SEPT 22/GOLD FINISHED UP $5.70 TO $1925.70//SILVER CLOSED UP 13 CENTS TO $23.55//PLATINUM CLOSED UP $6.45 TO $931.15 WHILE PALLADIUM CLOSED DOWN $13.50 TO $1255.50//TED BUTLER A VERY IMPORTANT COMMENTARY AND ANDREW MAGUIRE’S IMPORTANT PODCAST LIVE FROM THE VAULT NO 141//JAPAN LEAVES RATES UNCHANGED AGAIN DESPITE THE YEN FALTERING AND YIELDS RISING//RUSSIA VS UKRAINE UPDATES/COVID UPDATES/VACCINE UPDATES/DR PAUL ALEXANDER/SLAY NEWS/NEWS ADDICTS /EVOL NEWS//CANADA VS INDIA UPDATES//UAW STRIKE UPDATES//BORDER CRISIS REVISTED/MAJOR SWAMP STORIES FOR YOU TONIGHT//
323 H HSBC 2 435 H SCOTIA CAPITAL 2 624 H BOFA SECURITIES 2 737 C ADVANTAGE 7 1
TOTAL: 7 7 MONTH TO DATE: 3,975
JPMorgan stopped 0/7 contracts.
FOR SEPT.:
GOLD: NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR SEPT/2023. CONTRACT: 7 NOTICES FOR 700 OZ or 0.02177 TONNES
total notices so far: 3975 contracts for 397,500 oz (12.363 tonnes)
FOR SEPT:
SILVER NOTICES: 29 NOTICE(S) FILED FOR 145,000 OZ/
total number of notices filed so far this month : 2647 for 13,235,000 oz
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END
GLD
WITH GOLD UP $5.70
INVESTORS SWITCHING TO SPROTT PHYSICAL (PHYS) INSTEAD OF THE FRAUDULENT GLD/ HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: / SMALL CHANGES/A DEPOSIT OF 0.58 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD/
INVENTORY RESTS AT 878.83 TONNES
Silver//
WITH NO SILVER AROUND AND SILVER UP 13 CENTS AT THE SLV// SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: : A DEPOSIT OF 0.459 MILLION OZ OF SILVER INTO THE SLV/
INVESTORS ARE SWITCHING SLV TO SPROTT’S PSLV.
CLOSING INVENTORY: 449.033 MILLION OZ
Let us have a look at the data for today
SILVER//OUTLINE
SILVER COMEX OI ROSE BY A HUGE SIZED 1289 CONTRACTS TO 126,552 AND CLOSER TO THE RECORD HIGH OI OF 244,710, SET FEB 25/2020 AND THIS HUGE SIZED GAIN IN COMEX OI WAS ACCOMPLISHED DESPITE OUR $0.13 LOSS IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX ON THURSDAY. TAS ISSUANCE WAS A FAIR SIZED 385 CONTRACTS. THESE WILL BE USED FOR MANIPULATION LATER THIS MONTH/AS WELL AS TODAY. CRAIG HEMKE HAS POINTED OUT THAT THE CROOKS USE THE MID MONTH FOR MANIPULATION AS THEY SELL THEIR BUY SIDE OF THE CALENDAR SPREAD FIRST AND THEN KEEP THE SELL SIDE TO LIQUIDATE AT A LATER DATE. THUS WE HAVE TWO VEHICLES THE CROOKS USE FOR MANIPULATION AND BOTH ARE SPREADERS: 1) AT MONTH’S END/SPREADERS COMEX AND 2/ TAS SPREADERS, MID MONTH. TOTAL TAS ISSUED ON THURSDAY NIGHT: 385 CONTRACTS. DESPITE MANY COMPLAINTS THAT THE CROOKS HAVE VIOLATED POSITION LIMITS DUE TO THE FACT THAT THE TAS ISSUED HAVE A VALUE OF ZERO (AS TO POSITION LIMITS FOR OUR CROOKED BANKERS). THE PROBLEM OF COURSE IS THAT THE CROOKS DO NOT LIQUIDATE THE TAS TOGETHER BUT SELL THE BUY SIDE FIRST AND THEN LIQUIDATE THE SELL SIDE TWO MONTHS HENCE. IT IS OBVIOUS MANIPULATION TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE BUT IT NATURALLY FELL ON DEAF EARS WITH OUR REGULATORS (OCC) WHEN THEY RECEIVED OUR COMPLAINTS. IT THUS LOOKS LIKE THE FED (GOV’T) IS BEHIND ALL OF THESE TRADES
WE HAVE NOW SET ANOTHER RECORD LOW AT 114,102 CONTRACTS ///JULY 3.2023// OUR BANKERS WERE SUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN (IT FELL BY $0.13). BUT WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING ANY SILVER LONGS AS WE HAD A HUMONGOUS GAIN OF 1989 OI CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES.
WE MUST HAVE HAD:
A STRONG ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS( 700 CONTRACTS) iiii) AN INITIAL SILVER STANDING FOR COMEX SILVER MEASURING AT 14.420 MILLION OZ (FIRST DAY NOTICE) FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S ZERO E.F.P. JUMP TO LONDON OF 20,000 OZ//NEW TOTAL 13.390 MILLION OZ + OUR CRIMINAL ISSUANCE OF 0 EXCHANGE FOR RISK CONTRACTS//NEW TOTALS EXCHANGE FOR RISK: 3.0 MILLION OZ: NEW TOTALS SILVER STANDING: 16.390 MILLION OZ// /// / //HUMONGOUS SIZED COMEX OI GAIN/ GOOD SIZED EFP ISSUANCE/VI) FAIR SIZED NUMBER OF T.A.S. CONTRACT ISSUANCE 385CONTRACTS)/
I AM NOW RECORDING THE DIFFERENTIAL IN OI FROM PRELIMINARY TO FINAL -265 CONTRACTS
HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS SEPT. ACCUMULATION FOR EFP’S SILVER/JPMORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES/STARTING FROM FIRST DAY/MONTH OF SEPT:
TOTAL CONTRACTS for 15 days, total 11,095 contracts: OR 55.475 MILLION OZ (739 CONTRACTS PER DAY)
TOTAL EFP’S FOR THE MONTH SO FAR: 55.475 MILLION OZ
LAST 23 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
YEAR 2022:
JAN 2022-DEC 2022
JAN 2022// 90.460 MILLION OZ
FEB 2022: 72.39 MILLION OZ//
MARCH 2022: 207.140 MILLION OZ//A NEW RECORD FOR EFP ISSUANCE
APRIL: 114.52 MILLION OZ FINAL//LOW ISSUANCE
MAY: 105.635 MILLION OZ//
JUNE: 94.470 MILLION OZ
JULY : 87.110 MILLION OZ
AUGUST: 65.025 MILLION OZ
SEPT. 74.025 MILLION OZ///FINAL
OCT. 29.017 MILLION OZ FINAL
NOV: 134.290 MILLION OZ//FINAL
DEC, 61.395 MILLION OZ FINAL
TOTALS YR 2022: 1135.767 MILLION OZ (1.1356 BILLION OZ)
JAN 2023/// 53.070 MILLION OZ //FINAL
FEB: 2023: 100.105 MILLION OZ/FINAL//MUCH STRONGER ISSUANCE VS THE LATTER TWO MONTHS.
MARCH 2023: 112.58MILLION OZ//FINAL//STRONG ISSUANCE
APRIL 118.035 MILLION OZ(SLIGHTLY GREATER THAN THAN LAST MONTH)
MAY 66.120 MILLION OZ/INITIAL (MUCH SMALLER THIS MONTH)
JUNE: 110.395 MILLION OZ//MUCH LARGER THAN LAST MONTH
JULY 85.745 MILLION OZ (SMALLER THAN LAST MONTH)
AUGUST: 171.43 MILLION OZ (THIS MONTH IS GOING TO BE HUGE //2ND HIGHEST ON RECORD
SEPT: 55.475 MILLION OZ (SMALLER THIS MONTH)
RESULT: WE HAD A HUMONGOUS SIZED INCREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 1289 CONTRACTS DESPITE OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $0.13 IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX//THURSDAY.,. THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A STRONG EFP ISSUANCE CONTRACTS: 700 ISSUED FOR SEPT AND 0 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS) WHICH EXITED OUT OF THE SILVER COMEX TO LONDON AS FORWARDS./ WE HAVE A GOOD INITIAL SILVER OZ STANDING FOR SEPT OF 14.2 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 20,000 OZ E.F.P. JUMP TO LONDON .+ 0 MILLION OZ EXCHANGE FOR RISK//PRIOR TOTAL FOR EXCHANGE FOR RISK = 3.0 MILLION OZ/TOTAL EXCH. FOR RISK /NEW TOTALS STANDING 16.390 MILLION OZ// /// WE HAVE A HUMONGOUS SIZED GAIN OF 1989 OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES. THE TOTAL OF TAS INITIATED CONTRACTS TODAY: A FAIR SIZED 385 CONTRACTS//SOME FRONT END OF THE TAS CONTRACTS WERE LIQUIDATED DURING THE THURSDAY COMEX SESSION. THE NEW TAS ISSUANCE THURSDAY NIGHT (491) WILL BE PUT INTO “THE BANK” TO BE COLLUSIVELY USED AT A LATER DATE., .
WE HAD 29 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR 145,000 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 GOOD SIZED 4397 CONTRACTS TO 441,464 AND CLOSER TO THE 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: – REMOVED: –326 CONTRACTS
WE HAD A GOOD SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI ( 4071 CONTRACTS) WITH OUR HUGE $25.60 LOSS IN PRICE//THURSDAY. WE ALSO HAD A RATHER STRONG INITIAL STANDING IN GOLD TONNAGE FOR SEPT. AT 12.656 TONNES ON FIRST DAY NOTICE FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 600 OZ QUEUE JUMP //NEW TOTAL STANDING 14.8398 TONNES + /A FAIR (AND CRIMINAL) ISSUANCE OF 1530 T.A.S. CONTRACTS /// ALL OF..THIS HAPPENED WITH OUR$25.60 LOSS IN PRICEWITH RESPECT TO THURSDAY’S TRADING.WE HAD A FAIR SIZED GAIN OF 1103 OI CONTRACTS (3.430 PAPER TONNES) ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES.
E.F.P. ISSUANCE
THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALED A STRONG SIZED 5500CONTRACTS:
The NEW COMEX OI FOR THE GOLD COMPLEX RESTS AT 441,790
IN ESSENCE WE HAVE A FAIR SIZED INCREASE IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 1103 CONTRACTS WITH 4397 CONTRACTS DECREASED AT THE COMEX// AND A STRONG SIZED 5500 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS TOTAL OI GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 1103CONTRACTS OR 3.430 TONNES. WE HAD THE FOLLOWING TAS CONTRACTS INITIATED (ISSUED): A FAIR 1530 CONTRACTS)
CALCULATIONS ON GAIN/LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES
WE HAD A STRONG SIZED ISSUANCE IN EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (5500 CONTRACTS) ACCOMPANYING THE GOOD SIZED LOSS IN COMEX OI (4397) //TOTAL GAIN FOR OUR THE TWO EXCHANGES: 1103 CONTRACTS. WE HAVE ( 1) NOW RETURNED TO OUR NORMAL FORMAT OF BANKERS GOING LONG AND SPECULATORS GOING SHORT ,2.) FAIR INITIAL STANDING AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR SEPT. AT 12.656 TONNES FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S QUEUE JUMP OF 600 OZ/// 3) STRONG LONG LIQUIDATION ALONG WITH HUGE TAS LIQUIDATION C DURING THE COMEX SESSION //4) GOOD SIZED COMEX OPEN INTEREST GAIN/ 5) STRONG ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL PAPER///6: FAIR T.A.S. ISSUANCE: 1530 CONTRACTS
HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN 2023 INCLUDING TODAY
SEPT
ACCUMULATION OF EFP’S GOLD AT J.P. MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES: (EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL) FOR THE MONTH OF SEPT :
TOTAL EFP CONTRACTS ISSUED: 42,887 CONTRACTS OR 4,288,700 OZ OR 133.339 TONNES IN 15 TRADING DAY(S) AND THUS AVERAGING: 2859 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY
TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS : THIS MONTH IN 15 TRADING DAY(S) IN TONNES 133.339 TONNES
TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2022, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES
THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS 133.339/3550 x 100% TONNES 3.75% OF GLOBAL ANNUAL PRODUCTION
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//
TOTALS: 2,578.08 TONNES/2021
JAN:2022 247.25 TONNES //FINAL
FEB: 196.04 TONNES//FINAL
MARCH/2022: 409.30 TONNES //FINAL( 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: 238.13 TONNES FINAL
JULY: 378.43 TONNES FINAL
AUGUST: 180.81 TONNES FINAL
SEPT. 193.16 TONNES FINAL
OCT: 177.57 TONNES FINAL ( MUCH SMALLER THAN LAST MONTH)
NOV. 223.98 TONNES//FINAL ( MUCH LARGER THAN PREVIOUS MONTHS//comex running out of physical)
DEC: 185.59 tonnes // FINAL
TOTAL: 2,847,25 TONNES/2022
JAN 2023: 228.49 TONNES FINAL//HUGE AMOUNT OF EFP’S ISSUED THIS MONTH!!
FEB: 151.61 TONNES/FINAL
MARCH: 280.09 TONNES/INITIAL (ANOTHER STRONG MONTH FOR EFP ISSUANCE)
APRIL: 197.42 TONNES
MAY: 236.67 TONNES (A VERY STRONG ISSUANCE FOR THIS MONTH)
JUNE: 172.667 TONNES (WEAKER ISSUANCE THIS MONTH)
JULY: 151.69 TONNES (WEAKER THAN LAST MONTH)
AUGUST: 195.28 TONNES (A STRONGER MONTH)//FINAL
SEPT: 133.338 TONNES (SMALLER THAN LAST MONTH)
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 SEPT. WE ARE NOW INTO THE SPREADING OPERATION OF GOLD
HERE IS A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HOW THE CROOKS FLEECE UNSUSPECTING LONGS IN THE SPREADING ENDEAVOUR ;MODUS OPERANDI OF THE CORRUPT BANKERS AS TO HOW THEY HANDLE THEIR SPREAD OPEN INTERESTS:HERE IS HOW THE CROOKS USED SPREADING AS WE ARE NOW INTO THE NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF MAY HEADING TOWARDS THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF JUNE., FOR BOTH GOLD:
YOU WILL ALSO NOTICE THAT THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST STARTS TO RISE BUT SO IS THE OPEN INTEREST OF SPREADERS. THE OPEN INTEREST IN WILL CONTINUE TO RISE UNTIL ONE WEEK BEFORE FIRST DAY NOTICE OF AN UPCOMING ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH (SEPT), 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.
The crooks also use the spread in the TAS account (trade at settlement). They buy the spot TAS (e.g. June) and sell the future TAS two months out (e.g. August). Then they unload the front month (i.e. unload the buy side first so the price of gold/silver falls. This occurs in the middle of the front delivery month cycle. They unload the sell side of the equation, two months down the road. The crooks violate position limits as the OCC refuse to hear our complaints.
First, here is an outline of what will be discussed tonight:
1.Today, we had the open interest at the comex, in SILVER ROSE BY A HUGE SIZED 1289 CONTRACTS OI TO 126,552 AND CLOSER TO OUR COMEX HIGH 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. HOWEVER WE HAVE NOW SET A NEW RECORD LOW OF 114,102 CONTRACTS JULY 3.2023
EFP ISSUANCE A STRONG 700 CONTRACTS
OUR CUSTOMARY MIGRATION OF COMEX LONGS CONTINUE TO MORPH INTO LONDON FORWARDS AS OUR BANKERS USED THEIR EMERGENCY PROCEDURE TO ISSUE:
DEC 700and ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 700 CONTRACTS. EFP’S GIVE OUR COMEX LONGS A FIAT BONUS PLUS A DELIVERABLE PRODUCT OVER IN LONDON. IF WE TAKE THE COMEX OI GAIN OF 1289 CONTRACTS AND ADD TO THE 700 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S,
WE OBTAIN A HUMONGOUS SIZED GAIN OF OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES OF 1989 CONTRACTS
THUS IN OUNCES, THE GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES TOTAL 9.945 MILLION OZ
OCCURRED DESPITE OUR SMALL $0.13 LOSS IN PRICE …..
ii a) Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries
b. Other gold/silver commentaries
c. Commodity commentaries//
d)/CRYPTOCURRENCIES/BITCOIN ETC
2.ASIAN AFFAIRS//
FRIDAY MORNING//THURSDAY NIGHT
SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 47.73 PTS OR 1.55% //Hang Seng CLOSED UP 402.04 PTS OR 2.28%/ /The Nikkei CLOSED DOWN 168.62 PTS OR 0.52% //Australia’s all ordinaries CLOSED UP 0.05 % /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed UP AT 7.3040 /OFFSHORE CHINESE YUAN UP TO 7.3030 /Oil UP TO 90.54 dollars per barrel for WTI and BRENT UP AT 94.14 / Stocks in Europe OPENED MOSTLY RED// ONSHORE YUAN TRADING BELOW LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING STRONGER AGAINST US DOLLAR/OFFSHORE STRONGER
1. COMEX DATA//AMOUNTS STANDING//VOLUME OF TRADING/INVENTORY MOVEMENTS
GOLD
LET US BEGIN:
THE TOTAL COMEX GOLD OPEN INTEREST FELL BY A GOOD SIZED 4397CONTRACTS TO 441,464 DESPITE OUR HUGE LOSS IN PRICE OF $25.60 ON THURSDAY.
EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE
WE ARE NOW IN THE NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF SEPT.… 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 5500 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED: : DEC 5550 & ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:
TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 5500 CONTRACTS
ON A NET BASIS IN OPEN INTEREST WE GAINED THE FOLLOWING TODAY ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES: A FAIR SIZED TOTAL OF 1,103 CONTRACTS IN THAT 5500LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE HAD A GOOD SIZED LOSS OF 4397 COMEX CONTRACTS..AND THIS GAIN ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES HAPPENED DESPITE OUR HUGE LOSS IN PRICE OF $25.60//THURSDAY COMEX. AS PER OUR NEWBIE TRADE AT SETTLEMENT (TAS) MANIPULATION OPERATION (WHICH CRAIG HEMKE HAS POINTED OUT HAPPENS DURING MID MONTH IN THE DELIVERY CYCLE), THE CME REPORTS THAT THE TOTAL T.A.S. ISSUANCE FOR THURSDAY NIGHT WAS A FAIR 1530 CONTRACTS. THROUGHOUT THE PAST WEEKS, THE BANKERS SOLD OFF THE LONG SIDE OF THE SPREAD WHICH OF COURSE CONTINUES TO MANIPULATE THE PRICE OF GOLD SOUTHBOUND. (THEY KEEP THE SHORT SIDE OF THE CALENDAR SPREAD WHICH WILL BE LIQUIDATED TWO MONTHS HENCE)//
// WE HAVE A STRONG AMOUNT OF GOLD TONNAGE STANDING: SEPT (14.8398) ( NON ACTIVE MONTH)
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 YEAR 2021 (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: 74.933 TONNES FINAL
JULY 29.987 TONNES FINAL
AUGUST:104.979 TONNES//FINAL
SEPT. 38.1158 TONNES
OCT: 77.390 TONNES/ FINAL
NOV 27.110 TONNES/FINAL
Dec. 64.000 tonnes
(TOTAL YEAR 656.076 TONNES)
2023:
JAN/2023: 20.559 tonnes
FEB 2023: 47.744 tonnes
MAR: 19.0637 TONNES
APRIL: 75.676 tonnes
MAY: 19.094 TONNES + 1.244 tonnes of exchange for risk = 20.338
JUNE: 64.354 TONNES
JULY: 10.2861 TONNES
AUGUST: 38.855 TONNES(INCLUDING .6842 EXCHANGE FOR RISK)
SEPT: 14.8398 TONNES
THE SPECS/HFT WERE SUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE( IT LOST $25.60) //// BUT WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING ANY SPECULATOR LONGS AS WE HAD A FAIR GAIN OF 1,429 TOTAL CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES. WE HAD A CONSIDERABLE T.A.S. LIQUIDATION ON THE FRONT END OF THURSDAY’S TRADING. THE T.A.S. ISSUED ON THURSDAY NIGHT WILL BE “PUT INTO THE BANK” TO BE USED AT A LATER DATE AT THE COLLUSIVE CHOOSING OF OUR BANKERS.
