . . . That 40-year trend is now broken, and rates are headed higher. It just so happens the system is more indebted than it has ever been on any ratio or any basis you want to look at. What I am getting at is these higher interest rates are blowing up the debt bubble.”

Don’t expect the Fed to come in and save the day like it did in the last financial meltdown back in 2008 and 2009. The Fed bailed out the economy when it started printing money like crazy and never stopped. Holter says, “The bottom line is the world’s financial system and, thus, real economies have been on life support since 2008. What people should understand is when the Fed says they are going to raise interest rates and they are going to shrink their balance sheet, that says they are pulling the plug out of the wall. They are taking the system off life support. The bottom line is the system cannot live without life support. The Ponzi scheme cannot continue without new capital coming into the system. They are pulling the plug is what they are doing. . . . It’s game over.”

Holter also talks about gold and silver and why you should hold them in hand. Holter thinks a “Mad Max” scenario is a real possibility and says we have not seen the peak on inflation. There is a lot more in the 44-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with financial writer and precious metals expert Bill Holter of JSMineset.com for 6.14.22.

(https://usawatchdog.com/game-over-theyre-pulling-the-plug-bill-holter/)

After the Interview:

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