Money Flow Trading Method along with Risk Management

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ops+to+zero%29

Excepted from Jay Taylor's latest newsletter,
In 2018, central banks added nearly 23 million ounces of gold, up 74% from 2017. This is the highest annual purchase rate increase since 1971, and the second-highest rate in history. Russia was the biggest buyer. And not surprisingly, the lion’s share of gold is flowing into central banks of countries that are in the sights of America’s killing machine—the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned us about in 1958.

https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...s-March-19.jpg
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), located in Basal, Switzerland, is often referred to as the central bankers’ bank. Related to this issue of central bank hoarding of gold is the fact that on March 29 the BIS will permit central banks to count the physical gold it holds (marked to market) as a reserve asset just the same as it allows cash and sovereign debt instruments to be counted.

There has been a long-term view that China and other nations dishoarding dollars in favor of gold have been quite happy about western banks trashing the gold price through the synthetic paper markets. But one has to wonder if that might not change, once physical gold is marked to market for the sake of enlarging bank balance sheets.

This also raises the question with regard to how much gold the U.S. actually holds as opposed to what it claims to hold. James Sinclair has always argued that the only way the world can overcome the debt that is strangling the global economy is to remonetize gold on the balance sheets of central banks at a price in many thousands of dollars higher. This would mean a major change in the global monetary system away from the dollar, as China has been pushing for the last decade or so.

If banks own and possess gold bullion, they can use that asset as equity and thus this will enable them to print more money. It may be no coincidence that as March 29th has been approaching banks around the world have been buying huge amounts of physical gold and taking delivery. For the first time in 50 years, central banks bought over 640 tons of gold bars last year, almost twice as much as in 2017 and the highest level raised since 1971, when President Nixon closed the gold window and forced the world onto a floating rate currency system.

https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...at-money_0.jpg
But as Chris Powell of GATA noted, that in itself is not news. The move toward making gold equal to cash and bonds was anticipated several years ago. However, what is news is the realization by a major Italian Newspaper, II Sole/24 Ore, that “synthetic gold,” or “paper gold,” has been used to suppress the price of gold, thus enabling countries and their central banks to continue to buy gold and build up their reserves at lower and lower prices as massive amounts of artificially-created “synthetic gold” triggers layer upon layer of artificially lower priced gold as unaware private investors panic out of their positions.


The paper concludes that,
“In recent years, but especially in 2018, a jump in the price of goldwould have been the normal order of things. On the contrary, gold closed last year with a 7-percent downturn and a negative financial return. How do you explain this? While the central banks raided “real” gold bars behind the scenes, they pushed and coordinated the offer of hundreds of tons of “synthetic gold” on the London and New York exchanges, where 90 percent of the trading of metals takes place. The excess supply of gold derivatives obviously served to knock down the price of gold, forcing investors to liquidate positions to limit large losses accumulated on futures. Thus, the more gold futures prices fell, the more investors sold “synthetic gold,” triggering bearish spirals exploited by central banks to buy physical gold at ever-lower prices”.

The only way governments can manage the levels of debt that threaten the financial survival of the Western world is to inflate (debase) their currencies. The ability to count gold as a reserve from which banks can create monetary inflation is not only to allow gold to become a reserve on the balance sheet of banks but to have a much, much higher, gold price to build up equity in line with the massive debt in the system.

Please don't leave brother. We need sane people around here more than ever ! Too bad I came across your thread so late in my journey and after leaving the Spot FX world. I am still reading and listening to every video you posted here... just fascinating stuff. I have traded news and fundamental events for over 5+ yrs so definitely a good read.

Before you go, I am still waiting for your response to my post. I leave in 10 days so any direction you could offer would be great. I am looking to relocate from California in 2.5 yrs to a location which is safe, secure, hood healthcare and perfect for a traveling trader. Trading Infrastructure will be all based in the USA so latency is no biggie. Just a stable internet connection or mobile should work for me.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ops+to+zero%29

The Fed's March 19-20 two day meeting will be to most FOMC member a crash course in humility.

Back in December, when Powell infamously stated that the Fed's balance sheet unwind is on "autopilot", a statement the Fed Chair promptly came to regret just a few days later when the S&P briefly tripped into a bear market before staging a historic rebound after Powell reversed dovishly on every possibly occasion, the Fed indicated in its Summary of Economic Projections that the US economy is growing at a solid pace, with GDP expected to reach 2.3% in 2019 as the unemployment rate tumbled to 3.5% even as 2019 Core inflation remained subdued at just 2.0%, a drop from the 2.1% projected at the prior, September, SEP forecast.

https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...2018%20SEP.jpg

But more importantly, the Fed also revealed that it expects at least 2 more rate hikes in 2019 (down from 3 in September), which would see the Fed Funds rise to 3.1% in Dec. 2019, and another rate hike in 2020 bringing the US rate to 3.1% at which point it would peak before drifting lower to its longer-run rate of 2.8%.

https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...Dec%202018.jpg


Needless to say, within the SEP - which a recent study found had been more often wrong than right - it is the Fed's dot plot that is under the microscope. As Bank of America says, "the dots are loved by some but are hated by many." As the latest FOMC minutes showed, there are even some Fed officials on the Committee who would like to see an overhaul of the exercise, noting that they were "concerned that, although the individual participants' projections for the federal funds rate in the SEP reflect their individual views of the appropriate path for the policy rate conditional on the evolution of the economic outlook, at times the public had misinterpreted the median or central tendency of those projections as representing the consensus view of the Committee or as suggesting that policy was on a preset course."