WE HAVE GAINED A TOTAL OI OF 3.430 PAPER TONNES FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES, ACCOMPANYING OUR INITIAL GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR SEPT. (12.656 TONNES) ON FIRST DAY NOTICE FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S QUEUE JUMP OF 600 OZ//NEW STANDING 14.8398 TONNES // ALL OF THIS WAS ACCOMPLISHED WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE TO THE TUNE OF $25.60.
WE HAD – REMOVED 326 CONTRACTS TO THE COMEX TRADES TO OPEN INTEREST
NET GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 1103 CONTRACTS OR 110,300 OZ OR 3.430 TONNES.
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month
3975 notices 397,500 OZ 12.363 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
x
0 dealer deposit:
total dealer deposits: NIL oz
customer deposits: 0
total customer deposits: NIL oz
we had 2 customer withdrawals
i) Out f JPMorgan 482.265 oz (15 kilobars)
ii) Out of Delaware 1100.586 oz
total withdrawals 1,582.851 oz
Adjustments; 0
CALCULATIONS FOR THE AMOUNT OF GOLD STANDING FOR SEPTEMBER.
For the front month of SEPTEMBER we have an oi of 803 contracts having LOST 95 contracts. We had
101 contracts were served on THURSDAY, so we GAINED an additional 6 CONTRACTS or AN ADDITIONAL 600 oz will stand for delivery in this non active delivery month of Sept
Oct LOST 126 contracts to 22,089 contracts.
NOV GAINED 10 CONTRACTS to stand at 346
December LOST 6397 contracts UP to 376,009 contracts.
We had 7 contracts filed for today representing 700 oz
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 7 contract(s) of which 0 notices were stopped (received) by j.P. Morgan dealer and 0 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 SEPT /2023. contract month,
we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (3975 x 100 oz ), to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of SEPT (803 CONTRACTS) minus the number of notices served upon today 7 x 100 oz per contract equals 477,100 OZ OR 14.8398 TONNES the number of TONNES standing in this non active month of SEPT.
thus the INITIAL standings for gold for the SEPTcontract month: No of notices filed so far (3975) x 100 oz + (803) {OI for the front month} minus the number of notices served upon today (7) x 100 oz) which equals 477,100 oz standing OR 14.8398 TONNES
TOTAL COMEX GOLD STANDING: 14.8398 TONNES WHICH IS HUGE FOR AN INACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH.
total pledged gold: 2,016,871.449 OZ 62.733 tonnes
TOTAL OF ALL GOLD ELIGIBLE AND REGISTERED: 20,930,325.289 OZ
TOTAL REGISTERED GOLD 10,801,765.332 (335,98 tonnes)..
TOTAL OF ALL ELIGIBLE GOLD: 10,128,559.957 OZ
REGISTERED GOLD THAT CAN BE SERVED UPON: 8,784,894 OZ (REG GOLD- PLEDGED GOLD) 273.24 tonnes//dropping like a stone
END
SILVER/COMEX
SEPT 22
//2023// THE SEPT 2023 SILVER CONTRACT
Silver
Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory
NIL oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory
100,108.290 oz ASAHI
.
Deposits to the Dealer Inventory
nil
Deposits to the Customer Inventory
1,191,850.766 oz Delaware Loomis
No of oz served today (contracts)
29 CONTRACT(S) (145,000 OZ)
No of oz to be served (notices)
31 contracts (155,000 oz)
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts)
2647 Contracts (13,235,000 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
i) 0 dealer deposit
total dealer deposit: 0
i) We had 0 dealer withdrawal
total dealer withdrawals: 0 oz
We had 2 deposit customer account:
i) Into Delaware 6812.806 oz
ii) Into Loomis: 1,185,037.960 oz
total customer deposit 1,191,850.766 oz
JPMorgan has a total silver weight: 136.312 million oz/273.628 million or 49.70%
Comex withdrawals 1
i) Out of ASAHI: 100,108.290 oz
total: 100,108.290 oz
adjustments: 0
TOTAL REGISTERED SILVER: 42.062 MILLION OZ//.TOTAL REG + ELIGIBLE. 273,628 million oz
CALCULATIONS FOR THE NEW STANDING FOR SILVER FOR August:
silver open interest data:
FRONT MONTH OF SEPT /2023 OI: 60 CONTRACTS HAVING LOST 5 CONTRACT(S). WE HAD 1
CONTRACT SERVED ON THURSDAY. SO WE LOST 4 CONTRACTS OR 20,000 ADDITIONAL OZ WILL NOT STAND FOR SILVER AT THE COMEX..
OCT LOST 229 CONTRACTS TO STAND AT 746.
NOVEMBER GAINED 19 CONTRACTS TO STAND AT 159
DEC. GAINED 1283 CONTRACTS TO STAND AT 113,920 .
TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR TODAY: 29 for 145,000 oz
Comex volumes// est. volume today 51,718 poor
Comex volume: confirmed yesterday 77,459 good
To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in SEPT. we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at 2647 x 5,000 oz = 13,235,000 oz
to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of SEPT (60) and the number of notices served upon today 29 x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.
Thus the standings for silver for the SEPT/2023 contract month: 2647 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for the front month of SEPT (60) – number of notices served upon today (29 )x 500 oz of silver standing for the SEPT contract month equates to 13.390 million oz. + 0 MILLION EXCHANGE FOR RISK..NEW TOTALS EXCHANGE FOR RISK: 3.0 MILLION OZ//NEW TOTAL STANDING FOR SILVER: 16.390 MILLION OZ//
There are 42.062 million oz of registered silver.
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
SEPT 22/WITH GOLD UP $5.70 TODAY:SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD DEPOSIT OF 0.58 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD/ : // //INVENTORY RESTS AT 878.83 TONNES
SEPT 21/WITH GOLD DOWN $25.60 TODAY:SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.58 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD/ : // //INVENTORY RESTS AT 878.25 TONNES
SEPT 19/WITH GOLD UP $0.60 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD : // //INVENTORY RESTS AT 880.217 TONNES
SEPT 18/WITH GOLD UP $8.40 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD : A DEPOSIT OF 0.57 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 880.217 TONNES
SEPT 15/WITH GOLD UP $13.20 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD : A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.055 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 879.70 TONNES
SEPT 14/WITH GOLD UP $1.00 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD : A WITHDRAWAL OF 4.63 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 882.01 TONNES
SEPT 13/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.00 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD : / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 886.64 TONNES
SEPT 12/WITH GOLD DOWN $11.20 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD : / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 886.64 TONNES
SEPT 11/WITH GOLD UP $4.45 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD : / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 886.64 TONNES
SEPT 8/WITH GOLD UP $0.35 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD : / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 886.64 TONNES
SEPT 7/WITH GOLD DOWN $0.20 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.22 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD.: / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 886.69 TONNES
SEPT 6/WITH GOLD DOWN $8.80 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.16 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD.: / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 889.81 TONNES
SEPT 5/WITH GOLD DOWN $13.50 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A DEPOSIT OF 0.87 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD.: / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 890.97 TONNES
SEPT 1/WITH GOLD UP $1.00 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A DEPOSIT OF 0.87 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD.: / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 890.10 TONNES
AUGUST 31/WITH GOLD DOWN $1.00 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A DEPOSIT OF 0.87 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD.: / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 890.10 TONNES
AUGUST 30/WITH GOLD UP $8.15 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A DEPOSIT OF 2.59 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD.: / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 889.23 TONNES
AUGUST 29/WITH GOLD UP 17.05 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A DEPOSIT OF 2.6 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD.: / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 886.64 TONNES
AUGUST 28/WITH GOLD UP $6.90 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 884.04 TONNES
AUGUST 25/WITH GOLD DOWN $6.05 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .87 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 884.04 TONNES
AUGUST 24/WITH GOLD UP $0.65 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD //INVENTORY RESTS AT 884.91 TONNES
AUGUST 23/WITH GOLD UP $21.35 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 4.32 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 884.91 TONNES
AUGUST 22/WITH GOLD UP $2.95 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.87 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 889.23 TONNES
AUGUST 21/WITH GOLD UP $7.15 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A DEPOSIT OF 2.60 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 890.10 TONNES
AUGUST 18/WITH GOLD UP $1.15 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 6.92 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 887.50 TONNES
AUGUST 17/WITH GOLD DOWN $12.80 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: //: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 894.42 TONNES
GLD INVENTORY: 878.83 TONNES
Now the SLV Inventory/( vehicle is a fraud as there is no physical metal behind them
SEPT 22/WITH SILVER UP 13 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 449.492 MILLION OZ
SEPT 21/WITH SILVER DOWN 13 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 449,033 MILLION OZ
SEPT 19/WITH SILVER UP 0 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.1 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV. : // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 449.033 MILLION OZ
SEPT 18/WITH SILVER UP 11 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A DEPOSIT OF 1.651 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV. : // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 441.332 MILLION OZ
SEPT 15/WITH SILVER UP 37 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.31 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV. : // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 439.681 MILLION OZ
SEPT 14/WITH SILVER DOWN 16 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: : // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 440.736 MILLION OZ
SEPT 13/WITH SILVER DOWN 23 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 1,009 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV//: // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 440.736 MILLION OZ
SEPT 12/WITH SILVER UP 1 CENT TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 3.209 MILLION OZ INTO TEH SLV//: // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 439.727 MILLION OZ
SEPT 11/WITH SILVER UP 19 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 3.209 MILLION OZ INTO TEH SLV//: // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 439.727 MILLION OZ
SEPT 8/WITH SILVER DOWN 8 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 436.518 MILLION OZ
SEPT 7/WITH SILVER DOWN 21 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 436.518 MILLION OZ
SEPT 6/WITH SILVER DOWN 36 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.373 OZ OF SILVER OUT OF THE THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 436.518 MILLION OZ
SEPT 5/WITH SILVER DOWN 69 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 734,000 OZ OF SILVER OUT OF THE THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 437.891 MILLION OZ
SEPT 1/WITH SILVER DOWN 20 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.375 MILLION OZ OF SILVER OUT OF THE THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 440.00 MILLION OZ
AUGUST 31/WITH SILVER DOWN 20 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.375 MILLION OZ OF SILVER OUT OF THE THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 438.625 MILLION OZ
AUGUST 30/WITH SILVER DOWN 2 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.834 MILLION OZ OF SILVER OUT OF THE THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 443.210 MILLION OZ
AUGUST 29/WITH SILVER UP 49 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 183,000 OF SILVER INTO THE THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 445.044 MILLION OZ
AUGUST 28/WITH SILVER UP 3 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.281 MILLION OZ OZ FROM THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 444.861 MILLION OZ
AUGUST 25/WITH SILVER UP ONE CENT TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.751 MILLION OZ OZ FROM THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 446.145 MILLION OZ
AUGUST 24/WITH SILVER DOWN 16 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.651 MILLION OZ OZ FROM THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 448.896 MILLION OZ
AUGUST 23/WITH SILVER UP 94 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 826,000 OZ FROM THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 450.547 MILLION OZ
AUGUST 22/WITH SILVER UP 12 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.373 MILLION OZ
AUGUST 21/WITH SILVER UP 59 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 917,0000 OZ FROM THE SLV//.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.373 MILLION OZ
AUGUST 18/WITH SILVER UP 4 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.290 MILLION OZ
AUGUST 17/WITH SILVER UP 15 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.290 MILLION OZ
3,Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries
The last of the big three JPMorgan traders sentenced to six months in the spoof case
(Bloomberg/GATA)
Ex-JPMorgan gold trader sentenced to six months in ‘spoof’ case
Submitted by admin on Thu, 2023-09-21 10:29Section: Daily Dispatches
By Joe Deaux and Kim Chipman Bloomberg News Friday, September 15, 2023
A former JPMorgan Chase & Co. gold trader was ordered to serve six months behind bars for a fraud conviction tied to deceptive orders, the last criminal penalty imposed in a years-long spoofing saga at the bank.
Christopher Jordan was sentenced today in Chicago by U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang. Jordan was convicted in December for placing deceptive spoofing orders from 2008 to 2010 that witnesses testified were rampant among traders on JPMorgan’s precious-metals desk.
The sentence comes weeks after JPMorgan’s former top gold trader, Gregg Smith, was given a two-year prison term — the stiffest sentence in the U.S. government’s crackdown on questionable trading practices.
The desk’s former “boss,” Michael Nowak, got a year behind bars, while two others who pleaded guilty in the case and cooperated with authorities avoided prison.
The JPMorgan cases were the crown jewels of the federal spoofing crackdowns on some major Wall Street banks, including Bank of America Corp., Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley. JPMorgan agreed in 2020 to pay $920 million to settle allegations brought by the Justice Department. It was the biggest fine by any financial institution accused of market manipulation since the Global Financial Crisis. …
Alasdair Macleod: There’s a herd of elephants in the room
Submitted by admin on Thu, 2023-09-21 12:40Section: Daily Dispatches
By Alasdair Macleod Head of Research, GoldMoney via Schiff Gold, White Plains, New York Thursday, September 21, 2023
Among the many problems currencies and markets face, there is one which is undocumented: the eurodollar market, which is yet another very large elephant in the room. This article quantifies eurodollars and eurodollar bonds, which are additional to US money supply and credit.
Research by the Bank of International Settlements puts this market at $93 trillion, of which on-balance sheet debt (that is, customer deposits) of non-U.S. banks is $15 trillion, a sum that should be added to U.S. M2 money supply of $21 trillion for a truer picture of total dollar bank credit. Only a small of this debt is in other currencies.
In this article, I describe the origin of eurodollars and why they have grown to such an enormous quantity. They introduce unrecognised risks to capital markets, and particularly the dollar at a time of growing financial instability. While the factors leading to a Triffin-style crisis are already in place, the unwinding of eurodollar credit will be an additional, unexpected factor.
This will not necessarily be an easy crisis for investors to navigate. While a stampede of unseen elephants in the room looks increasingly likely to undermine the dollar fatally, experience is that the initial reaction to a global crisis is usually to strengthen the dollar before it faces its true crisis.
If this happens, it will be short-lived because foreign owners of up to $135 trillion of dollar obligations both in the United States and abroad are bound to turn sellers. …
Submitted by admin on Thu, 2023-09-21 22:02Section: Daily Dispatches
By Ted Butler SilverSeek.com Thursday, September 21, 2023
After 40 years of silver price manipulation and suppression on the Comex, the physical market has experienced a lack of production growth as well as enhanced demand brought about by too-low silver prices.
According to the immutable law of supply and demand, silver is now in a deepening physical shortage in which sharply higher prices are both required and inevitable.
The key element that I speak of today is the likely behavior of the short sellers of silver derivatives. Investors hold 2 billion ounces of silver in industry-standard 1,000-ounce bars and a similar quantity in smaller bars and coins. Since these holdings are owned outright, there is no short position as exists in every derivatives contract, including Comex futures and options and OTC swap contracts.
The derivatives short positions are mostly on the Comex, in the form of short sales in futures, call options contracts, and in OTC dealings.
Thanks to detailed information provided in the weekly commitment-of-traders reports, great clarity is given to the potential exposure of the short sellers in Comex silver futures contracts. The current total open interest in Comex silver futures (minus spreads) is around 110,000 contracts, or 550 million ounces. …
After 40 years of silver price manipulation and suppression on the COMEX, the physical market has experienced a lack of production growth and enhanced demand brought about by too-low silver prices. According to the immutable law of supply and demand, silver is now in a deepening physical shortage in which sharply higher prices are both required and inevitable. The key element that I speak of today is the likely behavior of the short sellers of silver derivatives. Investors hold 2 billion ounces of silver in industry-standard 1,000-ounce bars and a similar quantity in smaller bars and coins. Since these holdings are owned outright, there is no short position as exists in every derivatives contract, including COMEX futures and options and OTC swap contracts.
The derivatives short positions are mostly on the COMEX, in the form of short sales in futures, call options contracts and also in OTC dealings. Thanks to detailed information provided in the weekly Commitment of Traders (COT) reports, great clarity is given to the potential exposure of the short sellers in COMEX silver futures contracts. The current total open interest in COMEX silver futures (minus spreads) is around 110,000 contracts, or 550 million ounces.
Again, thanks to the detailed data provided in the COT reports, we further know that the 8 largest commercial shorts hold more than 50,000 contracts net short or the equivalent of 250 million ounces. Other traders in the commercial, non-commercial, and non-reporting categories hold 300 million ounces short. This current net short position of the 8 largest shorts, at 250 million ounces is of extreme danger to them should silver prices explode, as I believe is in the cards. Often overlooked is the even larger 300 million oz short position held by those outside the big 8’s holdings.
Then, there are the long and short positions held in COMEX silver call options, most of which are “out-of-the-money,” meaning they wouldn’t result in great danger to the short sellers of these options until and unless silver prices rose sharply. Conservatively, the true exposure of the call options on the COMEX is “only” 25,000 contracts of the more than 70,000 contracts of total call option open interest. That would bring the total COMEX futures and call options short exposure to 135,000 contracts (110,000 futures contracts plus 25,000 call options contracts) or 675 million ounces.
That means, for every dollar increase in the price of silver, the longs would make $675 million and those short would lose $675 million. A $5 price increase would amount to a $3.4 billion gain and loss, while a $10 increase would amount to a collective gain and loss of $6.75 billion. Should the price of silver increase much more than that, as I believe, the math is astounding for collective gains and losses. The short-sellers of silver would face a cataclysmic financial setback. For the longs, it would be the stuff of dreams – with unimaginable money and profits raining down from the heavens.
However, for those short, it would be a terrifying financial nightmare. The 675 million ounces held short on the COMEX is mostly held on a margin basis, and should silver prices explode higher, as is inevitable and likely imminent, a margin call “hell” scenario would develop. Virtually all silver shorts will be subjected to daily and perhaps intraday demands to deposit untold additional amounts of margin money with little time to do so. In a sharp price rise of the type I envision, the brokers holding the short positions will not hesitate to buy back customers short positions with little prior notice adding additional upward pressure to silver prices.
In addition to the net short derivatives position on the COMEX in silver futures and call options, there is the matter of those short call options on SLV, the big silver ETF, where the true net exposure could easily top 200 million ounces. Finally, there is the OTC derivatives market, where I allege that Bank of America, alone, may have a short exposure of a billion ounces of silver. That’s more than the combined short exposure on the COMEX and in SLV. I’ve complained to the S.E.C. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency about BofA’s egregious short position in silver OTC derivatives. In fact, the response I received from the OCC did not dispute my contentions and seemed to confirm them.
As a commodities broker for many years, I have lived through and observed the type of cataclysmic market events and the effects on those on the wrong side of highly leveraged derivatives positions. A comparable event that comes to mind was the sudden sharp selloff in the stock market in October 1987, when the Dow Jones Average fell nearly 25% in a day. I personally knew many who had large short positions on put options on stocks, that to that point had been extremely profitable, until the stock market broke sharply and the losses suddenly became insurmountable to the point of bankruptcy. A more recent example was the meme stock episode of early 2021, when a stock like GameStop rose by more than 25 times in a few months due largely to short covering.
