An Update On The Housing "Recovery"

Submitted by Lance Roberts of STA Wealth Management,

 


    



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Who Are The Top Holders Of US Treasurys

Yesterday, when the Treasury released its TIC data early by mistake, the update that China’s holdings rose to a record $1.317 trillion caused a stir. This was confusing, since while China, which as we reported yesterday, now has a record $3.8 trillion in reserves having grown by $500 billion in 2013, has barely invested in US paper, and in fact going back to 2010, its holdings were a solid $1.2 trillion. In other words, its Treasury holdings have increased by a modest $100 billion in three years. Hardly anything to write home about. And certainly nothing to write home about when one considers the soaring Treasury held by the largest holder of US paper… everyone knows who that is. For those few who don’t, and for everyone else too, here is the most recent breakdown of the top holders of US paper.

And now a question: with the Fed already “tapering” its purchases of Treasurys, and thus no longer the failsafe backstop bidder of first, last or any resort, how much interest in “money good” paper will everyone else have?


    



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Obama “Fixes” The NSA: Full Transcript And Wordcloud

Earlier today Obama uttered 5,469 words to essentially say that Edward Snowden was right in blowing the whistle on the US totalitarian “Big Brother” superspy apparatus. Of course, that won’t change the fact that Snowden is self-exiled Russia, and meanwhile in the US nothing will change except for the hiring of some intelligence czar, pretending to reform the NSA’s activities while in reality just buying himself three years of breathing room, as all future complaints will be swept under the blanket rug of “we are busy fixing it.” Anyway, for all those who don’t wish to call their friendly, neighborhood NSA call center to access an instant replay of what Obama said, here is his full speech courtesy of the WaPo as well as the full wordcloud. Sadly, since the words “constitution” and “freedom” were only mentioned 4 and 2 times respectively, they did not make their way into the cloud of most frequently uttered words.

 

And the full transcript (pdf):


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1mhcKgW Tyler Durden

Obama "Fixes" The NSA: Full Transcript And Wordcloud

Earlier today Obama uttered 5,469 words to essentially say that Edward Snowden was right in blowing the whistle on the US totalitarian “Big Brother” superspy apparatus. Of course, that won’t change the fact that Snowden is self-exiled Russia, and meanwhile in the US nothing will change except for the hiring of some intelligence czar, pretending to reform the NSA’s activities while in reality just buying himself three years of breathing room, as all future complaints will be swept under the blanket rug of “we are busy fixing it.” Anyway, for all those who don’t wish to call their friendly, neighborhood NSA call center to access an instant replay of what Obama said, here is his full speech courtesy of the WaPo as well as the full wordcloud. Sadly, since the words “constitution” and “freedom” were only mentioned 4 and 2 times respectively, they did not make their way into the cloud of most frequently uttered words.

 

And the full transcript (pdf):


    



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Watch Out, “Bull Market Ahead” – Seven Key Gold Charts

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,241.00, EUR 912.63 and GBP 754.68 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,237.25, EUR 908.61 and GBP 757.19 per ounce.

Gold climbed $1.90 yesterday, closing at $1,240/oz. Silver slipped $0.12 closing at $20.10/oz.

Your Gateway to Global Bullion Storage: HOW TO STORE BULLION AROUND THE WORLD- SEVEN KEY MUST HAVES – Download Here

Gold bars (1 oz) premiums are between 4.75% and 5.5% and are trading at $1,309.36. Gold bars (1 kilo) premiums are between 3% and 3.5% and are trading at $41,301.81. Premiums are steady.

Gold is marginally lower today after gaining yesterday on the U.S. inflation data that showed that the cost of living in the U.S. increased by the most in six months. This increased the appeal of gold as an inflation hedge.

Deutsche Bank announced today that it will withdraw from gold and silver benchmark setting, or the London gold fix process but remains “fully committed to our precious metals business.”
 
The bank is just one of the five bullion banks involved in the twice-daily fixing for gold price setting. Deutsche Bank plans to sell its gold and silver fixing seats to another member of the London Bullion Market Association, said a source. The bank says it is scaling back its commodities business.

The timing of the move is interesting as at the same time Germany’s top financial regulator, Bafin, has interviewed employees of Deutsche Bank AG as part of a probe of potential manipulation of gold and silver prices. Deutsche will be aware that the Libor-rigging scandal led to fines of about $6 billion.

Yesterday, Bafin said possible manipulation of currency markets and precious metals prices is worse than the Libor rigging scandal.

Elke Koenig, the president of Bafin, said in a speech in Frankfurt yesterday that the allegations about the currency and precious metals markets are “particularly serious, because such reference values are based — unlike Libor and Euribor — typically on transactions in liquid markets and not on estimates of the banks.”