In a February Bloomberg op-ed, Mohamed El-Erian made the case to eliminate the dots, when Bill Gross' former partner suggested the Fed could consider following the template of the Bank of England's "Inflation Report," which releases a complete staff assessment of monetary policy conditions with fan charts rather than point estimates. This gives more detail about the Fed's reaction function and takes out the perceived precision of the dots.

In retrospect, following the huge hit to the Fed's credibility that Powell's 180 degree reversal in the past three months created, it would certainly be convenient to make the dots more conditional and scenario-based at this point in the cycle. As Mester noted, the Fed has returned to "normal" monetary policymaking, which means the outlook will be more conditional on the outlook and less programmatic.

However, as BofA warns, removing the dots at this point would be helpful in the near term, but hurtful in the long run. When the time comes to cut rates again, the Fed is likely to return the ZLB quickly. The dots will then become a critical tool for the Fed who will otherwise have limited ammunition. It is possible the Fed could stash the dots away during good times and reintroduce them in downturns, but that only adds to the Fed's credibility challenges.

Moreover, such a move would need consensus within the FOMC and many still see benefits in releasing the dots.

Whatever the ultimate fate of the "dots", they will be with us for a while, and they will present a major challenge at the upcoming 19-20 March FOMC meeting for one reason: Fed officials have been communicating that they will be on hold for some time and are largely unwilling to send a signal about the timing of the next hike.

This makes the dots - as they currently stand, predicting 3 more rate hikes by the end of 2020 - quite problematic, especially if as JPMorgan recently suggested, the Fed may go so far as to eliminate all hints of rate hikes in 2019.

Which brings us to the topic of this post: the humiliation of the "smartest people in the room" they had no idea what was going on as recently as 3 months ago. Worse, the "smartest people in the room" will now have to drastically revise their projections lower to justify the drop in the dots, without spooking the market that i) a rate cut is imminent and ii) the US economy is far weaker than most expected.


How will this happen?
Looking at the distribution of the dots, only three FOMC officials would need to shift from two hikes this year to one hike to move the median to one hike for 2019. That's the easy part; the difficult part is that no less than seven officials would need to move to get the median to zero for this year which - as BofA concedes - is a "much harder case to make", especially without sparking fresh recession fears. According to BofA's "dot exercise" the "core" members of the FOMC were likely forecasting two hikes for this year in December (Bowman, Brainard, Clarida, Powell, and Williams). Based on speeches since then, it appears these Fed officials are all at risk of revising down their outlook for the path of policy. Other Fed officials we pegged at three hikes in 2019 (eg, Evans) could also make the move down to one hike.

https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...Dec%202018.jpg


As to how the Fed's adjust to telegraph no rate hikes at all in 2019 by dragging the median dot not one but two notches lower, all bets are off how the various FOMC members will do that without the Fed suffering dramatic "reputational" damage.


In summary, while it is important to pay attention to the wide range of voices on the FOMC, in Bank of America's view the most important remains the trifecta of Powell, Clarida and Williams. Recent comments from Williams and Clarida suggest they both may be in the no hike camp. Recently, vice chair Clarida noted on Wednesday that the Committee is very close to their employment and inflation goals and there are scenarios where they might not hike this year. Also, Williams suggested that the current inflation outlook is not sufficient to raise rates again this year.

So once again the dots will be confusing.: while the median will likely still show hikes in the outlook (absent a shocking capitulation by most on the FOMC), the core of the committee, which holds the trifecta, will likely shift lower, perhaps removing all hikes for the year.

And just to make sure the humiliation is complete, keep in mind that the market now expects 1 rate cut in 2020 (whether that happens is a different matter as discussed earlier), so there is the distinct chance that the Fed's capitulation may be even worse if, in order to give the market comfort, Powell & Co. somehow manage to hint at a rate cut in the coming year.


https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...rch%202019.jpg


How will the market react, and whether all this dovishness (and more) has already been priced in, will be revealed at 2pm on Wednesday.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...church-attacks

Evidence Indicates Link Between North Korean Embassy Break-In And Christchurch Attacks
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...?itok=zlAoxaEx


by William Craddick

Sat, 03/16/2019 - 11:39


Via Disobedient Media
As the world reels from the tragic terrorist attack against two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, much attention has been given to sensational information about the single named suspect, Brenton Tarrant. However, the hyperfocus on Tarrant distracts from the fact that the Australian national was arrested along with other suspects.

An investigation and analysis by Disobedient Media indicates that Tarrant and the group he worked with likely have professional military connections, are part of the same cell that perpetrated a February 22nd break in of the North Korean embassy in Spain and potentially have intelligence ties to various agencies that cooperate under the UKUSA Agreement popularly known as Five Eyes (FVEY).