One of the unintended consequences of the 40-year COMEX silver manipulation and the failure of the regulators (both the CFTC and the industry self-regulator, the CME Group, Inc.) to end the manipulation earlier, is that it has lulled those short into believing the current price is somehow normal (otherwise no one would be short). However, just as there is no force more powerful on the price of a commodity than a physical shortage, there is no force more powerful in the world of derivatives than a short-covering panic. The impact on price brought about by an inevitable short covering buying panic in silver promises to be epic.
The greatest liability and danger rests, unfortunately, on the backs of those shorts apart from the big 8 COMEX shorts. If the 8 big shorts lean into the developing rally by aggressively adding shorts to cap and contain the budding silver rally, then the hundreds of millions of ounces of silver derivatives contracts held short by the unsuspecting non-big 8 shorts, may be temporarily spared the financial disaster that awaits them. If the big 8 don’t add aggressively to short positions, the financial nightmare for the unsuspecting shorts goes real-time.
It comes down to whether one thinks the current price of silver represents the true free market price according to the actual law of supply and demand and not some artificial price we’ve gotten used to following decades of artificial COMEX price-setting. Obviously, those short silver don’t suspect, in the least, that the price has been artificially manipulated – otherwise they would never be short. But if the price wasn’t artificially suppressed and manipulated, then why are we seeing signs of physical shortage abound and clear evidence that the short positions in silver derivatives seem excessive and dangerous to the shorts in numerous data points?
Furthermore, since there is no way on Planet Earth can those collectively short way more than a billion ounces of silver derivatives hope to ever acquire the physical silver necessary to close out their short positions by actual delivery, that leaves only the buyback on the various markets of the open short positions as a solution for closing out the massive amounts of shorts. While we await the answers to these questions, it would seem quite dangerous and ill-advised to be short silver in the interim.
5 a. IMPORTANT COMMENTARIES ON COMMODITIES:DIAMONDS
Due to the influx of lab diamonds, we witness the crashing of the real diamond market
(zerohedge)
Diamond Prices Are Crashing, Forcing Russian Mining Giant To Halt Sales
FRIDAY, SEP 22, 2023 – 05:45 AM
A surge in lab-grown diamonds flooding the market, coupled with a decline in luxury spending, has forced Russian mining giant Alrosa PJSC to temporarily suspend rough diamond sales to prevent prices from crashing further.
Bloomberg obtained a memo from Alrosa addressed to its customers, explaining rough diamond sales for September and October have been suspended as the company “strives to reverse the existing trend of diminishing demand.”
Diamonds, watches, and other jewelry soared during the pandemic and peaked in the first half of 2022. We have covered the Rolex boom and bust extensively and have turned our attention to crashing diamond prices in 2023:
Besides the luxury spending slowdown due to tapped-out consumers, man-made diamonds have been all the rage because these gems are only a fraction of the cost. The big fear of the natural diamond industry is starting to be realized as consumers accept lab-grown diamonds in rings.
Edahn Golan, an independent diamond industry analyst, told CNN Business consumers are flocking to man-made diamonds because the most popular one-carat round man-made diamond for an engagement ring in March was $2,318. He said that’s 73% cheaper than a natural diamond of the same size, cut, and clarity.
The latest data from the Diamond Index via the International Diamond Exchange shows prices have crashed well below pre-Covid levels.
Alrosa competes with De Beers, the biggest producer of diamonds, both of which have been rocked by a rough diamond sales slowdown this year after a massive boom during the pandemic.
Last week, Reuters reported the Group of Seven (G7) nations might be preparing to reshape the global diamond supply chain by placing restrictions on Alrosa.
END
END
5 B GLOBAL COMMODITY ISSUES/FOOD IN GENERAL//FREIGHT
1.YOUR EARLY CURRENCY VALUES/GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN AND EUROPEAN BOURSE MOVEMENTS/AND INTEREST RATE SETTINGS FRIDAY MORNING.7:30 AM
ONSHORE YUAN: CLOSED UP TO 7.3040
OFFSHORE YUAN: UP TO 7.3030
SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 47.73 PTS OR 1.55%
HANG SENG CLOSED UP 402.04PTS OR 2.28%
2. Nikkei closed DOWN 168.62 PTS OR .52 %
3. Europe stocks SO FAR: MOSTLY RED
USA dollar INDEX UP TO 105.22 EURO FALLS TO 1.0645 DOWN 15 BASIS PT
3b Japan 10 YR bond yield: FALLS TO. +.729 Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese YEN vs USA cross now at 148.27/JAPANESE YEN FALLING AS WELL AS LONG TERM 10 YR. YIELDS RISING //EVENTUALLY THIS WILL BREAK THE JAPANESE CENTRAL BANK
3c Nikkei now ABOVE 17,000
3d USA/Yen rate now well ABOVE the important 120 barrier this morning
3e Gold DOWN /JAPANESE Yen UP CHINESE ONSHORE YUAN: DOWN// OFFSHORE: DOWN
3f Japan is to buy INFINITE TRILLION YEN worth of BONDS. Japan’s GDP equals 5 trillion USA
Japan to buy 100% of all new Japanese debt and NOW they will have OVER 50% of all Japanese debt.
3g Oil UP for WTI and UP FOR Brent this morning
3h European bond buying continues to push yields lower on all fronts in the EMU. German 10yr bund DOWN TO +2.7455***/Italian 10 Yr bond yield UP to 4.562*** /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD UP TO 3.804…**
3i Greek 10 year bond yield RISES TO 4.153
3j Gold at $1925.75 silver at: 23.62 1 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $30.00
3k USA vs Russian rouble;// Russian rouble DOWN 0 AND 21 /100 roubles/dollar; ROUBLE AT 96.12//
3m oil into the 90 dollar handle for WTI and 94 handle for Brent/
3n Higher foreign deposits moving out of China// huge risk of outflows and a currency depreciation. This can spell financial disaster for the rest of the world/
JAPAN ON JAN 29.2016 CONTINUES NIRP. THIS MORNING RAISES AMOUNT OF BONDS THAT THEY WILL PURCHASE UP TO .5% ON THE 10 YR BOND///YEN TRADES TO 148.27// 10 YEAR YIELD AFTER FIRST BREAKING .54% LAST YEAR NOW EXCEEDS THAT LEVEL TO 0.729% STILL ON CENTRAL BANK (JAPAN) INTERVENTION
30 SNB (Swiss National Bank) still intervening again in the markets driving down the FRANC. It is not working: USA/SF this 0.9064 as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF 0.9649well 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: 4.4810 UP 0 BASIS PTS…
USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 4.577 UP 3 BASIS PTS/
USA 2 YR BOND YIELD: 5.127 DOWN 2 BASIS PTS
USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 27.17…(TURKEY SET TO BLOW UP FINANCIALLY)
GREAT BRITAIN/10 YEAR YIELD: DOWN 4 BASIS PTS AT 4.3225
end
2.a Overnight: Newsquawk and Zero hedge:
USA EARLY MORNING REPORT
Futures Rebound After Three Day Rout As Rates Ease From 2007 High
FRIDAY, SEP 22, 2023 – 08:20 AM
US equity futures rebounded from a furious three-day selloff at the end of a bruising week for investors which sent markets to the lowest level in over a month as investors are forced to accept the idea of higher-for-longer interest rates (at least until the Fed once again breaks something, which it will). As of 7:45am ET, S&P 500 added 0.3%, a modest rebound after the index fell the most since March on Thursday; the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 climbed 0.5%.European stocks pared their losses while Asian markets closed week well in the green, except for Japan where not even continued BOJ dovishness and a collapsing yen is enough to support risk. Treasury yields retreated across the curve, after 10-year rates briefly climbed above 4.5% in early trading in Asia. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed, with the Japanese yen and British pound leading declines among Group-of-10 currencies. Brent crude climbed 0.5% to $93.80 after a three-day drop. Gold and Bitcoin rose.
In premarket trading, megacap tech stocks rose, set to rebound slightly after Thursday’s losses as US 10-year yields dipped slightly from highest since 2007. Apple, Amazon.com, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Tesla, Nvidia were all in the green. Activision Blizzard gained 1.8% as Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of the gaming company looked set to clear its final regulatory hurdle. Here are some other notable premarket movers:
Alibaba Group and other US-listed Chinese stocks are rallying, a day after the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index fell to the lowest level since July. BABA is up 3.9%.
Coeur Mining is up 5.2% after RBC upgrades to outperform from sector perform.
Ralph Lauren shares are up 1.2%, after Raymond James started coverage on the apparel company with an outperform rating and $135 price target, writing that “expectations are relatively low for RL,” while the “below-average valuation creates an attractive entry point.”
Roku shares are up 1.4% in premarket trading, after CFRA upgraded the streaming-video platform company to hold from sell.
Scholastic shares fall 18% in US premarket trading after the children’s publishing company reported a larger-than-expected adjusted loss per share for the first quarter as the company spent on other areas of its business for growth, and flagged the seasonality of sales in its Education Solutions unit. Sales also declined.
Wayfair gains 2.4% in premarket trading after Bernstein raises the online home-furnishings retailer to market perform from underperform, citing improving revenue growth and management’s positive messaging on margins.
Global central banks this week stressed that they remain vigilant about the risks of inflation and warned investors against premature expectations of rate cuts. The increasing possibility that monetary policy will lead to recession is prompting investors to dump stocks at the fastest pace since December, BofA’s Michael Hartnett said, who noted that equity funds had outflows of $16.9 billion in the week through Sept. 20. Hartnett warned that persistently high rates could lead to a hard economic landing in 2024, and result in “pops and busts” in financial markets.
“What matters more than Fed hikes themselves is whether a recession occurs or not,” said Wolf von Rotberg, an equity strategist at Bank J Safra Sarasin Ltd. “It would be a remarkable accomplishment if it were avoided, yet that seems unlikely. If a recession were to happen, the equity market is not prepared for it.”
The latest evidence of resilience in the US labor market reinforced the case for the Fed’s stance of holding interest rates higher for longer. Applications for US unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level since January last week, figures out Thursday showed.
“The prospect of interest rates staying higher for longer has given investors a lingering headache and sentiment has worsened as the week progressed,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. “Many investors had hoped we would approach the end of 2023 with a clearer picture on when interest rates will start to be cut. That scenario has now been muddied by comments from the Fed that it is prepared to raise rates further if necessary and keep a restrictive policy until there are clear signs that inflation is moving back to target levels.”
Always an outlier, amid a hawkish barrage of central bank announcements, overnight the yen weakened after the Bank of Japan held interest rates, its 10-year yield target and forward guidance unchanged. The central bank reiterated its expectation that inflation is decelerating.
European stocks were lower, with the Stoxx 600 down 0.2% and almost all sectors in the red. Construction, retail and real estate are the worst performers. In individual moves in Europe, Adevinta ASA soared after the classifieds company said it received a takeover proposal from private equity investors including Blackstone Inc. and Permira. Meanwhile there were fresh signs of frailty in the euro-area economy Friday as figures showed private-sector activity in France and Germany continued to shrink in September. Here are the most notable European movers:
Adevinta shares surge as much as 24% after the European classifieds company confirms it received a takeover offer from Permira and Blackstone, with analysts saying any deal is likely to be at a price well above where the stock is trading. The move also lifts peers including Rightmove and Auto Trader.
Ascential shares jump as much as 12%, most since Jan. 25, after earnings that showed a strong performance in the UK firm’s events business, according to Citigroup.
Ubisoft shares gain as much as 4.2% on Friday after the UK’s antitrust regulator said a revised proposal from Microsoft to sell some gaming rights to the French video-game maker opens the door for its Activision acquisition to be cleared.
BioGaia shares rise as much as 8.6%, the most since April, after Handelsbanken raised its recommendation for the Swedish probiotics firm to buy, saying share price now reflects warranted concerns over customer demand and tough comparables in its 3Q report.
Jungheinrich shares gain as much as 3.2% after Barclays initiated coverage of the warehouse machinery company with an ‘overweight’ rating, citing an attractive valuation.
Dutch lenders ABN Amro -4.3% and ING Groep -5.2% slide after the parliament’s lower house approved a proposal to increase bank tax to support lower-income households.
Alten shares fall as much as 7.8%, the most since January, after the engineering and technology consulting firm reported a bigger-than-expected drop in profitability due to lower activity levels and higher operating expenses.
Var Energi shares drop as much as 7.6% as the co’s offering of 157.3m shares by holder prices via Barclays Bank Ireland, DNB Bank, Morgan Stanley & Co. International, SpareBank 1 Markets.
Italgas shares decline as much as 2.8%, touching its lowest level since late October, after a placement of about 14.5m shares offered on behalf of buyers of exchangeable bonds who wish to sell shares to hedge market risk, according to terms of the deal seen by Bloomberg.
Solutions 30 shares drop as much as 21% after the French technology-services company reported a wider first-half loss and a narrower profit margin.
Earlier in the session, Asian stock retraced early declines and closed in the green. Chinese shares rallied, a move that likely reflects “short covering on expectations of more policy support measures over the weekend, just like the government’s moves in every weekend this month,” said Steven Leung, an executive director at Uob Kay Hian Hong Kong Limited.
Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp shrugged off early jitters amid supportive measures including Beijing’s draft rules to promote a high level of opening up and encourage foreign investments, while China’s market regulator also issued measures to promote the private economy.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was pressured following the mostly firmer-than-expected Japanese CPI data but then pared some of the losses following the lack of hawkish surprises from the BoJ.
Australia’s ASX 200 was dragged lower with real estate and tech among the worst performers after the Australian 10yr yield touched its highest level since 2014, while the flash PMI data was mixed and showed a deeper contraction in manufacturing.
In FX, the Japanese yen and British pound are rooted to the bottom of the G-10 rankings today. The yen added to its post-BOJ fall as Governor Ueda tempered expectations they were close to raising interest rates – USD/JPY rises 0.4% to trade near 148.20. Sterling slipped 0.4% after UK retail sales and composite PMI both fell short of estimates. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rises 0.1%. EURUSD dropped 0.4% to 1.0615, lowest since March 17, after French manufacturing and services PMIs came in below estimates; currency pared losses after German PMI data came stronger-than-expected
In rates, 10-year yields fall 2bps to 4.47% after touching a new cycle high above 4.5% for the first time since 2007 during Asian trading hours. The US session includes the first Fed speakers since Wednesday’s policy decision. Yields are lower by 1bp-2bp with curve spreads little changed on the day; in 10-year sector bunds trade cheaper by ~2.5bp vs Treasuries while gilts keep pace. Futures block trade of 5-year contracts at 6:35am New York time appeared consistent with a seller. Dollar IG issuance slate empty so far and expected to be muted; weekly volume stands at around $16b, in line with estimates for $15b to $20b. US economic data slate includes September S&P manufacturing and services PMIs at 9:45am.
In commodities, oil rose, in part supported by news that Russia would ban exports of diesel-type fuel and gasoline; crude futures advanced, with WTI rising 1% to trade near $90.50. European natural gas prices fell as Chevron and labor unions in Australia agreed to end strikes at major export plants that roiled the market for more than a month. Spot gold adds 0.3%.
At 8:50 a.m., Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook will give a keynote address at a National Bureau of Economic Research event. At 9:45 a.m., we’ll get the latest reading on S&P Global’s manufacturing and services gauges. San Francisco Fed Mary Daly will speak in a fireside chat at 1 p.m., and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari will appear in a separate event at the same time.
Market Snapshot
S&P 500 futures up 0.2% to 4,378.75
STOXX Europe 600 down 0.3% to 453.29
Nikkei down 0.5% to 32,402.41
Topix down 0.3% to 2,376.27
Hang Seng Index up 2.3% to 18,057.45
Shanghai Composite up 1.5% to 3,132.43
Sensex down 0.1% to 66,136.23
Australia S&P/ASX 200 little changed at 7,068.84
Kospi down 0.3% to 2,508.13
German 10Y yield little changed at 2.72%
Euro down 0.2% to $1.0642
Brent Futures up 0.4% to $93.64/bbl
Gold spot up 0.3% to $1,926.57
U.S. Dollar Index up 0.23% to 105.60
MXAP up 0.3% to 159.89
MXAPJ up 0.9% to 496.80
Top Overnight News
The BOJ left its monetary policy unchanged, capping a week of central bank decisions that have roiled financial markets. Kazuo Ueda said the distance toward ending the YCC program and negative rate regime hasn’t changed much. Market watchers expect the yen to drop toward 150 per dollar, with intervention possible as it nears that level. BBG
China is considering relaxing foreign ownership caps in listed local companies to lure global funds back to its stock market, people familiar said. The country currently caps it at 30%, and subjects a single foreign shareholder to a 10% limit. BBG
JPM will include Indian gov’t bonds in its emerging market index, a move that could trigger billions of inflows to the market. Nikkei
Euro-area private sector activity shrank for the fourth consecutive month, suggesting the economy contracted in the current quarter. The composite PMI hit 47.1 in September, an improvement on August but still in contraction. While Germany’s downturn eased, it deepened in France. UK figures showed the sharpest decline since January 2021. BBG
European gas prices dropped after Chevron and labor unions resolved a dispute at key LNG facilities in Australia that began Sept. 8th. The agreement brings an end to strikes at the Gorgon and Wheatstone plants, which accounted for about 7% of the world’s LNG supply last year. BBG
Euro zone companies are finally absorbing wage pressures and the labor market has started to soften, European Central Bank chief economist Philip Lane said on Thursday, suggesting inflation pressures from employee pay rises are finally subsiding. RTRS
AAPL cools the pace of compensation increases for retail employees, the latest sign of the labor market easing. BBG
Hollywood studios will continue negotiations w/the WGA on Friday amid hopes for a breakthrough that settles the strike relatively soon. WaPo
AMZN confirmed recent media reports with a plan to begin running advertisements inside its Prime Video content. The company will sell an ad-free upgrade option for Prime members who pay an additional $2.99/month (given that Prime cost $14.99 per month, this is effectively a ~20% price hike in the US for people who want to keep ads out of their content). WSJ
A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk
APAC stocks traded mixed amid a higher yield environment and after this week’s central bank frenzy culminated with a lack of surprises from the BoJ. ASX 200 was dragged lower with real estate and tech among the worst performers after the Australian 10yr yield touched its highest level since 2014, while the flash PMI data was mixed and showed a deeper contraction in manufacturing. Nikkei 225 was pressured following the mostly firmer-than-expected Japanese CPI data but then pared some of the losses following the lack of hawkish surprises from the BoJ. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp shrugged off early jitters amid supportive measures including Beijing’s draft rules to promote a high level of opening up and encourage foreign investments, while China’s market regulator also issued measures to promote the private economy.
Top Asian News
China mulls easing foreign stake limits to lure global funds, via Bloomberg.
PBoC releases list for systemic important banks; will promote stable operations and healthy development of systemically important banks, according to Reuters.
Chinese Vice President Han Zheng said China remains committed to opening itself up to the wider world and to an independent foreign policy, while it stays committed to safeguarding sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to Reuters.
China’s market regulator issued measures to promote the private economy and China will continue to break down market access barriers for the private economy, according to state media.
Japanese PM Kishida said he will reform the asset management sector and will introduce a new programme to assist new entrants to the asset management sector. Furthermore, Kishida said it is important for FX to move stably, reflecting economic fundamentals.
European bourses are mostly lower, but have trimmed the losses seen at the cash open. The main macro story for the region thus far has been the flash PMI prints for September. Sectors in Europe are mostly lower with the exception of Basic Resources which is in marginally positive territory thanks to underlying metals prices. On the downside, the Construction & Materials sector lags. US futures are trading slightly firmer following the biggest US stock drop since March, in yesterday’s session.
