OCT 17/GOLD CLOSED UP $1.50 TO $1922.85//SILVER CLOSED UP 23 CENTS TO $22.84//PLATINUM CLOSED UP $4.75 TO $900.65 WHILE PALLADIUM CLOSED DOWN $3.95 TO $1146.10//ESSENTIAL READS TODAY FROM CHRIS POWELL AND VICTOR DAVIS HANSON//ANOTHER ISLAMIST ATTACK IN EUROPE: THIS TIME IN BRUSSELS//UPDATES ON THE ISRAELI-HAMAS-HEZBOLLAH WAR//COVID UPDATES//VACCINE AND VACCINE INJURY UPDATES//DR PAUL ALEXANDER//SLAY NEWS/EVOL NEWS//NEWS ADDICTS//MICHAEL EVERY//NEW USA ECONOMIC DATA SUGGESTS A HUGE DOWNTURN IN THEIR ECONOMY//SWAMP STORIES FOR YOU TONIGHT//
190 H BMO CAPITAL 6 323 C HSBC 8 661 C JP MORGAN 6 690 C ABN AMRO 10 1 737 C ADVANTAGE 1
TOTAL: 16 16 MONTH TO DATE: 9,677
JPMorgan stopped 0/16 contracts.
FOR OCT.:
GOLD: NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR OCT/2023. CONTRACT: 16 NOTICES FOR 1600 OZ or .0497 TONNES
total notices so far: 9677 contracts for 967700 oz (30.099 tonnes)
FOR OCT:
SILVER NOTICES:9 NOTICE(S) FILED FOR 45,000 OZ/
total number of notices filed so far this month : 490 for 2,450,000 oz
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END
GLD
WITH GOLD UP $1.50
INVESTORS SWITCHING TO SPROTT PHYSICAL (PHYS) INSTEAD OF THE FRAUDULENT GLD/ : / NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: /
INVENTORY RESTS AT 855.45 TONNES
Silver//
WITH NO SILVER AROUND AND SILVER UP 23 CENTS AT THE SLV// NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:
INVESTORS ARE SWITCHING SLV TO SPROTT’S PSLV.
CLOSING INVENTORY: 447.736 MILLION OZ
Let us have a look at the data for today
SILVER//OUTLINE
SILVER COMEX OI FELL BY HUMONGOUS SIZED 1875CONTRACTS TO 124,157 AND FURTHER FROM THE RECORD HIGH OI OF 244,710, SET FEB 25/2020 AND THIS HUGE SIZED LOSS IN COMEX OI WAS ACCOMPLISHED DESPITE OUR SMALL $0.09 LOSS IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX ON MONDAY. WE HAD A SMALL SPEC SHORT COVERING EPISODE IN MONDAY’S COMEX TRADING.. TAS ISSUANCE WAS A HUMONGOUS SIZED 872 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 MONDAY NIGHT: 872 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 WITH THE HELP OF SPECULATORS AND HIGH FREQUENCY TRADERS WERE SUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN (IT FELL BY $0.09). AND WERE SUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING SOME SILVER LONGS AS WE HAD A HUGE SIZED LOSS OF 1475 OI CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES AS THE SPEC SHORTS CAPITULATED AND TRIED AGAIN DESPERATELY TO COVER THEIR SHORTFALLS.
WE MUST HAVE HAD:
A GOOD ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS( 400 CONTRACTS) iiii) AN INITIAL SILVER STANDING FOR COMEX SILVER MEASURING AT 1.530 MILLION OZ (FIRST DAY NOTICE) FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 5,000 OZ QUEUE JUMP + 200 CONTRACTS OF EXCHANGE FOR RISK FOR 1.0 MILLION OZ TODAY+ 3.0 MILLION OZ EXCHANGE FOR RISK PRIOR //NEW STANDING IS THUS 2.555 MILLION OZ NORMAL SILVER DELIVERY + 4.0 EXCHANGE FOR RISK = 6.555 MILLION OZ/////HUGE SIZED COMEX OI LOSS/ GOOD SIZED EFP ISSUANCE/VI) HUMONGOUS SIZED NUMBER OF T.A.S. CONTRACT ISSUANCE 872CONTRACTS)/
I AM NOW RECORDING THE DIFFERENTIAL IN OI FROM PRELIMINARY TO FINAL – REMOVED 301 CONTRACTS
HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS OCT ACCUMULATION FOR EFP’S SILVER/JPMORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES/STARTING FROM FIRST DAY/MONTH OF OCT:
TOTAL CONTRACTS for 11 days, total 13,454 contracts: OR 67.270 MILLION OZ (1223 CONTRACTS PER DAY)
TOTAL EFP’S FOR THE MONTH SO FAR: 67.270 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: 72.705 MILLION OZ (SMALLER THIS MONTH)
OCT: 67.270 MILLION OZ (THIS IS GOING TO BE A STRONG MONTH FOR EFP ISSUANCE//
RESULT: WE HAD A HUGE SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 1875 CONTRACTS DESPITE OUR SMALL LOSS IN PRICE OF $0.09 IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX//MONDAY.,. THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A GOOD EFP ISSUANCE CONTRACTS: 400 ISSUED FOR OCT AND 0 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS) WHICH EXITED OUT OF THE SILVER COMEX TO LONDON AS FORWARDS. . WE HAVE A SMALL INITIAL SILVER OZ STANDING FOR SEPT OF 1.532 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 5,000 OZ QUEUE JUMP:+ A NEW ISSUANCE OF 200 CONTRACTS OF EXCHANGE FOR RISK FOR 1.0 MILLION OZ. THUS NEW TOTAL OF SILVER STANDING: 2.555 MILLION OZ+ 4.0 MILLION OZ EXCHANGE FOR RISK = 6.555 MILLION OZ//// /// WE HAVE A HUGE SIZED LOSS OF 1475 OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES. THE TOTAL OF TAS INITIATED CONTRACTS TODAY: A HUGE SIZED 872 CONTRACTS//SOME FRONT END OF THE TAS CONTRACTS WERE LIQUIDATED DURING THE MONDAY COMEX SESSION. THE NEW TAS ISSUANCE MONDAY NIGHT A HUGE (872) WILL BE PUT INTO “THE BANK” TO BE COLLUSIVELY USED AT A LATER DATE., .
WE HAD 9 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR 45,000 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 STRONG SIZED 4998 CONTRACTS TO 437,056 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: + ADDED 176 CONTRACTS
WE HAD A STRONG SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI ( 5174 CONTRACTS) WITH OUR $6.45 LOSS IN PRICE//MONDAY. WE ALSO HAD A RATHER STRONG INITIAL STANDING IN GOLD TONNAGE FOR SEPT. AT 16.562 TONNES ON FIRST DAY NOTICE FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S SMALL 1600 OZ QUEUE JUMP /NEW STANDING REDUCES TO 31.206 TONNES/ + /A HUGE (AND CRIMINAL) ISSUANCE OF 1039 T.A.S. CONTRACTS /// ALL OF..THIS HAPPENED WITH OUR$6.45 LOSS IN PRICEWITH RESPECT TO MONDAY’S TRADING.WE HAD A SMALL SIZED LOSS OF 607 OI CONTRACTS (1.888 PAPER TONNES) ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES.
E.F.P. ISSUANCE
THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALED A STRONG SIZED 4391CONTRACTS:
The NEW COMEX OI FOR THE GOLD COMPLEX RESTS AT 437,056
IN ESSENCE WE HAVE A SMALL SIZED DECREASE IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 607 CONTRACTS WITH 4998 CONTRACTS DECREASED AT THE COMEX// AND A STRONG SIZED 4391 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS TOTAL OI LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 607CONTRACTS OR1.888TONNES. WE HAD THE FOLLOWING TAS CONTRACTS INITIATED (ISSUED): A STRONG 1039 CONTRACTS)
CALCULATIONS ON GAIN/LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES
WE HAD A STRONG SIZED ISSUANCE IN EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (4391 CONTRACTS) ACCOMPANYING THE STRONG SIZED LOSS IN COMEX OI (4998U) //TOTAL LOSS FOR OUR THE TWO EXCHANGES: 607 CONTRACTS. WE HAVE ( 1) NOW RETURNED TO OUR FORMER FORMAT OF BANKERS GOING LONG AND SPECULATORS GOING SHORT ,2.) FAIR INITIAL STANDING AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR OCT. AT 16.562 TONNES FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 1600 OZ QUEUE JUMP//NEW STANDING 31.206 TONNES// /// 3) SOME LONG LIQUIDATION AND CONSIDERABLE TAS LIQUIDATION AND SMALL SPEC SHORT COVERINGS DURING THE COMEX SESSION //4) STRONG SIZED COMEX OPEN INTEREST LOSS/ 5) STRONG ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL PAPER///6: STRONG T.A.S. ISSUANCE: 1039 CONTRACTS
HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN 2023 INCLUDING TODAY
OCT
ACCUMULATION OF EFP’S GOLD AT J.P. MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES: (EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL) FOR THE MONTH OF OCT :
TOTAL EFP CONTRACTS ISSUED: 48,284 CONTRACTS OR 4,828,400 OZ OR 150.183 TONNES IN 11 TRADING DAY(S) AND THUS AVERAGING: 4389 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY
TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS : THIS MONTH IN 11TRADING DAY(S) IN TONNES 150.183 TONNES
TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2022, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES
THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS 150.183/3550 x 100% TONNES 4.22% 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: 254.709 TONNES (WILL BE LARGER THAN LAST MONTH AND A STRONG MONTH)
OCT. 150.183 TONNES. LIKE SILVER, THIS MONTH IS GOING TO BE A STRONG E.F.P. ISSUANCE.
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 FELL BY A HUGE SIZED 1875 CONTRACTS OI TO 124,157 AND FURTHER FROM 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 GOOD 400 CONTRACTS
OUR CUSTOMARY MIGRATION OF COMEX LONGS CONTINUE TO MORPH INTO LONDON FORWARDS AS OUR BANKERS USED THEIR EMERGENCY PROCEDURE TO ISSUE:
DEC 400and ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 400 CONTRACTS. EFP’S GIVE OUR COMEX LONGS A FIAT BONUS PLUS A DELIVERABLE PRODUCT OVER IN LONDON. IF WE TAKE THE COMEX OI LOSS OF 1875 CONTRACTS AND ADD TO THE 400 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S,
WE OBTAIN A HUMONGOUS SIZED LOSS OF OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES OF 1475 CONTRACTS
THUS IN OUNCES, THE LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES TOTAL 7,375 MILLION OZ
OCCURRED DESPITE OUR $0.09 GAIN IN PRICE …..(SOME SHORT COVERINGS)
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//
TUESDAY MORNING//MONDAY NIGHT
SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 9.68 PTS OR .31% //Hang Seng CLOSED UP 132.73 PTS OR 0.75% /The Nikkei CLOSED UP 381.26 PTS OR 1.20% //Australia’s all ordinaries CLOSED UP 0.41 % /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed DOWN AT 7.3127 /OFFSHORE CHINESE YUAN CLOSED DOWN TO 7.3227 /Oil DOWN TO 86.86 dollars per barrel for WTI and BRENT DOWN AT 89.86/ Stocks in Europe OPENED MOSTLY RED// ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING WEAKER AGAINST US DOLLAR/OFFSHORE WEAKER
1. COMEX DATA//AMOUNTS STANDING//VOLUME OF TRADING/INVENTORY MOVEMENTS
GOLD
LET US BEGIN:
THE TOTAL COMEX GOLD OPEN INTEREST FELL BY A STRONG SIZED 4998CONTRACTS TO 437,056 WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $6.45 ON MONDAY. OUR SHORT SPECULATORS ADDED TO THEIR POSITIONS DURING COMEX TRADING.
EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE
WE ARE NOW IN THE NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF OCT..… 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 4391 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED: : DEC 4391 & ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:
TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 4391 CONTRACTS
ON A NET BASIS IN OPEN INTEREST WE LOST THE FOLLOWING TODAY ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES: A SMALL SIZED TOTAL OF 607 CONTRACTS IN THAT 4391LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE HAD A STRONG SIZED LOSS OF 4998 COMEX CONTRACTS..AND THIS LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES HAPPENED WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $6.45//MONDAY 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 MONDAY NIGHT WAS A STRONG 1039 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: OCT (31.206) ( 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: 15.281 TONNES FINAL
OCT. 31.206 TONNES
THE SPECS/HFT WERE SUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE( IT LOST $6.45) //// AND WERE SUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING SOME SPECULATOR LONGS AS WE HAD A SMALL LOSS OF 607 TOTAL CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES. WE HAD A CONSIDERABLE T.A.S. LIQUIDATION ON THE FRONT END OF MONDAY’S TRADING. THE T.A.S. ISSUED ON MONDAY NIGHT WILL BE “PUT INTO THE BANK” TO BE USED AT A LATER DATE AT THE COLLUSIVE CHOOSING OF OUR BANKERS. IT DID HAVE SOME SPECULATOR SHORT COVERING WITH THE MASSIVE PRICE INCREASE.
WE HAVE LOST A TOTAL OI OF 1.888 PAPER TONNES FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES, ACCOMPANYING OUR INITIAL GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR OCT. (16.562 TONNES) ON FIRST DAY NOTICE FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 1600 OZ QUEUE JUMP //NEW TOTALS STANDING:31.206 TONNES ALL OF THIS WAS ACCOMPLISHED WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE TO THE TUNE OF $6.45. FOR THE PAST FEW WEEKS, THE SPECULATORS HAVE GONE MASSIVELY SHORT WITH OUR BANKERS NET LONG. THE BIG QUESTION IS NOW HOW MUCH GOLD WILL THE BANKERS PULL FROM OUR SHORT SPECULATORS. SPECULATORS YESTERDAY ADDED TO THEIR HUGE SHORTS.
WE HAD ADDED 176 CONTRACTS TO THE COMEX TRADES TO OPEN INTEREST
NET LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 607 CONTRACTS OR 60,700 OZ OR 1.888 TONNES.
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month
9677 notices 967,700 OZ 30.099 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: 0 oz
customer deposits: 0
total customer deposits: 0 oz
we had 1 customer withdrawals
i) Out of ASAHI: 6970.406 oz
total withdrawals 6970.406 oz
Adjustments; 0
total adjusted 0
CALCULATIONS FOR THE AMOUNT OF GOLD STANDING FOR OCT.
For the front month of OCTOBER we have an oi of 372 contracts having GAINED 13 contracts. We had 3 contracts filed on Monday, so we gained 16 contracts or an additional 1600 oz will stand for delivery at the comex in this active delivery month of October. Our short speculators have been met with physical delivery demands by the bank. The only way they can obtain gold is through these EFP’s where delivery is taken in London on a T + 2 basis. We had the commencement of gold speculator short covering on Thursday and this action by the banker longs will continue until the specs have been annihilated
NOV LOST 44 CONTRACTS to stand at 1639
December LOST 5794 contracts up to 357,217 contracts.
We had 16 contracts filed for today representing 1600 oz
Today, 0 notice(s) were issued from J.P.Morgan dealer account and 6 notices were issued from their client or customer account. The total of all issuance by all participants equate to 16 contract(s) of which 0 notices were stopped (received) by j.P. Morgan dealer and 1 notice(s) was (were) stopped received by J.P.Morgan//customer account and 0 notice(s) received (stopped) by the squid (Goldman Sachs)
To calculate the INITIAL total number of gold ounces standing for the OCT. /2023. contract month, we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (9677 x 100 oz ), to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of OCT. (x372 CONTRACTS) minus the number of notices served upon today 16 x 100 oz per contract equals 1,003,300 OZ OR 31.206 TONNES the number of TONNES standing in this active month of OCT.
thus the INITIAL standings for gold for the OCT.contract month: No of notices filed so far (9677) x 100 oz + (372) {OI for the front month} minus the number of notices served upon today (16) x 100 oz) which equals 1,003,300oz standing OR 31.206 TONNES
TOTAL COMEX GOLD STANDING: 31.206 TONNES WHICH IS HUGE FOR AN ACTIVE BUT GENERALLY WEAK DELIVERY MONTH. (OCT). Somebody is after a considerable amount of gold from the comex.
To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in OCT. we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at 490 x 5,000 oz = 2,450,000 oz
to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of OCT (30) and the number of notices served upon today 9 x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.
Thus the standings for silver for the OCT/2023 contract month: 490 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for the front month of OCT (30) – number of notices served upon today (9 )x 500 oz of silver standing for the OCT contract month equates to 2.555 million oz + 1.0 MILLION oz of exchange for risk today + 3.0 million oz prior//new totals: 6.550 million oz.
There are 37.638 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
OCT 17/WITH GOLD UP $1.50 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: //: // INVENTORY RESTS AT 855.45 TONNES
OCT 16/WITH GOLD DOWN $6.45 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 6.92 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD //: // INVENTORY RESTS AT 855.45 TONNES
OCT 13/WITH GOLD UP $57.60 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: //: / /// // INVENTORY RESTS AT 862.37 TONNES
OCT 12/WITH GOLD DOWN $3.00 TODAY:BIG CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF .86 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD//: / /// // INVENTORY RESTS AT 862.37 TONNES
OCT 11/WITH GOLD UP $11.20 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:HUGE CHANGES: / /// // INVENTORY RESTS AT 861.51 TONNES
OCT 10/WITH GOLD UP $30.60 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:HUGE CHANGES: A WITHDRAWAL OF 5.77 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD// /// // INVENTORY RESTS AT 861.81 TONNES
OCT 6/WITH GOLD UP $13.05 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:HUGE CHANGES: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.73 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD// /// // INVENTORY RESTS AT 867.58 TONNES
OCT 5/WITH GOLD DOWN $1.35 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:HUGE CHANGES: A MASSIVE WITHDRAWAL OF 5.77 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD// /// // INVENTORY RESTS AT 869.31 TONNES
OCT 4/WITH GOLD DOWN $7.40 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.44 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD/// : // //INVENTORY RESTS AT 875.08 TONNES
OCT 3/WITH GOLD DOWN $6.90 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.44 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD/// : // //INVENTORY RESTS AT 875.08 TONNES
OCT 2/WITH GOLD DOWN $19.35 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: LD/ : // //INVENTORY RESTS AT 873,64 TONNES
SEPT 29/WITH GOLD DOWN $11.15 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: LD/ : // //INVENTORY RESTS AT 873,64 TONNES
SEPT 28/WITH GOLD DOWN $13.45 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A HUGE WITHDRAWAL OF 4.88 TONNES OF GOLD OUT OF THE GLD/ : // //INVENTORY RESTS AT 873,64 TONNES
SEPT 26/WITH GOLD DOWN $XXX TODAY:SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.31 TONNES OF GOLD OUT 05 THE GLD/ : // //INVENTORY RESTS AT 878.52 TONNES
SEPT 26/WITH GOLD DOWN $13.40 TODAY:SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.31 TONNES OF GOLD OUT 05 THE GLD/ : // //INVENTORY RESTS AT 878.52 TONNES
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
GLD INVENTORY: 855.45 TONNES
Now the SLV Inventory/( vehicle is a fraud as there is no physical metal behind them
OCT 17/WITH SILVER UP 23 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 447.736 MILLION OZ
OCT 16/WITH SILVER DOWN 9 CENTS TODAY: BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : //A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.664 MILLION OZ OUT OF THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 447.730 MILLION OZ
OCT 13/WITH SILVER UP 90 CENTS TODAY: BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : //A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.375 MILLION OZ OUT OF THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 450.394 MILLION OZ
OCT 12/WITH SILVER DOWN 19 CENTS TODAY: BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : //A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.825 MILLION OZ OUT OF THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.769 MILLION OZ
OCT 11/WITH SILVER UP 17 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : //A WITHDRAWAL OF .366 MILLION OZ OUT OF THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.594 MILLION OZ
OCT 10/WITH SILVER UP 25 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : //A DEPOSIT OF 1.833 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.960 MILLION OZ
OCT 6/WITH SILVER UP 69 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : //A DEPOSIT OF 0.916 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.127 MILLION OZ
OCT 5/WITH SILVER DOWN 8 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : //A MASSIVE DEPOSIT OF 8.328 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 450.211 MILLION OZ
OCT 4/WITH SILVER DOWN 34 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 441.883 MILLION OZ
OCT 3/WITH SILVER DOWN 2 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 441.883 MILLION OZ
OCT 2/WITH SILVER DOWN 98 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. : // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 441.883 MILLION OZ
SEPT 29/WITH SILVER DOWN 28 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.183 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV: // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 441.883 MILLION OZ
SEPT 28/WITH SILVER DOWN 8 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. A WITHDRAWAL OF 4.88 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV: // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 442.066 MILLION OZ
SEPT 27/WITH SILVER DOWN 20 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. A WITHDRAWAL OF .641 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV: // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 448.392 MILLION OZ
SEPT 26/WITH SILVER DOWN 20 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:. A WITHDRAWAL OF .641 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV: // /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 448.392 MILLION OZ
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 THE 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
3,Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries
for your interest….