I. Signs Of Professional Military Connections
Despite the characterization of Tarrant in the media, he was no run-of-the-mill white supremacist. Images posted by Tarrant online just before the attack to a Twitter account which had been dormant until March 12 showed that he was in possession of high-capacity magazines and a semi-automatic assault rifle. The weapon and magazines would have been classified as either a "restricted weapon" or a "military-style-semi-automatic" (MSSA) under New Zealand law. A person who possesses or uses a firearm in New Zealand needs to hold a firearms license issued by police. Licenses normally last for ten years unless revoked. Foreign nationals may apply from overseas for a one year license based on their possession of an existing license in their home country.

Suspicions are inevitably raised over how exactly Tarrant and his alleged co-conspirators managed to stockpile the military-grade weapons and ammunition used in the attack in a country with comparatively strict gun laws. Tarrant, who supposedly began to radicalize starting in 2016 and was allegedly unemployed would have had his radical tendencies discovered with a proper background investigation. Police say that another suspect in the shooting was an individual who acquired the necessary Category A license and began to legally stockpile weapons used in the attack.

Additional reports have also established that Tarrant trained at the Bruce Rifle Club in Dunedin. Although the club's website and YouTube channel have been scrubbed from the internet, an archive shows that it explicitly catered to users and collectors of military rifles.

The Australian also engaged in extensive travel abroad to a number of areas that should have raised red flags with intelligence services. Countries visited by Tarrant included Pakistan, North Korea, Turkey, parts of Africa, Portugal, Spain, France, Afghanistan and Xinjiang, China. The extensive travel and access to military grade firearms should have made detection by law enforcement and intelligence services nearly impossible to avoid.

II. Similarities Between Spain And New Zealand Operations
There are a number of analogous facts shared by the attack on the North Korean embassy in Spain and the terror event in Christchurch which suggest that the same team was involved in both incidents. In both cases the perpetrators showed that they were well versed in "breach and clear" tactics against buildings filled with people. In both cases the buildings were cleared efficiently and quickly even though the goal of the North Korean incident was focused on intelligence gathering as opposed to mass murder. Aerial analysis of the North Korean embassy in Spain, the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre show that all buildings are of similar size and each would have required the same know-how and training to breach.

In securing a getaway from the North Korean embassy, the attacking team of approximately ten individuals utilized two luxury vehicles. In the Christchurch attack, the suspects used two vehicles for transport in which live explosive devices were found. The similar number of vehicles used in both incidents points to a common number of participants.

III. In Both Attacks, Perpetuators Are Likely Military Cells
The groups involved in both the Spain embassy break-in and the Christchurch terror attacks appear to be military or paramilitary in nature. The March 13, 2019 exposé of the embassy break-in by El País directly cited sources involved with the investigation who stated that the attackers were likely a "military cell" with at least two members who were tied to the CIA. Sources such as the New York Post and Washington Post have both run stories attempting to attribute the break-in to a shadowy group of North Korean dissidents. But this explanation is unconvincing since this group would not not have the practical military know-how or muscle required to breach and clear the embassy in such an efficient manner.

Analysis of documentation of the Christchurch terror attack also indicates that the perpetrators were part of a military style cell. Although much has been made of Brenton Tarrant's live-streamed attack, no other individuals were featured in the film. Video footage being distributed online shows two individuals carrying firearms during the attacks. Both are wearing baseball caps. This means that neither can be Tarrant, who was filming himself during the attack and wore a helmet with a mounted camera, not a hat.

https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...17.16%20AM.png

Screenshot from video showing two men with baseball caps and assault rifles in Christchurch.

Police speculated during the attacks that there were up to three suspects. But footage and photos that have emerged along with early reports of other suspected locations where incidents occurred indicates that the number of attackers was likely larger. One image shows a man with shaven head in military-style camouflage fatigues being detained by New Zealand police as the attack was contained and halted. Another video shows police standing around a suspect lying on the pavement. As the individual videoing the scene passes, officers roll the apparently lifeless man over onto his back, showing his arm flop as he moved. If the suspect had been alive then police would have restrained him with handcuffs before moving him. Authorities have made no announcement about casualties among the attackers.

There were also rumors of other incidents which suggest that the attack might have been larger than is being disclosed. Maori News noted reports that an additional shooting was ongoing at Christchurch Hospital. This went largely unacknowledged by the international media. In the aftermath of the attacks, police in Auckland, New Zealand also responded to a bomb scare at Auckland train station.

These facts all indicate that the Christchurch terror attacks were perpetrated by a larger group that would be similar in size to the one involved with the break-in at the North Korean embassy. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has expressed similar opinions, stating on March 15 that the attack was "no individual act" and that he was sending an official delegation to New Zealand to gather further information about the groups behind the attack. Turkish state-owned media source TRT World has cited anonymous officials who claimed that Tarrant entered the country "to carry out a terror attack and/ or an assassination." Tarrant's visits to Turkey occurred on March 17-20, and September 13, 2016. Erdoğan survived a coup attempt that began July 15, 2016.

It is also worth noting that the location of police stations in and around Christchurch shows that there were several just a few blocks away from the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre. This is about a seven to eight minute drive with normal traffic. But witness statements say that police took over 20 minutes to arrive at the scene (the police response time was actually an even longer 36 minutes). Ambulance services took over half an hour to arrive at the scene despite the fact that hospitals were in even closer proximity to the attack locations than police stations.