Top European News
UK Recession Risk Grows as Companies Cut Staff at a Sharp Pace
Dutch Lenders Slide After Parliament Approves Bank Tax Increase
European Stocks Slide on Interest Rate Woes; Dutch Banks Slide
Dutch Lenders Slide as Parliament Approves Share Buyback Tax
Alten Falls as Profit Dragged by Expenses, Lower Activity Level
Vodafone in Negotiations to Sell Spanish Business to Zegona
FX
DXY is on a firmer footing following the uneventful BoJ decision overnight coupled with weakness from the EUR post-PMI.
EUR and GBP both declined following overall downbeat PMI data in which the overarching theme was growth concerns.
USD/JPY hit a high of 148.42 after the BoJ announcement overnight which offered no hawkish surprises whilst Governor Ueda repeated that the central bank will not hesitate to take additional easing measures if necessary.
Antipodeans outperform in tandem with optimism surrounding China which has also propped up commodities.
PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1729 vs exp. 7.3009 (prev. 7.1730)
Fixed Income
Debt futures faded from post-French PMI peaks and never really threatened best levels again.
Bunds returned to flat on the day within a 130.19-129.50 range and OATs recently dipped below par between 124.87-124.21 parameters, while Gilts are holding above 96.00 having reached 96.37 from their 95.65 early Liffe low.
T-note is closer to 108-19+ overnight high than 108-09 base awaiting the fate of preliminary US PMIs and Fed rhetoric from Daly, Cook and Kashkari with an element of pre-weekend short covering probably in mind.
Commodities
WTI and Brent November futures are choppy in the European morning, with the complex swayed by mixed flash PMI data from France and Germany, with price action within yesterday’s range but underpinned by Russia’s gasoline and diesel export ban which came into effect yesterday.
Dutch TTF is on a firmer footing despite Chevron’s Australia LNG workers suspending industrial action after reaching a deal. The upside for the complex could emanate from the Russian gasoline/diesel export ban, whilst recent reports also suggested firmer Chinese LNG demand.
Metals are resilient to the firmer Dollar with spot gold rising from a 1,919.12/oz low, above its 200 DMA (1,925.29/oz) to a high just shy of its 50 DMA (1,929.58/oz).
Base metals meanwhile have rebounded and trimmed a bulk of yesterday’s losses, with some citing optimism of a Chinese economic rebound amid recent stimulus measures, with desks also pointing to restocking ahead of China’s 8-day long holiday commencing next Friday.
Australian unions agreed to endorse recommendations made by the industrial umpire to end the dispute with Chevron (CVX) and agreed to call off strikes at Chevron facilities. Chevron (CVX) Australia spokesperson says unions have advised the Co. and the Fair Work Commission that industrial action has been suspended.
Russian Kremlin said the fuel export ban will last for as long as necessary to ensure stability of the fuel market, according to Reuters.
Russia’s Kremlin said there has been no progress on the Black Sea grain deal issue, with no talks between the Russian and Turkish presidents scheduled, according to Reuters.
Geopolitics
Belarus Defence Ministry announces that Belarus and Russia are to commence joint military drills, according to Reuters.
US President Biden said in a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky that Russia alone stands in the way of peace and Russia is seeking more weapons from Iran and North Korea, while he added that Russia hopes to use winter as a weapon against the Ukrainian people.
Biden announced USD 325mln of security aid for Ukraine and that the first US Abrams tanks would be delivered to Ukraine next week.
Ukrainian President Zelensky said that they reached an agreement to strengthen Ukraine’s defence capabilities and that the US will help Ukraine boost air defence during the winter, while they agreed on steps to expand exports of grain from Ukraine, according to Reuters.
Chinese Vice President Han Zheng said China supports all efforts that are conducive to the peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis and stands ready to continue playing a constructive role for an early attainment of peace, according to Reuters.
US Event Calendar
09:45: Sept. S&P Global US Services PMI, est. 50.7, prior 50.5
09:45: Sept. S&P Global US Manufacturing PM, est. 48.2, prior 47.9
09:45: Sept. S&P Global US Composite PMI, est. 50.4, prior 50.2
Central Bank Speakers
08:50: Fed’s Cook Speaks at NBER AI Conference
13:00: Fed’s Daly to Discuss Monetary Policy, Economy
13:00: Fed’s Kashkari Speaks
DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap
Markets experienced another big sell-off yesterday, with longer-dated yields hitting new highs for the cycle across several countries. In fact, the US 10yr Treasury yield has surpassed the 4.5% mark in trading overnight, which is the first time that’s happened since 2007. And the moves haven’t just been confined to Treasuries, since Bloomberg’s global aggregate bond index closed at its lowest level of 2023 so far yesterday. Meanwhile for equities, the losses gathered pace towards the end of the session, and the S&P 500 (-1.64%) experienced its worst day since March.
In large part, those moves have been driven by the prospect that central banks are likely to keep policy rates in restrictive territory for longer than previously thought. That was prompted initially by the Fed’s hawkish dot plot on Wednesday. But the sell-off then got fresh momentum yesterday from theUS weekly jobless claims, which came in at their lowest since January at 201k. That pushed the 4-week moving average to its lowest level since March, offering further evidence that this strength doesn’t just look like a blip.
That backdrop led to an intense bond sell-off, since the strong labour market data suggested that any rate cuts were still some way off. By the close yesterday, the 10yr Treasury yield (+8.7bps) was at a post-2007 high of 4.494%, and it remains there overnight after coming down slightly from the 4.5% mark. At the same time, the 10yr real yield (+6.6bps) also hit a post-2009 high of 2.11%. Yesterday’s rise was even stronger at the long-end, with the 30yr yield seeing its sharpest rise since April, up +12.8bps to 4.57%. That said, front-end yields actually fell on the day, with the 2yr yield ending the day -3.1bps lower at 5.15%. As a result, the 2s10s slope saw its most significant steepening since the March banking stress (to -65.4bps), and overnight it’s steepened a bit further to -63.9bps. Over in Europe it was much the same story, with yields on 10yr bunds (+3.5bps) hitting their highest intraday level since 2011 at one point, although they then pared back those gains somewhat to close at 2.73%.
This rise in nominal and real yields meant that equities continued to struggle, and the S&P 500 (-1.64%) seeing its worst day since March and closing at its lowest level in nearly 3 months. It also means that we’ve now had a 5% sell-off in the index since its recent peak at end-July, which is the first time since the SVB sell-off in March that we’ve experienced a decline of that magnitude. At the same time, the VIX index of volatility rose for a 5th consecutive day, up a further +2.4pts to 17.5pts, which is its highest level in a month. The NASDAQ saw an even sharper loss (-1.82%). Meanwhile, the small-cap Russell 2000 (-1.56%) is now in technical correction territory, having shed more than -10% since its peak in end-July. And over in Europe there were losses across the continent, with the STOXX 600 down -1.37%.
Overnight in Asia, the main story is that the Bank of Japan has left policy unchanged at their latest meeting, in line with expectations. We’ll have to see what Governor Ueda says in the press conference, but so far the Japanese Yen has weakened -0.30% against the dollar overnight, since the ongoing stimulus has put further pressure on the Yen. Ahead of the decision, the latest CPI numbers for August were also stronger than expected, with headline CPI at +3.2% (vs. +3.0% expected). Following the decision, Japanese equities have pared back some of their earlier losses, but the Nikkei is still down -0.38%. But outside of Japan the picture has been more mixed, with losses for the KOSPI (-0.41%), but gains for the Hang Seng (+1.21%), the CSI 300 (+1.03%) and the Shanghai Comp (+0.77%). Looking forward, there’s also been a stabilisation in US equity futures, with those on the S&P 500 up +0.17% overnight .
The other important news overnight has been from the September flash PMIs. In Japan, they’ve weakened relative to August, with the composite PMI down to 51.8, which is its lowest level since February. But in Australia, there’s been a recovery in the composite PMI, which has risen to a 3-month high of 50.2. So all eyes will be on the US and European numbers later to see the direction of travel as we come to the end of Q3.
Elsewhere yesterday, t he Bank of England kept their policy rate on hold at 5.25%, which ended a run of 14 successive hikes. It was a narrow 5-4 vote among the committee, with 4 of the members preferring a 25bp hike, and their statement still signalled the potential for more hikes. For instance, it said that “Further tightening in monetary policy would be required if there were evidence of more persistent inflationary pressures.” The other important development came with regards to quantitative tightening, where they voted to reduce the gilt portfolio by £100bn over the year from October, taking the total down to £658bn .
For markets, the decision to leave rates unchanged came as something of a surprise, since swaps had been pricing in a 63% likelihood of a hike immediately prior to the decision. As a result, sterling fell against both the US dollar (-0.37%) and the Euro (-0.39%). However, gilt yields followed a pattern similar to the rest of Europe, with a noticeable steepening amidst rises in both the 2yr (+2.5bps) and the 10yr yield (+9.0bps). Looking forward, our UK economist thinks it’s more likely than not that rates have peaked. See his full recap here.
Central banks were in the spotlight elsewhere yesterday, with decisions in several other European countries. In Sweden, the Riksbank raised their policy rate to 4%, in line with expectations. Likewise in Norway, the Norges Bank hiked by 25bps to 4.25%, and Governor Bache said “There will likely be one additional policy rate hike, most probably in December”. However, in Switzerland, the SNB left rates unchanged at 1.75%, contrary to the consensus of economists who expected a 25bp hike. As a result, the Swiss Franc was the worst-performing G10 currency yesterday, weakening by -0.66% against the US Dollar .
Looking at yesterday’s other data, US existing home sales fell to an annualised rate of 4.04m in August (vs. 4.10m expected), leaving them at a 7-month low. Meanwhile, the Conference Board’s Leading Index fell by -0.4%, marking its 17th consecutive monthly decline.
To the day ahead now, and data highlights include the September flash PMIs from Europe and the US, along with UK retail sales for August. Central bank speakers include ECB Vice President de Guindos, along with the Fed’s Cook, Daly and Kashkari.
END
2 B) NOW NEWSQUAWK (EUROPE/REPORT)
European equities lower, PMIs note growth concerns; JPY weaker post-BoJ; US PMI due – Newsquawk US Market Open
FRIDAY, SEP 22, 2023 – 06:13 AM
European bourses are mostly lower but have trimmed the losses seen at the cash open. The main macro story for the region thus far has been the flash PMI prints for September.
French PMI missed, German PMI modestly beat, EZ PMI was mixed, UK PMI only saw manufacturing beat; the main theme of the PMIs was growth concerns.
DXY is on a firmer footing following the uneventful BoJ decision overnight coupled with weakness from the EUR post-PMI; JPY underperforms
BoJ kept monetary policy settings unchanged and made no change to forward guidance with the central bank to patiently continue monetary easing.
Australian unions agreed to endorse recommendations made by the industrial umpire to end the dispute with Chevron; strike actions have been called off.
Looking ahead highlights include US PMIs (Flash), Canadian Retail Sales, ECB’s de Guindos, Fed’s Daly, Cook & Kashkari.
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EUROPEAN TRADE
EQUITIES
European bourses are mostly lower, but have trimmed the losses seen at the cash open. The main macro story for the region thus far has been the flash PMI prints for September.
Sectors in Europe are mostly lower with the exception of Basic Resources which is in marginally positive territory thanks to underlying metals prices. On the downside, the Construction & Materials sector lags.
US futures are trading slightly firmer following the biggest US stock drop since March, in yesterday’s session.
DXY is on a firmer footing following the uneventful BoJ decision overnight coupled with weakness from the EUR post-PMI.
EUR and GBP both declined following overall downbeat PMI data in which the overarching theme was growth concerns.
USD/JPY hit a high of 148.42 after the BoJ announcement overnight which offered no hawkish surprises whilst Governor Ueda repeated that the central bank will not hesitate to take additional easing measures if necessary.
Antipodeans outperform in tandem with optimism surrounding China which has also propped up commodities.
PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1729 vs exp. 7.3009 (prev. 7.1730)
Debt futures faded from post-French PMI peaks and never really threatened best levels again.
Bunds returned to flat on the day within a 130.19-129.50 range and OATs recently dipped below par between 124.87-124.21 parameters, while Gilts are holding above 96.00 having reached 96.37 from their 95.65 early Liffe low.
T-note is closer to 108-19+ overnight high than 108-09 base awaiting the fate of preliminary US PMIs and Fed rhetoric from Daly, Cook and Kashkari with an element of pre-weekend short covering probably in mind.
WTI and Brent November futures are choppy in the European morning, with the complex swayed by mixed flash PMI data from France and Germany, with price action within yesterday’s range but underpinned by Russia’s gasoline and diesel export ban which came into effect yesterday.
Dutch TTF is on a firmer footing despite Chevron’s Australia LNG workers suspending industrial action after reaching a deal. The upside for the complex could emanate from the Russian gasoline/diesel export ban, whilst recent reports also suggested firmer Chinese LNG demand.
Metals are resilient to the firmer Dollar with spot gold rising from a 1,919.12/oz low, above its 200 DMA (1,925.29/oz) to a high just shy of its 50 DMA (1,929.58/oz).
Base metals meanwhile have rebounded and trimmed a bulk of yesterday’s losses, with some citing optimism of a Chinese economic rebound amid recent stimulus measures, with desks also pointing to restocking ahead of China’s 8-day long holiday commencing next Friday.
Australian unions agreed to endorse recommendations made by the industrial umpire to end the dispute with Chevron (CVX) and agreed to call off strikes at Chevron facilities. Chevron (CVX) Australia spokesperson says unions have advised the Co. and the Fair Work Commission that industrial action has been suspended.
Russian Kremlin said the fuel export ban will last for as long as necessary to ensure stability of the fuel market, according to Reuters.
Russia’s Kremlin said there has been no progress on the Black Sea grain deal issue, with no talks between the Russian and Turkish presidents scheduled, according to Reuters.
ECB’s Lane said he sees a staggered reset of prices and wages across the economy which is an ongoing process and noted the dynamics of wages and profits in the coming quarters are still open questions. Lane commented that the transmission of monetary policy to the broader financing conditions in the real economy is firmly taking hold and the effect of some past tightening is still in the pipeline, while the ECB will be sufficiently restrictive for as long as necessary.
DATA RECAP
EU HCOB Composite Flash PMI (Sep) 47.1 vs. Exp. 46.5 (Prev. 46.7)
EU HCOB Services Flash PMI (Sep) 48.4 vs. Exp. 47.7 (Prev. 47.9)
EU HCOB Manufacturing Flash PMI (Sep) 43.4 vs. Exp. 44.0 (Prev. 43.5)
German HCOB Services Flash PMI (Sep) 49.8 vs. Exp. 47.2 (Prev. 47.3)
German HCOB Manufacturing Flash PMI (Sep) 39.8 vs. Exp. 39.5 (Prev. 39.1)
German HCOB Composite Flash PMI (Sep) 46.2 vs. Exp. 44.8 (Prev. 44.6)
French HCOB Services Flash PMI (Sep) 43.9 vs. Exp. 46.0 (Prev. 46.0)
French HCOB Composite Flash PMI (Sep) 43.5 vs. Exp. 46.0 (Prev. 46.0)
French HCOB Manufacturing Flash PMI (Sep) 43.6 vs. Exp. 46.0 (Prev. 46.0)
Spanish GDP YY * (Q2 2023) 2.2% vs. Exp. 1.8% (Prev. 1.8%)
Spanish GDP Final QQ * (Q2 2023) 0.5% vs. Exp. 0.4% (Prev. 0.4%)
UK Flash Composite PMI (Sep) 46.8 vs. Exp. 48.7 (Prev. 48.6)
UK Flash Manufacturing PMI (Sep) 44.2 vs. Exp. 43.0 (Prev. 43.0)
UK Flash Services PMI (Sep) 47.2 vs. Exp. 49.2 (Prev. 49.5)
UK Retail Sales YY* (Aug 2023) -1.4% vs. Exp. -1.2% (Prev. -3.2%)
UK Retail Sales MM* (Aug 2023) 0.4% vs. Exp. 0.5% (Prev. -1.2%)
UK Retail Sales Ex-Fuel YY* (Aug 2023) -1.4% vs. Exp. -1.3% (Prev. -3.4%)
UK Retail Sales Ex-Fuel MM* (Aug 2023) 0.6% vs. Exp. 0.6% (Prev. -1.4%)
UK GfK Consumer Confidence (Sep) -21.0 vs. Exp. -27.0 (Prev. -25.0)
NOTABLE US HEADLINES
UK CMA regulator said the sale of Activision’s (ATVI) cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft (UBI FP) has made significant progress in resolving previous concerns, and is now seeking input on potential solutions before making the final decision on the Microsoft (MSFT) deal. CMA said that while some limited concerns remain with the new deal, Microsoft has proposed remedies that the CMA believes can effectively address these issues. As part of the revised agreement, Microsoft will not acquire Activision’s cloud gaming rights. There are reasonable grounds for believing the undertakings taken by MSFT and ATVI, or a modified version, might be accepted by the CMA under the Enterprise Act 2002, according to a statement.
Apple (AAPL) iPhone 15 launch sales surged 253% Y/Y in China on JD’s Dada one-hour delivery app at 10:00 Beijing time, according to CNBC.
Amazon (AMZN) said starting 2024, Prime Video shows and movies will include limited adverts; not making changes to current price of Prime, but will offer new ad-free option for additional USD 2.99 per month in the US, according to Reuters.
US Commerce Department has finalised guardrails to prevent China from benefitting from USD 52bln semiconductor manufacturing research programme, according to Reuters.
Alibaba’s (BABA) Cainiao is looking to file for a USD 1bln+ HK IPO “soon”, according to Bloomberg.
BofA Flow Show: USD 2.5bn into bonds (26th consecutive week), USD 0.3bln from gold, USD 4.3bln from cash, USD 16.9bln from stocks (largest since Dec’22)Click here for details.
Belarus Defence Ministry announces that Belarus and Russia are to commence joint military drills, according to Reuters.
US President Biden said in a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky that Russia alone stands in the way of peace and Russia is seeking more weapons from Iran and North Korea, while he added that Russia hopes to use winter as a weapon against the Ukrainian people.
Biden announced USD 325mln of security aid for Ukraine and that the first US Abrams tanks would be delivered to Ukraine next week.
Ukrainian President Zelensky said that they reached an agreement to strengthen Ukraine’s defence capabilities and that the US will help Ukraine boost air defence during the winter, while they agreed on steps to expand exports of grain from Ukraine, according to Reuters.
Chinese Vice President Han Zheng said China supports all efforts that are conducive to the peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis and stands ready to continue playing a constructive role for an early attainment of peace, according to Reuters.
CRYPTO
Bitcoin traded relatively steady just above the USD 26.5k mark.
APAC TRADE
APAC stocks traded mixed amid a higher yield environment and after this week’s central bank frenzy culminated with a lack of surprises from the BoJ.
ASX 200 was dragged lower with real estate and tech among the worst performers after the Australian 10yr yield touched its highest level since 2014, while the flash PMI data was mixed and showed a deeper contraction in manufacturing.
Nikkei 225 was pressured following the mostly firmer-than-expected Japanese CPI data but then pared some of the losses following the lack of hawkish surprises from the BoJ.
Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp shrugged off early jitters amid supportive measures including Beijing’s draft rules to promote a high level of opening up and encourage foreign investments, while China’s market regulator also issued measures to promote the private economy.
BOJ
BoJ kept its monetary policy settings unchanged, as expected, with rates held at -0.1% and QQE with YCC maintained to target 10yr JGBs at 0% with a +/-50bps band via unanimous vote, while it made no change to forward guidance with the central bank to patiently continue monetary easing. BoJ stated that Japan’s economy is recovering moderately and inflation expectations show renewed signs of accelerating, as well as noted that they must watch financial and forex market moves and the impact on Japan’s economic activity and prices.
BoJ Governor Ueda (post-meeting press conference) said the economy is recovering moderately, and will not hesitate to take additional easing if necessary. Ueda reiterated that the BoJ needs to patiently continue its easy policy. Click here for the comments.