Ronan Manly: JPM traders ravaged metals market but their bank retains dominance there
Submitted by admin on Mon, 2023-10-16 09:46Section: Daily Dispatches
9:48a Monday, October 16, 2023
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Bullion Star’s Ronan Manly today reviews the extensive criminal records of JPMorganChase traders in the monetary metals market and then enumerates 11 areas in which the bank retains its dominance of that market.
Manly might have added that while the bank is essentially a criminal conspiracy against the monetary metals industry, the industry has yet to express any objection to the bank’s conduct, either through individual mining companies or through the industry’s trade association, the World Gold Council.
Indeed, the World Gold Council seems to function mainly to ensure that there never is a world gold council.
Manly’s report is headlined “JPMorgan Gold Traders Go to Jail While JPMorgan Exits Justice Department ‘Sin Bin'” and it’s posted at Bullion Star here:
Over the past few months, gold prices have completely detached from our model-predicted prices.
While we have seen deviations between actual and predicted prices in the past, those deviations were always temporary.
What we are witnessing now is the paradigm shift we alluded to in our report from March 2023.
Some explanations for this deviation we presented in that report are still valid. However, it appears increasingly likely that the main reason for this development is the central banks’ having lost control over the gold price.
Exhibit 1: Gold prices have completely detached from model-predicted values
$/ozt
Source: Goldmoney Research
Earlier this year, we published a two-part report Gold prices reflect a shift in paradigm – Part I and Part II, (March 15 & 16, 2023) in which we explored the thesis that the gold market exhibits a permanent paradigm shift. Historically, gold prices followed three drivers: Real-interest rate expectations, longer-dated energy prices, and central bank policy (net gold sales and QE). In 2016 we presented a gold price model to our readers, which showed that most of the price changes in gold can be explained with these three drivers. Deviations of the observed price from the model were usually short lived and prices eventually converged with the underlying drivers. Readers unfamiliar with our model can catch up here (Gold Price Framework Vol. 2: The energy side of the equation, May 28, 2018, here (Part II, 10 July 2018) and here (Part III, 24 August 2018), as well as some follow up reports that built on the model (Gold Price Framework Update – the New Cycle Accelerates, 28 January 2021) and (Gold prices continue to weather the rate storm, 13 April, 2022.
When the Fed began to hike rates in late 2021 as a reaction to burgeoning inflation, gold prices did first what the model would predict: They began to decline. Rising interest rates usually lead to higher real interest rate expectations if long-term rates rise faster than long-term inflation expectations. Real-interest rate expectations (as measured by 10-year TIPS yields) are strongly inversely correlated with gold prices as shown in our model. In the past, gold prices often followed real interest rates almost tick-by-tick intraday without any other news.
The decline in gold prices in early 2022 on the back of rising real-interest rate expectations was somewhat cushioned by rising energy prices. Long-dated oil prices rallied from $63.90/bbl in December 2021 to $75.91/bbl by July 2022. In our model, the rise in 10-year tips lowered predicted gold prices by $400/ozt while the rise in deferred oil prices increased it by $100/ozt (see Exhibit 2). On net, by August 2022, gold stood at $1737/ozt, just $25/ozt over our model predicted price of $1712.
Exhibit 2: The effect on gold by the rise in 10-year TIPS yields was initially offset by rising longer-dated oil prices
$/bbl (LHS), % (RHS)
Source: FRED, Goldmoney Research
However, while model-predicted prices continued to decline on the back of relentlessly rising real-interest rate expectations – and later the retracement of long-dated oil prices – gold prices turned and started to go up again. By fall 2022, we began noticing that, once again, gold prices had meaningfully deviated from predicted values. By the time we wrote our March 2023 note, gold traded already $450/ozt over the model predicted price, an absolute record at the time. Now the delta is a staggering $668/ozt. At the time of writing, gold is trading at $1870/ozt. But based on our model, it should be closer to $1202/ozt (see Exhibit 1). The chart illustrates clearly how detached gold prices have become from our model, and thus, the underlying drivers.
In our March 2023 note, we explored several theories that attempted to explain this large discrepancy between actual and predicted prices and we discussed whether we thought this was just a temporary phenomenon or whether this was something more permanent.
The first observation was that central banks of non-OECD countries have been on a massive buying spree from late summer 2022. In our March 2023 report, we highlighted that the IMFs estimate of net central bank purchases was way too low in our view. We highlighted that even the much more optimistic estimates by the World Gold Council might be too low. For our model, we are using the high end of estimates from the WGC, but if actual gold purchases were even higher, then our model-predicted price would be too low. In addition, we also explained why we think our model may underestimate the extent to which central bank purchases drive the price. Historically, changes in CB holding were relatively small, and often the reporting time did not match the actual purchase. Particularly non- OECD central banks have been very opaque when it comes to gold purchases. That means our econometric models cannot properly attribute changes in the gold price to changes in central bank gold holdings. We concluded that the true impact on the price of gold is likely larger than what our model predicts. Thus, in our March 2023 note we came to the conclusion that strong central bank gold purchases might partially explain why our model was underpredicting prices.
However, since then central banks became net sellers again. Data from the World Gold Council shows that central banks were large net gold sellers in March, April and May of this year, and only became net gold buyers again in June, July and August.
Exhibit 3: After a few months of large increases, central banks turned to net sellers in summer 2023 again
Tonnes month-over-month
Source: WGC, Goldmoney Research
On net, central banks didn’t add more gold than normal so far in 2023. In fact, despite the strong rebound over the past few months, central banks added less gold in 2023 than on average since 2009. Hence, we can conclude that the large deviation of actual and model predicted gold prices was and is not due to abnormally high central bank gold purchases.
Exhibit 4: Central banks added less gold in 2023 than on average since 2009
Tonnes
Source: WGC, Goldmoney Research
The second observation we made is that something seemed to have changed in the relationship between real-interest rate expectations and gold prices. The US has a very useful financial instrument to observe real-interest rate expectations: Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS). TIPS are government issued bonds that pay a fixed interest, similar to Treasuries. However, TIPS also compensate the holders for inflation as measured by the CPI. Thus, TIPS tend to carry a lower yield than treasuries of equivalent maturity. The difference between the nominal yield of a treasury note and the equivalent TIPS is therefore the market’s expectations for future inflation. We call this the breakeven inflation. TIPS yields themselves reflect real-interest rate expectations, meaning what the market thinks holders will earn in (real) interest until maturity, after inflation has been taken into account. Until very recently, gold and 10-year TIPS yields showed a remarkable inverse correlation over decades. However, since fall 2022, that relationship has broken down (see Exhibit 5).
Exhibit 5: The strong inverse correlation between TIPS yields and gold has broken down
10-year TIPS yields rallied sharply since the Fed started raising rates, from -1.08% to currently 2.43%. That shift alone should have pushed gold price $600/ozt lower (see Exhibit 6).
Exhibit 6: 10-year TIPS yields moved over 3.5% higher in just 18 months
%
Source: FRED, Goldmoney Research
Arguably, there still are periods during which gold and real-interest rate move in lockstep, but for the past months, we observed long periods during which the inverse correlation between the two has completely broken down. Why is this? One can argue that the gold market is simply pricing in different inflation expectations than the TIPS market. One possible interpretation of the resilience of gold amidst rising real-interest rate expectations is that it is actually the TIPS market that is broken and not our model. While realized inflation jumped to 9% last year, implied breakeven inflation in TIPS yields barely moved above 3% and are already back to just shy of 2%, a level similar to years prior to the jump in inflation (see Exhibit 7).
Exhibit 7: 10-year TIPS breakeven inflation expectations remained low throughout the recent inflation spike
%
Source: FRED, Goldmoney Research
The absence of rising long-term breakeven inflation in the TIPS amidst relentlessly rising long-term interest rates have pushed 10-year TIPS yields to the highest level since 2008 (see Exhibit 8).
Exhibit 8: 10-year TIPS have reached levels not seen since 2008 on the back of rising nominal yields
%
Source: FRED, Goldmoney research
Inflation expectations would not have to be much higher than what is currently priced into TIPS yields to close the gap between observed and predicted gold prices. Assuming that “true” inflation expectations are 1% higher than what is embedded in 10-year TIPS yields, our model predicted gold prices would be around $1410/ozt. 2.5% higher inflation expectations close the gap almost entirely.
However, while we are sympathetic to the view that the gold market simply prices in higher (and in our view, more reasonable) longer-term inflation expectations than the TIPS market, this does still not explain why the correlation between changes in TIPS yields and gold prices seem to have completely broken-down multiple times since 2022. We, thus, present our readers with a third explanation. That is, we think western central banks have simply lost control over gold prices. What do we mean by that?
Despite abandoning the gold standard decades ago, gold prices still largely reflected central bank actions since then. Arguably western central banks so far were not primarily concerned about the price of gold in their respective currency, but they do try to control some of the factors that also drive gold prices. To illustrate this with the three main drivers for gold prices we identified in our model (Central bank net gold purchases/sales, real-interest rate expectations and longer dated energy prices):
Until recently, it was mainly western central banks that bought and sold large quantities of gold (mostly sold).
Central banks set interest rates, which impacted real-interest rates expectations. Central banks also control how much money is in circulation, which impacted inflation and inflation expectations. QE was just another form of manipulating interest rates (and we argue it is behind the surge in inflation).
On a long enough timeline, longer dated energy prices reflect mostly inflation.
In other words, markets understood that central banks and their policies were ultimately behind rising gold prices. But importantly, the market also believed that central banks had the power to reverse the impact of their policies and implicitly had the power to bring gold prices down. Our model shows that over the last 20+ years, sell-offs in gold prices were mainly due to falling longer-dated energy prices and / or rising real-interest rate expectations. The fact that the recent massive rally in real-interest rate expectations – which was entirely driven by central bank rate hikes – was just shrugged off by the gold market, suggests that the power of western central banks, and particularly the Fed, to implicitly control gold prices, has dramatically decreased, if not vanished.
To go one step further, the above interpretation may look at things the wrong way around. One can argue golds reluctance to react to the Fed rate hikes is just a symptom of a much larger issue. Rather than having lost control over gold prices, the Fed may have lost control over the US dollar itself. Gold priced in US dollars simply reflects that. And the Fed is not alone, all central banks are facing the same issue.
Gold has always been able to retain its purchasing power over the long run. But now it seems that gold is the only form of money left that retains value. All other monies are just wildly fluctuating against each other. It appears that gold is a better arbiter of value today than it has ever been since President Nixon suspended the gold standard in 1971.
Can the fed regain control over gold prices? The sharp rise in US interest rates by the Fed may have temporarily slowed price inflation as reported in the CPI. We think there is a high chance that the sudden rise in interest rates will cause a global recession in the near term, which in turn could even lead to temporary deflation as commodity demand collapses. But all the monetary policy that preceded the recent rise in inflation has not been undone and as a result, neither have all the excesses in the financial markets. For example, while the Fed funds rate went from zero to 5.5%, the Fed only unwound a fraction of its assets, from $9 trillion to $8 trillion (see Exhibit 9). Since the start of QT, the Fed has reduced its balance sheet by roughly $13bn per week. At this pace, it would take until 2029 to bring back the Feds balance sheet to just pre-pandemic levels, and until 2034 to bring it back to pre-financial crisis levels.
Exhibit 9: Amidst massively tighter financial conditions, the Feds balance sheet has barely moved lower
$ millions
Source: FRED, Goldmoney Research
It is extremely unlikely in our view that we will see significantly more QT until the next crisis forces the Fed to reverse course. More and more people are recognizing that gold is a neutral anchor in an increasingly fragile currency world.
They chose to move more of their wealth in gold simply because the uncertainty of currency value remains extremely high even as observed inflation has come off substantially.
In our past reports about this topic, we concluded that the reasons why gold prices deviate from their historical drivers may well be permanent, but there is also a risk that the impending recession will crush that gap as inflation turns to deflation, real-interest rate expectations jump and investors seek refuge in the $ rather than gold, as they have done before, most notably in the early days of the great financial crisis in 2008/2009. While we still think that a sharp recession can put downward pressure on gold prices, we no longer think that the gap between observed prices and model predicted prices will close. The drivers behind the deviation are permanent in our view. Foreign central banks will most likely continue increasing their gold holdings.
“True” inflation expectations will remain high, and probably rise sharply when the Fed and other western central banks will inevitably return to ZIRP and NIRP and aggressively pursue QE. This will further undermine the Feds and other central banks ability to control the exchange rate between gold and their respective currencies.
end
5 a. IMPORTANT COMMENTARIES ON COMMODITIES:
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 TUESDAY MORNING.7:30 AM
ONSHORE YUAN: CLOSED DOWN AT 7.3127
OFFSHORE YUAN: DOWN TO 7.3227
SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 9.68 PTS OR .31%
HANG SENG CLOSED UP 132,73 PTS OR 0.75%
2. Nikkei closed UP 381.26 PTS OR 1.20 %
3. Europe stocks SO FAR: MOSTLY RED
USA dollar INDEX DOWN TO 105.96 EURO RISES TO 1.0576 UP 5 BASIS PTS
3b Japan 10 YR bond yield: RISES TO. +.794 Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese YEN vs USA cross now at 149.47/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 UP /JAPANESE Yen DOWN 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 DOWN for WTI and DOWN FOR Brent this morning
3h European bond buying continues to push yields lower on all fronts in the EMU. German 10yr bund UP TO +2.8323***/Italian 10 Yr bond yield UP to 4.8940*** /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD UP TO 3.956…**
3i Greek 10 year bond yield RISES TO 4.298
3j Gold at $1927.90 silver at: 22.76 1 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $30.00
3k USA vs Russian rouble;// Russian rouble DOWN 0 AND 5 /100 roubles/dollar; ROUBLE AT 97.34//
3m oil into the 86 dollar handle for WTI and 89 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 149.47// 10 YEAR YIELD AFTER FIRST BREAKING .54% LAST YEAR NOW EXCEEDS THAT LEVEL TO 0.794% 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 0.8996 as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF 0.9516 well above the floor set by the Swiss Finance Minister. Thomas Jordan, chief of the Swiss National Bank continues to purchase euros trying to lower value of the Swiss Franc.
USA 10 YR BOND YIELD: 4.763 UP 5 BASIS PTS…
USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 4.913 UP 5 BASIS PTS/
USA 2 YR BOND YIELD: 5.118 UP 2 BASIS PTS
USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 27.92…(TURKEY SET TO BLOW UP FINANCIALLY)
GREAT BRITAIN/10 YEAR YIELD: UP 3 BASIS PTS AT 4.5450
end
2.a Overnight: Newsquawk and Zero hedge:
Futures Slide As 10Y Yields Spike Back Over 4.80%
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 08:51 AM
US index futures slid and global markets dropped as yields rose to session highs as complacent investors once again pressed hopes that the Israel-Hamas war could be resolved diplomatically, after Joe Biden said he will travel to Israel to “show his support”, which in turn shifted attention back to the untenable US fiscal situation which meant the blowout in yields would continue. At 8:15am S&P futures dropped 0.3% as traders assessed a flurry of major earnings. 10Y TSY yields rose to a high of 4.76%, spiking 20bps in the past two days and undoing much of the “flight to safety” after the Israel war. The dollar steadied, while the pound fell after cooling UK wage growth reduced pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates further. Israel’s shekel gained after weakening past 4 against the greenback on Monday. Brent crude oil traded near $90 a barrel.
Today we get the September retail sales and industrial production data before markets open, as well as reports on business inventories and cross-border investment. We also get a slew of Fed speakers including New York Fed President John Williams, Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin, Fed Governor Michelle Bowman and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari.
In premarket trading, Bank of America gained after its net interest income beat estimates even as its HTM losses soared by $26 billion to a record $132 billion. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. fluctuated as its results showed a beat in trading revenue and a drop in profit. Here are some other premarket movers:
Johnson & Johnson jumped 1.6% after reporting sales for the third quarter that beat the average analyst estimate.
Dollar Tree rises 2.6% as Goldman Sachs raises its recommendation on the retailer to buy from neutral, based on its strong earnings growth potential.
Mondelez International shares rise 0.8%. The company’s lower exposure to the US market is probably a positive, BNP Paribas Exane writes in a note upgrading its rating on the packaged-food company to outperform.
Viasat rose 5.54% as JPMorgan raised its recommendation to overweight from neutral. The broker said investors should be encouraged by the satellite company’s increased cost discipline.
NetScout fell 23% as the cybersecurity company cut its adjusted earnings per share guidance for the full year. The guidance also missed the average analyst estimate.
The market mood was largely set by news that JOe Biden is set to travel to Israel Wednesday, aiming to show solidarity with the US’s closest ally in the Middle East and prevent the conflict from engulfing the wider region. He’ll then be in Jordan for talks with King Abdullah II and Egyptian and Palestinian Authority leaders.
“Markets fear a ground offensive by Israel that could ignite a larger and more complicated regional conflict that risks regional supply chains, energy output, economic growth and financial stability,” said Kyle Rodda, senior market analyst at Capital.com. “The presence of President Biden in the region potentially lowers the odds of such an offensive in the coming days, providing markets with some breathing room, if only for a small window.”
Meanwhile, investors are closely assessing the health of this batch of corporate results, after Wall Street strategists warned that the outlook for earnings is weakening. An update is also due Tuesday from United Airlines Holdings Inc. before Netflix Inc. and Tesla Inc. kick off tech-related earnings on Wednesday.
On top of geopolitics and earnings, Bloomberg notes that traders are tracking comments from a slew of Federal Reserve speakers this week before a blackout period in the lead-up to the central bank’s November rate-setting meeting. Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker on Monday repeated comments he made last week asserting the central bank can hold its benchmark rate steady as long as there is not a sharp turn in the economic data.
Pessimism around the economic outlook is driving investors to cash, according to BofA’s global fund manager survey. The broadest measure of sentiment — based on cash positions, equity allocation and economic predictions — fell in the October poll after showing an improvement in the summer months, BofA strategists led by Michael Hartnett wrote in a note. Cash levels as a percentage of assets under management have climbed above 5%.
A net 50% of investors in the BofA survey expect a weaker global economy over the next 12 months, with more concerned about a hard landing than previously. At the same time, the soft landing of a “Goldilocks” scenario remains the base case. Most surveyed remain convinced the Fed has finished its rate-hiking cycle.
European stocks opened higher but then traded lower as markets awaited President Biden’s arrival in Israel. The Stoxx 600 is down 0.4% after fluctuating during the trading session. Ericsson AB plunged more than 9% after the Swedish 5G-equipment maker warned of persisting weak demand. Rolls Royce Holdings Plc rose after the jet engine maker announced plans to cut jobs and streamline its business. Poland’s stocks and currency extended gains following Sunday’s elections, which gave pro-European Union parties a majority in parliament. Here are some of the most notable European movers:
Rolls-Royce rises as much as 2.4%, extending this year’s continent-beating rally, as the British engineer announces plans to cut as many as 2,500 jobs
Umicore jumps as much as 16%, the most in more than a year, after the governments of Canada and its largest province, Ontario, said they would provide the company subsidies to build a large plant
St James’s Place shares rally, recovering from an initial drop after the UK wealth manager said it sees a hit to underlying cash from its revised charging structure
Chemring rises as much as 6%, the steepest advance since Aug. 1, after the UK defense company received most of the necessary approvals from the US Department of Defense on certain countermeasure deliveries
XPS Pensions rises as much as 11%, hitting a record high, after saying it expects to deliver results ahead of previous expectations. Canaccord lifts its EPS estimates and price target following Tuesday’s update
Unieuro rises as much as 7.2%, the most intraday since June 2022, after the Italian consumer electronics chain agreed to buy Covercare
EQT falls as much as 7.9% after the Swedish private equity firm reported third-quarter sales and revenues. The group said fundraising is taking longer than before, which Citi flags as a key negative
Ericsson shares fall as much as 9.5% on Tuesday to the lowest level since 2017, after the telecom equipment maker gave a tepid profitability outlook for the fourth quarter and scrapped its 2024 Ebita margin target
Lonza Group shares slump as much as 12%, after the Swiss supplier for pharmaceutical and nutrition companies warned on a hit to 2024 earnings
Munters drops as much as 6.5%, hitting the lowest in three months, as Nordea downgrades its rating on the Swedish industrial ventilation and climate systems group to hold
Bellway shares fall as much as 4.2% after the housebuilder lowered guidance for housing completions in fiscal 2024, missing estimates
Earlier in the session, Asian stocks advanced, halting a two-day selloff, as technology stocks rallied amid easing concerns over a wider conflict in the Middle East. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed as much as 0.8%, with chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor and Samsung the biggest boosts. Benchmarks in South Korea, and the Philippines were among the largest gainers amid broad regional gains.
