Money Flow Trading Method along with Risk Management

Hello , your English is fine. There is correlation however not always. When the dollar index is strong Gold can be weak. However at other times they both can go in the same direction. I will give you a more detailed reply on Sunday

Morning Thoughts - Daily


“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
George Orwell, 1984

http://www.goldpriceoz.com/us-dollar-index.html

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As most of us in the trading gold are aware, gold is a rare metal used as money, and considered to be a hedge against inflation, currency failure, recession, and other uncertainties factors. The fluctuation of gold price is affected by many factors; the US dollar index is the one of them. If you are considering whether to invest in gold or have already invested in gold, it is essential to understand the close relationship between the price of gold and the value of US dollar. Grasping the relationship between gold price and US dollar index can help make the most advantageous investment decisions.

Anyone who takes attention on gold and currency markets closely will find that the Gold Price and Dollar Index generally trend in negative correlation.
Reason of the inverse relationship

First of all, historical speaking, gold and silver were used as currencies in the past. The value of a unit of US dollar was originally tied to the value of a specific amount of gold or silver. However, during the periods of Civil War, the First World War and the Great Depression, this relationship was temporarily cut in order to protect the gold reserves. After ended the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s, the US dollar became a true fiat currency allowing to be freely traded and sold.

Secondly, gold and the dollar are considered as global currencies. Many foreign banks hold dollars as a reserve currency, or invest more in gold to preserve their assets during volatile economic conditions. When the dollar weakens, banks as well as investors around the world buy more gold to protect their money and hedge against the U.S. dollar weakness; when the dollar strengthens, more and more investors and banks invest U.S. dollar to discard gold. Due to the fall in demand, the value of gold depreciates. This choosing of investors brings about negative relationship between gold and the US dollar.

In addition, the value of gold is commonly expressed as US dollars per ounce; therefore, any fluctuations of dollar are likely to affect the dollar price of gold. As the dollar rises, the gold price in dollar falls, and vice versa. It is worthwhile to note that the value of gold is unlikely to inversely fluctuate exactly in line with the value of US dollar. In fact, this reciprocal relationship is generally not obvious in a short period, but is almost obvious during periods of 12 months or longer. As illustrated from January 2001 to January 2004, the price of gold and US dollar index had a strong negative relationship.
http://img.goldpriceoz.com/us-dollar...gold-price.png
Do the gold and dollar index always have an inverse relationship?
It is obvious not! Historically speaking, in some periods the price of gold and US dollar index had a strong positive correlation. For instance, as illustrated from May 1993 to December 1993, they broke down the traditional inverse relationship.
http://img.goldpriceoz.com/us-dollar...price-1993.png
In fact, besides the interaction between gold price and US dollar index, there are many other external factors also impact the price of the two. Such as in a war period, some people might buy more gold to keep value, whereas others might think that purchasing US dollar was a safer way to keep value. The behavior of people might create gold price as well as US dollar index to rise.

Gold Price Charts

1. Gold Price Per Ounce
2. Gold Price Per Gram
3. Gold Price Chart
4. Live Gold Price
5. Gold Silver Ratio

Gold Price Other Currency

 

1. Canadian Dollar(CAD)
2. Chinese Yuan(CNY)

http://www.goldpriceoz.com/gold-silver-ratio.html

http://www.oann.com/monte-dei-paschi...ail-investors/

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December 16, 2016
By Stephen Jewkes and Silvia Aloisi

MILAN (Reuters) – Troubled Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena <BMPS.MI> sought on Friday to convince 40,000 retail investors to take part in its last-ditch rescue plan, warning them they could face bigger losses if they did not convert their bonds into shares.
Italy’s third biggest bank has until the end of this month to raise 5 billion euros ($5.2 billion) in equity or face the risk of being wound down, potentially triggering a wider banking and political crisis in Italy.

Should the privately-funded plan fail, the government is ready to step in with state money to keep the Siena-based bank in business, though such a move would require both retail and institutional investors to share in losses.

Monte dei Paschi said on Friday market watchdog Consob had given the go-ahead to the extension of a voluntary debt-to-equity offer to retail investors owning 2.1 billion euros of its junior debt. The offer runs from December 16 to 21.