The failure of police to deploy with greater haste or intercept the attackers while they moved from their first target to the second raises serious questions about the reasons for inadequate law enforcement reactions. Normally an incident on such a scale would trigger an immediate lockdown of the affected city and a total isolation of the affected area.

If any attackers were not filming themselves, resupplying from their vehicles or firing on innocent civilians while driving in transit as Tarrant did it is likely that they would have been able to effect an escape.

IV. Potential Connection To Organizations Affiliated With FVEY
Many of the countries visited by Tarrant play host to the operations of agencies with connections to FVEY. FVEY members include the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. FVEY also have a number of Tier B nations who participate in "focused cooperation" on computer network exploitation, including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungry, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.

Outside of the UKUSA Agreement, FVEY members are known to cooperate with Tier B nations on their own. Great Britain has had a deep relationship with Spain since World War II, when Britain bought off the Spanish to remain neutral and then used the country as an escape route for downed Allied airmen. British agency GCHQ also collaborates independently with counterparts in Germany, France, Spain and Sweden. British-Russian double agent Sergei Skripal was also revealed to have been collaborating with Spanish intelligence officers in the years leading up to his poisoning in 2018.
Brenton Tarrant's travels to Turkey, France, Spain and Portugal raise questions about potential connections to intelligence services who collaborate loosely under the FVEY intelligence sharing agreement. Additionally, his time spent in Pakistan, a country with a long history of deep CIA involvement creates an even stronger possibility that Tarrant might have had ties to military or intelligence organizations.

Since Tarrant had at least one New Zealander acting as an accomplice, it is possible that there may have been other New Zealand nationals associated with his group. Outside of their collaboration through the FVEY framework, New Zealand's Special Air Service has been deployed to Afghanistan where they worked directly under the CIA at a base in Bamiyan province according to claims published in 2011.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...1559x1718.jpeg

NZSAS troopers practice storming a house. Photo: NZ Herald

If individuals who had a past or present affiliation with New Zealand's intelligence or military services were involved with a military cell that participated in the embassy and Christchurch attacks, it would provide a potential explanation for the extraordinarily slow police response time which caused an increased number of casualties. It would also give context to reports that New Zealand police are refusing to provide footage of Brenton Tarrant's attack to US authorities who are seeking it for training purposes.

V. Conclusion: Tragedy Exploited By Special Interests
Whether or not one believes that the Christchurch terror attacks have more to them than meets the eye, it is undeniable that the tragedy is now being exploited by various parties for personal gain. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has taken the opportunity to promote increased gun control with a total ban on semi-automatic weapons. Ardern formerly worked as a policy advisor to Tony Blair, who has himself been a willing collaborator with British intelligence services. Ardern has not yet commented on the fact that New Zealand security and emergency services caused the death toll to rise substantially higher than needed due to an incredibly slow response time.

In addition to the debate about gun control, pundits have begun to harass President Donald Trump, accusing him of having some kind of ideological connection to Brenton Tarrant due to the suspect's fascist loyalties. These efforts only serve to intensify efforts to derail the ongoing crisis involving the Korean peace process.

With the operational similarities between the the Spanish embassy and Christchurch attacks in mind one cannot help but observe that global attention has been ripped away from potential peace talks between the US and North Korea. The gross showmanship of the Tarrant in broadcasting murders for the world to see was an intentional attempt to capture attention and shift global discussion by committing a heinous act of terror. As the Christchurch attacks unfolded, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui made an announcement blaming US administration officials for a breakdown in denuclearization talks and threatened to break off negotiations to resume testing. These comments were immediately highlighted by Russian news agency TASS and the international press. Other comments clarifying that personal relations between Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump were still good and their chemistry "mysteriously wonderful” were almost totally ignored in coverage of the press conference.

The official facts of the Christchurch terror attacks will likely shift over time in the same way that official narratives fed to the public by federal investigators changed constantly in the aftermath of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. But the apparent military and intelligence connections of perpetrators in the attack, the discrepancies between the official reports about the size of the group of suspects and footage of the event as it unfolded and the operational similarities to the North Korean embassy incident will continue to erode confidence that the public is being given all the facts.


3/17/2019: This article was updated with new details regarding emerging facts and clarification about police response times. Unfortunately, the New Zealand government has engaged in unprecedented censorship of the event and videos of the incident have all been taken offline.

Hi Benjaminis, are you really leaving us???? if I am talking for myself, I just found you last month(you know) luckily, I need to learn alot of thing from you.
and your website also not working. How do we contact you, through email, on the phone.