Germans are the largest buyers of gold in Europe and in the western world due their experience of hyperinflation in 1922 and currency devaluation and economic collapse after World War II.

Many German banks in most German cities deal in gold coins and bars over the counter. If gold prices have been manipulated lower in recent months contributing to the 28% fall in prices in 2013, then the many gold buyers in Germany, not to mention buyers internationally, have been victims of this manipulation.

The strong line the German financial regulator is taking regarding manipulation of precious metal prices may be due to tensions between Germany and the U.S. over the significant delays in the repatriation of Germany’s gold reserves from the U.S.

Gold and silver manipulation “conspiracy theories” are becoming more conspiracy fact by the day.

Seven Key Gold Charts – “Bull Market Ahead”
Often “a picture paints a thousand words” and the seven key gold charts below should make gold bears nervous. The charts were compiled by Nick Laird ofwww.ShareLynx.com and emailed to us Wednesday night. Sharelynx.com is a great website for charts and well worth the subscription. 

The seven gold charts suggest that there is a “bull market ahead”, as Nick says. Again, we may see some further weakness in the short term but the outlook is good for 2014 and the coming years.

So without further ado, lets look at these important gold charts.

Gold Chart 1 – The banks are long gold …

 

Gold Chart 2 – Gold stocks are being withdrawn …

 

Gold Chart 3 – Supplies are being held back …

 

Gold Chart 4 – COT Data shows that banks and others are positioned perfectly for a bull run to start … 

 

Gold Chart 5 – Pivot point time – double bottom …

 

Gold Chart 6 – Never been a better buy …

 

Gold Chart 7 – Just bounced off one of it’s most oversold phases …

 

Silver Chart – Silver double bottom…

 

Palladium Chart – Time to breakout  …
 

 

Platinum Chart – Time to get out of it’s funk …

Sentiment is as bad as we have seen it in the precious metals market. As the charts show, such sentiment, price action and oversold conditions tend to coincide with major lows in gold and silver prices and multi month price gains. 

Very poor sentiment towards gold and oversold conditions is reminiscent of the conditions seen in  late 2008 and January 2009 when gold prices had fallen by more than 25% in 9 months.


 Gold in US Dollars – 6 Years

Subsequently, gold rose from a low on January 15, 2009 at $802.60/oz to a high less than 12 months later at $1,215/oz for a gain of over 50%.  A similar move today would see gold above $1,800/oz by year end.

We believe similar gains may be seen in the coming months and years. Investors should position themselves accordingly.

HOW TO STORE BULLION – SEVEN KEY MUST HAVES – Download Here


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1cBqomB GoldCore

Watch Out, "Bull Market Ahead" – Seven Key Gold Charts

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,241.00, EUR 912.63 and GBP 754.68 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,237.25, EUR 908.61 and GBP 757.19 per ounce.

Gold climbed $1.90 yesterday, closing at $1,240/oz. Silver slipped $0.12 closing at $20.10/oz.

Your Gateway to Global Bullion Storage: HOW TO STORE BULLION AROUND THE WORLD- SEVEN KEY MUST HAVES – Download Here

Gold bars (1 oz) premiums are between 4.75% and 5.5% and are trading at $1,309.36. Gold bars (1 kilo) premiums are between 3% and 3.5% and are trading at $41,301.81. Premiums are steady.

Gold is marginally lower today after gaining yesterday on the U.S. inflation data that showed that the cost of living in the U.S. increased by the most in six months. This increased the appeal of gold as an inflation hedge.

Deutsche Bank announced today that it will withdraw from gold and silver benchmark setting, or the London gold fix process but remains “fully committed to our precious metals business.”
 
The bank is just one of the five bullion banks involved in the twice-daily fixing for gold price setting. Deutsche Bank plans to sell its gold and silver fixing seats to another member of the London Bullion Market Association, said a source. The bank says it is scaling back its commodities business.

The timing of the move is interesting as at the same time Germany’s top financial regulator, Bafin, has interviewed employees of Deutsche Bank AG as part of a probe of potential manipulation of gold and silver prices. Deutsche will be aware that the Libor-rigging scandal led to fines of about $6 billion.

Yesterday, Bafin said possible manipulation of currency markets and precious metals prices is worse than the Libor rigging scandal.

Elke Koenig, the president of Bafin, said in a speech in Frankfurt yesterday that the allegations about the currency and precious metals markets are “particularly serious, because such reference values are based — unlike Libor and Euribor — typically on transactions in liquid markets and not on estimates of the banks.”

Germans are the largest buyers of gold in Europe and in the western world due their experience of hyperinflation in 1922 and currency devaluation and economic collapse after World War II.