The bank, noting there could be no certainty Rome would pump in public money, warned that any state aid could force bondholders to convert their securities on worse conditions than those of the lender’s voluntary debt swap offer.

Underscoring its vulnerability, the bank said on Friday deposits had fallen by 6 billion euros between September 30 and December 13.
Outflows have totaled 2 billion euros since a December 4 referendum on constitutional reform which triggered the resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, throwing the bank’s rescue plan into disarray.

With the clock ticking, the chances of the bank pulling off the fundraising look slim, and bankers and analysts say state intervention looks increasingly on the cards to help restore confidence.

Comments from Benjaminis: This is the next major important crisis that will influence markets for the next two weeks holidays notwithstanding.

The financial world will be watching as events unfold. What they will be looking for is how Italy settles this most immediate and difficult matter. The oldest bank in the world in some ways represents all the problems with the Fiat currency system and the Central banks of the world represented by the BIS (Bank of International Settlements) The POWER of the Central Banks is starting to come to a end.

Just like first Brexit then followed by the election of President Elect Donald J. Trump on November 8, 2016 the House of Cards is starting to collapse.

The way that this will be resolved whether anyone likes it or not most likely will give the path that the ECB and other countries will use to solve similar problems with the massive bad debts that the banks in Europe have on their books and of course since Draghi and the ECB have been using unorthodox and unusual methods this will most likely lead to the collapse of Europe and the Eurozone.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...order-part-iii

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Submitted by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk via Bawerk.net,
A new world order is coming of age and the transition is painful to accept for a Western middle class with a deep-seated sense of entitlement.

We showed how the West feels threatened globally in Toward a New World Order and followed up explaining how this translate into domestic politics in Toward a New World Order Part II. We will now continue this series by showing how gross economic mismanagement have created the new political class that we described in part two.

As we stated back then, a large and increasing part of the electorate, swayed by neither the political correct socialist/feminist/cultural relativist dogma presented by the left, nor the lip service paid to free markets by a corrupted right, have taken hold in western democracies. They form a directionless blob of potential voters which until recently have drifted aimlessly along the political spectrum. Now they have made up their mind and it is proving pundits clueless as to what is going on. The “worker” making millions on Wall Street or by helping Google refine their search engine is not the same “worker” we find in flyover America. The young billionaire making apps to entertain confused millennials and snowflakes is not the same capitalist as the shale oil investor we might encounter in North Dakota. Political classes traditionally defined are useless as a tool to understand the world today. What is important to note though is that a growing minority of people with little to lose from the status quo is about to, or in many places have already become a small majority.

When people have nothing to lose and foresee a future of continued hardship they become desperate and are willing to change for the sake of change itself. When the current leadership provide nothing but more of the same hopelessness, they will move politically toward to candidates with views counter to that held by the establishment.

Comments from Benjaminis: As we head to December 19, 2016 in the USA and the important declaration of the 538 Electors the above pretty well explains what happened to the Democratic party and to the Main Stream Media and to the Politically Correct LEFT and how they really behave. Go back to my Orwell quote a few posts back.

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Before we move on, let us examine the upcoming election in France to show what we mean. In the traditional way of viewing national politics in France, it will be impossible for Le Pen and her Front National to win. Why? Because the left will hold their nose and vote for right-wing Republican Fillon in the second round to strategically avoid Le Pen. While some undoubtedly will follow the traditional recipe of left-right politics, it is far from certain that enough will do so to avoid a Le Pen victory. On the contrary, as we showed in part II, this line of thinking is outdated and a better representation is shown in the chart below.
https://i1.wp.com/bawerk.net/wordpre...size=632%2C318
Using our methodology, we come up with a far more likely scenario on how the French voters will vote come May. With the center right representing everything the middle class loath, they will not migrate from the center-left to help Fillon to victory. Le Pen’s vote base is not disillusioned UMP voters, but blue-collar workers that used to support the socialists and militant French unions. We do not draw this conclusion from some unique insight into French politics, but from observing a tendency across the whole of western society as a larger and larger share of the population have lost hope for the future. One of the most primal driving forces in humans is the belief in a brighter future. Dirt poor in Africa or pampered by the European welfare state, it does not matter. What matters for the positive development of the human spirit is an expectation that next year will be better than the current one. If that belief is taken from them, they will most certainly force real change on the system as they feel there is little to lose.
https://i0.wp.com/bawerk.net/wordpre...size=656%2C208
So what went wrong? There are many answers to this question and we have tried to address several on them on these pages earlier, such as excessive debt levels, monetary policy gone awry and demographics. We would also add to the list that we have seen a general tendency toward destructive policies as a result from people losing purpose in life; in this regard, it is no coincidence that environmentalism appeared as a new form of religion on the “godless” continent.