Stocks climbed in Hong Kong while a key measure of mainland-listed stocks edged higher after China said it would tighten curbs on short-selling activities. Investors await GDP data Wednesday that is expected to show continued weakness in the economy.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was boosted at the open and briefly climbed above 32,000 although has since pulled back from intraday highs and proceeded to oscillate around the key aforementioned level.
Australia’s ASX 200 was led by outperformance in tech and telecoms, while mining names also benefitted following Rio Tinto’s quarterly update which showed an increase in iron ore shipments despite a decline in output.
Indian stock rose, snapping a three-day losing streak, after the nation’s largest private lender posted net income that topped estimates. The S&P BSE Sensex closed 0.4% higher to 66,428.09 in Mumbai, while the NSE Nifty 50 Index rose by a similar magnitude. Local shares tracked gains in Asian equities as technology stocks rallied amid easing concerns over a wider conflict in the Middle East.
In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.3% as markets weighed ongoing diplomatic efforts to contain an escalation in the Israel-Hamas war; the dollar gained against all Group-of-10 peers bar the Australian dollar
The yen briefly spiked after a report that the Bank of Japan is likely to discuss raising its inflation projections for 2023 and 2024 fiscal years at its policy meeting later this month.
AUD/USD rose as much as 0.4% to 0.6367 after RBA minutes indicated the central bank considered hiking rates again
GBP/USD fell as much as 0.6% to 1.2150 after cooling UK wage growth data bolstered the case for the Bank of England to keep rates on hold next month
NZD/USD slumped as much as 0.6%, leading Group-of-10 declines against the dollar, after New Zealand’s inflation level slowed more than expected in the third quarter
In Rates, treasuries resumed their selloff on Tuesday, with futures near session lows as US trading day begins after sliding during Asia session and London morning. Weakness continues to be led by long-end and intermediates, steepening the curve. US yields are cheaper by more than 6bp at long end, steepening 2s10s, 5s30s curves by ~4bp and ~2bp on the day; 10-year around 4.80% is cheaper by ~10bp vs Monday close with bunds and gilts outperforming by 1bp and 4bp in the sector. Gilts outperform their German counterparts after UK wage growth eased in August. UK two-year yields are down 2bps.
In commodities, Brent futures rise 0.5% to trade near $90.10 and spot gold adds 0.2% to around $1,923.
Bitcoin traded just above $28,000; Israel ordered a freeze on some crypto accounts in a bid to block funding for Hamas with about 100 accounts on Binance closed after appeals for donations appeared on social media, according to FT.
To the day ahead, and today’s data releases include US retail sales, industrial production and capacity utilisation for September, along with the NAHB’s housing market index for October. Elsewhere, we’ll get Canada’s CPI for September and the German ZEW survey for October. From central banks, we’ll hear from the Fed’s Williams, Bowman, Barkin and Kashkari, ECB Vice President de Guindos, the ECB’s Knot, Centeno, Holzmann and Nagel, and the BoE’s Dhingra. Finally, today’s earnings releases include Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, United Airlines, and Johnson & Johnson.
Market Snapshot
S&P 500 futures little changed at 4,396.75
MXAP up 0.7% to 156.62
MXAPJ up 0.5% to 491.64
Nikkei up 1.2% to 32,040.29
Topix up 0.8% to 2,292.08
Hang Seng Index up 0.8% to 17,773.34
Shanghai Composite up 0.3% to 3,083.50
Sensex up 0.4% to 66,410.45
Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.4% to 7,056.09
Kospi up 1.0% to 2,460.17
STOXX Europe 600 little changed at 450.37
German 10Y yield little changed at 2.79%
Euro down 0.2% to $1.0539
Brent Futures little changed at $89.63/bbl
Gold spot down 0.0% to $1,919.52
U.S. Dollar Index up 0.18% to 106.43
Top Overnight News
The weak outcome of Japan’s 20-year bond auction is pointing to a lack of demand from domestic banks and life insurers. The ¥1.2 trillion ($8 billion) sale of sovereign debt Tuesday indicated poor investor appetite by three major measures, including the bid-cover ratio, amid expectations of higher yields at home and abroad. Japanese major banks and regional lenders have dumped super-long Japanese government bonds for nine straight months through August. BBG
China has told state-owned banks to roll over existing local government debt with longer-term loans at lower interest rates, two sources with knowledge of the matter said, as part of Beijing’s efforts to reduce debt risks in a faltering economy. RTRS
Chinese civil servants and employees of state-linked enterprises are facing tighter constraints on private travel abroad and scrutiny of their foreign connections, according to official notices and more than a dozen people familiar with the matter, as Beijing wages a campaign against foreign influence. RTRS
The clock is ticking for Country Garden to avoid its first-ever public dollar-bond default. The Chinese builder missed the original deadline for the $15.4 million coupon on the note last month, and the grace period ends Oct. 17-18. BBG
Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing as China kicks off its Belt and Road Forum. Xi Jinping is set to meet Putin tomorrow just as the US presses China to help it reduce tensions in the Middle East. The ties between the two leaders face heightened scrutiny. BBG
President Biden is expected to visit Israel on Wednesday as pressure mounted to provide safety and aid to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza who have fled their homes before a likely Israeli invasion. Officials have warned a humanitarian crisis there will worsen without immediate help. NYT
US retail sales probably rose 0.3% in September, half of August’s advance. There’s limited scope for an upside surprise, Bloomberg Economics said. Looking ahead, holiday season spending is expected to grow 14% this year, a Deloitte survey showed, with middle-income consumers impacted by college debt and low wage growth. BBG
Jim Jordan closed in on the votes he needs to be the next House speaker, but a band of Republican holdouts continues to threaten his bid. The hardline conservative from Ohio plans to proceed with a vote as early as noon today and is prepared for multiple ballots if necessary, a person familiar said. BBG
The boom in private credit, a fast-growing $1.5 trillion corner of Wall Street born during an era of ultralow interest rates, is starting to show cracks. High borrowing costs, an economic slowdown and contractions in credit markets are testing private credit as never before. Many borrowers paying floating rates that fluctuate with benchmark interest rates are having a difficult time keeping up with rising debt payments, resulting in defaulting loans and, in some cases, bankruptcies. WSJ
The push by employers to get American workers back into the office appears to be working. Fewer than 26% of US households still have someone working remotely at least one day a week, a sharp decline from the early-2021 peak of 37%, according to the two latest Census Bureau Household Pulse Surveys. Only seven states plus Washington, DC, have a remote-work rate above 33%, the data shows, down from 31 states and DC mid-pandemic. BBG
A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk
APAC stocks were mostly positive following the gains across global counterparts which unwound the recent geopolitical hedging and with President Biden to travel to the Middle East on Wednesday, although the upside was capped as risks of a widening conflict in the Middle East conflict lingered amid threats from Iran. ASX 200 was led by outperformance in tech and telecoms, while mining names also benefitted following Rio Tinto’s uarterly update which showed an increase in iron ore shipments despite a decline in output. Nikkei 225 was boosted at the open and briefly climbed above 32,000 although has since pulled back from intraday highs and proceeded to oscillate around the key aforementioned level. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp. were both positive although the mainland lagged amid developer debt concerns with Country Garden on the cusp of a default as the grace period for a USD 15mln coupon payment expires today and with an Evergrande unit to seek creditor approval to extend yuan-denominated bonds.
Top Asian News
RBA Minutes from the October meeting stated the board considered raising rates by 25bps or holding steady and agreed the case for holding steady was the stronger one, while members noted data on inflation, jobs and updated forecasts would be available at the November meeting. RBA Minutes stated members acknowledged upside risks to inflation were a significant concern and said progress in lowering service sector inflation was slow, while the Board had a low tolerance for a slower return of inflation to the target and it stated that further tightening may be required if inflation is more persistent than expected.
Japan’s Rengo (labour organisation) intends to ask for more than a 5% wage hike in the spring 2024 wage discussions, via NHK; is planning to ask for a “more than 3%” base wage hike in Spring 2024 wage discussions.
PBoC has instructed state banks are to roll over local govt loans with longer term and lower rates; PBoC is to set up an emergency liquidity tool with banks; loans made via tool should be repaid in two years, according to Reuters sources. New interest rates should not be lower than China’s Treasury bonds, with terms no longer than 10 years.
BoJ reportedly mulls raising its FY23 price view closer to 3%; mulls raising FY24 price view to 2% or above; inflation outlook is said to keep FY25 around 1.6%, according to Bloomberg sources.
European bourses are near the unchanged mark with performance mixed as some regions manage to eke out mild gains while others reside slightly in the red as geopolitical tensions continue to dominate newsflow, Euro Stoxx 50 -0.3%. After the cash open, a bout of pressure occurred in proximity to remarks from the Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei, commentary which aired just prior to the ZEW release which sparked a recovery from the rhetoric-driven session lows in European equity benchmarks. Sectors are mixed with defensively inclined components such as Real Estate, Health Care and Utilities outperforming while Basic Resources is the laggard alongside underlying benchmarks and after Rio Tinto’s update.
Top European News
Poland Election Final Results: PiS 35.38%, Civic Coalition (KO) 30.7%, Third Way 14.4%, New Left 8.6%, far-right Confederation 7.16%. As a reminder, the first exit poll had PiS with 40.36%, Civic Coalition with 26.4%, Third Way 13.6%, Left 8.3% & far-right Confederation 7.4%.
BoE’s Dhingra says average weekly earnings data appear to give a more inflated picture of the wage outlook vs other measures; she expects some letting-up of wage growth. Says the labour market is really loosening and does not see further wage growth momentum. Should see some relenting of domestic inflation pressures.
FX
Hawkish RBA minutes underpin Aussie as AUD/USD pivots 0.6350 and AUD/NZD approaches 1.0800 from just shy of 1.0700, Kiwi undermined by softer than forecast NZ Q3 CPI metrics, with NZD/USD under 0.5900.
Pound soft in line with headline UK average earnings vs consensus and BoE’s Dhingra chiming with others that the weekly numbers inflate the real picture, Cable tests 1.2150 to the downside from 1.2200+ at one stage.
Euro supported by 1.0500 expiries and better than expected ZEW survey, Yen initially reliant on 150.00 expiry interest as DXY forms base on 106.000 handle within 106.200-490 range.
Most recently, USD/JPY has been hit by a BoJ sources piece around the inflation outlook which pushed it down to a brief 148.75 trough, a move which has since partially retraced and as such USD/JPY is currently around 149.40.
Loonie sits between 1.3650-00 band awaiting Canadian inflation data.
PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1796 vs exp. 7.3038 (prev. 7.1798).
Fixed Income
Gilts bolstered between 93.91-41 parameters by benign UK wage data, dovish comments from BoE’s Dhingra and IFS predicting PSBR undershoot.
Bunds lag within 128.71-129.14 range after better than forecast German ZEW survey and irrespective of solid Schatz sale.
T-notes rooted towards base of 106-29/107-08 band ahead of US retail sales, ip and quartet of Fed orators.
Commodities
Crude benchmarks are modestly firmer on the session but price action has been choppy within relatively tight ranges thus far with geopolitical updates driving action thus far.
WTI & Brent Dec futures currently post gains of circa. 0.5% on the session, at the top-end of respective USD ~1.00/bbl parameters.
Spot gold is essentially flat, holding just above the USD 1920/oz figure and as such well within Monday’s USD 1908-32 boundaries.
Base metals are pressured given the cautious mood and as the USD benefits from this, LME Copper towards USD 7.9k/T, pressure perhaps also emanating from the latest Rio Tinto update.
Commerzbank now sees gold price around USD 1,900/oz at the end of December (prev. USD 2,000/oz); 2024 forecast remains unchanged at USD 2,100/oz.
Chevron (CVX) Australia spokesperson said they are continuing work to conclude the drafting of proposed enterprise agreements for Gorgon and Wheatstone facilities based on clarification provided by the Fair Work Commission, according to Reuters.
US State Department said it welcomes the announcement by Maduro representatives and the unitary platform to resume negotiations, while it added the US will continue efforts to unite the international community to support the Venezuelan-led negotiation process.
Geopolitics
Israeli PM Netanyahu spoke With Russian President Putin and made it clear that Israel will not stop the Gaza operations until Hamas is destroyed, according to Reuters. It was separately reported that Russian President Putin told Israeli PM Netanyahu that Russia is ready to help end the confrontation in the region and resolve it peacefully, according to TASS
US Secretary of State Blinken confirmed US President Biden will travel to Israel on Wednesday and will reaffirm US solidarity with Israel, while he added that Biden will make it clear that Israel has the right to defend itself and will underscore their message to any actor trying to take advantage of the crisis to attack Israel. Furthermore, Blinken said US and Israel agreed to develop a plan that will allow aid to reach Gaza civilians and noted it is critical that aid begin to flow into Gaza as soon as possible.
White House’s Kirby said US President Biden expects to hear from Israeli officials about what they need, while he added that President Biden will then travel to Amman to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President El-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Abbas.
US Central Command head General Kurilla flew to Israel for talks with military leaders with the visit aiming to ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself and is focused on avoiding expansion of the conflict.
Russia’s draft UN Security Council resolution on Israel and Gaza failed to receive the minimum nine votes needed, while the Russian UN envoy said the UN Security Council is hostage to Western countries and the UN vote shows who is in favour of a truce in Gaza and delivery of humanitarian aid. Furthermore, the US envoy to the UN accused Russia of giving cover to a terrorist group that brutalises civilians by not condemning Hamas in a draft resolution, according to Reuters.
US Defense Secretary Austin has put in “be ready to deploy” orders for a select number of American troops should Israel need them, while a separate report stated that about 2,000 troops were told to prepare for deployment.
The delay in the Israeli ground attack on Gaza is reportedly due to a growing concern that Hezbollah is waiting for the moment that most IDF forces are committed to Gaza to open a full front with the IDF in the north, according to Jerusalem Post sources.
Russian President Putin said China’s proposal for peace talks with Ukraine could become a realistic basis for a peace agreement, according to an interview with Chinese television. However, he also accused Ukraine of not allowing peace negotiations, according to DPA.
AJA Breaking reports, citing Israeli Radio, that the “Israeli army is intensively bombing many targets in southern Lebanon after bombing the town of Metulla” & “Israeli bombing targets the road between the towns of Kafr Kila and Al-Adisa in the eastern sector of southern Lebanon”
Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei says if Israel’s crimes continue then no one can stop “Muslims around the world and resistance forces”. Gaza bombardments must stop immediately.
Lebanese Foreign Minister says Israeli attack in south Lebanon pours “oil on fire” and threaten to ignite a front.
Iran Guard’s Deputy Chief says “another shockwave” is on the way if Israel does not end atrocities in Gaza, according to Fars News.
Central Bank speakers
08:00: Fed’s Williams Moderates Discussion at Economic Club of NY
09:20: Fed’s Bowman Speaks on Innovation in Payments
10:45: Fed’s Barkin Speaks on the Economic Outlook
17:00: Fed’s Kashkari Participates in a Moderated Discussion
08:30: Sept. Retail Sales Ex Auto 0.6%, est. 0.2%, prior 0.6%
08:30: Sept. Retail Sales Ex Auto and Gas 0.6%, est. 0.1%, prior 0.2%
08:30: Sept. Retail Sales Control Group 0.6%, est. 0.1%, prior 0.1%
09:15: Sept. Industrial Production MoM, est. 0%, prior 0.4%
10:00: Aug. Business Inventories, est. 0.3%, prior 0%
10:00: Oct. NAHB Housing Market Index, est. 44, prior 45
16:00: Aug. Total Net TIC Flows, prior $140.6b
DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap
Markets seems to be taking the geopolitical risk session by session at the moment, rather than having any strategic sense of where things are heading. It feels like we’re in a very dangerous and delicate holding pattern for now, but with no major developments since the Israeli evacuation notice to Gaza residents on Friday, markets have taken off their weekend hedges over the last 24 hours or so.
Headlining this was the +1.06% advance in the S&P 500, which represents the best start to a week since February. Meanwhile the whipsaw in bonds continued with 10yr Treasury yields up +9.4bps on the day to 4.71%, with another +3.8bps move overnight to 4.74%. This time yesterday we highlighted reports that US President Biden was considering a trip to Israel, which was generally taken as a positive sign that the US is working to prevent an escalation, or that one won’t happen while he’s in the region. But that visit from Biden has since been confirmed by US Secretary of State Blinken overnight, and is set to take place tomorrow. Yesterday’s market moves showed that assets most sensitive to an escalation were reacting in a positive direction. For instance, Brent crude oil prices were down -1.36% to $89.65/bbl, Israel’s TA-35 equity index was up +2.46%, and the US Dollar index weakened by -0.38% as investors took out some of the recent geopolitical risk premium. The exception was Israel’s shekel, which weakened to an 8-year low against the dollar (-0.90%).
The bond sell-off was matched by growing anticipation that the Fed might deliver another rate hike in 2023 after all, with pricing for a hike by December up from 32% at the close last week, to 37% yesterday. In turn, yields on 2yr Treasuries were up +4.3bps to 5.10%, whilst the 30yr yield was up +9.7bps to 4.85%. The long-end sell off was shared across real yields and breakevens, with the 10yr real yield up +4.5bps to 2.32%, and the 30yr real yield was up +5.3bps to 2.42%. US retail sales and industrial production today will be a chance for the macro to compete with the geopolitics again for bonds.
It was much the same story in Europe, with yields rising across most of the continent. Those on UK gilts saw the biggest increase, with the 10yr yield up +9.5bps to 4.48%, which followed comments from BoE Chief economist Pill that there was still “some work to do” for the Monetary Policy Committee to achieve their inflation target. Elsewhere in Europe, yields on 10yr bunds (+4.7bps) and OATs (+3.8bps) also moved higher, but BTPs (-1.0bps) were the exception in spite of a government announcement of a new €24bn budget law that includes tax cuts and public sector wage rises. So risk-on offset the fiscal implications.
Whilst bonds were selling off, equities saw a much better performance with all 24 industry groups in the S&P 500 (+1.06%) rising on the day. Small-cap stocks were one of the strongest performers as the Russell 2000 rose +1.59%. Meanwhile in Europe, the STOXX 600 (+0.23%) also recovered from Friday’s losses, and Polish equities saw a major outperformance following the election on Sunday which will likely yield a pro-EU government under the leadership of former Polish PM and European Council President Donald Tusk. That rally included the WIG20 index (+5.31%), which had its best day since February 2022, whilst the Polish Zloty (+1.82%) had its best day against the Euro since March 2022.
In other news, the sharp run-up in European natural gas prices subsided yesterday, with a -12.2% decline to €48.6/MWh. That’s been h elped by the absence of an escalation in the Middle East, as well as the prospect of milder weather after the present colder period passes. European gas storage is now some way above its levels at the same point in recent years, with storage facilities 97.95% full as of Sunday. There was also a decent move lower in US natural gas futures (-3.92%) as well yesterday, which saw their biggest decline in nearly a month.
Overnight in Asia, those gains for equities have continued against the backdrop of ongoing diplomatic efforts. All the major indices have advanced, including the KOSPI (+1.16%), the Nikkei (+1.08%), the Hang Seng (+0.70%), the CSI 300 (+0.46%) and the Shanghai Comp (+0.26%). Overnight, we’ve also seen a selloff among Australian government bonds following the release of the RBA’s minutes from the October meeting. That said they considered raising rates this month, and also that “the board has a low tolerance for a slower return of inflation to target than currently expected.” In light of that, yields on 10yr Australian government bonds are up +9.2bps, and the Australian Dollar is the best-performing G10 currency overnight. Looking forward, US equity futures are slightly lower this morning, with those on the S&P 500 down -0.12% ahead of several earnings releases this week.
