another site
UPDATE: Gold is slipping back as Yellen notes:
Yesterday was equity markets turn to get all exuberant over Yellen’s promises. Today, it is the reality that she will do whatever it takes and her mention of data-dependence and ongoing use of Fed tools that is sending gold (and silver) higher.
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/wGJw4uHHADs/story01.htm Tyler Durden
Today’s AM fix was USD 1,283.25, EUR 955.23 and GBP 801.53 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,276.00, EUR 951.25 and GBP 798.75 per ounce.
Gold rose $4.40 or 0.35% yesterday, closing at $1,273.30/oz. Silver slipped $0.19 or 0.92% closing at $20.56. Platinum fell $5.55 or 0.4% to $1,424.20/oz, while palladium fell $9.50 or 1.3% to $727.97/oz.
Gold inched up again after Federal Reserve Chairman nominee Janet Yellen said the U.S. economy and labor market must improve before QE is reduced. This lifted confidence as silver prices recovered from their lowest levels since August. “The focus for the bullion market may shift to the upcoming testimony by Yellen,” James Steel, an analyst at HSBC, commented. “Chinese gold demand remains brisk. However, gold is likely to remain on the defensive in the near term”, wrote Steel.
The latest long term gold trend research from Nick Laird at ShareLynx indicates that the price of gold may rise in the near future. In the chart below, Nick references those periods from the past when it was prudent to buy and to sell. He also indicates that this particular period, November 2013, may be a prudent time to to buy. This chart reaffirms GoldCore’s long term outlook for the price of gold.
Long Term Gold Trend (www.sharelynx.com)
“Sometimes it’s not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don’t mean.” Bob Dylan
The Bank of England says the UK recovery has taken hold and Chancellor George Osborne is reported as saying “the report was proof the government’s economic plan was working.” The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, said the bank will not ‘consider’ raising interest rates until the jobless figure falls below 7%.
However, The Bank of England threw a get-out-of-jail card on the table and said that there was a two-in-five chance of the unemployment rate reaching the 7% threshold by the end of 2014. And then added that the corresponding figures for the end of 2015 and 2016 are around three in five and two in three respectively. What exactly does the Bank of England mean or what does this not mean?
The financial crisis of 2007-2008 has sparked the most intense interest in international monetary reform since Richard Nixon closed the gold window at the New York Fed and devalued the U.S. dollar in 1971. Nixon’s action was widely seen at the time as presaging the end of the dollar-based world trade and financial system. On the face of it, this probably wasn’t an unreasonable expectation at the time. Within fewer than ten years, however, it was proven to be far off the mark. The dollar fell alright, but by the middle 1980s had recovered strongly.
In retrospect it is clear why the dollar sceptics were wrong. To begin with, the U.S. economy was still the world’s largest and the U.S. was still the leader of the “free world,” that is to say the world outside the communist bloc. The NATO countries of Western Europe were wholly dependent on the U.S. for security as well as for markets.
The same applied to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, while the signatories of the secret UK/USA intelligence agreement (the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) represented the Anglo core of the old British Empire, a group with no interest in seeing the dollar replaced. Communist Russia and China were in no position to register an opinion, much less offer an alternative. By default, the dollar soldiered on, thanks to the geopolitical realities of the time.
But what about today’s realities? Continue this fascinating story in our November edition of Insight – Talking real money: World Monetary Reform.
Click here to download your own copy of Talking real money: World Monetary Reform
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/nkU5IH8gGv0/story01.htm GoldCore
Transportation Security
Administration agents aren’t so good as they might claim at honing
their spidey senses to detect would-de doers of evil deeds. And
they’re persistently not good, expending time and
money—lots of money—on a behavioral indicators program that has
never shown much promise for heading off terrorists. That’s the
word from just the latest Government Accountability Office report
to give a big bronx cheer to the Screening of Passengers by
Observation Techniques (SPOT) program, which the TSA has pursued in
the total absence of any promising evidence of success, or even of
a decent plan for gathering such evidence, in its quest for a
magical way to do its job. Just stop, says the GAO.
In TSA
Should Limit Future Funding for Behavior Detection
Activities (PDF), the authors write:
Available evidence does not support whether behavioral
indicators, which are used in the Transportation Security
Administration’s (TSA) Screening of Passengers by Observation
Techniques (SPOT) program, can be used to identify persons who may
pose a risk to aviation security. GAO reviewed four meta-analyses
(reviews that analyze other studies and synthesize their findings)
that included over 400 studies from the past 60 years and found
that the human ability to accurately identify deceptive behavior
based on behavioral indicators is the same as or slightly better
than chance. Further, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS)
April 2011 study conducted to validate SPOT’s behavioral indicators
did not demonstrate their effectiveness because of study
limitations, including the use of unreliable data.
Translation: Not only has the TSA offered no evidence that this
approach works, nobody has ever found any support for the
idea.
So, what should the folks tasked with poking and prodding us at
the nation’s airports, all for our own good, we’re told, do?