Many German banks in most German cities deal in gold coins and bars over the counter. If gold prices have been manipulated lower in recent months contributing to the 28% fall in prices in 2013, then the many gold buyers in Germany, not to mention buyers internationally, have been victims of this manipulation.

The strong line the German financial regulator is taking regarding manipulation of precious metal prices may be due to tensions between Germany and the U.S. over the significant delays in the repatriation of Germany’s gold reserves from the U.S.

Gold and silver manipulation “conspiracy theories” are becoming more conspiracy fact by the day.

Seven Key Gold Charts – “Bull Market Ahead”
Often “a picture paints a thousand words” and the seven key gold charts below should make gold bears nervous. The charts were compiled by Nick Laird ofwww.ShareLynx.com and emailed to us Wednesday night. Sharelynx.com is a great website for charts and well worth the subscription. 

The seven gold charts suggest that there is a “bull market ahead”, as Nick says. Again, we may see some further weakness in the short term but the outlook is good for 2014 and the coming years.

So without further ado, lets look at these important gold charts.

Gold Chart 1 – The banks are long gold …

 

Gold Chart 2 – Gold stocks are being withdrawn …

 

Gold Chart 3 – Supplies are being held back …

 

Gold Chart 4 – COT Data shows that banks and others are positioned perfectly for a bull run to start … 

 

Gold Chart 5 – Pivot point time – double bottom …

 

Gold Chart 6 – Never been a better buy …

 

Gold Chart 7 – Just bounced off one of it’s most oversold phases …

 

Silver Chart – Silver double bottom…

 

Palladium Chart – Time to breakout  …
 

 

Platinum Chart – Time to get out of it’s funk …

Sentiment is as bad as we have seen it in the precious metals market. As the charts show, such sentiment, price action and oversold conditions tend to coincide with major lows in gold and silver prices and multi month price gains. 

Very poor sentiment towards gold and oversold conditions is reminiscent of the conditions seen in  late 2008 and January 2009 when gold prices had fallen by more than 25% in 9 months.


 Gold in US Dollars – 6 Years

Subsequently, gold rose from a low on January 15, 2009 at $802.60/oz to a high less than 12 months later at $1,215/oz for a gain of over 50%.  A similar move today would see gold above $1,800/oz by year end.

We believe similar gains may be seen in the coming months and years. Investors should position themselves accordingly.

HOW TO STORE BULLION – SEVEN KEY MUST HAVES – Download Here


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1cBqomB GoldCore

Gold Jumps Above $1250 As USD Relationship Drops To 3-Month Lows

Gold and silver are rising notably this morning with little specific news aside from the Bafin precious metals manipulation furore. Silver bounced off $20 and is now over $20.40 and Gold is back over $1250. What is perhaps more notable is that the USD is higher once again which supports the fact that the relationship between precious metals and the US Dollar is at its weakest since October (as opposed to its more normal negatively correlated relationship). As Dean Popplewell notes, "we are seeing a short-term phenomenon of physical demand supporting gold and helping to negate the strength in the dollar," as sales of American Eagles coins in January have topped the previous month. However, the tumble in correlation on a longer-term scale suggests gold has more upside to go in the short-term.

 

Gold and silver bottomed at 715ET and are back nto the green on the week now…

As the relationship between the US Dollar and Gold has dropped to its lowest in 3 months… (the higher the absolute correlation the more 'related' the two assets – with gold and USD

 

But on a longer-term basis, the correlation just plunged towards the -1 extreme… which in the past has signaled a rise in gold prices in the ensuing months…

 

As Bloomberg notes:

Gold is rebounding this year after the metal fell the most since 1981 in 2013 partly as the Federal Reserve signaled it would reduce monetary stimulus. Demand has picked up as lower prices attracted buyers. Deliveries by the Shanghai Gold Exchange almost doubled in 2013, and sales of American Eagle coins by the U.S. Mint so far in January topped the previous month’s purchases.


    



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Turkish Lira Has Collapsed 10% To Record Low Since Fed Taper; External Funding Needs Remain High

While all eyes are transfixed on US equities – do we buy the dip now… or now? The rest of the world has been a little less exuberant. From China's 6 month lows to Argentina currency collapse, it's not been pretty but Erdogan and his ongoing totalitarianisation of Turkey has seen capital flight accelerate and plunge the Lira by 10% since the Fed announced its Taper in mid-December. The Turkish Lira has tumbled 27% in the last year – Abe and Kuroda would be proud – but for Turkey this is bad 'capital flight' news.

  • *TURKISH LIRA WEAKENS TO RECORD AGAINST DOLLAR AT 2.2242

Will the trend continue? It's unclear as little looks to stabilize the political situation but BofAML's Macneil Curry has just cut his long (having reached profit target) and that may slow the momentum. External funding requirements remain extremely high for Turkey and as MS notes, the political outlook looks hazy.