Comments from Benjaminis: These issues will be some of the GEOPOLITICAL Risk that will be dealt with during 2017 only 13 days away. Happy New Year Ladies and Gentleman of Forex Factory.

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In That 70s Show (part I, II, III and IV) we spelled out how things changed after Nixon took the US dollar off gold and gave the Americans the ability to exchange nothing for something. Obviously, this created an irresistible incentive to consume more than the Americans could produce, which in turn artificially changed relative prices. A new productive structure emerged because of the new set of prices, but unless the dollar issuance continued, and even accelerated, it would not be possible to sustain the ensuing capital allocation.

In other words, this road have taken us all down a very unpleasant path as every time the central bank, and/or the commercial banking system (including global dollar claims dubbed Eurodollars) is forced to retrench a recession must necessarily set in as the nothing-for-something-transaction have to be undone. However, as long as the global community accept dollar claims as money good the banking system can always gear up in time of crisis to avert the worst of inbuilt consequences stemming from past folly.

What made 2008/09 so special is the fact that the global dollar community had in fact reached peak debt. In other words, further dollar claims were no longer considered money good and the global banking system could no longer reflate the balance sheet, as this would have been unacceptable to their counterparties. A different way of looking at this is through the capital structure. At peak debt the current structure can no longer be funded as the pool of real savings is gradually depleted by the incessant something-for-nothing-transactions. We, as participants in a global economy, have essentially been consuming our seed corn.

In the 1970s the US economy employed about 50 per cent of its workforce in private sector service occupations. However, as the nothing-for-something system got under way the share of service sector employment rose almost constantly to reach more than 70 per cent today. This transformation can be characterized as a move away from tradable sector toward non-tradable, and was inevitable since the US manufacturing sector essentially had to compete against foreign products that cost the American system nothing to procure.

Service sector jobs have, or at least used to have, less scope for productivity improvements and hence real wage increases. Furthermore, goods producing sectors were clearly affected as they could no longer compete successfully against foreign producers. As a consequence, investments fell, thus dragging down productivity even more. Wages in tradable sectors naturally stagnated as a result. Amazingly, the real wage level in the 1970s for middle class workers is the same as today (using the BLS headline CPI index as deflator). Service sector wages must follow that of the goods producing sector and stagnated too.
https://i2.wp.com/bawerk.net/wordpre...size=658%2C354

"Колебания цен на золото зависит от многих факторов;" BenjaminIs, спасибо за очень подробный ответ, не ожидал такого грамотного объяснения! Что касается Монте Paschi, кажетсячто это не первый шаг сил, которые направлены на перераспределение сфер влияния в Европе путем дробления финансовых институтов. После ослабления еврозоны последовали покупки активоввсей Европе и торговых соглашений, которые не были раньше,сих пор подписаться на более обременительные условия, нов пользу третьих лиц, которые заменили старую мировую элиту. Похожезамена уставших игроков для свежих сил.

Hello :-) Can someone please translate the above please ? Thanks !!!

"Fluctuations in the price of gold depends on many factors;" BenjaminIs, thank you for the very detailed answer, did not expect such a competent explanation! As for Monte Paschi, kazhetsyachto this is not the first step forces that are aimed at the redistribution of spheres of influence in Europe by crushing financial institutions. After loosening the eurozone followed the purchase aktivovvsey Europe and the trade agreements that have not been before, still subscribe to more onerous conditions, new favor of third parties, which have replaced the old world elite. Pohozhezamena tired players for fresh forces

Comments from Benjaminis: I found the translation on the Internet !!!