There wasn’t much in the way of data releases yesterday, although we did get the Empire State manufacturing survey for October in the US. That fell back into negative territory at -4.6 (vs. -6.0 expected), and the measure of unfilled orders (-19.1) fell to its lowest level since May 2020 during the initial wave of the pandemic. There were also some more positive signals on the inflation side, with the 6-months ahead prices received indicator down to a 3-year low of 16.0.
Looking forward, we could get some more developments on the election of a new Speaker of the US House of Representatives today. The Republicans have nominated Rep. Jim Jordan, and yesterday he appeared to receive the backing of some key Republicans that had been opposed to his nomination. CNN reported yesterday that Jordan said he would force a floor vote at noon today for the speaker election, so that’s one to look out for. Should Jordan be confirmed as Speaker, investors will be watching what this means for fiscal bargaining in Congress ahead of the next government shutdown deadline in mid-November .
To the day ahead, and today’s data releases include US retail sales, industrial production and capacity utilisation for September, along with the NAHB’s housing market index for October. Elsewhere, we’ll get Canada’s CPI for September and the German ZEW survey for October. From central banks, we’ll hear from the Fed’s Williams, Bowman, Barkin and Kashkari, ECB Vice President de Guindos, the ECB’s Knot, Centeno, Holzmann and Nagel, and the BoE’s Dhingra. Finally, today’s earnings releases include Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, United Airlines, and Johnson & Johnson.
2 B) NOW NEWSQUAWK (EUROPE/REPORT)
Geopolitical developments overshadow better-than-expected ZEW, JPY action on sources – Newsquawk US Market Open
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 06:47 AM
European bourses & US futures are mixed to modestly pressured as a better-than-expected ZEW is overshadowed by geopolitics
EUR off lows given the data and support via expiries at 1.05, action which has pulled the DXY away from its 106.49 peak, JPY action on BoJ sources re. inflation outlook
Geopolitical updates incl. confirmation that Biden will travel to Israel on Wednesday, since then there has been bouts of punchy rhetoric from Iran’s Khamenei
ZEW was better than expected, bringing Bunds back below the 129.00 mark which was breached pre-release with USTs directionally in-fitting
Crude benchmarks are near the unchanged mark with action choppy & rangebound, base metals pressured by the overall tone
Looking ahead, highlights include US Retail Sales, Industrial Production, Capacity Utilisation & Business Inventories, Speeches from Fed’s Williams, Bowman, Barkin, Kashkari & ECB’s de Guindos, Fed Discount Rate Minutes. Earnings from JNJ, Prologis, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America & Lockheed Martin.
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EUROPEAN TRADE
EQUITIES
European bourses are near the unchanged mark with performance mixed as some regions manage to eke out mild gains while others reside slightly in the red as geopolitical tensions continue to dominate newsflow, Euro Stoxx 50 -0.3%.
After the cash open, a bout of pressure occurred in proximity to remarks from the Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei, commentary which aired just prior to the ZEW release which sparked a recovery from the rhetoric-driven session lows in European equity benchmarks.
Sectors are mixed with defensively inclined components such as Real Estate, Health Care and Utilities outperforming while Basic Resources is the laggard alongside underlying benchmarks and after Rio Tinto’s update.
Stateside, futures are slightly softer but the ES -0.1% remains in relative proximity to the 4400 handle ahead of Fed’s Williams, more key earnings and data points incl. Retail Sales; ahead of earnings in the pre-market, GS -0.5% & LMT +0.5%.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) Q3 2023 (USD): adj. EPS 2.66 (exp. 2.51), Revenue 21.35bln (exp. 21.03bln); recognises a one-time USD 21bln gain relating to separation of consumer business. FY EPS view 10.07-10.13 (exp. 10.03), Revenue view 84.4-84.8 (exp. 84.53bln).
Hawkish RBA minutes underpin Aussie as AUD/USD pivots 0.6350 and AUD/NZD approaches 1.0800 from just shy of 1.0700, Kiwi undermined by softer than forecast NZ Q3 CPI metrics, with NZD/USD under 0.5900.
Pound soft in line with headline UK average earnings vs consensus and BoE’s Dhingra chiming with others that the weekly numbers inflate the real picture, Cable tests 1.2150 to the downside from 1.2200+ at one stage.
Euro supported by 1.0500 expiries and better than expected ZEW survey, Yen initially reliant on 150.00 expiry interest as DXY forms base on 106.000 handle within 106.200-490 range.
Most recently, USD/JPY has been hit by a BoJ sources piece around the inflation outlook which pushed it down to a brief 148.75 trough, a move which has since partially retraced and as such USD/JPY is currently around 149.40.
Loonie sits between 1.3650-00 band awaiting Canadian inflation data.
PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1796 vs exp. 7.3038 (prev. 7.1798).
Crude benchmarks are modestly firmer on the session but price action has been choppy within relatively tight ranges thus far with geopolitical updates driving action thus far.
WTI & Brent Dec futures currently post gains of circa. 0.5% on the session, at the top-end of respective USD ~1.00/bbl parameters.
Spot gold is essentially flat, holding just above the USD 1920/oz figure and as such well within Monday’s USD 1908-32 boundaries.
Base metals are pressured given the cautious mood and as the USD benefits from this, LME Copper towards USD 7.9k/T, pressure perhaps also emanating from the latest Rio Tinto update.
Commerzbank now sees gold price around USD 1,900/oz at the end of December (prev. USD 2,000/oz); 2024 forecast remains unchanged at USD 2,100/oz.
Chevron (CVX) Australia spokesperson said they are continuing work to conclude the drafting of proposed enterprise agreements for Gorgon and Wheatstone facilities based on clarification provided by the Fair Work Commission, according to Reuters.
US State Department said it welcomes the announcement by Maduro representatives and the unitary platform to resume negotiations, while it added the US will continue efforts to unite the international community to support the Venezuelan-led negotiation process.
Poland Election Final Results: PiS 35.38%, Civic Coalition (KO) 30.7%, Third Way 14.4%, New Left 8.6%, far-right Confederation 7.16%. As a reminder, the first exit poll had PiS with 40.36%, Civic Coalition with 26.4%, Third Way 13.6%, Left 8.3% & far-right Confederation 7.4%.
BoE’s Dhingra says average weekly earnings data appear to give a more inflated picture of the wage outlook vs other measures; she expects some letting-up of wage growth. Says the labour market is really loosening and does not see further wage growth momentum. Should see some relenting of domestic inflation pressures.
EUROPEAN DATA RECAP
UK Average Earnings (Ex-Bonus)* (Aug 2023) 7.8% vs. Exp. 7.8% (Prev. 7.8%, Rev. 7.9%); 3M YY (Aug 2023) 8.1% vs. Exp. 8.3% (Prev. 8.5%)
UK HMRC Payrolls Change (Sep) -11k (prev. 0k. rev. -8k)
German ZEW Economic Sentiment (Oct 2023) -1.1 vs. Exp. -9.3 (Prev. -11.4); Current Conditions (Oct 2023) -79.9 vs. Exp. -80.8 (Prev. -79.4)
ZEW: It appears the lowest point has been passed. Assessment of the current economic situation in Germany has barely changed. Heightened economic expectations are accompanied by the expectations that inflation rates will fall further. Negative factors such as the Israeli conflict, cited by some respondents as the reason for revising their growth forecasts downwards – had only limited impact on the overall more optimistic outlook.
NOTABLE US HEADLINES
Fed’s Harker (voter) said the Fed should not be considering more rate increases, while he is seeing signs of a better-balanced labour market and easier wage pressures.
Israeli PM Netanyahu spoke With Russian President Putin and made it clear that Israel will not stop the Gaza operations until Hamas is destroyed, according to Reuters. It was separately reported that Russian President Putin told Israeli PM Netanyahu that Russia is ready to help end the confrontation in the region and resolve it peacefully, according to TASS
US Secretary of State Blinken confirmed US President Biden will travel to Israel on Wednesday and will reaffirm US solidarity with Israel, while he added that Biden will make it clear that Israel has the right to defend itself and will underscore their message to any actor trying to take advantage of the crisis to attack Israel. Furthermore, Blinken said US and Israel agreed to develop a plan that will allow aid to reach Gaza civilians and noted it is critical that aid begin to flow into Gaza as soon as possible.
White House’s Kirby said US President Biden expects to hear from Israeli officials about what they need, while he added that President Biden will then travel to Amman to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President El-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Abbas.
US Central Command head General Kurilla flew to Israel for talks with military leaders with the visit aiming to ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself and is focused on avoiding expansion of the conflict.
Russia’s draft UN Security Council resolution on Israel and Gaza failed to receive the minimum nine votes needed, while the Russian UN envoy said the UN Security Council is hostage to Western countries and the UN vote shows who is in favour of a truce in Gaza and delivery of humanitarian aid. Furthermore, the US envoy to the UN accused Russia of giving cover to a terrorist group that brutalises civilians by not condemning Hamas in a draft resolution, according to Reuters.
US Defense Secretary Austin has put in “be ready to deploy” orders for a select number of American troops should Israel need them, while a separate report stated that about 2,000 troops were told to prepare for deployment.
The delay in the Israeli ground attack on Gaza is reportedly due to a growing concern that Hezbollah is waiting for the moment that most IDF forces are committed to Gaza to open a full front with the IDF in the north, according to Jerusalem Post sources.
Russian President Putin said China’s proposal for peace talks with Ukraine could become a realistic basis for a peace agreement, according to an interview with Chinese television. However, he also accused Ukraine of not allowing peace negotiations, according to DPA.
AJA Breaking reports, citing Israeli Radio, that the “Israeli army is intensively bombing many targets in southern Lebanon after bombing the town of Metulla” & “Israeli bombing targets the road between the towns of Kafr Kila and Al-Adisa in the eastern sector of southern Lebanon”
Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei says if Israel’s crimes continue then no one can stop “Muslims around the world and resistance forces”. Gaza bombardments must stop immediately.
Lebanese Foreign Minister says Israeli attack in south Lebanon pours “oil on fire” and threaten to ignite a front.
Iran Guard’s Deputy Chief says “another shockwave” is on the way if Israel does not end atrocities in Gaza, according to Fars News.
CRYPTO
Israel ordered a freeze on some crypto accounts in a bid to block funding for Hamas with about 100 accounts on Binance closed after appeals for donations appeared on social media, according to FT.
ESMA says there is no such thing as a “safe” crypto asset, crypto investors will not be protected under new rules until at least December 2024; warns firms not to circumvent bloc’s new crypto rules.
APAC TRADE
APAC stocks were mostly positive following the gains across global counterparts which unwound the recent geopolitical hedging and with President Biden to travel to the Middle East on Wednesday, although the upside was capped as risks of a widening conflict in the Middle East conflict lingered amid threats from Iran.
ASX 200 was led by outperformance in tech and telecoms, while mining names also benefitted following Rio Tinto’s quarterly update which showed an increase in iron ore shipments despite a decline in output.
Nikkei 225 was boosted at the open and briefly climbed above 32,000 although has since pulled back from intraday highs and proceeded to oscillate around the key aforementioned level.
Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp. were both positive although the mainland lagged amid developer debt concerns with Country Garden on the cusp of a default as the grace period for a USD 15mln coupon payment expires today and with an Evergrande unit to seek creditor approval to extend yuan-denominated bonds.
NOTABLE ASIA-PAC HEADLINES
RBA Minutes from the October meeting stated the board considered raising rates by 25bps or holding steady and agreed the case for holding steady was the stronger one, while members noted data on inflation, jobs and updated forecasts would be available at the November meeting. RBA Minutes stated members acknowledged upside risks to inflation were a significant concern and said progress in lowering service sector inflation was slow, while the Board had a low tolerance for a slower return of inflation to the target and it stated that further tightening may be required if inflation is more persistent than expected.
Japan’s Rengo (labour organisation) intends to ask for more than a 5% wage hike in the spring 2024 wage discussions, via NHK; is planning to ask for a “more than 3%” base wage hike in Spring 2024 wage discussions.
PBoC has instructed state banks are to roll over local govt loans with longer term and lower rates; PBoC is to set up an emergency liquidity tool with banks; loans made via tool should be repaid in two years, according to Reuters sources. New interest rates should not be lower than China’s Treasury bonds, with terms no longer than 10 years.
BoJ reportedly mulls raising its FY23 price view closer to 3%; mulls raising FY24 price view to 2% or above; inflation outlook is said to keep FY25 around 1.6%, according to Bloomberg sources.
DATA RECAP
New Zealand CPI QQ (Q3) 1.8% vs. Exp. 2.0% (Prev. 1.1%); YY (Q3) 5.6% vs. Exp. 5.9% (Prev. 6.0%)
RBNZ Sectoral Factor Model Inflation Index (Q3) 5.2% (Prev. 5.8%)
2 c. ASIAN AFFAIRS
TUESDAY MORNING/MONDAY NIGHT
SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 9.68 PTS OR .31% //Hang Seng CLOSED UP 132.73 PTS OR 0.75% /The Nikkei CLOSED UP 381.26 PTS OR 1.20% //Australia’s all ordinaries CLOSED UP 0.41 % /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed DOWN AT 7.3127 /OFFSHORE CHINESE YUAN CLOSED DOWN TO 7.3227 /Oil DOWN TO 86.86 dollars per barrel for WTI and BRENT DOWN AT 89.86/ Stocks in Europe OPENED MOSTLY RED// ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING WEAKER AGAINST US DOLLAR/OFFSHORE WEAKER
2 d./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA/
//NORTH KOREA/
END
2e) JAPAN
JAPAN/
end
JAPAN
end
3 CHINA /
CHINA/
end
4.EUROPEAN AFFAIRS//UK /SCANDINAVIAN AFFAIRS
SWEDEN
How stupid can one get? Stockholm to ban gas and diesel cars starting in 2025
(zerohedge)
Stockholm To Ban Gas And Diesel Cars Starting In 2025
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 02:45 AM
The ban on gas and diesel vehicles is officially making its way across the globe, with Stockholm the next city in the queue.
The Swedish capital now has a plan in place to ban gas and diesel cars in part of the city beginning in 2025, according to Bloomberg. The ban is going to begin in a 20 block area around the capital’s finance hub, the report says.
The same area also houses the city’s main shopping attractions. It’ll only allow “electric cars, some hybrid trucks and fuel cell vehicles”, the report says, citing rules reported by SVT that will be presented mid-week.
Stockholm is poised to become a trailblazer among major capitals by considering the prohibition on a scale previously unseen. The proposal surpasses the efforts of cities like Paris, Athens, and Madrid, which have also set their sights on banning diesel cars.
In the same vein, some cities like London have implemented measures like low-emission zones, where drivers of older combustion engine vehicles are required to pay daily fees for access to the city center.
It’s uncertain whether the plan will boost electric vehicle sales in Sweden, given the current cost-of-living crisis affecting EV sales. Mobility Sweden recently lowered its 2023 forecast for new EV registrations from 40% to 35% of total registrations.
In other places, Brussels banned non-essential and non-local car traffic on 10 central city streets in December. London expanded its ultra-low emission zone in August, marking one of the world’s most ambitious vehicle emissions policies. However, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delayed the UK government’s plan to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars until 2035.
In Norway’s capital, Oslo, known for its EV adoption, the municipal environment agency recommended introducing a zero-emission zone in the inner city. Initially, it would target heavy transport and trucks in 2025 before extending to cars in 2027.
Lars Stromgren, a local lawmaker who is responsible for traffic policy, told Bloomberg: “We want to create a better living environment for the people who live and work here.”
END
EUROPE
Europe shaken by “islamist terrorist” attack. Shooter is still large
(zerohedge)
Europe “Shaken” By “Islamist Terrorist Attack” In Brussels; Shooter Still At Large
MONDAY, OCT 16, 2023 – 08:44 PM
Update (1730ET): French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that Europe had been “shaken” by a “terrorist attack” in Brussels, after two Swedes were killed in a shooting.
“A few minutes ago, Brussels was hit again by an Islamist terrorist attack which apparently, as I speak to you, took the lives of at least two other Europeans, two Swedes,” Macron said during a visit to Tirana, according to AFP.
Perhaps most ironically, given the comments from various world leaders about this “terrorist” attack by a Muslim man, who recorded a video of himself explaining this was to “avenge the Muslims that have died for their religion”, the Belgian prosecutor has issues a statement that there is ‘no immediate link to Israel-Hamas’.
“So there has been a claim via social media where someone says he is the perpetrator, that he has sympathies for ISIS, and what is also important, he mentions the Swedish nationality of those victims,” Eric Van Der Sypt, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office, told the Belgian broadcaster VTM.
“For now, at the current stage of the investigation, there would be no relationship to the conflict in Gaza,” he added.
Hmm…
Belgium’s government crisis center confirmed reports of the killings and asked the public not to share images or videos that might be related to the incident.
As a reminder, Brussels was hit by major Islamic State terrorist attacks in 2016, which left more than 30 people dead and hundreds injured.
END
UK
BBC suspends several Arabic journalists for social media posts endorsing HAMAS terror attack
(Brooke ReMix)
BBC Suspends Several Arabic Journalists For Social Media Posts Endorsing Hamas Terror Attack
The BBC has suspended several of its journalists associated with the BBC Arabic news portal and launched an internal investigation into their actions after staff appeared to endorse Hamas’ terror attack in Israel.
Reporters working for the British taxpayer-funded corporation in the Middle East were found to have made several communications and interactions on social media in relation to the bloody offensive by Hamas that left more than 1,300 Israeli civilians dead, sparking a number of complaints over perceived bias within the organization.
An independent investigation by the U.S.-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), reported its findings to the BBC, providing evidence of concerning behavior by several members of the organization.
One journalist allegedly described the atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 as a “morning of hope,” while another posted on X, formerly Twitter, that the attack had left “Israel’s prestige crying in the corner.”
Others, including Cairo-based correspondent Salma Khattab, liked a post describing Hamas as “freedom fighters,” while Beirut-based programs editor Nada Abdelsamad reposted footage of Israeli civilians in hiding who were described as cowering “inside a tin container in fear of the Palestinian resistance warriors.”
Another senior correspondent was reported to have poked fun at the relatives of an Israeli grandmother who was abducted by Hamas and is being held captive in Gaza.
In addition to the remarks of certain individuals, the impartiality of BBC Arabic’s output, both through its TV channel and news website, has been called into question after referring to towns within the recognized state of Israel as “settlements” and the local residents as “settlers.”
In total, six reporters and a freelance journalist have become the subject of an investigation into alleged anti-Israel bias, and some of those involved have been suspended.
Freelancer Aya Hossam liked a post that suggested that no Israeli could be classed as a civilian, as “every member of the Zionist entity served in the army at some point in his life, whether men or women, and they all had victims of explicit violations… This term ‘civilians’ applies to the animals and pets that live there and they are not seriously at fault.”
Hossam also reposted a comment that read, “The Zionist must know that he will live as a thief and a usurper.”
CAMERA accused the broadcaster of “whitewashing the practice of targeting Jewish civilians.”
“They constantly claim that they apply the same editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality to their services in all languages, including those with which BBC management is not familiar and can’t oversee properly, such as Arabic. But these lapses do not occur anywhere near as frequently in their English language content, so that can’t be taken seriously,” a statement from the U.S.-based organization read.
On Sunday, the BBC issued a statement announcing the investigation and confirmed that Ms. Hossam would no longer be working with the organization.
“We take allegations of breaches of our editorial and social media guidelines with the utmost seriousness, and if and when we find breaches we will act, including taking disciplinary action,” a spokesperson said.
The public broadcaster has been embroiled in controversy following the attack on Israel, which has sparked formidable retaliation in Gaza after editors refused to refer to those involved in the Hamas surprise attack as “terrorists.”
This is despite Hamas being classified as a proscribed terror organization by the U.K. government back in 2021, thus justifying the use of the term for a corporation that strives to be impartial.
END
GERMANY
The conservative right Afd party reaches record high gains with an8 point lead over ruling SPD
Germany: AfD Reaches New Record High, Gains Unprecedented 8-Point Lead Over Ruling SPD
At the same time the governing left-liberal coalition crashes in the polls, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) is surging ahead, reaching a new record high in a major state-run poll.
AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla.
According to the most recent ARD Deutschlandtrend poll, all parties of the ruling traffic light coalition only have 33 percent of the vote, while the AfD is now stronger than the SPD and the Free Democrats (FDP) combined, reaching 23 percent of the vote.
According to Infratest dimap, the three-party ruling coalition has reached a new low among Germans. Only 15 percent back the SPD, while 13 percent would vote for the Greens and 5 percent for the FDP. Given that 5 percent is needed to enter parliament, the FDP is under threat of being removed entirely, which is putting the coalition on increasingly shaky ground.