NOTABLE ASIA-PAC HEADLINES
China mulls easing foreign stake limits to lure global funds, via Bloomberg.
PBoC releases list for systemic important banks; will promote stable operations and healthy development of systemically important banks, according to Reuters.
Chinese Vice President Han Zheng said China remains committed to opening itself up to the wider world and to an independent foreign policy, while it stays committed to safeguarding sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to Reuters.
China’s market regulator issued measures to promote the private economy and China will continue to break down market access barriers for the private economy, according to state media.
Japanese PM Kishida said he will reform the asset management sector and will introduce a new programme to assist new entrants to the asset management sector. Furthermore, Kishida said it is important for FX to move stably, reflecting economic fundamentals.
DATA RECAP
Japanese National CPI YY (Aug) 3.2% vs. Exp. 3.0% (Prev. 3.3%)
Japanese National CPI Ex. Fresh Food YY (Aug) 3.1% vs. Exp. 3.0% (Prev. 3.1%)
Japanese National CPI Ex. Fresh Food & Energy YY (Aug) 4.3% vs. Exp. 4.3% (Prev. 4.2%)
Japanese Manufacturing PMI Flash SA (Sep) 48.6 (Prev. 49.6)
Japanese Services PMI Flash SA (Sep) 53.3 (Prev. 54.3)
Australian Manufacturing PMI Flash (Sep) 48.2 (Prev. 49.6)
Australian Services PMI Flash (Sep) 50.5 (Prev. 47.8)
New Zealand Trade Balance (NZD)(Aug) -2291.0M (Prev. -1107.0M)
New Zealand Exports (NZD)(Aug) 4.99B (Prev. 5.45B)
New Zealand Imports (NZD)(Aug) 7.28B (Prev. 6.56B)
2 c. ASIAN AFFAIRS
FRIDAY MORNING/THURSDAY NIGHT
SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 47.73 PTS OR 1.55% //Hang Seng CLOSED UP 402.04 PTS OR 2.28%/ /The Nikkei CLOSED DOWN 168.62 PTS OR 0.52% //Australia’s all ordinaries CLOSED UP 0.05 % /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed UP AT 7.3040 /OFFSHORE CHINESE YUAN UP TO 7.3030 /Oil UP TO 90.54 dollars per barrel for WTI and BRENT UP AT 94.14 / Stocks in Europe OPENED MOSTLY RED// ONSHORE YUAN TRADING BELOW LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING STRONGER AGAINST US DOLLAR/OFFSHORE STRONGER
2 d./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA/
//NORTH KOREA/CHINA/RUSSIA
END
2e) JAPAN
JAPAN
While most central banks are ending their tightening cycle, the Bank of Japan still has not started to tighten and last night, they also failed to do so. Down goes the Yen. The 10 year Japan bond yield remains at relatively high 0.729%. Japan has a terrible demographic problem along with its high 265% Debt to GDP and inflation at 3%,
(zerohedge)
With Most Central Banks Ending Their Tightening Cycle, The BOJ Remains Too Terrified To Even Start
FRIDAY, SEP 22, 2023 – 07:39 AM
With a growing number of central banks either ending their hiking cycle (BOE, SNB, Riksbank, and absent an oil price shock, the Fed too), or even actively easing (PBOC, Brazil), Japan remains the glaring monetary policy outlier it has been for the past 30 years, and despite soaring inflation that has been above the 2% inflation target since April 2022 (and even above US CPI at times) overnight the BOJ once again refused to even begin its long overdue policy tightening, when despite growing speculation that the central bank will at least set the groundwork for an end to YCC if not NIRP to tame the imploding Japanese lira yen, the BOJ voted unanimously to maintain its current policy as expected, with its 10-year JGB yield target at about 0%, the policy balance rate at -0.1% and kept yield curve control unchanged.
And in a slap to the face of those expecting the central bank to at least hint that it is catastrophically behind the curve when it comes to controlling inflation, It also left its forward guidance unchanged, and noted “extremely high uncertainties” over prices and the economy and forecast inflation to decelerate.
The BOJ also made no changes to its assessment of the economy and prices, which were revised upward in the previous Outlook Report. Specifically, its statement maintained the view that “Japan’s economy has recovered moderately.” In terms of individual items, it again stated that “consumption has increased steadily at a moderate pace,” and that business fixed investment has also “increased moderately.”
On the inflation front, it adjusted its assessment of core CPI inflation, which has started to slow recently, to “has been at around 3 percent recently,” from “has been in the range of 3.0-3.5 percent.” Its view on inflation expectations was unchanged, as “have shown some upward movements again.” The BOJ also made no revisions to its view on risk factors, reiterating that “it is necessary to pay due attention to developments in financial and foreign exchange markets and their impact on Japan’s economic activity and prices.”
During his press conference following the policy announcement, governor Ueda, asked about his recent comments alluding to the possibility of confirming a virtuous inflation trend by year-end, a condition for policy normalization — clarified that the “distance to ending negative rates” hasn’t really changed. He explained he had simply wanted to avoid ruling anything out and limiting the BOJ’s options.
Ueda also reiterated that when the goal of sustained 2% inflation is in sight, the BOJ will consider ending its YCC policy as well as raising interest rates. He reiterated that inflation should slow more clearly in coming months, although the recent deceleration was less than previously expected.
Kuroda’s successor said that the BOJ has long placed a greater emphasis on the risk of tightening too soon over the possibility of being behind the curve in raising rates. He says there’s no change to this “risk management” tendency.
Speaking of the currency, Ueda said it’s desirable for currency rates to reflect economic fundamentals and for them to move in a stable fashion, although he declined to comment on “short-term” currency moves, which have seen the yen plunge as the worst performing major this year.
Of course, the yen – which has been the Developed World’s Turkish lira this year as it has cratered from 130 to 148, weakened even more on what was widely seen as a dovish BOJ stance, sliding 0.5% to about 148.3 per dollar. The drop may have been restrained by comments from government officials that they are ready to act on sharp moves.
And indeed, while some were expecting the USDJPY to immediately spike above 150 after anything except a hawkish BOJ statement – with rate differentials to the US entering nosebleed territory – the contained drop may have been explained by what National Australia Bank noted was a warning that the BOJ is ready to intervene in the FX markets on the Ministry of Finance’s behalf at a moment’s notice.
“There is an addition of a paragraph in the BOJ statement that was not there in July, which concludes ‘it is necessary to pay due attention to developments in financial and foreign exchange markets and their impact on Japan’s economic activity and prices’,” says Ray Attrill, strategist in Sydney.
“Intervention is of course MOF’s not BOJ’s call, but BOJ will evidently be fully onside with this should MOF so choose” Attrill said adding that “taken together with Mr Suzuki’s comments earlier, I think its pretty clear we should expect a burst of FX intervention one side or other of 150.”
“As such, risk-reward doesn’t favor being long USD/JPY at current levels”, although with the USDJPY fast approaching 150, it appears that many disagreed.
Ultimately, the question of when the BOJ intervenes will be a political one: there is only so much inflation Japan’s long-suffering population can sustain, and at some point – quite soon – they will make it very clear that they will demand a different PM if the current one is willing to risk currency collapse just to preserve fake bond market stability for a few months longer.
Stocks were also down, however, despite the sliding yen with the Topix closing 0.3% lower and the Nikkei 225 posting a 0.5% decline. JGBs rose, with 10-year futures up 16 ticks to 145.46. Cash bonds were mostly flat, with the 10-year yield holding at 0.745%, the highest since 2013.
end
3 CHINA /
CHINA/
end
4.EUROPEAN AFFAIRS//UK /SCANDINAVIAN AFFAIRS
EUROPE/GLOBE
This brave MEP tells it like it is: she delivers a damning message to global tyrants
(Vigilant fox)
“Go To Hell”: Brave EU Politician Delivers Damning Message To Global Tyrants
Member of the European Parliament Christine Anderson has been an unyielding opponent to Klaus Schwab’s ‘Great Reset’ Agenda. Known best for her famous smackdown on Justin Trudeau, MEP Anderson has established herself as one of the few politicians left who represent the interests of the European people.
September 13 was no different as MEP Anderson took no prisoners in her latest warning to the globalitarian elite. Before the European Parliament, in a session specifically focused on the COVID-19 response and the World Health Organization, MEP Anderson ended the meeting with a powerful statement.
Here’s what she said, word for word:
“We just need to find a way to wake the people up. Because the point is simply this: it comes down to a choice. It’s either freedom, democracy, and the rule of law — or enslavement.
“There is no such thing in between. There is no such thing as a little freedom, a little democracy, a little rule of law, just as there is no such thing as a little enslavement. So that’s the choice. It comes down to – it’s either the globalitarian misanthropists or the people. It comes down to – it’s either us or them. And that’s, I think, what this really is all about.
“Now, when my colleagues and I were elected to this parliament, there was no question about it. We were on the side of the people because the people actually pay us to act in their best interests. That’s our job. And once again, I will say to every single elected representative around the world, to every single member in every elected government around the world, if you do not unequivocally stand with the people and serve in their best interests, act in their best interests, you have no place in any parliament or in any government. You belong behind bars. You may even rot in hell for all I care at this point because that’s exactly what you deserve if you sell out the people.”
*Applause ensued*
MEP Anderson continued. “Now, I would like to make a promise to the people, and I’m pretty sure I can speak or speak on behalf of my colleagues. We will continue to stand with you, the people. We will continue to fight for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. We will not shut up, and we will not stop going after those despicable globalitarian misanthropists.
“But we would also like to have you make a promise to us. You may have heard it’s all coming back. The first country is already starting [to talk about] mask mandates in Israel. They’re already imposing it. I’ve heard of a few universities in the United States. They’re already bringing it all back. And I would really like for you, the people, to not go along. Simply say no! They want you to wear a mask; say no. They want you to put in another mRNA shot; say no. They want to impose a curfew on you; say no. That’s really all you have to do.
“And it might not be or might sound a little hard, but it’s actually not that hard. Because once you have made it clear to them that you will no longer go along, once you’ve let them know, they cannot scare you anymore. Because as long as you are afraid of what they might do if you don’t comply, they have power over you. Take the power away from them! Simply say no. Once you do that, they don’t have power over you anymore. You will feel so free. Simply say no.
“And considering what we’ve heard today, and considering what we’ve seen in the last three years. Considering what we know they want to implement, heck, you might even be well within your right to tell them to screw themselves and go to hell! That’s where they belong. What will you get out of that? I can tell you. Once you’ve done that, once you’ve told them to just go to hell, they no longer have power over you. You will have an incredible feeling — kind of like a sensation of freedom will swap through your body. I promise you will feel so relieved.
“And this is the state of mind that I would ask all of you to get to. Simply don’t let them grind you down anymore. You are worth it. You are deserving of just standing up for yourselves. And tell them all to go to hell. Thank you very much.”
Russian Laser Weapons Successfully Tested in Combat
This is only what is publicly disclosed because it is field tested and certain pieces have gone into serial production. The latest technology is in development. Imagine a hand held gun that simply burns a hole through your body or a tank that delvers a kill shot with no shell. MiG 31M already has been tested in satellite kills with lasers and soon certain helicopters will have laser mounts to strike targets for testing. At testing ranges all such manner of equipment exists and is being tested for delivery and test in Ukraine. The longer this goes on the more potent the weapon systems will be. Because all such research is top priority while lesser technology is being farmed out to less sophisticated parties. Only the Brits seem able to come close in matching the Russians with aircraft in development. America is loss as a leader in this field.
The Ukrainian Morale in the Battlefield: A Snapshot — Strategic Culture
It should be titled the American genocide of Ukraine and its inhabitants. One day when historians write about this tragic chapter of Ukrainian history as a nation that was, it will be written that Ukraine was no different than Vietnam or so many other countries trampled by America in it’s quest for empire and financial gain. Even today, people around the world echo that this is America’s fall from grace that has sunk its’ credibility on a world stage, as a step too far. And as so eloquently put, it has been said that to be America’s enemy is dangerous and to be it’s friend is fatal. Others said America has no friends, only interests. None of this matters to the Neocon crowd in control of the helm. Whether America in the future regains a moral high ground remains in doubt as its’ current direction is to continue to stumble along on its’ current path. And as it stands the world outside of America has no faith in the public debt of America and has abandoned it.
US and Saudi officials are advancing talks for a “mutual defense treaty” that would resemble broad agreements Washington maintains with Japan and South Korea, according to officials who spoke with the New York Times.
“Under such an agreement, the United States and Saudi Arabia would generally pledge to provide military support if the other country is attacked in the region or on Saudi territory,” the NYT report reads.
The security pact is part of a so-called “megadeal” that would be sealed between Washington and Riyadh in exchange for the kingdom normalizing ties with Israel.
“Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) … regards a mutual defense agreement with the United States as the most important element in his talks with the Biden administration about Israel,” the NYT cites US officials as saying.
The NYT report was published the same day US President Joe Biden extolled the benefits of normalization with Israel during his speech at the UN General Assembly (UNGA).
“Israel’s greater normalization and economic connection with its neighbors delivering positive and practical impacts even as we continue to work tirelessly for just and lasting peace, for Israelis and Palestinians, two states for two peoples,” Biden said.
His talk of a two-state solution echoed comments from Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan on Monday when he stressed that the only solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is an “independent Palestine.”
“The solution to the Palestinian issue must be based on the two-state solution and the establishment of the Palestinian state in accordance with international resolutions. We seek to bring the conversation about the two-state solution back to the forefront,” the kingdom’s top diplomat told reporters on the sidelines of the 78th UNGA session in New York City.
Last week, Saudi media reported that the kingdom had allegedly ended talks of normalizing ties with Israel over inflammatory comments from Jewish-supremacist ministers within the Israeli government who vehemently oppose making concessions to the Palestinians. One day later, however, US and Israeli officials called the report “false.”
If approved by two-thirds of the US Congress, the security pact would be a reversal from a 2021 move by the US to remove Patriot missile batteries from the kingdom as it prepared to incite an armed conflict with Russia and China.
Nonetheless, according to a White House letter sent to Congress in June, the US has about 2,700 troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. These troops have recently been conducting expanded counter-drone drills with the Saudi military.
“Over the last 16 months, we worked very closely with our Saudi counterparts to develop their counter-UAS [-drone] tactics, techniques, and procedures … Our objective for this exercise was to shoot down [drones], dawn till dusk,” Colonel Robert McVey, the US Central Command’s (CENTCOM) director of the Red Sands Integrated Experimentation Center, told Al-Monitor on Tuesday.
END
ISRAEL/USA
Biden finally gives Netanyahu is long awaited White House invitation
(zerohedge)
Biden Finally Gives Netanyahu Long-Delayed White House Invitation
THURSDAY, SEP 21, 2023 – 06:40 PM
At a moment the US is pushing hard for normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, President Joe Biden has finally and much belatedly issued a formal invitation for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit the White House before the end of the year.
This means a White House trip for the Israeli PM will happen nearly a full year after his reelection to office, which has been seen in Tel Aviv as a bit of an insult. Via Office of the Israeli Prime Minister
Biden reportedly issued the invitation on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.
He told the press, “Today, we’re going to discuss some of the hard issues, that is upholding democratic values that lie at the heart of our partnership, including the checks and balances in our systems and preserving the path to a negotiated two-state solution, and ensuring that Iran never, never acquires a nuclear weapon.”
Netanyahu responded positively in the UN meeting with Biden: “I think that under your leadership, Mr President, we can forge a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” he said.
“Such a peace would go a long way first to advance the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict, achieve reconciliation between the Islamic world and the Jewish state and advance a genuine peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” the Israeli leader added.
Typically new Israeli leaders make an official trip to the White House within a mere weeks of being reelected, but Biden’s “snub” is being seen in reaction to the Netanyahu ruling coalition’s ultra-controversial judicial overhaul agenda, which will greatly weaken the independence of Israel’s judiciary. Biden addressed this in the meeting:
President Joe Biden raised “hard issues,” including protecting the “checks and balances” in a democracy, in a Wednesday meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pushing the Israeli leader to find a compromise on a judicial overhaul that has set off months of mass protests in Israel and concerns in Washington.
Biden also raised concerns about the far-right Israeli government’s treatment of the Palestinians, urging Netanyahu to take steps to improve conditions in the West Bank at a time of heightened violence in the occupied territory.
As for Saudi-Israeli normalization, in an interview published by Fox this week, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) said of ties with the Jewish state, “Every day we get closer.”
In exchange for pursuing a peace deal along the lines of the Abraham Accords, Riyadh is demanding Washington’s help in creating a Saudi civilian nuclear program. Importantly, it appears the Netanyahu government is willing to bless this…
Interestingly, MbS also said in the Fox interview that Saudi Arabia will obtain a nuclear weapon if its number one regional rival Iran does so first. “If they get one, we have to get one,” MbS told Fox’s ‘Special Report’ anchor Bret Baier when asked what the kingdom would do if Iran builds a nuclear weapon.
Of course, that would greatly complicate the question of peace and normalization with Israel, which remains the region’s sole nuclear-armed power, though not officially and on a publicly disclosed level.
-units (S1, S2) in potential roles inhibiting the p53 and BRCA1/2 tumor cancer surveillance systems (tumor suppressor); Fatal Craniofacial Cancer Five Months after COVID-19 Vaccination; TURBO?
Cardiovascular excess deaths: “We observed 13 per cent increase above normal trend line in 2020, 30 per cent in 2021 and forty-four per cent in 2022.” Anything above 3 standard deviations is a signal”
https://twitter.com/naomirwolf/status/1704254517729247316 I don’t often lose my composure when I am conducting an interview. I was given very thorough media training at the start of my career — indeed, when I was just 26 — by a woman who was a legend in the world of media training – the late Barbara Browning…
Trump Gets Huge Win As Nemesis Rupert Murdoch Steps Down As Fox News ChairmanFormer President Donald Trump got a huge win when his nemesis Rupert Murdoch announced today that he will step down as chairman of his companies, Fox Corporation and News Corp. “For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change,” Murdoch, 92, wrote to employees. “But the time is right for …READ MORE
First Major U.S. City Imposes WEF’s Ban on Meat & Private Car OwnershipREAD MORE…
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MICHAEL EVERY/PHIL MAREY/OR OTHER EXECS //RABOBANK
In So Many Ways It Feels Like The Barbarians Are At The Gates
FRIDAY, SEP 22, 2023 – 10:30 AM
By Benjamin Picton, Senior Macro Strategist at Rabobank
How Often Do You Think About The Empire?
There is big news today that ex-Australian media titan Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as Chairman of News Corp. He is to be succeeded by son Lachlan who, having served the longest apprenticeship since Prince Charles, will take over as sole Chair of News Corp and continue on as Executive Chair and CEO of Fox Corporation. The Murdoch family’s grip on the legacy media landscape lives rent-free in the heads of many, and speculation over the eventual passing of the baton has even spawned an Emmy award-winning TV series. So, how often do you think about the Empire?
The question has become a light-hearted social media sensation, but in a world of geopolitical fragmentation, empires matter. Wannabe Tsar (a derivative of ‘Caesar’) Vladimir Putin raised eyebrows in June last year by comparing himself to Peter the Great. “It seems it has fallen to us, too, to reclaim and strengthen” he said. The process of “reclamation” continues as the war in Ukraine grinds on, and Putin fired a new shot at the West overnight by imposing a ban on exports of diesel and petrol. This saw front month European gasoil futures surge by 4.5% yesterday, but they have fallen back again by around 2.7% in early trade today. The Russian ban compounds the problem of an already tight market for refined products that has been driven by hot weather, reduced refining capacity and Western embargoes on Russian crude supplies.
