Jim,

Another global citizen being destroyed. Brought to you by our friends at otc derivatives inc.

God and gold help us.

CIGA BJS

Norway towns sue Citi over structured note losses
Mon Aug 10, 2009 6:45pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Seven Norwegian municipalities and a Norwegian securities broker are suing Citigroup Inc for more than $200 million in damages after they lost millions of dollars on investments sold by the U.S. bank two years ago.

The municipalities and Norwegian firm Terra Securities claim Citigroup misrepresented certain structured notes as a conservative investment, according to a filing made on Monday in a New York court.

Citi sold the notes, whose return it said was linked to a municipal bond arbitrage fund, in May and June 2007 — but by May 2008 nearly all the towns’ original investment was gone and Terra was in bankruptcy, according to the claim.

More…

Jim,

Perhaps the #1 holder of US debt, with $4.8 Trillion "invested" should not come as any real surprise.

Federal Reserve and US Intragovernmental Holdings

That’s right, the biggest holder of US government debt is the United States itself. The Federal Reserve system of banks and other US intragovernmental holdings account for a stunning $4.806 trillion in US Treasury debt. And with recent announcments from the Fed, potentially another $1 trillion may be added to its balance sheet… About a decade ago, the total government holdings were "only" $2.5 trillion.

More…

This "investor" owns about twice as much as they owned 10 years ago and 6.5X as much as China does.

Oh yes… this "investor" gets to print the money they use to buy all of this.

Hmmmm.

All the best,
Your CIGA in the Mortgage Finance Industry

Jim,

According to this article, the recession will soon be over!!

"The Blue Chip Economic Indicators survey of private economists released on Monday showed about 90 percent of the respondents believed the economic downturn would be declared to have ended this quarter."

In addition, inflation is seen to be tame in the coming year.

It sounds like we can all breathe a sigh of relief—at least for the next few hours!

Regards,
CIGA Black Swan

Comparison of 1974 & 2009
by Eric 8/10/19

“Time is more important than price; when time is up price will reverse.”  W.D. Gann

A comparison of the 1974 & 2009 bottom:

1973-1974 Decline 22 months, (50%)
2007-2009 Decline 18 months, (58%)

Recovery

1975 Advance, 10 months, 53%
2009 Advance, 10 months, 53% projects SPX = 1020
Fibonacci resistance 1014.

SPX current at 1010.