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Thought For The Evening
You pulled the rock over your hole in the ground when the BS was flying in gold and all the top callers were out of their cages. What you saw there was and will remain pleasing.
Gold is going to $1650 on this move with all the outrageous drama common to this market.
To our men out there, man up if you want to be in gold on pay day. The ladies seem never to whine.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Survey data is the least reliable of data series, but for what it is worth…
US consumer confidence falls in July vs June—IBD
Tue Jul 13, 2010 12:01pm EDT
NEW YORK July 13 (Reuters) – U.S. consumer confidence fell 3.2 percent in July from June as Americans remained unconvinced by signs of a recovery, a report found on Tuesday.
Investor’s Business Daily and TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence said their IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index slipped to 44.7 in July from 46.2 in June.
Readings above 50 indicate optimism, while those below 50 point to pessimism.
The index is now 3.2 points below its 12-month average of 47.9, and 0.3 points above the 44.4 level IBD reported in December 2007 when the recession began.
"Many Americans remain troubled at the failure of the economy to respond to more than $2 trillion in various stimulus, bailout and Fed programs," said Terry Jones, associate editor of Investor’s Business Daily.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Thinking of relaxing in your retirement?
Can you imagine if the pension funds mark to market the paper they hold? Pension funds have been the wastepaper basket of Wall Street since they planted the Buttonwood Tree.
Pension fund managers have legal fiduciary duties so do not expect any noise from them.
Funding Status of U.S. Pensions Falls to 74.0 Percent in June, According to BNY Mellon Asset Management
Lowest funded status since February 2009
BOSTON, July 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — A combination of U.S. stock market declines and lower interest rates in June resulted in the lowest-funded status for the typical U.S. corporate pension plan since February 2009, according to monthly statistics published by BNY Mellon Asset Management.
The funded status in June declined 6.0 percentage points to 74.0 percent. Through the end of June, the funded status of the typical U.S. corporate plan is down 9.5 percentage points for the year.
The falling stock markets resulted in a decline of 2.3 percent in assets at the typical U.S. corporate plan, while liabilities sharply increased in June, rising 5.6 percent, as reported by the BNY Mellon Pension Summary Report for June 2010. Plan liabilities are calculated using the yields of long-term investment grade corporate bonds. Lower yields on these bonds result in higher liabilities.
"Investors’ fears sent U.S. stocks down 5.7 percent in June, which followed the 7.9 percent fall in May," said Peter Austin, executive director of BNY Mellon Pension Services, the pension services arm of BNY Mellon Asset Management. "The second quarter decline of 11.3 percent in U.S. stocks was the worst quarterly performance since the fourth quarter of 2008."
The June rally in Treasuries led to a 39-basis-point drop in the Aa corporate discount rate to 5.34 percent, the lowest point since June 2005, according to BNY Mellon Asset Management.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
The gold swap is bullish for gold. Those that say otherwise haven’t a clue what gold is all about.
This speaks to the nonsense used by the gold banks via the media in an attempt to cover more of their short positions.
You have a question about gold? Read us regularly.
BIS swap operation signals wider use of gold-GFMS
Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:30pm GMT
By Jan Harvey and Jane Grieve
LONDON, July 13 (Reuters) – The 346 tonnes of gold swap operations conducted by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in recent months highlight gold’s central role in the financial system and are unlikely to lead to dumping of the metal on the market, GFMS chairman Philip Klapwijk said.
The operations, detailed in the bank’s latest annual report, show the bank was holding 346 tonnes of gold as part of swap operations in exchange for currencies.
"Here we have gold being used quite creatively," Klapwijk told Reuters Insider television. "That is in a sense a validation again of gold’s centrality to the financial system."
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
If you have faxed me in the last two weeks I have not received your message due to technical difficulties with my fax machine. Please resend your inquiries.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Will the BP disaster be used as a cover for a Florida bailout of banks certain to be closed soon?
Maybe, maybe not. The interesting point is they asked.
Strapped Florida Banks Ask for Help
Hobbled by Real-Estate Bust and Oil Spill’s Fallout, Lenders Seek Reprieve From Capital Raising
BY DAN FITZPATRICK
Florida banks—already weakened by the real-estate bust and hit again by customers suffering from the BP PLC oil spill—are asking federal regulators for a reprieve from government-ordered capital raising as they struggle to stay alive.
In a Monday letter to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Florida’s top banking lobbyist requested all local banks be granted a 12-month break from higher capital requirements, loan appraisals and new regulatory sanctions.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
What OTC derivatives do not do to the international banking community, litigation will.
Dozens of banks sued over subprime.
Dozens of brokerages and banks, including Morgan Stanley (MS), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Citigroup (C), are being sued by a Boston area-based fund over losses related to subprime loans. Cambridge Place Investment Management Inc. claims it lost more than $1.2B because of the banks’ untrue statements, and says the banks used faulty appraisals, accepted misleading information in loan applications, and violated their own standards for underwriting.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
The machine is not focused on the EU, but now on the problems of the pound.
UK debt is ‘twice as much as we thought’
12 July 2010, 7:37am
The true scale of the national debt is £2 trillion – more than twice the official figure, an alarming study shows.
The black hole in the public accounts equates to £78,000 for every household in the country.
The ‘real’ state of the national finances is exposed in a study published today by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which warns of a series of mammoth debts that aren’t revealed by the official figures.
The national debt – forecast to reach £932m by next spring – does not include a number of expensive liabilities, such as the cost of civil service and town hall pensions and projects funded under the Public Finance Initiative.
Putting these liabilities into the official figure would add £1.13 trillion to Britain’s whopping overdraft, according to CEBR.
Under the worrying scenario, the debt would jump from 62% to 138% of Britain’s income.