 

 

BofAML's Macneil Curry adds:

Closing our long $/TRY position

We are closing out our long $/TRY position, as the pair has reached our upside objective of 2.2161. On Dec-19, we recommended going long $/TRY at 2.0715, targeting 2.2161.

The original trade – posted Dec 19th…

This target has been hit; we therefore close out this position.

 

External funding requirements remain high

 

But as Morgan Stanley notes, The Political Outlook is Hazy (at best)…

Growth is likely to slow down on political concerns, deteriorating consumer and business sentiment and weak investment spending. We expect the CBT to tighten policy further to address the credibility gap, volatility in the currency and risks against financial stability. The political agenda will be busy throughout the year, with local elections in late March carrying high significance as a first true test of popularity for the government since the Gezi Park demonstrations and the graft probe.

 

Inflation is likely to stay in the 7-8%Y range for most of the year, with significant upside risks from currency weakness and the delayed utility price adjustments. We expect the 5%Y target to be missed by a wide margin in 2014 as well. Budgetary targets might be missed slightly, but the fiscal performance should remain robust and the debt/GDP ratio should decline further to around 34% of GDP.

 

The current account deficit will likely decline gradually from 6.7% of GDP and stay around 6%. Given the high external financing requirement, the currency will remain under pressure and the CBT’s reaction will be key in setting the course, in our view. At any rate, we expect a challenging year for funding the external gap. We do not expect any rating downgrade, but recent political events have raised the credit risk noticeably.

Of course, today's actions won;t help with any stability…

  • Turkey Removes Bank Regulator Deputy Chief, Anatolia Says
  • *IRAQ CONSIDERS CANCELING ALL TURKISH CONTRACTS: OIL MINISTER
  • ALL DEPARTMENT CHIEFS AT TELECOMS BOARD TIB REMOVED: HURRIYET

But apart from that, it's all going great following the Fed taper…


    



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President Obama Explains His NSA “Overhaul” Decisions – Live Feed

The question of just who, what, where, and when the US government spied on and stored metadata about is moot now… thanks to Edward Snowden; but President Obama will be firing on all his teleprompter-based cylinders today as he explains the “changes” to NSA data collection and the likely “punt” deferrals to Congress:

  • HAYDEN SAYS OBAMA MAY ‘PUNT’ SOME QUESTIONS TO CONGRESS ON NSA
     
  • OBAMA SAID TO ORDER END OF SECTION 215 METADATA PROGRAM (as it currently exists)
     
  • NSA SAID TO NO LONGER KEEP BULK PHONE RECORDS UNDER OBAMA PLAN

Calling for an ‘overhaul’ of the NSA (seeking input from Congress and intelligence officials) will, we are sure, appease those who cannot believe the ‘hope-and-change’-monger could have sanctioned such things; but we suspect little will change in reality.

President Obama is due to speak at 11ET…

 

 

Via The Hill,

President Obama will announce on Friday an overhaul of the controversial National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program that collects the telephone records of American citizens, according to a senior administration official.

 

Speaking at the Justice Department, Obama will say that he is ordering an end to the telephone metadata “as it currently exists, and move to a program that preserves the capabilities we need without the government holding this bulk meta-data,” the official said.

 

 

But the president will not offer a specific proposal outlining who will store the data in the future. A White House advisory panel suggested in recommendations released last month that the records be maintained by telephone companies or a third party. But companies have been resistant to that idea, fearful that it could sour their relationships with customers and prove expensive.

 

Obama will instead announce that he has asked Attorney General Eric Holder and members of the intelligence community to find a way to preserve the capabilities of the program without the government holding the metadata, according to the official.

 

“At the same time, he will consult with the relevant committees in Congress to seek their views,” the official added.

 

 

But its unclear whether the president’s proposal will do much to soothe the concerns of privacy advocates, who argue that maintaining the program in some form would do little to satisfy concerns about snooping.

 

“This shifting of records … would not solve the problem, it would just outsource it and possibly create new ones,” Liza Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, said.

 

Having the phone companies or third parties hold the data, which can be accessed by the government as it pleases, would allow the government to “essentially launder” its surveillance activities, she said.

 

Advocates said that the president’s proposed course would mean a greater role for Congress in reforming the surveillance programs.

 

“If he does fail to take a stand … it will become Congress’ responsibility,” said Kevin Bankston, policy director at the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute.

 

“If he does punt to Congress, there are many standing ready” to take on surveillance reform, he said, pointing to bills like the USA Freedom Act by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Patriot Act author Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.).


    



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