AfD party co-leader Alice Weidel celebrated the new record high, writing: “New record also in the ARD Germany trend: The AfD is now at 23% here too! In addition, 50% of citizens would like the AfD to be in government where it has performed strongly. A great confirmation of our work!”
The poll showed all three governing parties dropping one point compared to polling from a week ago. For the Social Democrats, this is the worst result during this legislative period; in the federal election approximately two years ago, SPD had 25.7 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, FDP has seen its vote cut in half since 2021, when it received 11.5 percent of the electoral vote.
The AfD is enjoying a record lead over the SPD, coming in at an unprecedented eight points. Meanwhile, the Christian Democrats and Christian Socialists (CDU/CSU) continue their run on top of the polls, coming in at 29 percent, a bump of one point compared to last week. The Free Voters and the Left Party would each have 4 percent.
Voters’ top concern is immigration, while climate change becomes a non-issue
Voters also say their top concern is mass immigration, with 44 percent of voters naming this as the most important political problem that politicians should address. This issue towers over the other problems facing the country, with armed conflicts/peace/foreign policy only coming in at 18 percent, while the economy comes in at 11 percent and inflation and taxes at 10 percent.
Regarding the environment and climate change, only 1 percent of Germans list this as the most pressing issue.
END
5 RUSSIA//UKRAINE AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS
ISRAEL/HAMAS/GAZA/USA
USA to send 2,000 troops for potential deployment in support of Israel
(zerohedge)
US Taps 2,000 Troops for Potential Deployment To Support Israel
MONDAY, OCT 16, 2023 – 06:55 PM
The Pentagon says it has selected 2,000 troops it is readying for potential deployment in support of Israel as it battles Hamas in Gaza and potentially Hezbollah across its northern border.
Based on US officials speaking to The Wall Street Journal, American troops are not expected to serve in any combat roles, but only in advisory capacities or missions like medical support. File image, US Army
“The troops are currently stationed both inside the Middle East and outside, including Europe, the officials said,” WSJ writes. “It isn’t clear under what circumstances the U.S. could deploy the troops or to where, but the Pentagon decision signaled it is preparing to support Israeli troops should Israel launch a ground incursion into Gaza.”
Already US Marines have been moved from Kuwait in preparation for potential greater support roles related to Israel. The Biden administration has dispatched two carrier strike groups to the general region, likely expected to enter the eastern Mediterranean at some point soon.
Separately, a defense official told the AP that the troops would “not be sent to Israel but could be sent to countries in the region.”
The situation remains highly fluid and unpredictable, as there have been reports that Israel’s ground invasion is “imminent” for the past three days. There are signs Israeli leaders could be delaying not only out of concern for the some 200 hostages Hamas has, but due to the threat of Hezbollah opening all-out war in the north. Iran’s threats have also been increasing.
The US is also assisting Israel with intelligence, particularly related to the captives, among them Americans. However, so far the Pentagon has ruled out the idea of sending US commandos as part of rescue efforts.
Of course, given the population density of Gaza, and given the difficult urban warfare environment, any military rescue mission might be a ‘mission impossible’ kind of scenario – even if intelligence could pinpoint their exact locations, which is unlikely.
If Israel does go into the strip with full force, but without knowing the exact locations of the hostages, it could be highly dangerous for the captives.
END
ISRAEL/LEBANON/HEZBOLLAH
Israel Evacuates Residents Of 28 Towns Near Lebanese Border As Hezbollah Attacks Increase
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 11:05 AM
At this point, exchanges of fire between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and militants in south Lebanon, especially Hezbollah, have become a daily occurrence – and yet still a full assault from Hezbollah has been avoided. Many analysts have speculated that Israel could be holding off its expected major ground invasion of Gaza precisely to avoid provoking a ‘northern front’ from opening up.
But there are continuing signs the situation is sliding toward that feared two-front scenario, as the IDF has initiated a plan to evacuate all civilians who live within two kilometers of the Lebanese border. They said the repeat rocket and mortar fire make it necessary, also in preparation for potential greater military action.
The country’s National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) will oversee transferring of Israeli civilians to state-funded guesthouses. In total a whopping 28 towns and communities will be evacuated.
NEMA has listed them out as follows: Ghajar, Dishon, Kfar Yuval, Margaliot, Metula, Avivim, Dovev, Ma’ayan Baruch, Bar’am, Manara, Yiftah, Malkia, Misgav Am, Yir’on, Dafna, Arab al-Aramshe, Shlomi, Netu’a, Ya’ara, Shtula, Matat, Zar’it, Shomera, Betzet, Adamit, Rosh Hanikra, Hanita and Kfar Giladi.
Many of these in the last several days saw residents flee due to rocket fire from the other side of the border.
Hezbollah has issued new claims it has destroyed an IDF tank and other military assets. Already both sides have taken on a few casualties.
“Hezbollah carried out a number of attacks yesterday in order to try to divert our operational efforts [away from the Gaza Strip], under the direction and backing of Iran, while endangering the state of Lebanon and its citizens,” an IDF spokesman had said Monday.
“We have increased our forces on the northern border and will respond aggressively to any activity against us,” the IDF said. “If Hezbollah dares to test us, the reaction will be deadly. The United States is giving us full backing.”
Dozens of rockets have been launched from Hezbollah positions in the last days. Israel has in response shelled militant positions in Lebanon, but has also hit Lebanese residential areas, prompting people in the area to flee.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah announced that its fighters launched an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) at a gathering of Israeli soldiers, which the group said resulted in “a number of casualties”.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s main state backer Iran has continued ratcheting the threats against Israel:
A series of statements from multiple sides point toward continued escalation, which could explode well beyond the Gaza crisis:
Israel Ministry of Health: “The war may last a long time, prepare an emergency stock of food for 4 months.”
Iranian Foreign Minister: “The expansion of the war to other fronts has begun to reach unavoidable stages.”
IDF Spokesman: “Israel is prepared on its own both in the north and in the south.”
Israeli Military Spokesman: “If Hezbollah commits a grave mistake, we will respond with devastating force never seen before.”
Iranian leaders have gone so far as to issue threat of ‘preemptive attack’ if Israel continues decimating Gaza…
For now, the situation is expected to be contained given President Biden’s expected Wednesday trip to Israel. There’s widespread belief that Israeli will not go into Gaza with full force so long as the US leader is visiting.
Additionally, Israel is still facing condemnation and international pressure related to the Reuters crew which was fired upon: “On Friday, Issam Abdallah, a Reuters video journalist, was killed in southern Lebanon after missiles launched from the direction of Israel struck him,” writes the New York Times. “Six other journalists — from Reuters, Al Jazeera and Agence France-Presse — were also injured in the attack, which occurred near the village of Alma al-Shaab.”
A must read……
Chris Powell…
Critical thinking dies first in war; and a verdict in Bridgeport
Truth long has been said to be the first casualty in war, but news coverage of Gaza’s war against Israel suggests that the first casualty is actually critical thinking.
There has been some reporting about how most Israelis think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should resign because his government was so surprised by the attack from Gaza. But as Gazans now suffer constant bombardment from Israel, no journalists are asking them whether they support the constant war waged by their government, controlled by the terrorist movement Hamas, or if they want their government to make peace instead.
Of course Hamas, being totalitarian, probably would murder any domestic opponents just as enthusiastically as it murders Israelis. But journalism’s failure to pose the question prevents Hamas’ totalitarianism from being exposed, just as it prevents exposure of the support of the war by many Gazans.
Much news coverage has reported that many Gazans are Arabs or descendants of Arabs who fled or were expelled from British mandate Palestine in 1948 when the territory was divided into Arab and Jewish sections, war began, and Israel declared independence. But it is hard to find any reporting that many Israelis are Jews or the descendants of Jews who were expelled from Arab countries back then or since.
Nor is anything being made of the sharp differences between the cultures of the warring parties. Like Arab countries, Israel has many religious fanatics and haters, but the country is infinitely more egalitarian, tolerant, and committed to the rule of law than its adversaries are. Anyone who doubts this should go to an Arab country and try being a woman, a homosexual or transsexual, a Christian, a Jew, or a nonconformer of any kind.
This is why the reflexive support for Gaza among leftists in the West is especially hypocritical and crazy. Western leftists who support Gaza would be quickly locked up or worse if they ever tried being themselves in any Arab jurisdiction.
Almost as hypocritical is the United Nations mission in Gaza, which complains that Israel is attacking the populated areas from which the Hamas government launched its attacks. That is, while Hamas uses its civilians as shields, any casualties among them are supposed to be Israel’s fault. Further, the U.N. mission in Gaza long has been feeding, schooling, and providing medical care to Gazans so their government can devote its resources to destroying Israel. Gazans needn’t rely as much on their own government for support as long as the U.N. is there.
Gaza’s attack on Israel was so barbaric — doubly so because it aimed to derail peace negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors — that maybe the West now will smarten up. But maybe not. For as Israel’s prime minister during the war 50 years ago, Golda Meir, observed, the world loves Jews only when they are victims and hates Jews who defend themselves.
Israel’s Jews may be figuring out at last that it’s far safer to be feared than loved.
*
To avoid testifying last week in the lawsuit seeking a new primary election for the Democratic nomination for mayor of Bridgeport, Wanda Geter-Pataky claimed her Fifth Amendment right. That is, Geter-Pataky, a City Hall employee, vice chair of the Democratic City Committee, and worker in the re-election campaign of Mayor Joe Ganim, refused to explain what she was doing in the sensational security camera video showing her repeatedly stuffing what presumably were absentee ballots into the collection box outside City Hall in the early-morning darkness a week before the primary.
Geter-Pataky still may be considered innocent of a criminal violation; though what she appears to have done was almost certainly illegal, she has not been charged. But when someone who is a government employee, a political party official, and a campaign worker refuses to account for her political work, she must be assumed to be politically corrupt and Bridgeport’s Democratic mayoral primary must be assumed to have been corrupted.
However the judge decides about a new primary, Bridgeport’s voters should deliver a guilty verdict on Election Day, Nov. 7.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics, and sometimes other things, for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
end
ISRAEL/HAMAS/GAZA HOSPITAL
It was an errant Gazan missile that struck the hospital
500+ Casualties After Israel Bombs Hospital In Gaza City: Palestinian Officials
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 02:00 PM
Update(1400ET): Horrific reports of a mass casualty bombing are emerging from Gaza, where a hospital suffered direct hit reportedly by Israeli airstrikes. Gaza’s health ministry has said there are at least 500 casualties in the aftermath of the hospital blast, with “hundreds of victims” buried under the rubble. Gaza sources also say that a UN-run school housing refugees was attacked.
Initially, local emergency officials said there were at least 200 killed in the mid-evening bombing of al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, but the count has been steadily rising. Now, per Al Jazeera: “The health ministry in the Gaza Strip says at least 500 people have been killed in an Israeli attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital.”
This humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding as President Biden is en route to Israel. Likely many of the victims of the hospital attack were women and children.
Certainly this greatly raises the pressure and the stakes for Biden, as the White House will have to ‘answer’ for this as Israel’s most powerful ally. No doubt the US administration is scrambling to prepare for how it will respond.
end
At this point, exchanges of fire between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and militants in south Lebanon, especially Hezbollah, have become a daily occurrence – and yet still a full assault from Hezbollah has been avoided. Many analysts have speculated that Israel could be holding off its expected major ground invasion of Gaza precisely to avoid provoking a ‘northern front’ from opening up.
But there are continuing signs the situation is sliding toward that feared two-front scenario, as the IDF has initiated a plan to evacuate all civilians who live within two kilometers of the Lebanese border. They said the repeat rocket and mortar fire make it necessary, also in preparation for potential greater military action.
The country’s National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) will oversee transferring of Israeli civilians to state-funded guesthouses. In total a whopping 28 towns and communities will be evacuated.
end
Mass Protests Erupt In Arab Capitals As IDF Blames Errant Islamic Jihad Rocket For Hospital Massacre
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 04:10 PM
Update(1610ET): The IDF, and PM Netanyahu have weighed in on the Gaza hospital bombing, which killed and injured hundreds:
Tal Heinrich, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told CNN Tuesday that the “IDF does not target hospitals,” adding, “we only target Hamas strongholds, arms depots and terror targets.”
Heinrich’s comments came after Palestinian officials said that preliminary estimates indicate between 200 to 300 people were killed in an Israeli strike on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City.
The IDF issued a statement based on a preliminary investigation, claiming that it was an errant missile fired from within Gaza itself. The IDF alleges that Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired the rocket in a “failed shooting” that was intended for Israel.
“According to intelligence information, from several sources we have, the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization is responsible for the failed shooting that hit the hospital,” the IDF statement said, as it appeared in English on the Government of Israel’s “X” account.
The international reaction has been swift, especially from regional heads of state, with Turkey’s Erdogan and Jordan’s King Abdullah being among the first to condemn the “war crime” and “massacre”. Abdullah said no one can be “silent” about it.
Large evening protests have not only erupted in towns across the West Bank, especially in Ramallah, but in Arab capitals from Tunisia to Amman. There are fresh reports that Israel’s embassy in Jordan is coming under attack. Large groups of demonstrators have also been seen headed toward the US Embassy in Beirut.
WHITE HOUSE EYES $100 BILLION UKRAINE, ISRAEL AND BORDER ASK
Will this whole event be the spark that sets the whole region on fire? Whether what Israel is claiming is true or not, we may be witnessing the first rumblings…
This will no doubt delay the entry of Israel into GAZA
(zerohedge)
Biden To Make ‘Solidarity’ Visit To Israel On Wednesday
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 07:20 AM
With violence in the Middle East threatening to spiral out of control and US ship movements underway and troop deployments in the preparation stages, President Biden will travel to Israel and Jordan on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Monday night.
“The President will reaffirm the United States’ solidarity with Israel and our ironclad commitment to its security,”said Blinken. “President Biden will again make clear, as he’s done unequivocally since Hamas’s slaughter of more than 1,400 people, including at least 30 Americans, that Israel has the right and indeed the duty to defend its people.”
Blinken’s announcement was a product of his marathon meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet in Tel Aviv. Blinken outlined five items on Biden’s agenda during his discussions with Israel. Biden seeks to:
Ask Israel what it needs from the United Statesto defend itself. In recent times, the US government has redistributing more than $3 billion in American wealth to Israel every year. When factoring in income and purchasing power, Israel is the 34th-richest country in the world.
Communicate to both state and non-state actors that they shouldn’t seek to take advantage of the crisis to attack Israel. No such public warning about opportunistic attacks was given to Israel, which last week bombed Syria’s two main international airports in Damascus and Aleppo.
Coordinate on efforts to achieve the release of hostages taken by Hamas. The group claims to have between 200 and 250 hostages, which could include some 20 Americans. On Monday, Hamas released its first hostage video.
Receive a briefing on Israel’s war objectives and strategies.
Hear how Israel intends to minimize civilian casualties and allow the flow of humanitarian assistance. Gaza is home to more than 2 million people, and the international community is growing increasingly wary of a humanitarian disaster after Israel cut off the territory’s food, water, electricity and medicine supply.
Some observers speculate that Israel isn’t likely to launch an anticipated ground offensive into Gaza while Biden is in Israel. The specifics of Biden’s Israel itinerary have not yet been released. Biden’s presence will set the stage for a major Hamas provocation, if the group wants one: Since the Oct 7 attacks, Hamas has demonstrated that Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are within its rocket range.
When he visited Israel as vice president in 2010, Biden was on the receiving end of a humiliation delivered by a previous Netanyahu government. With Biden still in the country, Netanyahu’s interior minister blindsided the Obama administration by announcing the approval of 1,600 more housing units for Jews in hotly-contested East Jerusalem, where many Palestinians aspire to position the capital of a Palestinian state. Biden promptly condemned the announcement as “precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now.”
This week, after Israel, Biden will proceed to Amman, Jordan, for meetings with Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Watch for Israel-visits to become a hot trend among attention-seeking US politicians. On the same evening of Biden’s announcement, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she’d be making a visit of her own on Tuesday. “During these difficult times, it’s more important than ever for New York to show up in support of Israel,” she said in a statement. “New York will show the world that we stand with Israel – today, tomorrow and forever.”
Many investors are warning of the risk of a debt crisis, but governments are ignoring all the signals.
In an inflationary crisis, the government should reduce expenditures to help curb price increases while also anticipating a significant increase in borrowing costs. However, in this crisis, the United States administration is ignoring all the warning signs and continuing to borrow at a record pace.
Debt crises always happen when even the most conservative investors refuse to add to a sovereign bond portfolio that is loss-making to begin with. Central banks may decide to purchase those unwanted government bonds, but then the inflation problem worsens and the losses at the central bank accumulate.
The enormous problem created by the monetary and fiscal insanity of 2020 is difficult to solve. Central banks are already publishing losses in their assets, and those negative results must be covered by taxpayers.
Government bonds have been an atrocious investment in 2022 and continue to generate negative results for investors in 2023. Furthermore, sovereign debt is rising at a record pace, ignoring the wall of maturities that the global fixed-income world is facing in 2024 and 2025.
The United States national debt has soared by $550 billion in less than a month. Total debt was $31.4 trillion in July and soared to $33.5 trillion in less than four months. This happened while the 10-year Treasury yield increased from 3.7% to 4.6%. Imagine a government that massively increases debt and does so at a record speed when there is a $500 billion investment-grade maturity wall in 2025 and the government faces $7.6 trillion of maturities of public debt in the next twelve months, according to Goldman Sachs. At the same time, Goldman Sachs also noted that CFTC figures show that U.S. Treasury net long positions in 2-year and 10-year notes have fallen to the lowest level since October 2018. This is truly a dangerous scenario in the middle of geopolitical tensions reaching new highs.
The United States government is counting on rising global demand for US dollars to offset the increased fiscal imbalances and on the Fed to change its monetary policy if needed. This is a dangerous bet when China, Saudi Arabia, and other nations’ Treasury holdings are dropping to multi-year lows. It is also extremely imprudent to believe that the world will absorb the United States’ fiscal imbalances at any cost in the middle of a global geopolitical conflict. Furthermore, it is reckless to believe that the Federal Reserve will buy all the Treasury bonds required when the central bank is already loss-making. Such a level of irresponsibility may put the U.S. dollar in danger in the long term.
The United States’ fiscal imbalances are enormous, but so are the deficit levels of many other developed nations, and the combination of rising rates, losses at the central bank, and impending giant maturity walls happens as well in the euro area.
All of this is evidence of the monetary debasement process that started in 2009 but accelerated in 2020. Governments are destroying the purchasing power of their currencies to disguise their enormous debt and deficit levels, and inflation is eroding citizens’ savings and wages. In this environment, sovereign bonds never protect investors.
Governments do not want to pay for the risk they take and will absorb others’ wealth via negative real rates or price losses in the issued bonds. The inflationary spiral is likely to remain persistent, and the prospect of another round of quantitative easing may not offset the accumulated losses in bond portfolios and certainly will not modify the currency debasement scenario. In a period like this, gold becomes the cheapest asset by far. It is inexpensive relative to its historical purchasing power and monetary qualities, but it is even more attractive relative to the fiat currencies whose monetary value is dissolved by massive printing. The current debt problem and the geopolitical risk tell us that gold is a safe bet in a volatile world.
END
Goldman Sachs warns about a shipping recession as consumers around the world falter
(zerohedge)
Goldman Warns About Shipping Recession As Consumer Sputters
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 05:45 AM
Since global shipping peaked during the Covid pandemic, A.P. Moller-Maersk has warned about an emerging downturn in the container shipping market.
Goldman now forecasts a lengthier and potentially more severe downturn for the shipping industry, recommending a sell for the Danish shipping giant:
“We believe market expectations are still too complacent on the depth and duration of the coming shipping recession,” Goldman analyst Patrick Creuset told clients Monday morning.
Creuset said his fundamental perspective on the industry is that freight rates and earnings must continue to decline. This reduction is necessary until there’s enough financial pressure to phase out expensive tonnage.
He said, “Even after the further rate drop in recent weeks, we see no sign of this: New vessel deliveries are running at c.1% of the global fleet/month with very little slippage, idling and scrapping remain low, and Nov active capacity is set to increase significantly vs. Oct on the main trades.”
Creuset identified two major distinctions compared with previous bear markets, which might result in a steeper drop in EBIT margin than typically observed:
Industry balance sheets used to be highly levered meaning cash burn could not be sustained for long, whereas this time most carriers hold billions of USD in cash;
The erosion of the alliance structures means carriers are incentivized to make sure their network is large and strong enough to potentially sustain services on their own, e.g. MSC’s strong growth on the back of the announcement of the 2M split. Point (2) is also likely to make the day-to-day management of overcapacity a lot harder in 2024/25.