Good Morning Benjaminis, two positive trades for US30, But still struggling for USD/JPY.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ops+to+zero%29

Authored by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,
After months of political deadlock, the House of Commons voted by 413-202 last week to ask the EU to delay Britain’s exit.
Prime Minister May has simply refused to listen to advice and keeps hoping that Parliament will surrender to her. Normally, after such a defeat, Prime Ministers would resign. But May withstood a no-confidence vote last year and cannot be challenged until December 2019.
If the EU tries to force Britain to surrender, then there remains the risk of a hard-exit come March 29th, 2019.

https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...18_4-58-05.png
The EU is fighting for its survival. To see Britain crumble would bring them great joy and they could use this against Italy or anyone one else who dares to think about leaving. Indeed, in recent days there has been a chorus of warnings coming from the key EU figures.
They are kicking Britain when it is politically impotent and they are demanding that any British request for an extension of the two-year negotiating period must come with a “credible” plan for next steps.
This appears to be deliberately trying to force Britain to capitulate and remains in the EU as a second rate member at best.
The European Council president, Donald Tusk, has said the EU wants a “reasoned” request for an extension, while Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament Brexit co-ordinator, said there must be a “clear opinion” from the House of Commons on what it really will accept.
The vote in itself won’t prevent Britain from a hard exit. Actually, under the law, Britain will leave the EU on March 29th, with or without a deal.
So what happens next?

https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b...19-03-18_0.png
"The timing of the 3rd meaningful vote (MV3) remains uncertain. The British government will only hold MV3 on PM May's Brexit deal this week if it believes it can win. Corbyn appeared to signal that his party would back an amendment aimed at securing 2nd Brexit referendum, which is set to be tabled this week."
Source
What the EU is now gambling on is that Britain will be unable to come up with any plan that they would accept so they hope the stark choice between a hard-exit and an outright cancellation of Brexit altogether will mean the EU wins with the latter.

https://larouchepac.com/20190318/geo...uches%20Legacy

Geopoliticians Fire At Italy Over China; They Aim At LaRouche's Legacy
https://larouchepac.com/sites/defaul...?itok=0Tmd8PDI


President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy prior to the G7 Cultural Event at the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu, in Charlevoix, Canada. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)


The importance of the progress in G7 member Italy, of China's Belt and Road Initiative and Lyndon LaRouche's "four economic laws," is shown by the fire it keeps drawing from geopolitical circles, not only in Europe and Washington but also in Asia. Again on the weekend such sources as The Diplomat (its motto: "Know the Asia Pacific") chose to single out Italy's Undersecretary of State in the Economic Development Ministry Michele Geraci for attack, in a vain attempt to split Italy's government.

The Diplomat says that its primary expertise is "Geopolitical trends throughout the Asia-Pacific." Geopolitics as invented by British Empire "thought leaders" has always meant the art of keeping other powers and potential economic powers at each other's throats. The magazine's March 14 "Italy's Risky China Gamble" was a virtual echoed two days later in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, in claiming that Geraci, knowledgeable about and well-disposed to China, is leading astray a naive Italian government — which does not see the terrible dangers of great nations cooperating for economic development.
The magazine begins by piling lie upon panicky lie: "Claims that Italy has decided to sign an agreement for official participation in China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) led to a rebuke by the U.S. Trump administration, which in turn brought to surface divisions within Italy's populist coalition government.
"As the first G7 country to sign a memorandum of understanding on the BRI, Italy's participation would carry large symbolic weight for China. But this would hardly be enough to legitimize the BRI amid a global backlash against it and Beijing's own struggles with piling debt and a slowing economy in the throes of a trade war with the United States. Instead, U.S. diplomats correctly warn that it would harm Italy's own reputation."

Italy's government is not divided on this step. That it is a step "of historic importance," was made clear by Helga Zepp-LaRouche at the March 13 conference "Italy on the New Silk Road" of the Movisol movement and the Lombardy Regional Government in Milan. It is opening up to a "new paradigm" of mutual economic and cultural benefit of major nations, which will benefit developing nations as well, particularly in Africa.

So the geopolitician takes aim: "The change of course is largely the work of Michele Geraci, undersecretary of state in the Ministry of Economic Development. Geraci, who has himself spent a decade in China, has largely sidelined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by establishing his own China Task Force and by taking four trips to China in the second half of 2018 alone, including with Economy Minister Giovanni Tria and Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio."
Even more frightening to the geopoliticians is the history behind this historic move, as detailed by Liliana Gorini, chair of the LaRouche movement Movisol in Italy, to a webcast LaRouchePAC meeting in New York on March 16, "Win-Win Cooperation: Why the World Must Exonerate LaRouche".

The policy of the "World Land-Bridge" of infrastructure great projects, published and presented internationally by Helga Zepp-LaRouche's Schiller Institute; a "New Bretton Woods" international credit system; cooperation with and credit to developing countries; Glass-Steagall bank separation: All these ideas of Lyndon LaRouche, and more, have been under discussion among Italy's political, religious, and cultural leaders for decades. The force of LaRouche's forecasts, writings, presentations and interventions there since the 1980s, are widely recognized and remembered.

And then there was the impact of the bitter austerity medicine doled out to the country, and many others in the European Union, by the EU's London-centered geopolitical elite. So soon as Italy had a government not directly imposed by blackmail of London, Brussels and the European Central Bank, economic sanity would emerge.

Now add the potential of a bridge of ideas, through Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, China's President Xi Jinping — visiting Italy this week — and President Donald Trump, who already have a strong mutual respect and general friendship. Member of the European Parliament Marco Zanni, entrusted with foreign relations in European Parliament by Italy's Lega party, spoke to LaRouchePAC's weekly Friday webcast March 15 and noted that this possibility is still alive.