The timing of the ban coincides with the decision by erstwhile Imperial institution the Bank of England yesterday to leave the official bank rate unchanged yesterday for the first time since November 2021. A majority of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected the Bank to lift rates by 25bps to 5.50% but the Monetary Policy committee ultimately voted 5-4 against a hike. The decision probably swung on the softer than expected CPI inflation figures for August that were released earlier this week. Those numbers saw core inflation fall to 6.2% YoY and the headline number decelerate to 6.7% after a merciful fall in food price inflation. Motor fuels were the largest upward pressure on the headline number though, and Russia clearly isn’t helping on that score.
The BOE hold followed a decision earlier in the week from the US Federal Reserve to leave the upper bound of the Fed Funds rate unchanged at 5.50%, a move widely expected by surveyed analysts (including us). Despite holding at this meeting, the Fed upgraded its dot plot forecasts on the trajectory of interest rates and has maintained its bias towards another hike in 2023. The median of the FOMC dot plot is now well north of the OIS curve for 2024 and 2025, and the prospect of higher rates has been received poorly by equity markets. The S&P500 has lost 115 points so far this week as the higher for longer narrative gets priced in and increased geopolitical tensions threaten to roll back the frontiers of the empire of American capital.
There was a point of difference in the world of central banking this week from the Rijksbank and Norges Bank. Both central banks hiked rates by 25bps, following a similar decision by the ECB last week. Rijksbank projections suggest that Swedish rates may have now peaked at 4%, but there is a slight tightening bias implied by the projected peak in the rate path of 4.10%. The Norges Bank was more explicit, raising the outlook for the peak in its policy rate from the current policy level of 4.25% to 4.5% through 2024. Here again the “higher for longer” narrative applies.
Higher for longer is undoubtedly an unpopular meme, and financial markets remain slow to accept it if rates curves are any guide. Even so, we are now seeing 10-year treasury yields at the highest levels this side of Western capitalism’s near death experience 15 years ago, leaving the “rate cuts soon!” brigade of equity managers and real estate spruikers asking “Quo Vadis?” while overleveraged governments and households say “et tu, Brute?”
How sustainable is this with the immense debt loads that we are currently carrying? What will happen once US student loan repayments resume next month for the first time in 3 years? Can equity and real estate valuations continue to defy the most rapid rate tightening cycle in living memory? In so many ways it feels like the barbarians are at the gates.
Undoubtedly, the unpopularity of higher rates is the main reason why they are the exclusive domain of an unelected technocracy. Central bankers are a modern breed of Optimates, while Tribunes of the Plebeians like former President Trump burnish their Populares credentials by promising to force rates lower. In this respect, as with all things, life boils down to the basic question: are you for Caesar? Or the Senate?
The Offshore Alliance trade union has called off a strike at two Chevron LNG projects in Australia after the country’s labor market regulator mediated a settlement between the parties.
The strike began on September 8 after they failed to reach an agreement with Chevron about working conditions and wage demands.
“The Offshore Alliance will now work with Chevron to finalise the drafting of the agreement and members will soon cease current industrial action,” the union said, as quoted by Reuters.
Because of the dispute between Chevron and workers at the Gorgon and Wheatstone projects, LNG prices jumped 35% in August and remain highly volatile as autumn begins and importers step up buying for the winter heating season.
The Gorgon project has a capacity of 15.6 million tons of liquefied natural gas annually, while the Wheatstone facility can produce 8.9 million tons annually. Together, the two account for over 5% of global LNG production capacity, hence the effect on gas prices.
A third Australian LNG project was also under threat of industrial action in August but its operator, Woodside Energy, managed to negotiate a deal with the Offshore Alliance. The North West Shelf is the largest LNG production facility in the country, with a capacity of 16.9 million tons of liquefied gas annually.
Even with the danger of supply disruptions now over, however, the LNG market remains volatile because of the surge in demand from Europe last year as it sought to replace Russian pipeline gas with alternative supplies.
This year, it has been buying gas less frantically but it has filled its gas storage well ahead of schedule and might need to resort to floating storage to lock in more supply for the winter since the available storage does not cover all consumption.
Meanwhile, however, China is stepping up its LNG buying ahead of winter, too, intensifying competition for limited supply.
end
8. EMERGING MARKETS//AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND ISSUES//
CANADA/INDIA
Allies are not convinced to condemn India over the killing of a Cdn Sikh leader
(zerohedge)
Trudeau Tried But Failed To Convince Allies To Condemn India Over Killing Of Sikh Leader
THURSDAY, SEP 21, 2023 – 06:00 PM
Canada says it is still investigating “credible allegations” linking Indian government agents with the killing of a Sikh separatist leader outside of Vancouver in June. Sikh leader and Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in a parking lot by two masked gunmen outside a Sikh temple on June 18.
The accusation which was made public Monday by Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau has sent relations with India to their lowest point in history. But India had formally designated Nijjar a terrorist starting in 2020, and while rejecting the accusation it has also said Canada is playing host to terror organizations.
After a mutual expelling of top diplomats from either country, as of Wednesday India is warning its citizens to exercise caution when traveling in Canada in a new advisory.A previous Trudeau trip to India
India’s External Ministry published the warning which tells citizens and students in Canada that “growing anti-India activities and politically condonedhate-crimes” are one the rise.
The statement also tells Indians to stay away from venues and events where “threats have particularly targeted Indian diplomats and sections of the Indian community who oppose anti-India agenda,” the ministry said.
Canada is simultaneously circulating its own updated advisory which requests that its citizens exercise “high degree of caution” when traveling in India. The message highlights the potential for “terrorist attacks” – in what’s clearly intended as a punitive measure against New Delhi.
“Exercise a high degree of caution in India due to the threat of terrorist attacks throughout the country,” it states.
Trudeau is meanwhile attempting what looks like damage control amid the escalating diplomatic war. He says it’s not his aim to “provoke” India in fresh statements:
“Canada is not trying to provoke India by suggesting its agents were linked to the murder of a Sikh separatist leader but Ottawa wants New Delhi to address the issue properly,” Reuters quoted him as saying on Tuesday.
“The government of India needs to take this matter with utmost seriousness. We are doing that, we are not looking to provoke or escalate,” he reportedly said.
Trudeau had raised the issue with PM Modi during the G20 hosted in New Delhi. But it was also his efforts to convince Washington to stand by Canada’s side which also got rebuffed, according to reporting in The Washington Post…
“Some of these allied nations, including the United States, however, declined to join Canada in jointly announcing the findings of the ongoing probe, underscoring the lengths the Biden administration has gone to avoid antagonizing India and court the Asian power as a strategic counterweight to China,” WaPo wrote.
According to more from the Post, the Biden administration was not willing to go all-in on the accusation so as not to risk deepening the US relationship with India:
On Monday, Trudeau did not give specific evidence linking Indian operatives to the shooting but said Canada was looking into the killing with allied nations. The controversy comes at an awkward moment when Western nations, led by the White House, are looking to woo India as a geopolitical and trade partner and have refrained from criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi over India’s authoritarian backsliding.
Canada was strongly lobbying other allies as well, particularly among the “Five Eyes”:
In recent months, Canada began pushing its closest allies, the members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network – the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand – to raise Nijjar’s killing with India at the highest levels of government and issue a joint statement condemning the act as contravening international norms, said a Western official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.
But several countries, including the United States, demurred, fearing a diplomatic backlash from the Modi government at a moment when India was due to hold a lavish coming-out party on the international stage, the G-20 Summit in New Delhi, the Western official said. Instead, the alleged assassination was privately raised by several senior officials from the Five Eyes countries in the weeks before the summit, which took place on Sept. 9 and 10.
Trudeau had in his Monday televised announcement before the House of Commons asserted that “Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.” Some pro-Indian commentators and media are questioning whether Nijjar is a Canadian citizen at all.
There remains the possibility the whole row could push India further away from the West when it comes to the Ukraine war, and into closer trade and economic cooperation with Russia and China.
END
INDIA/CANADA
India suspends visa for Canadians as the Indian //Canada row escalates
(zerohedge)
India Suspends Visas For Canadians, Denounces Terrorist “Safe Haven”
FRIDAY, SEP 22, 2023 – 02:45 AM
The India-Canada row has continued escalating, with India having suspended visa services for all Canadian nationals on Thursday.
A statement said the temporary move is the result of “security threats” against Indian consuls in India, while denouncing Canada as a terrorist “safe haven”.
Canada’s Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc has emphasized that “Canada is a safe country” after India initially issued a travel advisory telling the tens of thousands of Indians inside Canada to exercise caution.
According to the full Indian government statement:
“There have been threats made to our high commission [embassy] and consulates in Canada,” a foreign affairs ministry spokesman in Delhi said. “This has disrupted their normal functioning. Accordingly [they] are temporarily unable to process visa applications.”
He said: “India is looking for parity in rank and diplomatic strength between the diplomatic missions of the two countries. This is being sought because of Canadian diplomatic interference in our internal affairs.”
Hours earlier Canada had announced it was reducing its personnel in India, saying some diplomats had received threats on social media.
“In light of the current environment where tensions have heightened, we are taking action to ensure the safety of our diplomats,” a statement said.
India has further charged that that Canadian government is trying to “shift the focus from Khalistani terrorists and extremists” who were given shelter there.
The slain Sikh leader Nijjar had long been a “wanted terrorist” – and has complained these terror and separatist activities have been enabled on Canadian soil.
Trudeau at the G20 summit in India earlier this month tried to rally Western allies to pile the pressure on PM Modi, but reportedly to no avail, as many countries including the US are wary of harming relations with India and its large economy.
END
YOUR EARLY CURRENCY/GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN CLOSING MARKETS AND EUROPEAN BOURSE OPENING AND CLOSING/ INTEREST RATE SETTINGS FRIDAY MORNING 7;30AM//OPENING AND CLOSINGS
EURO VS USA DOLLAR: 1.0645 DOWN 0.0015
USA/ YEN 148.27 UP 0.626 NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT 1.00% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…//YEN STILL FALLS//
GBP/USA 1.2265 DOWN 0.0028
USA/CAN DOLLAR: 1.3432 DOWN .0045 (CDN DOLLAR UP 45 BASIS PTS)
Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED UP 47.73 PTS OR 1.55%
Hang Seng CLOSED DOWN 402.04 PTS OR 2.28%
AUSTRALIA CLOSED UP 0.05% // EUROPEAN BOURSE: MOSTLY RED
Trading from Europe and ASIA
I) EUROPEAN BOURSES: MOSTLY RED
2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang SENG CLOSED UP 402.04 PTS OR 2.25%
/SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 47.73 PTS OR 1.55%
AUSTRALIA BOURSE CLOSED UP 0.05%
(Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED DOWN 168.62 PTS OR 0.52%
INDIA’S SENSEX IN THE RED
Gold very early morning trading: 1924.70
silver:$23.67
USA dollar index early FRIDAY morning: 105.22 UP 16 BASIS POINTS FROM THURSDAY’s CLOSE.
The USA/Yuan, CNY: closed ON SHORE CLOSED (UP) …7.2996
THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE: (YUAN CLOSED (UP)…. (7.2982)
TURKISH LIRA: 27.17 EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WATCH/HYPERINFLATION TO BEGIN.//ON DEATH WATCH
the 10 yr Japanese bond yield at +0.730…VERY DANGEROUS
Your closing 10 yr US bond yield DOWN 5 in basis points from THURSDAY at 4.430% //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%) very problematic
USA 30 yr bond yield 4.523 DOWN 4 in basis points ON THE DAY/12.00 PM
USA 2 YR BOND YIELD: 5.105 DOWN 3 BASIS PTS.
Your 12:00 AM bourses for Europe and the Dow along with the USA dollar index closing and interest rates: FRIDAY: CLOSING TIME 12:00 PM
London: CLOSED UP 13.45 POINTS or 0.18%
German Dax : CLOSED DOWN 5.04 PTS OR 0.03%
Paris CAC CLOSED DOWN 23.49 PTS OR 0.33%
Spain IBEX DOWN 42.80 PTS OR 0.45%
Italian MIB: CLOSED DOWN 124.32 PTS OR 0.43%
WTI Oil price 90.44 12: EST
Brent Oil: 93.44 12:00 EST
USA /RUSSIAN ROUBLE /// AT: 96.07; ROUBLE DOWN 0 AND 17//100
GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD; +2.7325 DOWN 1 BASIS PTS
UK 10 YR YIELD: 4.285 DOWN 6 BASIS PTS
CLOSING NUMBERS: 4 PM
Euro vs USA: 1.0649 DOWN 0.0011 OR 11 BASIS POINTS
British Pound: 1.2246 DOWN .0047 or 47 basis pts
BRITISH 10 YR GILT BOND YIELD: 4.285% DOWN 5 BASIS PTS//
JAPAN 10 YR YIELD: .724%
USA dollar vs Japanese Yen: 148.38 UP .744 //YEN DOWN 75 BASIS PTS//
USA dollar vs Canadian dollar: 1.3471 DOWN .0007 CDN dollar UP 7 basis pts)
West Texas intermediate oil: 90.36
Brent OIL: 93.68
USA 10 yr bond yield DOWN 4 BASIS pts to 4.442%
USA 30 yr bond yield DOWN 3 BASIS PTS to 4.523%
USA 2 YR BOND: DOWN 2 PTS AT 5.123 %
USA dollar index: 105,24 UP 20 BASIS POINTS
USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 27.17 (GETTING QUITE CLOSE TO BLOWING UP/
USA DOLLAR VS RUSSIA//// ROUBLE: 96.25 DOWN 0 AND 34/100 roubles
GOLD 1924.95
SILVER: 23.54
DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE: DOWN 106.38 PTS OR 0.31%
NASDAQ UP 6.85 PTS OR 0.47%
VOLATILITY INDEX: 16,83 DOWN .71 PTS (4.05)%
GLD: $178.62 UP 0.57 OR 0.32%
SLV/ $21.58 UP 0.14 OR 0.65%
end
USA AFFAIRS
USA TRADING IN GRAPH FORM
‘Higher For Longer’ Reality-Check Wrecks Bonds, Banks, & Big-Tech
FRIDAY, SEP 22, 2023 – 04:00 PM
Despite being told – for months – that The Fed wanted to keep rates “higher for longer” and that a ‘pause’ is not the start of a rate-cut cycle, markets ignored it… until this week. As the following chart of Google Trends shows, it appears people are ‘believers’ once again…
The Fed’s blackout window lifts and the jawboning begins – and everyone said the same thing: “higher for longer”:
*FED’S COLLINS: FURTHER FED HIKES ‘CERTAINLY NOT OFF THE TABLE’, EXPECT RATES MAY HAVE TO STAY HIGHER FOR LONGER
*FED’s BOWMAN: MORE RATE HIKES LIKELY NEEDED TO GET INFLATION TO 2%, NEED TO REPEAT MONETARY POLICY ISN’T ON PRESET COURSE
*FED’S DALY: I DON’T GET TO A POINT WHERE I’M READY TO DECLARE VICTORY, UNLIKELY INFLATION WILL REACH 2% GOAL IN 2024
On the week, between the data, the SEP, and the FedSpeak, the market has repriced its expectations for The Fed’s rate trajectory significantly with rate-hike odds in 2023 lower and rate-cut odds in 2024 significantly lower…
Source: Bloomberg
And bear in mind that the supposed ‘strength’ in US macro data has been driven by ‘soft’ survey data as ‘hard’ real data has tanked…
Source: Bloomberg
Small Caps (heavily shorted) and Nasdaq (mega-cap tech, long duration) were the hardest hit on the week with the S&P close behind. The Dow was the prettiest horse in the glue factory, down around 2% on the week. Overall, US equities closed “on the lows” ugly going out…
The choppiness seen in the last hour or so was driven by the market’s big shift to a negative gamma market…
“Most Shorted” stocks are on pace to see their second straight month of declines (and 7th down week of the last 8). This was the biggest weekly decline in the short-basket since March…
Source: Bloomberg
As Goldman traders noted, “It feels like sell-the-rally mode (and the market is susceptible locally to a squeeze given the quick pick-up in shorts). Overall, the equity market seems to be suggesting that economic growth expectations are being downgraded, and soft-landing trades are at risk.”
As Vanda Research notes, inflows into the artificial intelligence (AI) sector continue to decline.
Companies such as MSFT, IONQ, AI, as well as NVDA and PLTR are all witnessing diminishing interest from retail investors.
As we extensively analyzed in earlier reports, the combination of waning retail demand and cautious risk sentiment among institutional investors may pose a substantial risk to the AI sector, potentially heralding a pronounced reversal in the weeks ahead.
It’s a long way down…
Source: Bloomberg
VIX jumped back above 17 on the week (which is a relatively big deal given its compression of late)…
UBS traders noted that high Touch flow skewed to the sell side from Monday through Thursday as Long Only took profits and Tax loss selling picked up. Long Only and Hedge Funds turn buyer Friday.
Market downdraft and VIX uptick trigger systematic fund selling.
Retail continues to sell single stocks against ETFs albeit at a reduced pace this week.
Derivative desk did not see investors chase the downside as positioning already defensive, and the focus remains on sector rotations.
Derivative flows have been large counter-trend to the bid to vols with a massive about of overwriting supply hitting the tape.
The synchronized slide across stocks, bonds and many commodities hammered risk parity players, as evidenced by the $926 million RPAR Risk Parity ETF suffering its worst day since December and sent the fund to its lowest in 10 months…
Source: Bloomberg
Treasury yields were all higher on the week, despite a pullback today, with the curve basically converging and yields up 9-11bps across the curve…
Source: Bloomberg
For context, the 2Y yield erased most of Wednesday’s post-Powell spike…
Source: Bloomberg
The dollar rallied on the week (up for the 8th week of the last 9)…
Source: Bloomberg
Bitcoin was noisy on the week but basically closed unch around $26,500…
Source: Bloomberg
Oil prices caused lots of excitement intraweek but ended unchanged with WTI hovering around $90.50…
Gold was flat on the week, breaking below its 200DMA…
…, but rallying back this afternoon to get back to that key technical level…
Finally, this morning’s PMIs confirmed the overall trend of slowing growth (contraction in manufacturing and low growth in services) along with re-accelerating inflation (prices paid bouncing). That stagflation regime change is evident on a global scale…
Source: Bloomberg
How long before all the ‘on hold’ central banks start tightening again? Or is the next move a widespread deflationary malaise that brings out the doves?
TUCKER CARLSON..
END
end
II USA DATA
USA PMI VS EUROPEAN PMI TODAY
Global Stagflation? US, EU PMIs Signal Slowing Growth, Rising Prices
FRIDAY, SEP 22, 2023 – 09:58 AM
This morning started with a modest rise in Euro-area Composite PMI (+0.3 to 47.1) on the back of a pick up in Services.
The increase in the area-wide index was driven by an improvement in Germany and the periphery, offset by a deceleration in France. In the UK, the composite flash PMI decreased by 1.9pt to 46.8, meaningfully below consensus expectations.
Goldman saw three main takeaways from today’s data.
First, while marginally better than last month, Euro area growth momentum remains subdued across both sectors. Country press releases attributed this weakness to poor demand conditions, both domestically and abroad.
Second, inflationary pressures continue to moderate, as reflected by the continued decline in output prices, but the recent pickup in input prices points to upside risk going forward.
Third, growth momentum in the UK appears to be deteriorating at a faster-than-anticipated pace. This, in turn, is now being accompanied by a loosening in the labour market, and a cooling in underlying inflationary pressures
In the US, however, the last few months have seen ‘hard’ (real) macro-economic data serially disappoint, while at the same time, ‘soft’ (survey-based) economic data has dramatically outperformed, sending ‘hope’ – the spread between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ – to two year highs…
Source: Bloomberg
This morning’s mixed PMI picture from Europe followed through into the US with Manufacturing PMI for September (preliminary) rising from 47.9 to 48.9 – the fifth straight month of contraction; while Services PMI disappointed, sliding from 50.5 to 50.2 – its lowest since January…
Source: Bloomberg
Commenting on the data, Siân Jones, Principal Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence said:
“PMI data for September added to concerns regarding the trajectory of demand conditions in the US economy following interest rate hikes and elevated inflation. Although the overall Output Index remained above the 50.0 mark, it was only fractionally so, with a broad stagnation in total activity signalled for the second month running. The service sector lost further momentum, with the contraction in new orders gaining speed.