Goldman hit Maersk with a sell rating, expecting “2023-27 EBITDA estimates fall by 8% on average, reflecting lower freight rates.”
The analyst shows carriers are still ordering new vessels, indicating the industry needs more tools to manage capacity.
Container rates on major shipping lines have roundtripped back to pre-Covid levels.
In August, Maersk warned about waning global demand for shipping containers by sea. The company transports Chinese-made goods for retailers such as Walmart, Nordstrom, Macy’s, and Kohl’s – all of whom have warned about a consumer slowdown.
Goldman’s report offers even more evidence the global economy is on shaky grounds as the Western consumer appears to be sputtering amidst central banks’ aggressive rate hiking cycle to tame the worst inflation in a generation.
END
This will add dramatically to costs of many goods
(zerohedge)
Egypt’s Suez Canal Prepares To Rise Transit Fees, Potentially Intensifying Global Inflation
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 11:45 AM
Egypt announced on Monday that it will increase transit fees for all types of vessels passing through the Suez Canal, a move that might further amplify global inflation concerns.
According to a statement released by the Suez Canal Authority, transit fees for crude oil tankers, LPG carriers, LNG carriers, Chemical tankers, and other liquid bulk tankers passing through the canal will rise by 15%, effective Jan. 15, 2024. The increase for dry bulk vessels, cargo ships, roll-on/roll-off vessels, and other vessels will be 5%.
SCA said container ships coming from ports in “North-West Europe” and heading directly to ports in the “Far East” are exempt from price hikes in transit fees.
Here’s the announcement from SCA:
While this won’t have a massive impact on trade flows, increased transit fees for carriers sailing through the canal will most likely be passed on to consumers, fueling even more inflation.
Despite the price hike, the canal is still the cheapest route for carriers. As of 2021, data from Statista shows 20,600 vessels transited the canal in 2021.
GLOBAL VACCINE/COVID ISSUES
This is good! NY Supreme Court upholds ban on COVID vaccine mandate for health workers
(zerohedge0
New York Supreme Court Upholds Ban On COVID Vaccine Mandate For Health Workers
The ruling came from the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, Fourth Department, which dismissed the state’s appeal to have the mandate reinstated.
“4th Dept dismissed state’s appeal as moot, and declined to vacate lower court win,” attorney Sujata Gibson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“The mandate is over and declared unconstitutional,” she continued. “[Thank you] [Children’s Health Defense], [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.], and [Medical Professionals For Informed Consent], and everyone who helped in this fight.
“Doesn’t make up for the harm [New York] Inflicted, but will help protect us from more.”
The health care worker vaccine mandate was first implemented in September 2021, resulting in the departure or termination of about 34,000 medical professionals from their positions.
That mandate was originally struck down by the state’s Supreme Court in January, although the state’s executive branch chose to appeal the decision.
In his opinion in Medical Professionals for Informed Consent vs. Bassett, Justice Gerard Neri wrote that the state’s Department of Health was “clearly prohibited from mandating any vaccination outside of those specifically authorized by the legislature” and that it had “blatantly violated the boundaries of its authority as set forth by the legislature.”
Justice Neri added that the mandate was “arbitrary and capricious” given that the COVID-19 vaccines failed to prevent transmission of the virus, meaning the policy had no rational basis.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, had previously explained her opposition to rehiring health care workers who lost their jobs as a result of the vaccine, saying that this was “not the right answer.”
“I think everybody who goes into a health care facility or a nursing home should have the assurance and their family member should know that we have taken all steps to protect the public health,” she said at the time. “And that includes making sure those who come in contact with them at their time of most vulnerability, when they are sick or elderly, will not pass on the virus.”
In April, the state agreed to unilaterally drop the mandate of its own accord, although it still contested the decision for the sake of maintaining executive authority.
“Due to the changing landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic and evolving vaccine recommendations, the New York State Department of Health has begun the process of repealing the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for workers at regulated health care facilities,” the state health department stated.
Last October, the New York Supreme Court also struck down a mandate enforced specifically by New York City on all public employees, with Justice Ralph Porzio arguing there was no evidence to “support the rationality of keeping a vaccination mandate for public employees, while vacating the mandate for private sector employees or creating a carveout for certain professions, like athletes, artists, and performers.”
In January 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court similarly blocked an attempt by President Joe Biden to enforce a mandate on large private companies that their employees either get the vaccine or face regular testing. However, it did allow the mandate to continue in medical facilities that took funding from Medicare and Medicaid.
“Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly,” the court wrote in its unsigned opinion. “Requiring the vaccination of 84 million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees, certainly falls in the latter category.”
Margaret Florini, a spokesperson for Medical Professionals for Informed Consent, told The Defender that the latest decision was a “historic” win that would help prevent such abuses of power in the future.
“I think we will see many new lawsuits come about because of this historic win,” Ms. Florini said. “There is still plenty of work to be done. We lost so much, not just money but relationships, marriages, friends, and homes. We cannot forget what was done to us, and we must continue to shed light on it and make impactful changes that will truly prevent this from happening again.”
Evidence suggests there was NEVER ANY DRUG TRIAL AT ALL for Pfizer’s COVID “vaccine”
Another bombshell has dropped about Pfizer’s Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “vaccine” to suggest that it was never actually tested as claimed before receiving emergency use authorization (EUA), then approval, from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
A closer look at the sleight-of-hand that was used to pretend that Pfizer’s COVID jabs were tested reveals that the company’s BNT162b2 trial was performed using a different compound than was in the actual vials dispensed into people’s arms.
“It was a small batch, high cost process that could not scale to make millions, much less hundreds of millions of doses,” reported the Boriqua Gato Substack page, which added that an entirely different manufacturing process was used as well.
“And that is a VERY big deal because in this sort of biologic, the industry axiom has been consistent for 100 years: ‘the process is the product.’ Make it a different way, and you have no idea if it’s the same thing. And the FDA knows this full well; it’s been a cornerstone of their approval process since the beginning.”
(Related: Did you know that the newest injections for COVID were admittedly never tested on humans, only on mice?)
COVID jabs continue producing pathogens inside people’s bodies until they DIE
Boriqua Gato discovered this following the revelations put forth by Kevin McKernan who gene-sequenced Pfizer’s COVID injections and discovered that they are “wildly impure, low integrity, and contained not only copious amounts of contaminants, but actual compounds like plasmids that were, quite literally spike protein factories.”
McKernan found, much to his horror, that Pfizer’s COVID jabs are loaded with all sorts of different compounds that were used in the fabrication of the drug, but that should not have made their way into the final product.
Not only were a consortium of deadly toxins discovered, but so were those awful plasmids, which Boriqua Gato describes as “actual factories making pathogens” inside people’s bodies.
“The idea of a ‘safe level’ for such a thing seems fraught and they missed the alleged limits by an order of magnitude anyhow,” he writes.
McKernan specifically pointed out that the “vaccine” – not that it even really deserves that title – contains instructions for pathogen creation and infestation long after a person has been injected.
In other words, just as we warned again and again, COVID injections are death injections designed to continue harming a person’s body long after being dispensed.
“This is WAY past just negligence,” McKernan explained.
“This is the sort of thing they should shut you down over. You are clearly unfit for the task and having you around and lulling people into the belief that some serious people must have done serious studies somewhere and assured that this was safe presents a far greater and present danger than not having you at all. At least people who know there was no testing would behave with circumspection.”
While the FDA does allow some generic, small-molecule drugs to be cloned in a manner that relies on “bioequivalence” for safety, COVID jabs are anything but small-molecule generic drugs.
“The sort of change that Pfizer made to manufacturing was not minor, it was massive,” Boriqua Gato explained about the difference in that Pfizer substituted a completely different drug for its trials than the drug that was ultimately dispensed to the world.
“And that means, in simple terms, that the vaccine they shipped was a different drug than the one they got approved by the FDA by pretty much any reasonable standard … and that is fraud, pure and simple. It means that the drug they jabbed into a billion arms was never tested in any meaningful way.”
The latest news about the COVID “vaccine” scam can be found at Genocide.news
Robert H to us:
This is awful: For no reason Reiner Fuellmich arrested
(Harry Richardson Substack)
PHARMA/EU CABAL SET TRAP FOR FOLK HERO, REINER FÜELLMICH
Truth has a price and few people will ever stand up to pay. This man is paying.
Makis writes excellently on the ‘SUMMER OF DIED SUDDENLY – PARAMEDICS, EMTs – COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Mandated profession continues to have Turbo Cancers and Sudden Deaths’.
‘See substack article here, good scholarship, Makis and I (with McCullough, Risch et al.) are part of the exceptional TWC (The Wellness Company):
your 2nd amendment, get your guns, use them well, arm your daughters, once life is threatened…the islamist seeks to rape their way across America as they did in Europe, be warned!
DR. PAUL ALEXANDEROCT 17end Nune et al. reports on New-Onset Rheumatic Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases Following COVID Vaccinations, mainly Pfizer BioNTech mRNA technology vaccineEvidence is accumulating (as in this Nune study) that COVID-19 Vaccines ‘May Trigger’ Rheumatic Inflammatory DiseasesDR. PAUL ALEXANDEROCT 17READ IN APPhttps://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/11/10/1571‘investigated the demographics, management, and prognosis of new R-IMIDs in adults following SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations.endFrance in a mess!France Deploys 7,000 Soldiers Following Suspected Islamist Attack (By American Faith)‘Global Day of Jihad’?: Teacher Killed, Others Injured in France School ‘Allahu Akbar’ Knife Attack; they were warned, they were told and the French people decided to protest Trump and keep Macron.DR. PAUL ALEXANDEROCT 17READ IN APPFrance will mobilize up to 7,000 soldiers to increase security around the country after a teacher was fatally stabbed and three other people wounded in a school attack by a former student suspected of Islamic radicalization.Prosecutors say counterterrorism authorities are investigating the stabbing, and the suspect and several others are in custody.The “attack emergency” threat has allowed the French government to temporarily mobilize the military to protect public places among other measures.A mother of two sons at the school said she is dealing with how to comfort her children who witness the incident.“As adults, we are managing with difficulty to take a step back, but for them, they’re children,” mother Emily Noge said. “They initially thought it was an exercise, so keeping things separate, to say that weve passed from an exercise to something dramatic, is very tricky for them.”From Breitbart:At the school Saturday morning, police stood guard as adults and children arrived. Classes were canceled, but the school reopened for those who wanted to come together or seek support. One mother said she came with her 17-year-old daughter in a show of defiance against extremism, and to overcome the fear of returning to a site where children were locked down for hours after the stabbing.
Biden Admin Gave Hamas $75 Million Days before AttackREAD MORE…LATEST NEWS:94% of Covid Deaths Are Fully Vaxxed, Study ShowsRead more…Mike Pence campaign to report $620K in debt for Q3 fundraisingRead more…Illinois Landlord Stabbed 6-Year-Old Dozens of Times Because He Was Muslim: CopsRead more…Hamas critique removed from Palestinians’ Abbas comments on Israel attackRead more…Israel President Herzog Shows Wolf Blitzer Hamas Terrorist Manual On How To Abduct and Torture Israeli CiviliansRead more…Minnesota Woman Killed by Hamas After Advocating for Palestinian RightsRead more…Biden’s Got a Big Problem in His Home State – 2024 Won’t Be as Simple as He ThinksRead more…President Joe Biden: The 2023 60 Minutes interview transcriptRead more…
35-Year-Old Man Who Impregnated a 10-Year-Old Claims He Doesn’t Deserve the 160-Year SentenceSeven months after a judge sentenced her attacker to 160 years in prison, the young girl whose mother’s boyfriend impregnated her when she was 10 is getting ready to start a new life. We are using the name Sophie to help protect the identity of the little girl. Per Sophie’s grandmother, the Georgia girl has been discharged from the mental …READ THE FULL REPORT
MICHAEL EVERY/PHIL MAREY/OR OTHER EXECS //RABOBANK
“We Are Building Up To Something Far More Substantial Than Any Previous Israel-Hamas Fight”
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 12:05 PM
By Michael Every of Rabobank
“We won, at very little cost.”
The past ten days have provided little clarity on the economic and market outlook, as this now increasingly depends on the geopolitical front.
Not that this fact stopped Paul Krugman behaving like the Jewish uncle who keeps talking about the superiority of Marxism at a family gathering, this time claiming on X yet again that, “The war on inflation is over. We won, at very little cost.” That ignores not only current US inflation well above 2%, but that the world is actually at war again, with no way of knowing who gets dragged in, for how long, and with what inflationary consequences.
Frantic shuttle diplomacy by US Secretary of State Blinken is trying to avert Middle East escalation. However, the issue is not when Israel goes into Gaza to topple Hamas –which says it holds 200 hostages, with other groups another 50– but rather who they allow to run it the day after: the US stress Israel needs an exit plan, and the US belatedly knows a thing or two about that. Meanwhile, Iran claims the expansion of the war “is reaching the inevitable stage,” which is what we have been warning since last Monday, and warned of “pre-emptive action” by Iran and its allies in the coming hours. After all, Israel has evacuated 60,000 people from its south, while extending a ceasefire at the Rafah crossing into Egypt to allow Gazans to exit, and now additional thousands more from 28 villages up to 2km away from the Lebanese border, As such, it seems we are building up to something far more substantial than any previous Israel-Hamas fight.
It’s already spreading outside the region, first with angry street protests, now with the murder of two Swedes during a football match in Belgium last night by an Islamic extremist. Sadly, the risks are of much more of this to come.
As in Cold War 1.0, both Israel and the Palestinians are now openly backed by Great Powers, raising the stakes. The US is sending two Navy carrier strike groups, 24 fighter jets to Jordan, and maybe President Biden to Jerusalem tomorrow or Thursday: this simply doesn’t happen in minor regional crises. On the other side, Iran’s role is obvious; Russia is behind the Palestinians, without yet having burned all bridges to Israel; and a senior Palestinian Authority figure has publicly stated, ‘China will lead the world and is on our side,’ that Beijing will accept whatever the Palestinians demand, and they “want to make Israel swallow the poison one drop at a time.”
Is the US still in the position to be the arsenal of democracy for Ukraine, and Israel, and Taiwan? That’s the key question whatever asset class you are looking at. If you don’t realise that core fact, you shouldn’t be looking at any asset class at all. On that front, US Treasury Secretary Yellen argues that debt interest is not a problem for the US –having mismanaged this all so incredibly badly by funding via expensive short-term bills rather than locking in long-term cheap debt a few years ago, she would have to say that– and that the US can easily afford two wars (i.e., Ukraine and Israel).
She’s right in the classic Keynesian respect that he argued in 1942: “Anything We Can Do, We Can Afford” – if there is spare capacity in the economy, the government can absorb it via higher spending. Yet the problem for the US, which Yellen and Krugman can’t get their heads round, is that it is now limited in what it can *do* because, with their past encouragement, it shipped so many of its military industry supply-chains offshore, and left those at home as bloated monopolists. The US may be able to *afford* to fight two wars, or three, but it physically cannot produce the goods to do so on a larger scale over the longer term. Trying to, the US will get more inflation, as we saw in Covid, and while they attempt to rapidly onshore.
Meanwhile, Iran, the Taliban, over a hundred other delegations, and Putin and Xi will all meet at the Belt and Road Forum today and tomorrow, the latter to deepen their “no limits” partnership, and all to discuss ‘A Global Community of Shared Future: China’s Proposals and Actions’. Will there be a statement on Israel-Palestine counter to the West’s stance, showing another global split along with Ukraine?
That might play well with some of the Western public, it seems. Boston Globe columnist @Jeff_Jacoby notes that in the guts of a YouGov poll on the current crisis, despite the mountain of evidence of what just occurred, “just 32% of US adults between 18 and 24 believe that Hamas deliberately targets civilians. You have raised a generation of idiots, America.” One starts to understand not just how the Holocaust happened, but how Holocaust denial continues to.
On which, and regardless of the justice of calls for a Palestinian state, @RobertMSterling notes:
“It’s been amazing this week to watch the left invert every rhetorical device they’ve used since 2020, all to avoid having to criticize terrorists dedicated to Jewish genocide. It would be hilarious, if it weren’t so reprehensible.
2020: Silence is violence.
2023: It’s okay to just keep silent, especially while events are still unfolding.
————————
2020: If you’re nit-picking small details instead of focusing on the big picture, you’re doing so to avoid your complicity in atrocities.
2023: 40 babies may have been killed, and some of them may have been beheaded, but that’s not the same as 40 getting beheaded. Details matter.
————————
2020: Universities must proactively take a stand and speak out in opposition to racism. “Academic freedom” is a false concept used to enforce oppression
2023: Universities need to maintain neutrality and ensure that they do not make any statements that jeopardize the principle of academic freedom, which is a paramount virtue.
————————
2020: You must immediately and forcefully condemn an attack, even if investigations are ongoing.
2023: You can’t expect us to release statements opposing an attack within four days, when the facts are still being discovered.
————————
2020: People are responsible for their words, even if they are just working-class teenagers in small towns. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences.
2023: Graduate students at the most prestigious university in the world are just kids and cannot be held accountable for statements they sign. This is cancel culture.
————————
2020: Believe all women.
2023: Where is the physical evidence of these “alleged rapes”?
————————
2020: It’s not enough to be non-racist. If you are not actively anti-racist, it means that you are, in fact, racist.
2023: How dare you question whether I support terrorists just because I haven’t actively spoken out against Hamas freedom fighters.
————————
2020: We don’t get to tell people in affected communities how to deal with their pain in the aftermath of violence.
2023: It is Israel’s responsibility to ensure that violence doesn’t escalate.
————————
2020: Anything that disproportionately affects one group of people is oppression and must be condemned.
2023: Settlers –a term that includes all Israeli Jews– are not civilians and are therefore all valid targets for attacks.”
This kind of political hypocrisy is not new. The Right embraced early Hitler and Cold War banana republic thugs, like Saddam Hussein and Pinochet; the Left’s G. B. Shaw and New York Times both covered up Stalin’s crimes, and Chomsky those of the genocidal Khmer Rouge. Do I need to stress that this doesn’t generally end well for the West? It won’t do today for three reasons in particular:
First, as we head deeper into a new global Cold War, some might ask who in the West is actually on whose side, and if so how the West is going to win at all, let alone at “very little cost” – and if it isn’t going to, which assets should you be holding to retire on?
Second, ruthlessly shedding intellectual and moral consistency like snakeskin when it’s tactically expedient to do so in order to win at all costs is not in line with core Western values that are the bedrock of the rule of law supporting Western markets – don’t dismiss that long-term threat.
Third, as writer and historian Paul Johnson noted, wherever anti-Semitism takes hold, social and political decline almost inevitably follows.
In short, for many reasons, inflation may be the winner soon. At very high cost.
7//OIL ISSUES//NATURAL GAS ISSUES/USA AND GLOBE
END
8. EMERGING MARKETS//AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND ISSUES//
end
YOUR EARLY CURRENCY/GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN CLOSING MARKETS AND EUROPEAN BOURSE OPENING AND CLOSING/ INTEREST RATE SETTINGS TUESDAY MORNING 7;30AM//OPENING AND CLOSINGS
EURO VS USA DOLLAR: 1.0576 UP 0.0022
USA/ YEN 149.47 DOWN .097 NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT 1.00% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…//YEN STILL FALLS//
GBP/USA 1.2184 DOWN 0.0027
USA/CAN DOLLAR: 1.3634 UP .0019 (CDN DOLLAR DOWN 19 BASIS PTS)
Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED UP 9.68 PTS OR .31%
Hang Seng CLOSED UP 132.73 PTS OR 1.20%
AUSTRALIA CLOSED UP 0.41% // EUROPEAN BOURSE: MOSTLY RED EXCEPT LONDON
Trading from Europe and ASIA
I) EUROPEAN BOURSES: MOSTLY RED EXCEPT LONDON
2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang SENG UP 132.73 PTS OR 0.75%
/SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 9.68 PTS OR .31%
AUSTRALIA BOURSE CLOSED UP 0.41%
(Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED DOWN 656,96 PTS OR 2.03%
INDIA’S SENSEX IN THE GREEN
Gold very early morning trading: 1924.30
silver:$22.70
USA dollar index early TUESDAY morning: 105.96 DOWN 8 BASIS POINTS FROM MONDAY’s CLOSE.