Benjaminis, did not you get any chance to answer?? busy busy??

Good Afternoon

loveandpeace

What is your question and yes I am very busy working on my business matters. You can always call me at 1 819 320 0279 if you need an immediate answer. Thank you


Benjamin

Thanks, you take care.

http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/2019/...ck-market.html

MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2019
Making Sense of This Stock Market
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GoudGCmom...TICK031819.jpg
I've been hearing from many confused traders who have under performed the overall market during this run from the December lows. The common refrain is that they are waiting for a pullback to enter the trend--or they are looking for the start of a larger move to the downside. I heard this late in January, then in February, and now in March. Aren't we due for a substantial correction?

Let's get a little perspective. Above I've charted one of my favorite indicators, the cumulative NYSE TICK (red line), versus SPY (blue line). The cumulative TICK takes the average five minute reading of upticks versus down ticks for all NYSE stocks and adds the value for the current five-minute period to the running total. It thus works similar to an advance-decline line, but is much more sensitive to short-term strength and weakness.

Note how the cumulative TICK line topped out well before the overall market peak last year. This led me to question the viability of the rising market. Indeed, the market--and the cumulative measure--fell precipitously during the fourth quarter of 2018. Then, however, with the dramatic turnaround in Fed policy, we saw a dramatic move higher in stocks--and in the cumulative TICK measure. As I pointed out earlier this month, this kind of strength is typical of bull market momentum, not a market getting ready to roll over. Very recently, we've seen some breadth divergences with fewer stocks making fresh one- and three-month highs, but until we see a meaningful expansion of short-term new lows and a sustained turn in the TICK measure, it's difficult to make a case for more than normal pullbacks.

One of the problems that I'm seeing is that traders committed themselves to a bear view late in 2018 and have been fighting the recent rising tide ever since. That getting locked into a view is a classic case of ego-based trading, where being "right" becomes more important than following the market. In the recent Forbes article, I summarize fascinating research dealing with dark and light sides of our personalities and their impact on our trading performance. (Check out the links at the end of the article, which lead you to a free online test that allows you to get feedback on your own light and dark traits!) An important implication of this perspective is that we need to channel our ego needs in constructive ways so that they don't color our trading. We don't trade well by making market calls. We trade well by sensitively following what markets are actually doing.

Navigating the Light and Dark Sides of Our Personalities

.Posted by Brett Steenbarger, Ph.D.at 5:08 PM

https://moneymaven.io/mishtalk/econo...02qrh6mlQfh2Q/

 

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Decline of Globalization
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by Mish

35 mins[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.38)]-edited[/color]

The change in total global exports has now gone negative.
Barron's has an interesting article How Investors Should Navigate Globalization’s Decline.

A decades long drive toward freer trade across borders has begun to reverse. Globalization is being overwhelmed by populism, nationalism, and protectionism.


Brexit threatens to erect new trade barriers between the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. India just moved to limit foreign operators selling goods online.

“I probably never would have said it was going to end, but I’m starting to wonder,” says Don Allan, chief financial officer at Stanley Black & Decker. “The trend seems to be heading that way. Countries are becoming more focused on protecting their world and less on how to work together as a global economy.”
China Decreasing Influence Percentage wise

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GoerTek , a Chinese company that makes Apple’s AirPods, reportedly told suppliers last year that it was moving production to Vietnam. It will join companies like LG Electronics (066570.South Korea) and Samsung Electronics (SSNLF). And it’s not just tech: Chemical company Huntsman (HUN) announced last summer that it had opened a plant in Vietnam, its first in Asia outside China. In fact, manufacturing grew more in Vietnam than in any other major Asian country last year, IHS Markit has calculated.

Misleading Percentages
The above chart and a focus on percentages is misleading. The US trade deficit with China has been hitting fresh highs.

Tariffs, Robotics, Wages, Transportation Costs
The article concluded "The tectonic plates of global trade are in motion. Even a handshake between Trump and Xi won’t stop that shift."

I agree, but shifts were underway before Trump became president. But as the article notes, Trump's tariffs definitely accelerated the trend.

It was a rise in labor costs in China that led to China losing manufacturing jobs not only to robots but to Vietnam.

Manufacturing Employment

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Thanks to robots, some manufacturing has returned, but without the jobs. It takes fewer and fewer people to do anything. Minus wages and transportation costs, it makes sense for manufacturing to be close to the end buyer.

Yesterday's Battle
Trump is fighting a losing battle. Manufacturing those jobs are gone and they won't return.

Real Problem
Trump has his eyes in the rear view mirror. He wants to bring back manufacturing jobs when those jobs are in decline for the long haul.

More problematic for the US is China's new focus on high-end technology as opposed to routine assembly.

Huawei, a Chinese corporation, is the world's reader in 5G technology.
Trump seeks to put an end to that by claiming Huawei is an espionage threat. For discussion, please see Real Reason Trump Wants to Ban Huawei: US Wants to Spy and China Won't Cooperate.

The US needs to focus on the jobs of the future, not the jobs of the past.

Trade talks with a spotlight on soybeans, phone assemblies, etc will not do the US a damn bit of good. Tariffs have not and will not solve a single problem.