“Subdued demand did not translate into overall job losses in September as a greater ability to find and retain employees led to a quicker rise in employment growth. That said, the boost to hiring from rising candidate availability may not be sustained amid evidence of burgeoning spare capacity and dwindling backlogs which have previously supported workloads.
“Inflationary pressures remained marked, as costs rose at a faster pace again. Higher fuel costs following recent increases in oil prices, alongside greater wage bills, pushed operating expenses up.
Weak demand nonetheless placed a barrier to firms’ ability to pass on greater costs to clients, with prices charged inflation unchanged on the month.”
So, slower growth, but rising prices – The Fed and ECB face their nemesis ‘Stagflation’ in the Sisyphean struggle against reality.
III) USA ECONOMIC STORIES
TENS OF THOUSANDS ILLEGAL CROSSING ON THE SOUTHERN BORDER
(zerohedge)
Texas Declares ‘Invasion’ As 10s Of 1000s Illegally Cross Southern Border
FRIDAY, SEP 22, 2023 – 12:05 PM
On Thursday, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre: “So, what do you call it here at the White House when 10,000 people illegally cross the border in a single day?”
Jean-Pierre responded, “So, what do you call it, Peter, when [the] GOP put forth a — wait, no, no, no, no, no, you can’t.”
Doocy then attempted to refine the question as she added without answering the initial question: “We’re moving on.”
Doocy: “What do you call it when 10,000 illegals cross the border in a single day.”
Jean-Pierre: “What do you call it when republicans…”
Doocy’s question comes as the union representing the US Border Patrol warned:
“From Sept 1st through 20th the Biden Admin ordered the release of more than 100,000 illegal border crashers-enough to double the population of cities like Yuma, AZ.
“Think about what Biden is doing to this country with his out-of-control border policies. How many millions more?”
From Sept 1st through 20th the Biden Admin ordered the release of more than 100,000 illegal border crashers-enough to double the population of cities like Yuma, AZ.
Think about what Biden is doing to this country with his out-of-control border policies. How many millions more?— Border Patrol Union – NBPC (@BPUnion) September 21, 2023
The White House and major left-leaning corporate media outlets have been rush-rush about the worsening border crisis.
Earlier this week, Elon Musk managed to shift national attention to the border crisis after he posted on X, “Strange that there is almost no legacy media coverage of this.” He quoted Fox News’ Bill Melugin’s post that included footage of a “total free fall al in Eagle Pass, Texas, right now.”
Strange that there is almost no legacy media coverage of this.
About 2 million people – from every country on Earth – are entering through the US southern border every year.
This week’s footage of the worsening border crisis is something progressive media and the Biden administration do not want the American people to see ahead of the presidential election cycle.
Thousands of migrants continue to flood into Eagle Pass, Texas, after the Biden administration was filmed removing razor wire intended to deter illegal crossings.
Eagle Pass TX yesterday! How many women and children do you see? This is going to get much worse and our Federal Government is doing nothing about it! And we, the taxpayers will foot the bill for this as well as dealing with the rise in crime if not worse….pic.twitter.com/3QIrHw31wA— Dennis (@clovis1931) September 21, 2023
Get ready NYC and Chicago! Here’s the next train headed to U.S, this will add to the more than 7K that crossed into Eagle Pass, Texas in last 72hrs. pic.twitter.com/aQIi8ADhfX— Randy Clark (@RandyClarkBBTX) September 20, 2023
On Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared an “invasion” on the southern border amid the massive influx of illegal migrants.
I officially declared an invasion at our border because of Biden’s policies.
We deployed the Texas National Guard, DPS & local law enforcement.
We are building a border wall, razor wire & marine barriers.
An alleged video shows Border Patrol agents possibly breaking ranks while some say it’s “hard to defend the constitution.”
Border Patrol Agents ARE BREAKING RANKS!! They Are Questioning Why Isn’t Leadership UPHOLDING THE CONSTITUTION Border Patrol Chief “We stay focused we continue to do the job and the mission that we signed up for. We all signed up for it, we all raised our hand.” BRAVE… pic.twitter.com/yLmzFqwKMg— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) September 21, 2023
Biden’s open border policies are not what the majority of voters want and have sparked migrant chaos across major metro areas like New York City.
It seems as if the fringe progressive minority of elites continue to impose their unpopular and disastrous policies on the majority.
END
SEATTLE
A good start..
Seattle Reverses Course, Makes Public Drug Use Arrestable Crime
THURSDAY, SEP 21, 2023 – 11:20 PM
The Seattle City Council on Tuesday ruled that public drug use will soon be illegal in the city.
Imagine that!
According to KIRO7, public drug use can now end in arrest – though there remains a large effort to funnel drug users into treatment programs.
CB 120645 adds the crimes of using a controlled substance in public space and knowing possession of a controlled substance to the statute’s list of crimes. The move follows a Sept. 12 proposed ordinance passed by the Seattle City Council’s Public Safety and Human Services Committee by a vote of 4-1.
The dissenting councilmember, Teresa Mosqueda, said the ordinance lacked attention to diversion efforts.
“I want people to get access to public health services just as much as the people who testified in support of this legislation say they want. But that is not what this legislation does. And without the funding that is purported to come with this bill, we have no assurances that there will be alternative structures and programs and diversion strategies to prevent people from going to jail. We do not have to pass this legislation,” she said.
END
UAW STRIKE: ITS COST!
UAW Auto Strike Costs “Detroit 3” $250 Million In Lost Profit Every Day, Will Lead To Much More Inflation
THURSDAY, SEP 21, 2023 – 09:20 PM
One week ago, when previewing the three events that are about to slam US GDP in the tail end of the 3rd and the 4th quarter (including 1. the return of student loan payments, 2. the UAW strike and 3. the government shutdown), Goldman calculated that reduced auto production from a potential UAW strike would reduce quarterly annualized growth by 0.05-0.10% for each week it lasted, if all three companies currently undergoing contract negotiations are impacted. “Those three companies—Ford, GM, and Stellantis—produce almost half of domestically-assembled cars. Auto production would likely fall sharply—we assume to roughly zero—at any company impacted by a strike”, Goldman said in its 30,000 approximation of the impact..
Fast forward to today when Morgan Stanley’s auto strategist, Adam Jonas, takes a closer look at the impact of the UAW strikes, which are now in their 5th day.
According to Jonas, investors have expressed a degree of trepidation over the strike outcome in a recent survey and now that it’s here, the path to resolution does appear to have matched investor fears.
Here is his quick calculation: “the value of N. American light production of the D3 (F, GM, STLA collectively) is approximately $750mm per day (approx. 15k units per day). Applying slightly more than a 30% decremental (yes, mix is that high) implies around $250mm of lost profit per day (assuming 100% of production impacted).”
Extrapolating to a full month of lost output (adjusted for production days) could be worth $7 to $8bn of lost profit for the D3, collectively.
According to Jonas, some of the lost production would be made back as some customers may be tempted to buy an import brand – or Tesla – with lack of availability.
But beyond the 1-time losses, Jonas says he is much more concerned about the potential for 30 to 40% labor inflation over the life of the next 4-year contract and how the domestic auto companies may recalibrate their ROIC and payback math for EV onshoring. The MS strategist thinks the outcome will be greater austerity and focus on the ICE run-off (that, however, would make many more workers redundant as EV require far less mechanical intervention than ICEs).
One must also consider that new car purchases account for roughly 5% of US CPI and soon car companies will have to raise prices (structurally) to compensate for higher labor input cost. Put simply, a 3% increase in new car prices could be worth 15bps to CPI over 4 years.
Finally, some thoughts on the UAW strike from One River CIO Eric Peters:
“The money is there. The cause is righteous. The world is watching, and the UAW is ready to stand up,” declared United Auto Workers boss Shawn Fain to his union members on a Facebook livestream. “This is our defining moment.”
Detroit automaker unionized labor costs, including wages and benefits, are estimated at an average of $66/hour. That compares with $45 at Tesla, which isn’t unionized, and $55 for Asian automakers.
Meeting all of Fain’s initial demands would boost average hourly labor costs to an estimated $136/hour.
Fein claims to be matching the roughly 40% compensation gains automaker CEOs have realized in the past decade. Ford’s CEO made $22mm last year. Stellantis’s $24.8mm. GM’s nearly $29mm.
“Competition is code word for race to the bottom, and I’m not concerned about Elon Musk building more rocket ships so he can fly in outer space and stuff,” Fain told CNBC, defending his demands. “Our concern is working-class people need their share of economic justice in this world.”
The secular trend toward ever rising inequality is turning. In August, UPS settled its labor dispute with the Teamsters 340k drivers who on average now make $170k in wages and benefits. That same month, Yellow failed to come to agreement with the Teamsters and ceased operations after nearly a century of trucking delivery — it awarded ten executives $4.6mm in special retention bonuses, laid off all 30k drivers and went into liquidation.
A secular trend reversal to how society divides its economic spoils is not all that different from revolution. Bitterly fought, treacherous for all involved. And this latest episode promises to be particularly so.
Because in the timeless conflict between capital and labor, it is extremely rare for the imbalance to be so extreme. The wider the gap, the bigger the stakes. And the last time the chasm was so great was at the height of the Roaring 1920s.
end
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON…
Victor Davis Hanson: Our Self-Induced Catastrophe At The Border
Since early 2021 we have witnessed somewhere between 7 and 8 million illegal entries across the now nonexistent U.S. southern border.
The more the border vanished, the more federal immigration law was rendered inert, and the more Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas spun fantasies that the “border is secure.” He is now written off as a veritable “Baghdad Bob” propagandist.
But how and why did the Biden administration destroy immigration law as we knew it?
The Trump administration’s initial efforts to close the border had been continually obstructed in the Congress, sabotaged by the administrative state, and stymied in the courts. Nonetheless, it had finally secured the border by early 2020.
Yet almost all its successful initiatives were immediately overturned in 2021.
The wall was abruptly stopped, its projected trajectory cancelled. The Obama-era disastrous “catch-and release” policy of immigration non-enforcement was resurrected.
Prior successful pressure on Mexico’s President Andrés Obrador to stop the deliberate export of his own citizens northward ceased.
Federal border patrol officers were forced to stand down.
New federal subsidies were granted to entice and then support illegal arrivals.
No one in the Democratic Party objected to the destruction of the border or the subversion of immigration law.
However, things changed somewhat once swamped southern border states began to bus or fly a few thousand of their illegal immigrants northward to sanctuary city jurisdictions—especially to New York, Chicago, and even Martha’s Vineyard.
The sanctuary-city “humanists” there who had greenlighted illegal immigration into the southern states suddenly shrieked. They were irate after experiencing the concrete consequences of their own prior abstract border agendas. After all, their nihilism was always supposed to fall upon distant and ridiculed others.
New York mayor Eric Adams went from celebrating a few dozen illegal immigrants bused into Manhattan, to blasting his own party by allowing tens of thousands to swamp his now bankrupt city.
But why did the Biden administration deliberately unleash the largest influx across the southern border in U.S. history?
The ethnic chauvinists and Democratic Party elites needed new constituents, given their increasingly unpopular agendas.
They feared that the more legal Latino immigrants assimilated and integrated into American society, the less happy they became with leftwing radical abortion, racial, transgender, crime, and green fixations.
Democratic grandees had always bragged that illegal immigration would create what they called “The New Democratic Majority” in “Demography is Destiny” fashion. Now they slander critics as “racists” who object to leftwing efforts to use illegal immigration to turn southwestern red states blue.
Mexico now cannot survive as a modern state without some $60 billion in annual remittances sent by its expatriates in America. But many illegal immigrants rely on American state and federal entitlements to free up cash to send home.
Mexico also encourages its own abject poor and often indigenous people from southern Mexico to head north as a safety-valve of sorts. The government sees these mass exoduses northward as preferable to the oppressed marching on Mexico City to address grievances of poverty and racism.
The criminal cartels now de facto run Mexico. An open border allows them to ship fentanyl northward, earn billions in profits—and kill nearly 100,000 Americans a year. Illegal immigrants pay cartels additional billions to facilitate their border crossings.
Do not forget American corporate employers. Record labor nonparticipation followed the Covid lockdown. In reaction to the dearth of American workers, the hospitality, meat packing, social service, health-care, and farming industries were desperate to hire new—and far cheaper—labor.
Human rights activists insist that the borders themselves are nineteenth-century relics. And the global poor and oppressed thus have a human right to enter the affluent West by any means necessary.
Many in the tony suburbs and in universities do not live anywhere near the border. So they pontificate on the assurance that thousands of unaudited illegal immigrants will never enter their own enclaves or campuses.
The result is elite bottled piety—but not firsthand experience with the natural consequences of millions chaotically fleeing one of the poorest countries in the world to pour into the wealthiest. Without background checks, vaccinations and health audits, legality, high-school diplomas, English-facility, skill sets, or capital, the result is an abject catastrophe.
Polls continue to show that the American people support measured, diverse, legal, and meritocratic immigration as much as they oppose mass illegal immigration into their country and the subsequent loss of American sovereignty on the border.
They understand what the Biden administration does not: no nation is history has survived once its borders were destroyed, once its citizenship was rendered no different from mere residence, and once its neighbors with impunity undermined its sovereignty.
Ending illegal immigration now depends solely on the American people overriding the corrupt special interests and leaders who profit from the current chaos and human misery.
end
USA// COVID//VACCINE/
end
SWAMP STORIES
Judge Denies Request, Orders Hunter Biden To Appear In Court
Special counsel David Weiss had argued that Hunter Biden should be required to make in-person court appearances, opposing Mr. Biden’s request.
“Hunter Biden does not contend he is injured or indigent,” Mr. Weiss wrote in a response to Mr. Biden’s request.
Mr. Biden has been indicted in federal court on felony gun charges, including two counts that he allegedly made false and deceptive statements when he purchased a gun and submitted a statement that he wasn’t an unlawful user of drugs, and one count related to his possession of the gun while addicted to drugs.
“An in-person hearing is important to promote the public’s confidence that the defendant is being treated consistently with other defendants,” Mr. Weiss wrote.
Hours later, the court sided with Mr. Weiss, denying Mr. Biden’s request to attend through video conference.
United States Magistrate Judge Christopher Burke wrote that he understood Mr. Biden’s arguments that the hearing would likely be short and the travel and logistics a burden, but the event was significant.
“Although initial appearances in criminal matters are often short in duration, our Court has always considered them to be important,” he wrote.
“The hearing is one of the few occasions in a criminal case when a defendant physically appears in our Court, before a judge—in a setting that helps to emphasize the ‘integrity and solemnity of a federal criminal proceeding.'”
Judge Burke pointed out that the matters to be discussed in this arraignment were not discussed in Mr. Biden’s previous arraignment in July, during which his plea bargain fell apart. He is expecting to address Mr. Biden’s pre-trial release conditions as well.
Mr. Biden’s arraignment is scheduled for Oct. 3 at 10 a.m.
‘Not Seeking Special Treatment’
On Tuesday, Mr. Biden had filed a motion to appear in court by video conference. His attorney, Abbe David Lowell, had argued that his client “is not seeking any special treatment in making this request.”
He argued that making his client “travel across the country for what should be a rather short proceeding” would put a financial burden on the government, which provides Mr. Hunter with secret service protection, and put a logistical burden on downtown Wilmington, Delaware, where the court is.
“No matter whether in person or virtual, he will waive reading of the indictment, which is merely a few pages and could easily be read at a video conference,” he wrote, adding that Mr. Biden would be entering a plea of not guilty. “There is no reason why he cannot utter those two words by video conference.”
‘Unforeseen Issues’
Mr. Weiss argued in his response that outside of the pandemic, the federal court in Delaware has almost always held in-person hearings for initial appearances and arraignments, and that Mr. Biden should not be treated differently. He noted that the two cases cited in Mr. Biden’s argument had allowed for virtual appearances because the defendant was wounded and could not travel.
“If ‘convenience’ was a legitimate basis to warrant virtual proceedings, every defendant would ask for them in every case,” Mr. Weiss wrote.
He argued that much could be “lost” with a virtual hearing, such as an opportunity for the judge to “accurately assess the physical, emotional, and mental condition of a defendant—a factor that may weigh on pretrial decisions, such as release from detention.”
He noted that the previous arraignment with Mr. Biden already resulted in “anything but routine” outcomes, and that an in-person arraignment should occur again this time in case the court needs to address “any unforeseen issues that arise.”
On July 26, Mr. Biden appeared in federal court in Delaware, reportedly ready to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanor charges in a deal that would allow him to avoid a felony gun charge. During the hearing, the plea bargain appeared to fall apart when the judge asked additional questions about the rationale for details of the agreement.
“The defendant and his previous attorney were not prepared to answer the Court’s questions,” Mr. Weiss wrote in his new response.
“The defendant provided contradictory testimony and his previous attorney apologized to the court for the way the defendant and his counsel chose to answer the Court’s questions. The confusion they caused resulted in the Court twice recessing the proceedings only to ultimately defer a decision.”
Mr. Biden’s previous attorney, Christopher Clark, had stepped down from his case with the reason that he may need to appear as a witness in Mr. Biden’s trial should the plea bargain itself be part of the case. Later, three more attorneys on the team stepped down without citing a reason, with Mr. Lowell remaining as lead counsel.
Mr. Weiss wrote in his letter that he will be asking the court to order certain conditions for pretrial release of Mr. Biden, and thus he should be present.
“Given the serious felony gun charges at issue in this case, this Court should have an opportunity to assess the defendant in a live setting when discharging … recommendations for conditions of release,” he wrote.
Mr. Lowell said on “Good Morning America” that he believes the charges against Mr. Biden will be “dismissed before trial.”
“First as to the political pressure, I want to make sure that everybody understands that after five years of investigation that the prosecutors knew all the facts, and the only change as to when they investigated and today is that the law changed. But the law didn’t change in favor of a prosecution, the law changed against it,” Mr. Lowell said. “A couple of federal courts have found this gun charge unconstitutional.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has alleged that political pressure is why the charges weren’t brought earlier, having heard from IRS whistleblowers who allege the Biden administration “slow-walked” the investigation against Mr. Biden.
Mr. Lowell maintains that the government entered into a plea bargain with his client which meant the charges should never have been brought, while Mr. Weiss argues the plea bargain never took effect.
Mr. Lowell is also arguing that the gun form in question is unconstitutional and has already successfully been challenged, and that “on the facts,” he has a successful defense.
END
McCarthy Throws Fit, Accuses GOP Hardliners Of Wanting To “Burn The Whole Place Down” As Shutdown Looms
FRIDAY, SEP 22, 2023 – 10:45 AM
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has sent the House home for the week without a resolution on the looming government shutdown, after members of the Freedom Caucus refused to play ball, scuttling plans to pass a Continuing Resolution (a 30-day band-aid to avoid government shutdown), and putting 11 appropriations bills in jeopardy which McCarthy is hoping to pass in the next nine days.
McCarthy on Thursday accused the (actual) conservatives of wanting to “burn the whole place down.”
But wait, there’s more!
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), meanwhile, has a bill lined up that could form the framework for the Continuing Resolution designed to keep the government operating beyond Sept. 30, according to Punchbowl News.
While House Republicans are pointlessly grinding through their version of FY2024 spending bills next week, Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will likely send the House a bipartisan CR. And yes, it’ll probably include billions of dollars in Ukraine aid as well as disaster relief funding and plenty of provisions that conservatives abhor.