Great news everyone!! Bidenomics is working or something. Retail sales soared more than expected, so did Industrial Production, so did Manufacturing Output… and continuing claims are still low…
WTF are people so miserable out in all these sentiment surveys?
Well… it’s all illusion/delusion (economics PhD speak for ‘adjustments’)…
And remember what Goldman warned about on jobless claims: ongoing seasonal distortions have increasingly weighed on the level of continuing claims over the last six months, and we now expect that the reversal of those distortions could exert a cumulative boost of 375k to the level of continuing claims between the end of September and March.
The economic data (seasonally-adjusted) has been holding in ‘so strong’ as financial conditions have tightened dramatically…
Source: Bloomberg
The “good news” prompted a big jump in rate-hike expectations (Dec 2023 and Jan 2024 basically now at 50% and 60% respectively)…
Source: Bloomberg
And, the “good” news headlines sparked another panic-puke in bonds, sending yields to cycle highs. All yields were significantly higher but the belly underperformed the wings on the day (2Y +10bps, 5Y +15bps, 30Y +7bps), and that is evident on the week
Source: Bloomberg
2Y yields hit 5.23% today… 2006 highs was 5.275%… before that we go back to Dec 2000.
Source: Bloomberg
5Y yields hit 4.88%, its highest since July 2007 (that cycle high was 5.23% in June 2006).
Source: Bloomberg
10Y yields reached up near last week’s highs and reversed a little…
Source: Bloomberg
And in case you wondered, 30Y mortgage rates are inching ever closer to 8% – more than 23 year highs – are unprecedentedly decoupled from the effective rate of current mortgage-holders…
Source: Bloomberg
Translation: sellers are trapped and buyers are priced out.
Higher yields, lower stocks right? Nope. The economy must be doing great so buy, buy, buy. Around 1230ET stocks rolled over (as the S&P 500 tagged its 50DMA) and stocks dipped when a rocket hit a hospital in Gaza and killed 100s (who the f knows where the missile came from at this point). By the close, Small Caps were dramatically higher (short squeeze) while Nasdaq was the biggest loser (China AI exports) with The Dow and S&P trying to hold on to unch…
Another short-squeeze…
Source: Bloomberg
Tech stocks took a spill as the Biden admin confirmed new crackdown rules on exports of AI chips to China. SOX tumbled (bounced, then slid lower again)…
NVDA was punched in the face, despite its claims it would not be affected?
VIX tumbled down to a 16 handle briefly intraday before bouncing back above 18 and ending higher on the day…
The dollar chopped around wildly to end unchanged…
Source: Bloomberg
The dollar’s action was echoed in crypto – Bitcoin went sideways to slightly higher…
Source: Bloomberg
And gold sideways to slightly higher…
Crude… did the same… dropping and popping to end slightly higher…
Finally, with real-yields back near cycle highs, valuations for stocks start to get “questionable” again…
Source: Bloomberg
Did Biden just bust his AI bubble?
Source: Bloomberg
Is that another big ‘head and shoulders’ pattern?
EARLY MORNING TRADING/
TUCKER CARLSON..
end
II USA DATA
Nominal retail sales soar. Remember this is nominal!
And Goldman was right with a huge beat, headline retail sales soared 0.7% MoM (vs +0.3% exp). The previous two months were also revised higher (rising for 6 straight months), lifting retail sales up 3.8% YoY (the highest since Feb 2023)…
Source: Bloomberg
Retail sales soared across the board with core (ex-Autos and Gas) exploded higher (+0.6% MoM) and the Control group (used for GDP calc) also jumped 0.6% MoM…
Source: Bloomberg
Under the hood, there is barely any red, with miscellaneous store retailers soaring…
…after miscellaneous store retailers plunged last month…
Source: Bloomberg
This is certainly not the ‘slowdown’ The Fed would have hoped to see
end
Hard data is always weaker than soft data: today USA manufacturing production lower Y/Y for the 7th straight month
(zerohedge)
US Manufacturing Production Lower YoY For 7th Straight Month
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 09:39 AM
US industrial production unexpectedly jumped by 0.3% MoM in September (0.0% exp) as capacity utilization picked up modestly (from 79.5% to 79.7%). This is the 3rd straight month of increased industrial production (and IP remains marginally higher on YoY basis)…
Source: Bloomberg
Utilities slid 0.3% MoM in Sept after rising 0.7% MoM in Aug.
On the manufacturing specific sector, production rose 0.4% MoM (better than the 0.0% exp).
Manufacturing production, however, remains lower on a YoY basis for the seventh straight month.
Once again, seasonal-adjustments saved the day as Manufacturing output fell 0.5% NSA (+0.4% SA)…
Source: Bloomberg
Seasonals saved Bidenomics…
One thing of note – ahead of the UAW strikes – is that Business Light Vehicles-Autos production plunged 6.2% MoM in September (after a big jump in August)…
Presumably this will be an utter shitshow next month as the factory closures hit.
end
Another indicator that the economy is faltering
(zerohedge)
NY/NJ/CT Services Sector Collapses In October
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 09:01 AM
Activity declined significantly in the service sector, according to firms responding to the FRBNY’s October 2023 Business Leaders Survey (which covers service firms in New York, northern New Jersey, and southwestern Connecticut). The survey’s headline business activity index plunged 16pts to -19.1 (biggest drop in a year), its lowest level since Jan 2023…
Source: Bloomberg
From the exuberance of August’s re-emergence into positive territory, the sentiment survey has collapses back near cyclical lows.
Additionally, as FRBNY reports, the business climate index fell 9pts to -35.9, suggesting the business climate remains much worse than normal – and expectations plunged…
Despite the plunge in sentiment, employment rose modestly and prices were stable.
Maybe more government handouts for more migrants from Texas will help?
end
Soft data homebuilder sentiment slumps again. Housing is a big part of USA GDP
(zerohedge)
Homebuilder Sentiment Slumped (Again) In October Amid “Housing Affordability Crisis”
TUESDAY, OCT 17, 2023 – 10:23 AM
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
The quote – attributed to Upton Sinclair – sums up the blind optimism that has dominated homebuilder confidence data for the last six months. But reality is really starting to sink in and this morning’s data for October shows another big disappointment as the headline NAHB confidence index printed at 9-month lows (down 5 to 45, vs 49 exp). That is the 4th straight monthly miss in a row (and 5 upside surprises)…
Source: Bloomberg
Alicia Huey, NAHB chair, said in a statement: “Builders have reported lower levels of buyer traffic, as some buyers, particularly younger ones, are priced out of the market because of higher interest rates.”
Measures of current and expected sales, as well as a gauge of prospective buyer traffic, also dropped to their lowest levels since the start of the year.
Source: Bloomberg
Adding that “higher rates are also increasing the cost and availability of builder development and construction loans, which harms supply and contributes to lower housing affordability,” Huey said.
Source: Bloomberg
Builder sentiment in all four major US regions declined from a month earlier.
In order to get buyers to close deals in the current high interest-rate environment, many builders are offering financial incentives. The share of builders offering all types of buyer incentives rose to 62% this month, matching the cycle high reached in December.
And if homebuyer confidence is anything to go by, homebuilder confidence has a long way to go to catch down to the harsh reality of almost 8% mortgages (when median mortgage holders’ rates are around 3-4%)…
Source: Bloomberg
If manipulating affordability lower was The Fed’s goal, they failed.
“The housing affordability crisis can only be solved by adding additional attainable, affordable supply,” said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz.
“Boosting housing production would help reduce the shelter inflation component that was responsible for more than half of the overall Consumer Price Index increase in September and aid the Fed’s mission to bring inflation back down to 2%. However, uncertainty regarding monetary policy is contributing to affordability challenges in the market.”
And the sudden realization by homebuilders that this is more than transitory – and their margins can’t keep soaking up incentives forever – then the real pain is yet to come.
end
III) USA ECONOMIC STORIES
Strategists sound alarm on dimmer profit outlook
(zerohedge)
Strategists Sound Alarm On Dimmer Profit Outlook
MONDAY, OCT 16, 2023 – 11:35 PM
Earlier today we excerpted from two recent reports, one from BofA and another from Goldman, both of which were rather optimistic when it comes to both Q3 earnings season and corporate profits beyond. Not everyone, however, shares their enthusiasm. According to a duo of far more bearish strategists from Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan, the outlook for earnings is weakening and could remain subdued.
As the reporting season kicks off, in his latest weekly note (available to pro subscribers) Morgan Stanley’s resident permabear Michael Wilson said the earnings revisions breadth – referring to the number of stocks seeing upgrades versus downgrades – for the S&P 500 has fallen sharply over the past couple of weeks.
And since this is a time of year when earnings revisions tend to see an upward inflection in breadth…
… further underperformance “would be a sign that other cyclical risks including macro headwinds are driving the earnings revisions backdrop,” Wilson wrote in the note.
Meanwhile, as Bloomberg’s Sagarika Jaisinghani observes, JPMorgan’s equally bearish strategist Mislav Matejka points to Citigroup’s index of earnings revisions which shows that downgrades have outpaced upgrades for four straight weeks ahead of the reporting season, and expects this trend to continue.
“Most recently, EPS revisions appear to be weakening again in the US and Eurozone,” Matejka wrote in a note. “We think this downtrend could continue.”
The bearish views are in contrast to a more optimistic tone from analysts ahead of the season, which kicked off Friday with banking giants including JPMorgan. Upcoming results will further reveal how companies have managed headwinds such as higher interest rates and slowing consumer demand.
The prospect of higher-for-longer interest rates has unnerved markets this month, with the 10-year Treasury yield hitting the highest in more than a decade. Investors are bracing for the Federal Reserve to keep policy tight, rekindling recession concerns that have been heightened by conflict in the Middle East.
Still, RBC Capital Markets strategist Lori Calvasina said that the reporting season is off to a good start in terms of stock price reactions, even though earnings-per-share revisions have turned slightly negative and commentary suggests the uncertain macroeconomic backdrop is taking a toll on companies. Out of the few S&P 500 companies which reported so far, 88% have beaten estimates according to Bloomberg data.
Calvasina slightly lifted her S&P 500 earnings-per-share forecast for 2023 and 2024. “Our 2024 forecast assumes a significant moderation in inflation, easing of interest rate pressures in the back half of the year, and sluggish GDP and industrial production forecasts,” she wrote in a note.
To be sure, early results show a “strong start” to the quarter, according to BofA’s Savita Subramanian, who said the S&P 500 companies that have reported so far are tracking a 1% beat led by Banks, with reported results coming in 9% above consensus (+2% ex-Financials).
And while analysts predict S&P 500 companies will report a 0.8% drop in third-quarter earnings from a year ago before a 6.2% rebound in the final three months of the year, we are likely to see a sharp hockeystick during earnings season due to the usual sandbagging and expectation cuts ahead of earnings to make beats more likely.
“We look for company guidance to provide more clarity on 4Q expectations, which should in turn set the tone for the 2024 revisions,” Wilson wrote.
END
What an absolute joke!!
(zerohedge)
Biden Admin Orders Banks Not To Reject Illegal Immigrants’ Loan Applications
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said in a recent statement that rejecting illegal immigrants for credit cards and various types of loans just because they are noncitizens is unlawful.
The two agencies stated that they were issuing the warning “because consumers have reported being rejected for credit cards as well as for auto, student, personal and equipment loans because of their immigration status, even when they have strong credit histories and ties to the United States and are otherwise qualified to receive the loans.”
Specifically, the agencies cited the provisions of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), which protects credit applicants from discrimination based on such characteristics as race, religion, sexual orientation, and national origin.
The agencies argue that protections afforded by ECOA and other laws extend to alienage, so banks that have blanket policies to deny loans to illegal immigrants may be breaking the law.
“Lenders should not deny people the opportunity to take out a loan to buy a home, build their businesses or otherwise pursue their financial goals because of unlawful bias and without regard to their actual ability to repay,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.
Bud Cummins, a former U.S. attorney, objected to the agencies’ warning to banks and other financial institutions.
“DOJ and CFPB tell banks it might be illegal to refuse to loan money to people [who] broke federal law to reach the bank. You gotta be kidding me. The invasion of illegal immigrants is intentional and must be stopped,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, there were roughly 11.35 million illegal immigrants residing in the United States as of January 2022.
More Details
The agencies said that ECOA protections extend to alienage, although in a joint statement, they acknowledged some gray area, namely that the act “does not expressly prohibit consideration of immigration status.”
Some financial institutions have maintained blanket policies denying people credit based on their immigration status, without regard for their ability to repay, interpreting ECOA in a way that they believe shields them from liability, according to the agencies, which added that this is incorrect.
“A creditor may consider an applicant’s immigration status when necessary to ascertain the creditor’s rights regarding repayment,” the agencies said, explaining that Regulation B, a rule that implements ECOA, expressly states that the only conditions under which immigration status may be considered is only to determine creditors’ “rights and remedies regarding repayment” of a loan.
If financial institutions consider immigration status for any other reason, the agencies said they’re probably breaking the law.
“Creditors should be aware that unnecessary or overbroad reliance on immigration status in the credit decisioning process, including when that reliance is based on bias, may run afoul of ECOA’s antidiscrimination provisions and could also violate other laws,” the agencies said.
The “other laws” mentioned could refer to the 1866 Civil Rights Act, also known as Section 1981, which the agencies said in their joint statement “has long been construed to prohibit discrimination based on alienage.”
They said that courts have found that “ECOA’s prohibition of national origin discrimination and Section 1981’s prohibitions complement one another and that discrimination that arises from overbroad restrictions on lending to noncitizens may violate either or both statutes.”
It’s unclear whether any banks or financial institutions intend to challenge the DOJ and CFPB’s interpretation of the law regarding the provision of loans to illegal immigrants.
END
Totally nuts: controversy erupts over calls for USA to accept GAZA refugees. Some want to accept them?
(Ozimek/EpochTimes)
Controversy Erupts Over Calls For US To Accept Gaza Refugees Amid Israel–Hamas War
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a member of the left-wing “Squad” in Congress, was cited by the New York Post as calling for the United States to “welcome refugees from Palestine,” while Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) has introduced legislation that would block people with Palestinian passports from being admitted into the country.
“We can’t let President Biden abuse our parole and visa rules to bring unvetted Palestinians into American communities the way he did with thousands of unvetted Afghans,” Mr. Tiffany said in a statement posted on X, referring to the Biden administration’s decision to let 76,000 unvetted Afghan refugees come to the United States following the U.S. withdrawal and Taliban takeover of the country.
“I introduced the GAZA Act to protect America’s national security.”
He also shared the contents of the Guaranteeing Aggressors Zero Admission (GAZA) Act exclusively with Breitbart.
While Mr. Bowman has called for the admission of Gaza refugees to the United States, he said they should be vetted prior to being allowed in.
“Fifty percent of the population in Gaza are children,” he said. “The international community as well as the United States should be prepared to welcome refugees from Palestine while being very careful to vet and not allow members of Hamas.”
Like Mr. Tiffany, other Republicans have expressed opposition to opening the door to Gaza refugees.
“The U.S. is the most generous nation in the world, but we are in no position to accept additional refugees, especially from a region with as high a risk of terrorism, given our nation’s inability to secure our own border or vet those who are already here,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told the NY Post.
Likewise, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said on Oct. 14 that the United States “cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees,” saying that neighboring Arab nations should “open their borders” and take them in.
The Israeli military said on Oct. 14 that it had seen a “significant movement” of Palestinian civilians to the south, a day after ordering Gaza City residents to flee and later said that it was “preparing to implement a wide range of offensive operative plans” that would include coordinated strikes from the air, land, and sea.
That came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised further actions in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis, in which terrorists killed at least 1,300 Israelis, mainly civilians, and seized hostages.
The United Nations has estimated that roughly 423,000 people have been displaced in Gaza, while U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said it would be impossible to stage such a large evacuation without “devastating humanitarian consequences.”
Mariana Dahan, founder of the World Identity Network (WIN) Foundation, told the NY Post that the Israel–Hamas conflict “may add over 1 million people to the already staggering number of 6 million Palestinian refugees in the world.”
The Israeli military stated that Hamas has set up roadblocks and is “forcefully preventing their civilians from relocating to southern Gaza for their own safety.”
With the rhetoric heating up around the fate of the people evacuating Gaza, the issue of Palestinian refugees has become a hot topic in Washington.
Discussions on Capitol Hill
President Joe Biden said consultations were underway with regional governments on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as Palestinians endured a power blackout and shortages of food and water.
Progressive Democrats in the House on Oct. 13 called on the Biden administration to take steps to limit civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip.
In a letter addressed to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, signed by 55 House members, the lawmakers expressed their concerns about the “unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza” as Israel responds to the terrorist attack by Hamas.
“As President Biden has previously stated, Israel has the right to defend its people and respond to these vicious attacks,” they wrote.
“We strongly believe that Israel’s response must take into account the millions of innocent civilians in Gaza who themselves are victims of Hamas and are suffering the consequences of their terror campaign.”
The Israeli military, for its part, has said it’ll “make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians” while it carries out operations in Gaza in the coming days.
Caden Pearson contributed to this report.
END
Your are going to see a lot of this: Billionaires cutting off funding and ties to major universities over Pro Hamas remarks
(EpochTimes)
Harvard Gets More Bad News As Another Billionaire Cuts Ties Over Pro-Hamas Remarks
The Wexner Foundation, a nonprofit founded by billionaire Leslie Wexner and his wife Abigail, has broken ties with Harvard University over the school’s response to the Hamas terror attacks against Israelis and to an anti-Israel statement issued by student groups.
“We are stunned and sickened at the dismal failure of Harvard’s leadership to take a clear and unequivocal stand against the barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians by terrorists last Saturday,” the Wexner Foundation’s leadership wrote to the Harvard board of overseers, in an Oct. 16 letter obtained by The Epoch Times.
Abigail and Leslie Wexner, whose fortune Forbes estimates at $6 billion, were among the signatories of the letter. The couple expressed their disappointment with Harvard’s failure to condemn a shocking statement issued by 34 student groups that says Israel is entirely responsible for the violent attack carried out on Oct. 7 by Hamas terrorists.
Over 1,400 Israelis were killed in the terror attacks, the vast majority civilians, while some 200 were taken hostage. A member of the Israeli nongovernmental rescue and recovery service ZAKA said that at one Israeli community targeted by the attackers, roughly 80 percent of the 280 murdered victims bore signs of torture, including children.
Following the attacks, 34 student groups co-signed an Oct. 8 letter authored by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee that held “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
“Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum,” the letter said.
“The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years.”
After Harvard was criticized for its silence on Hamas’s deadly attacks and on the student letter, a chorus of alumni and professors rebuked the students’ statement, including former Harvard president Larry Summers, who said the letter “sickened” him.
“The silence from Harvard’s leadership, so far, coupled with a vocal and widely reported student groups’ statement blaming Israel solely, has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral toward acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel,” Mr. Summers wrote in a post on X.
Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and his wife Batia quit a Harvard executive board in protest over how university leaders responded to the Hamas terror attacks.
“Unfortunately, our faith in the University’s leadership has been broken and we cannot in good faith continue to support Harvard and its committees,” the couple said in a statement to CNN.
Following the backlash, at least nine organizations that initially signed the letter withdrew their support.
‘Tiptoeing, Equivocating’
Harvard University President Claudine Gay would later issue a brief statement condemning “the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas” while also noting that students “have the right to speak for themselves” but insisting that they don’t speak on behalf of the university.
“We will all be well served in such a difficult moment by rhetoric that aims to illuminate and not inflame,” she wrote.
“And I appeal to all of us in this community of learning to keep this in mind as our conversations continue.”
But the Wexners said that Harvard’s overall response to the Hamas atrocities wasn’t good enough.
“Other university presidents have said precisely what we should have heard from President Gay: ‘What Hamas did is evil and there is no defense for terrorism. This shouldn’t be hard,'” the Wexners wrote, citing Ben Sasse, President of the University of Florida.
They accused Harvard leaders of “tiptoeing, equivocating, and we, like former Harvard President Larry Summers cannot ‘fathom the administration’s failure to disassociate the university and condemn the statement'” issued by the student groups.
The Wexners wrote that, in the absence of the kind of “clear moral stand” demonstrated by Mr. Summer’s swift condemnation of the students’ statement, the Wexner Foundation and Harvard “are no longer compatible partners.”
“Our core values and those of Harvard no longer align,” they wrote, adding that the Wexner Foundation was ending its financial and programmatic ties with Harvard and the Harvard Kennedy School.