Meanwhile, somehow the US has fallen behind on 5G. That's not good to say the least.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

https://monetary-metals.com/keynes-w...report-17-mar/

He laid out his plan to destroy. In clear language—this is no sleep-aid full of differential equations and language designed to obfuscate.

Keynes is the Ellsworth Toohey of economics. Toohey, the villain in The Fountainhead, was portrayed as very intelligent—and evil. He used his smarts to bamboozle people to destroy themselves. Keynes did it at an even larger scale.

He gave us the recipe for “overturning the existing basis of society.” All you have to do is “a continuing process of inflation,” which will “confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.” This “brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires” to the “profiteers, who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat.” Finally, this process “engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

The only leap that I am making would seem to be from “inflation” to “the euthanasia of the rentier.” People today think of inflation only in terms of one of its possible effects: rising prices. This is the fallacy of the frozen abstraction, which Ayn Rand said “consists of substituting some one particular concrete for the wider abstract class to which it belongs…”

Note what Keynes first says about the process of inflation: ”…governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.”

Rising commodity prices is one possible consequence. But rising asset prices is another, and it also fits Keynes’ recipe. Note that his discussion of “enormous social changes” and the “oppressive power of the capitalist to exploit” is not about rising commodity prices, but about falling interest rates.

Keynes sees the connections between: (1) confiscating the wealth of the people, (2) generally impoverishing the people, (3) but arbitrarily enriching a few, (4) which means some prices rise and those who bought those things profit, (5) and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery, (6) pushing interest down to zero, (7) which means pushing asset prices to infinity, (8) leading to resentment against the enriched even by members of their own bourgeois class, (9) which causes the breakdown of relations between debtors and creditors, and finally (10) the best way to destroy the Capitalist System, (11) in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.


That motherfucker. I’m sorry, but the normal words of the English language do not give me a way to describe how I feel about someone this vicious, and not only malevolent but smart enough to devise such an evil scheme, and lucky enough or persuasive enough to set the entire world on the path to destruction.

Let me be 100% clear: this is the path to the destruction of civilization itself.

There, as concisely as I can state it, is the problem we face today. At least, those of us who recognize it, face it. However, I named three groups who generally don’t recognize it. They are part of the 999,999 who Keynes said are unable to diagnose it: the capitalists, the gold bugs, and the otherwise-free-marketers.

Next week, I will get out of rant-mode and address the ideas promoted by these groups.

Supply and Demand Fundamentals
The price of gold went up three bucks, and silver down three cents. In other words, not much at all.

We saw one article this week, that casually mentioned the “”Yellen gold standard”, and said that it is not “in its Powell phase.”

By this notion, Powell maintained this so-called gold standard for yet another week. That is, assuming he has control over the price of gold. Which he does not. And assuming that a good gold standard means a fixed price. Which it does not. And that $1,300 is the right price, which no one could know. And assuming the Quantity Theory of Money is correct, that the Fed can set the price of gold by setting the right quantity of dollars, which is not true even if the dollar were money, which it is not. And assuming he thinks about gold, which he does not.

Anyways, enough beating this faux gold standard dead horse. Not much happened to the prices of the monetary metals. The action was in the risk-on assets, such as the stock market, the euro, crude oil, etc. In other words back to normal! This is how the capitalists suppose it should work—chronic net increases in borrowing, to fund chronic bidding up of assets. So they can get richer.

It seemed to be working this week. However, one thing that isn’t working is the spread between junk bonds and Treasurys. There are lots of weak companies out there, who need to keep borrowing to keep adding to GDP stay alive. If their cost of funding is rising, then they are in trouble. Many creditors who—perhaps unwisely—reached for yield, will incur big losses.


From around the start of 2016, this spread was falling. It reached its absolute low point of 3.16% on Oct 3 last year. Since then, it’s been trending upwards.

It’s come down since its peak in December, but is now around 4%. Another bout of capital-consuming rentier-euthanizing, falling-return rising asset prices will require that they get this spread under control. There’s no reason why they can’t set the 10-year Treasury at 1% and the spread for junk bonds at + 2% to that—just imagine how much GDP could be added if the riskiest and poorest-performing businesses could be forced-fed credit at 3% cost!

We shudder to think of it. However, it seems a likely course. And one where many people turn to gold to protect them. It will be obvious to millions of people that such a course of action will have drastic consequences.

But, as they say (well as we say), today is not that day.

Anyways, let’s look at the only true picture of the supply and demand fundamentals of gold and silver. But, first, here is the chart of the prices of gold and silver.
https://monetary-metals.com/wp-conte...15_150-day.png

Next, this is a graph of the gold price measured in silver, otherwise known as the gold to silver ratio (see here for an explanation of bid and offer prices for the ratio). It was up a bit this week.
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Here is the gold graph showing gold basis, cobasis and the price of the dollar in terms of gold price.
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The scarcity (cobasis) of gold is up this week.
And the Monetary Metals Gold Fundamental Price made another new high, up $60 now to $1,497.

Now let’s look at silver.
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Silver shows rise in scarcity too.
And the Monetary Metals Silver Fundamental Price is up 20 cents to $16.30.