At that point, McCarthy will have a choice to make. Will he bring up the Senate-approved CR and pass it with a mix of Democratic and Republican votes? Will he try to amend it and see if the Senate will bite? (They probably won’t.) Or will he ignore it and shut the government down?
This is a decision that could define McCarthy’s speakership.
On Friday, the House Rules Committee is slated to mark up four spending bills, Homeland Security, State-Foreign Operations, Defense and Agriculture, as part of the GOP leadership’s plan to get the 11 appropriations bills through the chamber. The four amount to $1.52 trillion in total spending – tens of billions less than what the Senate will accept.
After that, House members will return on Tuesday evening according to GOP leadership aides.
Punchbowl suggests that a Senate-led CR may have always been in the cards – as any bill to fund the government must be bipartisan, and McCarthy has been unwilling to put a bipartisan solution on the floor out of fear of an open war with his hardline conservatives.
When lawmakers return Tuesday, they’ll have just five days left to avoid a shutdown.
end
This should be fun!
(zerohedge)
Jordan Subpoenas FBI Censorship Czar Elvis Chan Over Apparent Perjury, Ducking Testimony
THURSDAY, SEP 21, 2023 – 05:20 PM
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has issued a second subpoena to FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan, after a scheduled Sept. 15 interview ‘fell through,’ (the FBI sent him somewhere) according to the Daily Caller, which obtained a letter from Jordan.
Chan, the primary conduit between the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) and social mediua platforms leading up to the 2020 US election (aka the Hunter Biden damage control operation), appears to have lied under oath about his meetings with tech companies regarding the laptop story.
Now, Jordan is demanding that Chan sit for an Oct. 5 deposition to discuss his role in the FITF.
Jordan shared internal Facebook documents showing Chan had more meetings with Facebook than he appeared to let on during his testimony. Chan and FITF Section Chief Laura Dehmlow met with Facebook on Oct. 14 and told the platform “no comment” on whether Biden’s laptop was real, Dehmlow testified to House Judiciary.
IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley testified to the House Ways and Means Committee in May and confirmed the FBI knew Hunter Biden’s laptop was real in early 2020.
Chan testified that he was “confident” he did not participate in any other meetings with tech companies besides the one disclosed by Dehmlow. The internal Facebook documents shared by Jordan indicate Chan had a “follow up” meeting with Facebook officials Oct. 15 to discuss the Hunter Biden laptop story. -Daily Caller
“Based on representations that the date of your deposition conflicts with the dates of your official travel, as an accommodation, the Committee is issuing you a new deposition subpoena that compels your appearance on October 5, 2023,” reads the letter.
House Judiciary notified Chan before his scheduled interview that he was allowed to be legally represented by either his personal counsel or an attorney from the Department of Justice (DOJ), according to emails shared Thursday on Twitter by the committee. The DOJ brought a staff attorney to the scheduled interview, even though Chan agreed to be represented by his personal attorney, and the interview fell apart as a result. -Daily Caller
“Today, after an FBI employee traveled across the country to voluntarily participate in a scheduled interview, he was denied the right to have his chosen legal counsel accompany him,” the FBI told the Caller. “Upon arrival at the Capitol, Committee staff directed agency counsel to leave the premises, and the interview was unable to proceed.”
This is surely one of the strangest twists in official narratives in perhaps hundreds of years. The bad guys have been christened as the good guys, and the good guys have been purged, deplatformed, canceled, and demonized.
It’s a turn of events none of us could have imagined back in 2020. It cries out for an explanation. I truly fear knowing the answer as to why.
Just consider the fate of former New Zealand Prime Jacinda Ardern.
She locked down her country, trampling all rights of the people under the guise of controlling the spread of a virus. You could not go to church. You could not be unmasked. You could not leave the country and return. No one could travel there without official permission.
As bad as the United States and Europe were during this period, New Zealand was worse, and it was backed up by speech controls. Anyone protesting the policies was risking everything. And when the vaccine came along, Ardern outright said it: the people who get it will have rights but those who do not will not. It was a new biomedical caste system.
Eventually, the country did open. Now speakers decrying the whole period are attracting audiences in the thousands, and Ardern is widely unpopular. Her successor who continues to defend all this despotism is under a cloud and also deeply unpopular. The tables have completely turned. Of course the virus came anyway, as it must, so the junta that did this has turned their attention to climate change, the defense of censorship, and the escalation of the Russia/Ukraine war.
Five years ago, anyone would have supposed that a leader that acted this way would live in shame. I certainly assumed so. My supposition is that Ardern had made horrific misjudgments and would be widely decried as a confused tyrant. She would live out her days in disrepute, surely.
The opposite has happened. She is now the subject of celebratory biographies. She is lauded by mainstream media. She addressed the United Nations last year in a speech that was an open call for a new global censorship regime. True, the fact-checkers disagree with this interpretation. Instead she was merely calling out “the weaponization of free speech societies and platforms by misinformation agents.”
Oh.
In any case, in my imagination, I could not have dreamed up a specimen of error and tyranny more deserving of devaluing than Jacinda Ardern. Everything she did during the COVID era flies in the face of values that the West has held for almost a thousand years since the Magna Carta.
But I was wrong. Completely. I underestimated just how broken the world is. Instead of being disgraced, she is enjoying not one but two fellowships at Harvard University where she enjoys massive prestige and adoration by faculty, staff, and students. To me, this seems like the Twilight Zone—an ending to the story that I could not have imagined. Are we supposed to be against segregation, house arrest, forced medical treatments, locking people in nations, and censorship? I thought at least we would agree on that much. Apparently not. Apparently, it is the opposite. Everything that I believed was deprecated is exalted and all the public virtues I believed we extolled are now denounced.
It’s not just Ardern. The whole tiny but global junta that imposed all these policies seemed to be enjoying a glorious send-off by the entire establishment, even though they have been 100 percent wrong about everything. Fauci’s successor is Fauci II, and same with Walensky’s successor at the CDC. And the media propagandists who for three years lied to the public about lockdowns, masks, school closures, and shots are now writing books that are calling people like me the bad guys!
I almost cannot imagine that this has happened and I cannot fathom why.
As another example, the New York Times op-ed page has carried an amazing and very long article by Yoel Roth, the former chief censor of Twitter 1.0 before he was summarily fired by Elon Musk. The Times let him tell his tale of woe on how oppressed and beaten down he is merely for enforcing trust and safety. He was only doing his job to stop online lies!
The Twitter Files revealed that the company was obeying government priorities and blocking and throttling content that took issue with COVID policies, questions surrounding election integrity, and vaccine effectiveness. Roth, in cooperation with federal agencies, set himself up as the arbiter of truth and arguably distorted information flows based on his personal bias.
Like Ardern, I might have expected that he would retire from public life and deploy his considerable communication for a small company somewhere. But I was wrong again. Instead he holds a coveted position at the University of Pennsylvania and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
For that matter, Anthony Fauci himself is enjoying a comfy sinecure at Georgetown University.
This is not just about how high-end academia has become a haven for woke politics, censorship, and wildly pro-statist thinking across the board. That battle seems to have been won by the bad guys perhaps two decades ago. The problem is much larger. It has to do with the entire academic, corporate, political, and deep-state establishment that was heavily involved in imposing a despotic turn for the entire globe.
They are right now in the business of protecting their own, trolling the rest of us by granting awards and honors to the absolute worst offenders of core Western values. It’s like the world has been turned upside down. As grim as I believed the lockdowns that began in March 2020 were, and as much as I expected some terrible economic and cultural fallout from that period, I never would have imagined that the lockdowners and mandaters would be riding high at 42 months of this.
And at the very same time, the purges of the people who were right all along are continuing at a furious pace. Every day, we observe sneaky attacks on the greatest champions of basic liberties on which I thought everyone agreed back in 2019. Every unflattering bit of personal information on the resistors is fair game, amplified by the media, and then realized in the form of demonetizations by Big Tech, the courts, and the professional circuit generally.
The battle lines are very clear and only one side stands for the rights and liberties for which humanity worked for a millennium. The other side stands for controls, impositions, divisions, surveillance, censorship, degrowth, and corporate cartelizations. Can someone explain to me why we are supposed to think that the bad guys are now the good guys? In short, how can we account for the valorization of tyrants?
END
Menendez indicted again
(zerohedge)
Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez, Wife Indicted Over Gold Bar And Other Bribery Schemes
FRIDAY, SEP 22, 2023 – 09:30 AM
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife Nadine have been indicted in New York for allegedly accepting bribes in relation to an allegedly corrupt relationship they had with three businessmen from their home state. The indictment also charges three businessmen, Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes.
“Those bribes included cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value,” reads the indictment.
Daibes, a developer and former bank chairman, allegedly gave Menendez gold bars valued at approximately $400,000, in exchange for assistance in a case in which he faced federal bank charges.
Instead of facing over 10 years in prison, Daibes, a felon, only ended up serving probation after striking an agreement with the US Attorney’s Office in New Jersey.
“For purposes of the Federal Extortion Act, it makes no difference if the senator took an official act so long as he accepted the money and there was knowledge the money was in exchange for that official influence, even if he never carried out what he had promised he would do,” according to NBC Legal Analyst Danny Cevallos.
Menendez disclosed that his family had accepted gold bars in 2020. Daibes encountered bank fraud charges that could have netted him up to a decade in prison for lying about a nearly $2 million loan from Mariner’s Bank, where Daibes served as chairman.
Last year, however, New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed to let Daibes plead guilty to one count and serve probation. They said Daibes had repaid the loan. -Fox News
According to the report, Menendez, 69, is ‘close’ with US Attorney Philip Sellinger – having supported him for the position, while Sellinger had previously raised funds for Menendez’s campaign.
Officials are also looking at whether Menendez, the former Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or his wife, had improperly received gifts from a New Jersey food processor who obtained an exclusive contract with the Egyptian government to certify halal food experts around the world.
Egyptian officials and the New Jersey businessman who received the contract were hosted by Menendez in his office in 2018, according to the Wall Street Journal. A year later, the businessman became the “sole certifier of halal meat exported from the U.S. to Egypt,” the outlet noted.
NBC News 4 said the gifts included the usage of a Mercedes and a luxury Washington, D.C., apartment. Investigators are attempting to resolve if Menendez, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, used his standing to help the man secure the contract. -Fox News
According to the indictment, Menendez provided ‘sensitive US Government information to Egypt.’
Menendez and his wife are charged with three counts: conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right.
In June of last year, federal agents searched Menendez’s New Jersey home, where they found “fruits” of the pair’s “corrupt bribery agreement” with the three businessman – including over $480,000 in cash, some of which was stuffed in envelopes, and $70,000 in Nadine Menendez’s safe deposit box.
They also found gold bars worth over $100,000, “provided by either Hana or Daibes.”
In the months before his office admitted he was under federal investigation, Menendez’s wife sold up to $400,000 in gold bars between April 7, 2022 and June 16, 2022.
Joe Biden claimed Thursday that it is really Republicans that are to blame for undermining the security of the southern border, despite a massive surge in numbers of illegal immigrants coming across under his administration.
Addressing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Biden also claimed President Trump “spent four years gutting the immigration system.”
The comments came after Biden’s press secretary refused to answer questions about the massive influx, including a surge of over 10,000 in one day this week, sarcastically dismissing the issue out of hand:
The Bank of England unexpectedly kept its benchmark rate unchanged.
Bank of England: Monetary Policy Summary, September 2023 The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)… voted by a majority of 5–4to maintain Bank Rate at 5.25%. Four members preferred to increase Bank Rate by 0.25 percentage points, to 5.5%. The Committee also voted unanimously to reduce the stock of UK government bond purchases held for monetary policy purposes, and financed by the issuance of central bank reserves, by £100 billion over the next twelve months, to a total of £658 billion… https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy-summary-and-minutes/2023/september-2023?sf181977033=1
@elerianm: In a 5-4 vote, the Bank of England held its interest rates unchanged today, interrupting the run of 14 consecutive hikes. It left the door open for the possibility of a future hike(s). (I had expected a final hike at this MPC meeting.) Beyond the immediate, the Bank is signaling more of a “plateau” than a “peak” for rates — I.e., high for longer.
@BloombergAsia: Markets are increasingly betting that the Bank of England rate has now peaked at 5.25%. Could this prove to be the catalyst that triggers investor interest in cheap UK markets?
Fixed income got hammered globally on Thursday because Mr. Bond is, and has been, screaming at central banks that they are behind the inflation and debt curves.
Once upon a time, bonds rallied on central bank largesse (Carry trade) or dovish rhetoric. “That was yesterday; and yesterday’s gone!” It is now a brave new world where mushrooming sovereign debt and spending has unleashed structural inflation. As we keep harping, the 40-year Grand Super Cycle Bond Bull Market ended a few years ago – and too many traders and investors were spoiled by it.
USZs hit a daily low of 116 4/32, -2 14/32 near the 11:30 ET European close. The US 30-year was 4.565%; the 10-year was 4.486%; the 2-year was 5.135%. After a modest Noon Balloon USZs rolled over and bottomed bumped into the NYSE close.
ESZs opened a tad lower on Wednesday night and intractably sank to 4395.00 (-52.00) at 11:16 ET. The early afternoon rally took ESZs to 4406.75 at 13:30 ET. ESZs then rolled over and stair-stepped lower into the close. ESZs and major equity indices closed near their lows. This is a very bad development.
US Initial Jobless Claims fell to 201k from 221k; 225k was expected. Continuing Claims dropped to 1.662m from 1.683m; 1.692m was consensus.
The Philadelphia Fed Business Outlook for September tumbled to -13.5 from +12.0; -1.0 was expected.
US August Existing Home Sales fell to 4.04m from 4.07m; 4.10m was consensus. The August LET fell to -0.4% from -03%; -0.5% was expected.
The MSCI China Index is down almost 10% for 2023 and closed at its lowest level since November 28.
China Stocks Slide to 10-Month Low as Growth Pessimism Persists – BBG The MSCI China Index dropped as much as 1.6%, on track for a third consecutive week of losses… The CSI 300, benchmark of mainland shares, closed down 0.9%. The gauge is down more than 5% this year, after tumbling 22% in 2022. Turnover in Shanghai and Shenzhen plunged to the lowest since October…
WSJ: China’s Fighter Jets Aren’t Just Flying Around Taiwan – They’re Practicing. Surge in activity shows Chinese honing ability to block U.S. military from responding to an invasion @maphumanintent: Air blockade while supporting naval operations. Rhetoric and bellicose talk is sometimes just that. But logistics – things in movement – reveals intent, and this is an escalation from the early ADIZ violations. The recent presence of tankers is also more concerning.
Positive aspects of previous session. Gasoline and oil declined a tad
Negative aspects of previous session Stocks tanked and USZs tumbled; Mr. Bond disapproves of the Fed Pause Major US equity indices suffered troubling technical damage
Ambiguous aspects of previous session What hidden damage are debt instruments exacting on financial institutions?
First Hour/Last Hour Action [S&P 500 Index]: 1st Hour from NYSE Open: Down; Last Hour: Down
Pivot Point for S&P 500 Index [above/below indicates daily trend to traders]: 4344.96 Previous session S&P 500 Index High/Low: 4375.70; 4329.17
Today – Though the usual suspects want to play for the Friday rally, major US equity indices have suffered disturbing technical damage. We warned in late August that US stocks were due to rally, and that after the rally, the S&P 500 Index must NOT breach its August 18 low – or else!
The S&P 500 Index closed at 4333.08; the August 18 closing low is 4369.71; the intraday low (occurred on the same day) is 4335.31. The S&P 500 Index is substantially below its 50-day moving average (4480.71) and 40 handles below its 100-day moving average (4375.38).
While stocks can rally at any time, now, there is a huge risk of a breathtaking tumble. Plus, the Fed has lost control of the bond market! An easy Fed no longer boosts bonds! Now, the financial environment is similar to the late ‘70s! ESZs are -3.50 and USZs are -11/32 at 20:30 ET.
Expected econ data: Sept S&P Global US Mfg PMI 48.2, Services 50.7, Composite 50.4; Fed Gov. Cook 8:50 ET, SF Fed Pres Daly and Minn Fed Pres Kashkari 13:00 ET
S&P 500 Index 50-day MA: 4481; 100-day MA: 4375; 150-day MA: 4261; 200-day MA: 4189 DJIA 50-day MA: 34,859; 100-day MA: 35,268; 150-day MA: 33,867; 200-day MA: 33,808 (Green is positive slope; Red is negative slope)
S&P 500 Index – Trender trading model and MACD for key time frames Monthly: Trender and MACD are positive – a close below 3814.46 triggers a sell signal Weekly: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 4586.76 triggers a buy signal Daily: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 4476.18 triggers a buy signal Hourly: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 4388.48 triggers a buy signal
Daily Mail: Biden appears to wander off UN stage without shaking President Lula’s hand at end of joint speech – leaving Brazilian leader visibly irritated – minutes after President walked through a flag to take the podium https://t.co/p5j6G2azXi
Disgraced ex-NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo urges Kathy Hochul to sue Biden for migrant ‘fiasco’https://trib.al/MNujbtu
Gov. Kathy Hochul has message for migrants looking to come to New York: ‘Go somewhere else’https://t.co/3F8GAXLieX (So, all that sanctuary and welcome arms stuff was just virtue signaling?)
Garland says incendiary memo directing FBI to use counterterrorism tools on parents never rescinded – “There’s nothing to rescind,” Garland said. “The memo was intended to have meetings within 30 days… The 30 days have finished. Nothing has happened in more than a year and a half with respect to that.”… https://t.co/2qYL0SqocG
@TuckerCarlson: Ep. 25 Liberals like Karl Rove just tried to annihilate Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. It didn’t work. Paxton just joined us for his first interview since his acquittal. https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1704665052031172641
@NileGardiner: In her last book Statecraft, Lady Thatcher wrote that: “The doomsters’ favourite subject today is climate change… since clearly no plan to alter climate could be considered on anything but a global scale, it provides a marvelous excuse for worldwide, supranational socialism.”
This is the number that explains it all — 9.5% Biden approval rating. No, the Lying Legacy Media (LLM) will not tell you this, but the people at the top know the real approval rating and it’s 9.5%. My private sources that compute this number also are seeing a huge Biden Backlash for everything from the Ukraine war, wide open borders, huge inflation, CV19 vax and being force to think drag queens are really women. These are just a few of backlashes brewing and brewing big.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says in no uncertain terms that the “US is waging war against Russia.” Let that sink in. When is the last time you heard this from a Russian Foreign Minister? NEVER. Lavrov is signaling there is a war coming if the U.S. does not stop funneling billions of dollars into Ukraine for unending war against Russia. (Probably a good chunk of that money is being returned to the swamp in kickbacks.) This week, Vice President Biden coughed up another $325 million for more war in Ukraine. Senators on both sides of the swamp have publicly stated this is “a good investment.” America is being run by corrupt, compromised morons, and the Ukraine war more than proves this.
Economic warning signs abound, and most Americans are sleep walking into the Greatest Depression ever seen. The federal debt is unpayable, and it is now exploding in an exponential rate. American went another $1 trillion in the hole in the last three months alone. Congress cannot even debate the next budget, which is setting the country up for a government shutdown in 10 days. Meanwhile, Treasury income, according to the St. Louis Fed, is off by more than $100 billion in the last year alone. Something is very wrong with the finances of America. It’s not a question of if the wheels fall off but when. It could be sooner than many believe. This cannot go on forever.
Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he talks about these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 9/22/23.
Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF) the Publisher of The Solari Report will be the guest for the Saturday Night Post. CAF does a deep dive on the poison she calls “Pharma Food.” You don’t want to miss this.
as a heads up, I will not be doing a commentary this Monday and Wednesday
AM2027.95
Serenity
(@polishprincessh) September 22, 2023
pic.twitter.com/3QIrHw31wA—
Dennis
harveyorganblog.com 
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