CEOs Look to Blacklist Students Over Anti-Israel Letter
The negative reaction to the Harvard student groups’ anti-Israel statement also extended to America’s corporate boardrooms.
A number of CEOs of U.S. companies have expressed a willingness to blacklist Harvard students who blamed Israel for the violence perpetrated by Hamas.
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said in a post on X that he had been asked by several CEOs if the university would release a list of the members of each of the Harvard organizations that supported the letter “so as to [e]nsure that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.”
“If, in fact, their members support the letter they have released, the names of the signatories should be made public so their views are publicly known,” Mr. Ackman said.
Mr. Ackman’s comments received support from a number of business leaders.
“I would like to know so I know never to hire these people,” Jonathan Neman, CEO of restaurant chain Sweetgreen, said in an X post.
“I second this,” Jake Wurzak, CEO of DoveHill Capital Management, said in a reply to Mr. Ackman’s post.
“We are in as well,” said Michael Broukhim, the CEO of lifestyle firm FabFitFun.
Some of the student organizations that signed the letter include the Harvard Jews for Liberation, the Harvard Prison Divest Coalition, and the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.
Several groups later backtracked. According to the student newspaper of Harvard University, The Harvard Crimson, the Harvard Undergraduate Nepali Student Association, Harvard College Act on a Dream, Amnesty International at Harvard, and the Harvard Islamic Society have all backtracked on their support.
Another organization, the Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo, released a statement on Instagram to “formally apologize,” for signing the letter and retract their signature.
“We would like to clarify that we stand in solidarity with both Israeli and Palestinian Victims and Families,” the statement said.
The students also “strongly” denounced and condemned the “massacre propagated by the terrorist organization Hamas.”
“We truly apologize for the insensitivity of the statement that was released recently.”
The PSC later amended the letter to hide the organizations who signed, citing safety concerns over ongoing harassment of students in those groups, even ones that graduated years ago and are no longer members.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
This is a must read.
(Victor Davis Hanson)
Victor Davis Hanson Surveys Our Post-Hamas Wreckage
As Hamas goes, so with it go many of the following related Western pretensions.
The Passions of 9/11, Redux
It has been 22 years since we saw crowds throughout the Middle East celebrating the murder of 3,000 civilians—and since newspapers had daily “idiot watch” notices of American intellectuals defending radical Islamist mass murderers. And now the madness is back again, and we are witnessing the recrudescence of normalizing radical Islamic terrorists abroad.
I suppose the theory is that no one in America cares much about radical Islamists foaming at the mouth, whether abroad or here. And the result is that they are empowered and their defense of murder is growing—yet its hubris will earn an almost-certain response, an anger slowly but insidiously growing at radical Islam.
A Middle East Policy in Ruins
The current Biden appeasement of Iran and gift of billions of dollars in aggregate to the West Bank and Gaza are now, by bipartisan consensus, unsustainable. The only supporters of that lethal madness left are the embarrassments of BLM, the Squad, the Democratic Socialists of America, and the campus crowd.
Their collective hatred of Jews and Israelis was manifested in their delight over the post mortem mutilations of murdered women and children. And why—even before Israel had responded with air attacks—were leftists and Islamists suddenly celebrating the news of the executions of more than 1,200 Jews? It was instinctual, a Pavlovian response.
Even some leftist Democrats were shocked by their own constituents, whom they had created. Biden still might cling to his past destructive Middle East policies (and I expect him to restrict the Israelis within days after they begin to go in full force into Gaza), but the idea of continuing aid to the West Bank and Gaza or of “normalizing” relations with theocratic Iran will now be rightly seen as a suicidal delusion.
Ukraine and Gaza
Most Americans support arms for Ukraine to repel Russian aggressors.
But something is becoming strange about these two respective wars.
Why did the State Department more or less put no restrictions on Ukrainian retaliation, including operations against the Russian Black Sea Fleet—but the Secretary of State almost immediately called for a “ceasefire” to prevent Israeli retaliation, a mortal sin if he had dared say that about Ukraine’s similar response to aggression? Would an American diplomat lecture Ukraine about ending the “cycle of violence?”
Why does the U.S. discount any possibility of a strategic response from Russia—which reportedly has some 6,000-7,000 nuclear weapons—to attacks on its homeland, but seems almost terrified about calling Iran to account for its central role in arming and funding terrorists to start a war with Israel by slaughtering 1,200 civilians?
Is the U.S., as professed, really able to fund a $120 billion—and counting—war in Ukraine, and to replenish Israeli stocks (300,000 artillery shells shipped from U.S. depots in Israel to Ukraine, a reportedly mere one-month supply for Kyiv), and to restore depleted existing U.S. munitions (note the billions of dollars of equipment abandoned in Kabul), and to ramp up our forces to deter China (while allowing 8 million illegal aliens to flow across an open border and $33 trillion in national debt) without going on a massive war footing?
There are likely somewhere between 600,000 and 800,000 total wounded and dead in Ukraine, in the most lethal conflict in Europe since 1945. Why is the U.S. so eager to call for a ceasefire after a fraction of those casualties in Gaza, but it is near-taboo to mention a breather amid the historical carnage, with no end in sight, in Ukraine?
The administration always says we can do everything simultaneously, but then we never do. Rhetoric is not the same thing as trebling our arms supply chain, and cutting the budget elsewhere to pay for it, and closing our border.
The Biden Open Border
Given the common denominator of Russian and Gazan invading forces crossing poorly fortified borders, why would we not secure our own—far longer and less secure than either?
The Biden border nihilism is now a losing proposition even for the leftists who helped promote it. Biden is eroding the very base of the Democratic Party, by alienating inner-city and border-district minorities. They are irate at the hordes of people stampeding into the country with the assumption that breaking our laws is their birthright.
Even the daily mendacity of Alejandro Mayorkas and Karine Jean-Pierre cannot hide the brazen contempt for the law. Every day that the border remains open and thousands more pour in unaudited, illegally, without skills, in non-diverse fashion, and with cartel fentanyl—to the cheers of the corrupt socialist President Obrador of Mexico—the more Joe Biden is destroying his own party.
The ruin in Gaza only reminds Americans that under present policies we will soon see thousands of America-hating, anti-Semitic Gazans seeking to pour into the United States illegally, eager to join the mass demonstrations cheering on Hamas death squads. It seems to take about a month for a radical Middle Eastern refugee, having arrived with gratitude toward his new American hosts, to take to the street on a “Day of Jihad” calling for the end of Israel (and often damning America).
Allies as Enemies
Abroad, we are finally accepting the long-suppressed reality that many of our “allies” are not neutrals but enemies. The U.S. bases in Qatar and Turkey, and our indifference to the pro-Hamas sentiments, if not outright aid, of both, have empowered terrorism.
Ever so slowly, the two anti-American nations are reminding Americans that we need to draw down our forces from these hostile landscapes, which in any global crisis would likely be hostile territory for our own troops.
Everyone knows Erdogan’s Turkey has no business in NATO—and everyone has no idea how to get them out. And so everyone puts an asterisk over Turkey as a NATO member. For now, the alliance’s only Islamist, non-democratic, and anti-Western nation is best simply avoided, since expelling Turkey appears to be more trouble than tolerating its toxic presence.
The Palestinian State Solution
The Left’s shrill demand for a “two-state” solution, and tolerance of Palestinian tired and serial threats to drive Israel into the sea, are for now over. The glee with which Gazans and West Bankers met the news of mass murder, mutilation, hostage-taking, rape, and the desecration of bodies is proof enough that these dictatorial governments probably do represent the majority of their citizens.
Most Gazans were giddy on hearing of the macabre methods of Hamas, and only wished that there had been more opportunity to spit on hostages, poke captive women, kick corpses, and torment the child and female trophies brought back from Israel. The Gazan delight in the grotesque was reminiscent of some medieval pogrom, or the Roman triumphs of old with their files of enslaved captives. And perhaps the desire to take captives and pass them back through the killing fields to Gaza reminds of the Aztec practice of seeking to capture rather than just kill their enemies, in order to have plenty of bodies for the human sacrifices on Templo Major.
The old idea of Gaza—self-governed since 2005-2006 by “one man, one vote, once” Hamas—as a possible “Singapore” with Hyatt and Four Seasons beaches, flush with hundreds of billions of dollars from the Gulf, Europe, the U.S. and the UN, is finally revealed as the farce it always was. That fantasy was simply antithetical to the Hamas nihilist charter, the logical manifestation of which was the slaughter inside Israel of hundreds of civilians.
BLM
BLM was always a corrupt, disingenuous operation—the craftier successor to the Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton 1980s corporate shake-downs. But it is has finally jumped the shark with its sick support for Hamas murderers (note its recent posters glorifying Hamas’s hang-gliding butchery).
Its pro-death advocacy of Hamas is the pièce de résistance to the corruption and abdication of its leadership, the Kendi-con, and the lethal crime wave it helped spawn in major cities. Its racist agendas may linger for a while. But BLM is going the way of the 1960s Black Panthers—that is, one leading to general disgust, then to irrelevance, and finally to nothingness.
The still-remaining BLM murals in our major downtowns are already embarrassments and eroding reminders of the insanity that swept the country from 2020 to the present.
Campuses
Universities have now crossed the Rubicon in de facto condoning their crazed students cheering on mass death. They made the argument after George Floyd that the country must listen to their pseudo-moral lectures, and now they unashamedly broadcast what they have become—traitors to the idea of an enlightened free society, and kindred spirits to the anti-Semitism, intolerance, and fascism of 1930s German universities.
Degrees from Harvard, Yale, and Stanford will soon become, not resume badges, but either embarrassments or certifications of a mediocre education. Or both.
Universities all rushed to embrace “decolonization”, starting with empty and ahistorical virtue signals and ending up paralyzed, as thousands of their own students showed the world how ecstatic they were over news that babies were murdered and women raped.
In response, their invertebrate administrators and faculty sat frozen for days, calculating how best to issue “on the one hand…on the other hand” mush. The first serious politician who calls for the taxing of the huge incomes of their endowments, for yanking the government out of the student loan business and returning the moral hazard to the universities who impoverish their own students, will win overwhelming support.
The Gaza of Hamas is going down, but so are a lot of corrupt institutions and ideas that threw in with its lot.
I would recommend against the Nazi reference: the Nazis didn’t deny knowledge of atrocities until *after the war*, making them a bad contrast to current Palestinians.
At 9:25 ET, ESZs were +23.25 and USZs were -1 8/32. The usual suspects wanted to be long stocks for the Monday Rally and the Earnings Season Rally. Of course, Fangs soared, which is a staple of the earnings season upward bias.
When trading action is at odds with news or events, the financial media concocts rationalizations to explain market action that was created by trading schemes. On Monday, the favorite rationalization for the equity rally was ‘it looks like the Israel-Hamas War will be a contained conflict.’ PUHLEASE!!!
Harker is his zest to promote dovish policies (pandering to whom?), conveniently ignores: 1) higher interest rates decrease affordably, which impairs demand; 2) the Fed distorted home prices when it monetized 2.731 TRILLION of MBS; and 3) private equity firms, like Blackstone, have bought beaucoup homes over the past decade or so. Why doesn’t Harker address the Fed MBS buying dynamic and the fact that Wall Street firms are curtailing the supply of homes? Who owns the Fed?
Wall Street has purchased hundreds of thousands of single-family homes since the Great Recession. Corporations backed by private equity groups such as Blackstone and Pretium Partners bought tens of thousands of homes across the U.S. Sun Belt… February 21, 2023 The single-family rental industry got its start with government backing in the fallout after the 2008 financial crisis… By 2030, the institutions may hold some 7.6 million homes, or more than 40% of all single-family rentals on the market, according to the 2022 forecast by MetLife Investment Management… https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/21/how-wall-street-bought-single-family-homes-and-put-them-up-for-rent.html
Barron’s Oct. 16, 2023: The Great Reset of Property Prices Is Underway. Brace for More Carnage. The global financial crisis that began in 2007 reshaped the real estate market. Today, commercial real estate is facing a similar “Great Reset.” Property valuations are resetting, capital availability is restricted, and investment activity is curtailed… More than $1.5 trillion of commercial real estate loans will mature over the next three years… We can trace this Great Reset, in part, to the lingering factors from the government’s response to Covid-19. This period of monetary policy easing and massive amounts of stimulus led to historically low interest rates and, in turn, saw property valuations in 2021 soar to dizzying and unsustainable heights… Rising interest rates elevate the cost of borrowing for property acquisitions and refinancing, translating into increased debt service payments and reduced cash flows, further depressing property values… (Harker see the opposite!) https://www.barrons.com/articles/real-estate-property-prices-great-reset-8543e3a8
ESZs traded moderately higher but sideways from the Nikkei opening until they broke down when the dump after the European opening began near after 3:30 ET. After hitting a daily low of 4354.50 at 4:20 ET, ESZs commenced a rally that eventually hit a peak of 4414.25 at 10:58 ET.
After a retreat to 4399.00 on selling into and just after the European close, ESZs rallied to 4110.25 on a Noon Balloon. Alas, the balloon popped quickly, ESZs sank to 4385.50 at 13:22 ET. But the usual suspects are very long for the earnings season rally, so they forced ESZs to 4410.00 at 14:07 ET.
After a retreat to 4398.50 at 14:35 ET, buying for the last-hour manipulation began. A plodding rally took ESZs to 4410.00 at 15:30 ET. The late manipulation then began. ESZs spiked 2.50 higher and immediately reversed. After falling 8 handles by 15:50 ET, ESZs jumped 6 handles in 4 minutes. But trader liquidation pushed ESZs 10 handles lower during the final 6 minutes of NYSE trading.
Positive aspects of previous session. Stock rallied for the Monday and earnings season rallies Fangs led the rally, which is a staple of the earnings season rally
Negative aspects of previous session Bonds sank as much as 1 19/32; gasoline rallied
Ambiguous aspects of previous session Why didn’t oil and gold soar earlier this week? Is someone managing markets?
First Hour/Last Hour Action [S&P 500 Index]: 1st Hour from NYSE Open: Up; Last Hour: Down
Pivot Point for S&P 500 Index [above/below indicates daily trend to traders]: 4366.44 Previous session S&P 500 Index High/Low: 4383.33; 4342.37
“We Can’t Force the Human Body to Accept Foreign Genetic Code” Dr. McCullough on mRNA Technologyhttps://t.co/Rr2sG8gyfQ
@AlexBerenson: In 1980, before the public health complex went nuts pushing vaccines for respiratory viruses, the US gave out 12.4MM jabs. And had 19,000 flu deaths. From 2016-2019 (before Covid), the US gave out about 160MM shots a year. And averaged 35,000 flu deaths. This does NOT mean flu shots cause flu deaths; the US has aged since 1980, and age is a huge driver of flu risk (though not as much as Covid risk), and flu deaths move randomly year-to-year. But if the shots worked AT ALL, you would expect SOME drop in deaths over time. But we have seen no decline. Because flu shots don’t work. At all. Good epidemiology (including a massive and irrefutable study from Britain in 2020) makes clear: flu shots are a MARKER for health, not a driver of health. But they aren’t very risky, so no one cares. But the mRNAs have nasty immediate side effects, and a lot of people have at least minor cardiovascular issues afterwards (afib, notably), and everyone knows they don’t stop Covid. People are DONE with them. I suspect the mRNA jabs for flu and RSV will be similarly rejected.
4th Iranian ‘special interest alien’ apprehended this month in Texas, US customs confirms “Special interest aliens”… are from countries identified… as having conditions that promote or protect terrorism or potentially pose some sort of national security threat to the US… https://trib.al/3Zqfj2I
@AP: President Biden will travel to Israel on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Blinken announced
@IDF Monday night: The IDF is currently striking Hezbollah terrorist targets in Lebanon.
Fox News reports U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin instituted “be ready to deploy” orders for a select number of American troops should Israel need them.
@CollinRugg: Iran’s official international broadcasting radio network has posted on X: “The Victory of God is near.” The statement comes as Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian warned of a “preemptive action” in the coming hours. The foreign minister also recently threatened a “huge earthquake” in Israel if they continue to attack the Gaza Strip. “I know about the scenarios that Hezbollah has put in place. Any step the resistance will take will cause a huge earthquake in the Zionist entity.” “I want to warn the war criminals and those who support this entity before it’s too late to stop the crimes against civilians in Gaza, because it might be too late in a few hours.”
Today –Despite the horrid global geopolitical situation and an imminent ground war in Gaza, US stocks rallied robustly on Monday Rally and earnings season buying. Traders want to be long Fangs and related trading sardines into Fang results. Netflix and Tesla report tomorrow. Barring news, traders will be bullish until Fang results disabuse them of the upward bias or final Fang results appear.
ESZs are flat and USZs are-1/32 at 20:50 ET in very quiet trading.
Expected economic data: Sept Retail Sales 0.3% m/m, Ex-Autos 0.2%, Ex-Autos & Gas 0.1%; Sept Industrial Production and Mfg. Production 0.0% m/m, Capacity Utilization 79.6%; Aug Business Inventories 0.3%; Oct NAHB Housing Market Index 44; NY Fed Pres Williams 8 ET, Fed Gov. Bowman 9:20 ET, Richmond Fed Pres Barkin 10:45 ET
S&P 500 Index 50-day MA: 4402; 100-day MA: 4404; 150-day MA: 4298; 200-day MA: 4224 DJIA 50-day MA: 34,319; 100-day MA: 34,293; 150-day MA: 33,944; 200-day MA: 33,822 (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 3828.58 triggers a sell signal Weekly: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 4473.50 triggers a buy signal Daily: Trender and MACD are positive – a close below 4274.21 triggers a sell signal Hourly: Trender and MACD are positive – a close below 4334.32 triggers a sell signal
James Comer: Joe Biden Potentially Kept Sensitive Docs about Family Business Involvement with Foreign Countries – If any of the classified documents mishandled by President Biden involved countries or individuals that had financial dealings with Biden family members or their related companies, the Committee needs access to that information to evaluate whether our national security has been compromised…Of the many classified documents he reviewed over his lengthy career, why did President Biden keep these specific documents in his home and office? The sensitive nature of the information contained in the documents may answer that question for the Committee, which is why we seek to review those materials… https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/10/16/james-comer-joe-biden-potentially-kept-sensitive-docs-family-business-involvement-foreign-countries/
Comer demands answers from special counsel Hur about Biden’s ‘influence peddling schemes’ “The committee is concerned that President Biden may have retained sensitive documents related to specific countries involving his family’s foreign business,” Comer wrote… Comer, a Kentucky Republican, wrote that the “evidence suggests President Biden may have used certain members of his family – particularly his son, Hunter Biden – to accumulate millions of dollars from foreign individuals and entities for the benefit of his family and himself.” The letter also reads: “Biden family members, their business associates, and their related companies received significant payments from individuals and companies in China, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Romania.7 In addition, other evidence recently released by the Ways and Means Committee identified over 20 different countries with ties to the Biden family’s influence peddling schemes.”… https://justthenews.com/government/congress/comer-demands-answers-special-counsel-about-bidens-alleged-influence-peddling
Columbia University refuses to condemn professor who called Hamas attack ‘awesome’https://trib.al/4qqqWe8
After years of policing students for micro aggressions and prohibiting conservative speakers on campus, university chiefs now allow hate and ‘death to’ speeches.
Berlin city official advises citizens not to ‘make their Jewish faith visible’https://t.co/UedzHPz9ox
US intelligence warned of the potential for violence days before Hamas attack – CNN One update from September 28 warned, based on multiple streams of intelligence, that the terror group Hamas was poised to escalate rocket-attacks across the border. An October 5 wire from the CIA warned generally of the increasing possibility of violence by Hamas. Then, on October 6, the day before the attack, US officials circulated reporting from Israel indicating unusual activity by Hamas — indications that are now clear: an attack was imminent… It is unclear if any of these US assessments were shared with Israel… https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/politics/us-intelligence-warnings-potential-gaza-clash-days-before-attack/index.html
@visegrad24: Netanyahu’s national security adviser has said Egypt gave Israel no warning whatsoever of Hamas attack, contradicting previous media reports which quoted an anonymous Egyptian source.
Israelis blame gov’t for Hamas massacre, say Netanyahu must resign – poll An overwhelming majority of 86% of respondents, including 79% of coalition supporters, said the surprise attack from Gaza is a failure of the country’s leadership. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-767880
@KanekoaTheGreat: Since 9/11, America’s War on Terror has had staggering consequences: 37 million people displaced, 4.5 million lives lost, and a jaw-dropping $8 trillion price tag.US-backed wars funneled millions of refugees to the US and Europe.
AM1968.54
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