2019 Monetary Metals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%...n_every_minute

he phrase appears in print in the 1885 biography of confidence man Hungry Joe, The Life of Hungry Joe, King of the Bunco Men.[4][5]
In a slightly different form, the phrase shows up in the January 1806 European Magazine: "It was the observation of one of the tribe of Levi, to whom some person had expressed his astonishment at his being able to sell his damaged and worthless commodities, 'That there vash von fool born every minute.'"[6]
According to David W. Maurer, writing in The Big Con (1940),[7] there was a similar saying amongst con men: "There's a mark born every minute, and one to trim 'em and one to knock 'em." Here "trim" means to steal from, and "knock" means to persuade away from a scam. The meaning is that there is no shortage of new victims, nor of con men, nor of honest men.

In the 1930 John Dos Passos novel The 42nd Parallel, the quotation is attributed to Mark Twain.

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While the Nation Fragments Socially, the Financial Aristocracy Rules Unimpeded

March 18, 2019

America's aristocracy is not formalized, and that's the secret of its success.

If there is one central irony in American history, it is this: the citizenry that broke free of the chains of British Monarchy, the citizenry that reckoned everyone was equal before the law, the citizenry that vowed never to be ruled by an aristocracy that controlled the government and finance as a means of self-enrichment, is now so distracted by social fragmentation that the citizenry is blind to their servitude to a new and formidably informal financial aristocracy.

From this juncture, ironies abound: the so-called Socialist demands for Medicare for All, "free" college for all and Universal Basic Income (UBI) are encouraged (or perhaps orchestrated) by the financial aristocracy, which rakes in tens of billions of dollars in profits from its banking, healthcare, national defense and higher education cartels: throwing more trillions down the rat holes of Medicare and higher education will only further enrich and empower the financial elites.

As for Universal Basic Income (UBI), the financial aristocracy is cheering loudly for UBI, which would enable debt-serfs to keep servicing their debts. (Is anyone so naive to think that UBI won't have a clause which enables the deduction of debt payments from the monthly "free money"? Does anyone think the financial aristocracy is going to give $1,000 a month to debt-serfs and then let them default on their debt? Get real!)

The demands for social justice, i.e. that everyone be allowed to be treated the same before the law and enjoy the same rights as other citizens, is a core tenet of American culture. Long before the Constitution was even ratified, the calls to end slavery were becoming louder. Long before women won the the right to vote, the calls to treat women equally before the law were gaining ground.

In the long sweep of U.S. history, the rights of gays to marry and other contemporary social justice issues are of a piece with all previous drives to eliminate disparities between the way individuals are treated before the law. This is of course as it should be: this was a core value of the revolutionaries, as limited as it was in that era, and this drive is largely what makes America America.

Equally important was the cultural drive to never be ruled by a neofeudal aristocracy or let an aristocracy form in America. Yet this is precisely what has come to pass: we are ruled by an informal but oh-so neofeudal aristocracy.

As social justice controversies fragment the increasingly economically precarious populace, a financial aristocracy has arisen that rules the nation behind the screens of "meritocracy" and "equal rights." No one is more in favor of equal rights and the abolition of social privilege that the members of the financial aristocracy, who have no need for social privilege since they control the real source of power in America: proximity to credit and newly issued money.

(Look at the liberal leanings of the Silicon Valley, L.A., Boston and NYC elites. They all love whatever distracts everyone from scrutinizing their power, and love recruiting fresh talent to slave away for their private empires.)

With this wealth, the financial aristocracy buys political influence for piddling sums and scoops up most of the low-risk productive assets of the private sector.

The core structure of the financial aristocracy is the state-cartel, the cartels that are funded and enforced by the central state: higher education, healthcare, national defense, banking, mortgages, student loans, etc.

For the financial aristocracy, the federal government is their personal enrichment machine, collecting trillions in taxes and borrowing additional trillions which are funneled through the state-cartels.

The number of seats in the American aristocracy is extremely limited, and so the top 5% are willing to go to extreme lengths to get in the first class lifeboat as the Titanic takes on water. This manifests in all sorts of ways, including the elite college admissions scandal.

While social justice proponents focus on divisive distractions, the financial aristocracy is tightening its control of the nation's economy and political order. As everyday life, civil liberties and economic security all become increasingly precarious for the bottom 90%, the divisive focus on social privilege becomes a useful distraction for the financial aristocracy, which also controls the mainstream media.

America's aristocracy is chuckling with great amusement as society is torn to pieces by media-circus sideshows. America's aristocracy doesn't need any titles or overt class distinctions as the aristocracy of old had; this would only call attention to their dominance. The ideal arrangement is a society shredded by social-media-driven fabricated divisions and a profound apathy to the actual structures of power, wealth and control.

America's aristocracy is not formalized, and that's the secret of its success.The power and control are exercised behind the formal machinery of governance and finance, and this structure protects the aristocracy from scrutiny.

So by all means demand Medicare for All and UBI: the aristocracy is heavily promoting these expansions of its wealth and power. Just as the Roman elites favored distributing free bread to the disenfranchised masses and the staging of Netflix binge TV watching--oops, I mean circuses-- so too does America's aristocracy favor UBI, Medicare for All and a fragmented society in thrall to disunity.
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