Until TSA can provide scientifically validated evidence
demonstrating that behavioral indicators can be used to identify
passengers who may pose a threat to aviation security, the agency
risks funding activities that have not been determined to be
effective.
That’s sad news for the roughly 3,000 behavior detection
officers the TSA deploys at airports around the United States to
engage in what the GAO concludes is essentially voodoo. That’s
voodoo at an annual cost of about $200 million, and a cost to date
of $900 million since 2007.
Note that this is not the first time the GAO has called out the
TSA for putting lots of resources into unproven behavior detection
schemes. Reports in
2010 and 2012 also slammed the uniformed crotch-fondlers for
deploying SPOT “without first validating the scientific basis for
identifying suspicious passengers in an airport environment.”
The earlier GAO reports also took the TSA to task for not
investigating the reliability of other programs, such as biometric
identification cards for controlling access to sensitive port
facilities, and for purchasing expensive equipment and then leaving
it to gather dust.
But the TSA has mastered sullen groping, as we all
know.
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/14/tsa-blows-cash-on-failed-terrorist-detec
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/GXPrUnR30TY/story01.htm williambanzai7
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/GXPrUnR30TY/story01.htm williambanzai7
How many U.S. citizens end up pleading guilty in
a courtroom each year without ever getting access to an attorney?
In which counties are pre-trial detainees least likely to obtain
release through bail? Greg Beato suggests that instead of spying on
us, the government use its technological power to data-driven
oversight to the nation’s halls of justice.
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/14/greg-beato-on-number-crunching-the-court
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Following our earlier preview, we expect the Q&A to have some potential fireworks as the politicians demand she "get to work" as soon as possible. If you are playing buzzword bingo at home – drink if she says "bubble", "depression", "data-dependent", "fiscal", or "screw you Schumer."
Live feed from Senate:
Live feed via Bloomberg (click here if embed is not functioning):
Live feed from C-Span – click image for feed.
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/FxH2lGliilA/story01.htm Tyler Durden
Following our earlier preview, we expect the Q&A to have some potential fireworks as the politicians demand she "get to work" as soon as possible. If you are playing buzzword bingo at home – drink if she says "bubble", "depression", "data-dependent", "fiscal", or "screw you Schumer."
Live feed from Senate:
Live feed via Bloomberg (click here if embed is not functioning):
Live feed from C-Span – click image for feed.
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/FxH2lGliilA/story01.htm Tyler Durden
On any other 30yr auction day, i would be selling 30yr bonds right here (9am in NY) (30yr bond yield @ 3.79% and UB futures @ 140-21 both higher in price by 4 basis points on the day) in anticipation of the 16bln 30yr bonds (32bln 10yr equivalents) to be auctioned in 4 hours.
(pictures 30yr UB bond futures vs inverse DX)
However, today is not any other day. Unemployment claims are slightly up…more than expected, labor productivity is up, and unit labor costs are down. All of these point to no desire to increase hiring. That is bad for the consumer (because the consumer is labor), and hence bullish for bonds. These numbers ought to also be bearish for stocks (a weaker consumer does not increase spending)…but it seems the QE fever is still keeping S&P futures high before the open. In a world where more QE = higher stock prices…Yellen’s prepared remarks released yesterday made no mention of taper, and were highly supportive of QE continuation (though she did not explicitly state that). The remarks were vague, but erred on the side of continuing current accommodative policy (so, QE-4-ever).
This causes a conundrum. Regardless of Yellen’s testimony and Q&A session this morning, there will still be a 30yr bond auction at 1pm (ET). Given the strength and low volume yesterday, and the current bullish tone of the bond market (4bps stronger from yesterdays closes) the bond market does not feel like there is a significant setup of short 30yr positions. This must take place before the auction. Primary dealers must each bid for their pro-rata share of the auction (so about 800mm each). No dealer wants to come out of a 30yr bond auction long 800mm 30yr bonds…its just too much risk in a world where directional risk is shunned.
This is the backdrop in the minds of bond traders as we approach Yellen’s testimony and Q&A session. We will be reacting to her testimony with this in mind. However…to be clear…if she does not indicate a desire to extend QE (either in fact, or by indicating a lower unemployment threshold) then there should be good selliing of 30yr bonds to setup for the 1pm 30yr bond auction.
Typically, bond traders want to come out of the 30yr bond auction long bonds…but typically that occurs from a very low price, as the market usually sells off going into the auction. Today that is not the case (so far). I expect today to have unusually high volatility in the bond market….but we will just have to wait and see.
I’ll be active on twitter today…so feel free to join in the conversation.
http://govttrader.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/govttrader
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/F08nAmtHL_4/story01.htm govttrader
“Give Us Cash or Lose Your Kids and Face Felony Charges: Don’t
Cops Have Better Things to Do?!” is the latest video from ReasonTV.
Watch above or click on the link below for video, full text,
supporting links, downloadable versions, and more Reason TV
clips.
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/14/give-us-cash-or-lose-your-kids-and-fac
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