Let us great ready as soon Forex starts in Wellington , New Zealand then Japan and Frankfurt and Europe as equities markets open.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...ls-us-bad-hand

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Politics proclaims hope and change, yet foments anger and hatred. Politics poisons the mind and pits otherwise good people against one another. Politics is the venom that encourages neighbors to actively hate one another, despite the fact they mostly share the same values, culture, and interests. Politics is the greatest engine of theft, coercion, violence, misinformation, lies, death, and destruction the world has ever seen.
Yet the crowd remains glued to political news programming and faithfully shows up at the ballot box every four years ready to enact political change. They are always trying to get the "right" people into office. They never seem to understand the things they wish to change have very little to do with the people in office, and everything to do with the structure of coercive government. Without the structure of institutionalized force, coercion, theft, and violence, it would not matter much who claimed to be the ruler.
This has been going on for hundreds of years now, ever since "representative democracy" convinced people they themselves own their government and that politics is all about civil service. Prior to this, people understood that they were "subjects" to their government, not "citizens", and they did their very best to avoid it whenever possible. That's why the tax collector was once the most reviled of professions.
Here's the thing: even if the crowd understood they were "subjects" to the structure claiming dominion over them, there is very little they could do to change it. You don't get to vote for the structure or even for the fundamental components comprising the structure; you only get to vote for a public overseer. That is the great democratic deceit - the illusion of governmental ownership and control by “We the People”.
The crowd will continue to be preyed upon for as long as they fail to recognize this. But that doesn't mean you have to be a victim.
The world has undergone a massive change over the past several decades – the type of change from which there is no return. This change has been the transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age; a transition still in its infancy.
The Industrial Revolution, which began in the mid-to-late 18th century, has lifted more than a billion people from the shackles of poverty, raised standards of living exponentially and created the world in which we live today. In the developed world, even people of the most modest means enjoy far more comforts and luxuries than the wealthiest kings and nobles of the pre-industrial era.
Commerce was the driving force behind industrialism and the market system was spawned from enterprise and trade. But for all of its revolutionary and wealth-creating qualities, the Industrial Age carried one major limitation; it required highly rigid centralization.
Centralized institutions require a certain degree of administrative bureaucracy in order to function. This applies to corporations just as it applies to governments, and it is why corporate organizational structures fundamentally resemble government hierarchies.
All of these institutions employ pyramidal hierarchical structures: there are a few people at the top who send orders down to the people comprising the chain below them who pass those orders on down the hierarchy. Each successive chain is progressively larger as you work your way down the organizational chart.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%20Final_0.jpg

Old or new, all legacy institutions employ failing pyramidal hierarchical structures.

The problem with bureaucracies is that they are slow, inefficient, and carry conflicting incentives and disincentives across the various chains of authority. These problems become magnified as the bureaucracy grows, and the one consistent incentive present in all bureaucracies is the desire to expand. As an institution grows, its focus becomes less on innovation or wealth-creation, and more on suppressing competition.
This is why the very institutions responsible for empowering individuals and enriching civilization on a mass scale always seem to stagnate and become parasitic over time.
So many institutional systems of the Industrial Age began (and I paint with a broad brush here) as liberators and innovators. These systems grew to encompass most of the globe, and they came to be thought of as permanent. For many, perhaps they still are.
Francis Fukuyama penned an essay back in 1989 titled The End of History? which suggested that humanity may have reached the end of its socio-cultural evolution with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Francis made a number of good points in his essay, and overall it made perfect sense at the height of the Industrial Age.
But God has a sense of humor and the Universe is unequivocally characterized by change and paradox. The Information Age was beginning its ascent precisely as Mr. Fukuyama was proclaiming the supreme permanency of western regulatory democracy and its established institutional systems. Little did the Establishment know that a new disrupting force was rising from the ether.
In fact, Timothy C. May had already penned and presented his powerful manifesto a year earlier at the Crypto 88 conference. History may very well point to Mr. May’s manifesto as the definitive beginning to the Information Age. Here’s May:

A specter is haunting the modern world… Computer technology is on the verge of providing the ability for individuals and groups to communicate and interact with each other in a totally anonymous manner. Two persons may exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate electronic contracts without ever knowing the True Name, or legal identity, of the other…
Reputations will be of central importance, far more important in dealings than even the credit ratings of today. These developments will alter completely the nature of government regulation, the ability to tax and control economic interactions, the ability to keep information secret, and will even alter the nature of trust and reputation…
Just as the technology of printing altered and reduced the power of medieval guilds and the social power structure, so too will cryptologic methods fundamentally alter the nature of corporations and of government interference in economic transactions…

That day has arrived; we are living in the early stages of the Information Age. Most people may not know this yet, but they can feel it.
The institutional foundation of the industrial world is crumbling around us. Governments are bankrupt. Social welfare program costs are growing exponentially. Unions are broke. Pension plans are severely underfunded. National currencies have been trashed. Blue-collar jobs in the developed world have been lost to low-wage countries. Low-wage jobs have been lost to robotics and automation. Many of the jobs just disappeared entirely. Everyone's retirement account is propped up by the constant creation of money out of thin air required to keep the financial markets afloat.
Welcome to the Information Age!

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%20Final_0.jpg

The Information Age is still in its infancy.

In truth, these are all great things. The seeds of a second Renaissance for human civilization have already been sown. These seeds will blossom as civilization continues to move away from the Industrial Age model and its centralized dominant/submissive paradigm.
Think about it this way: technology is conquering scarcity and reducing the need for centralization.
It required 40% of the U.S. population to work in agriculture in order to produce enough food to meet demand in the year 1900. Today that number is around 2%, and food is more available than ever before. You can find milk, eggs, meat, fresh fruits, vegetables, and all kinds of other items at your local grocery store year-round. This has enabled people to focus their time, energy, and labor on more advanced endeavors which in turn has led to an explosion of technological innovation.
As a result of this drastic reduction in scarcity, the average person today is far wealthier in standard of living terms than the wealthiest people alive one hundred years ago. Take a few minutes to walk around your house and catalogue your furniture, appliances, electronics, gadgets, widgets, and stuff. Most of what you take for granted every single day was not available to your forefathers a mere one hundred years ago.
Here's the point: the world is not going to hell in a hand basket; the institutionalized industrial model is.
I don't know whether or not the centralized structure of coercive government was a necessary evil on the way to building an advanced civilization, but I do know this: politics is 100% obsolete in this digital age we now find ourselves in. We are living with space-age technology, yet we still employ the structure of bronze-age rulership by means of force, coercion, theft, misinformation, and violence on a mass scale.
We have been conditioned by this model to view ourselves as a victim always in need of a savior. Yet we humans are engines of creation. We can imagine and envision, then turn our imaginations and visions into reality. I mean that quite literally. It is just a choice. We are astonishingly capable beings, but we have been conditioned to focus on manifesting conflict and negativity.
This is why I am so saddened when I see politics, and the dark forces behind it, trick wonderful people into spending all of their time, energy, and thoughts on political abstractions. I see this every day in my own life. I see people whom I love and respect get sucked into the political game; I see them elevate politics to religious levels and willfully ignore those things that are most important in their own life. I watch as the twinkle vanishes from their eye, the pep disappears from their step, and the anger slowly poisons their psyche.
And I understand. I was there myself not too long ago.
As best I can tell, western civilization is a tale of two cities at the current point in time.
The people in one city are confused and angry because they do not understand why their industrial institutions are failing them. The 2016 U.S. election cycle made it obvious the people living in this city reside on both the "left" and the "right" side of the modern political spectrum. They know it’s broke and they want it fixed no matter what it takes, and no matter whose rights are trampled to do so. They are looking for a hero, and they see politics as the solution.
The people in the other city are much less concerned about the devolving industrial model because they are leveraging the budding trends of the Information Age in their favor. These are the people learning how to operate in the digital economy that bypasses industrial borders. They are learning there's a whole lot more to the money story than what they were led to believe.
They are learning how to build collaborative networks utilizing digital technology and secure communications. They are actively creating superior alternatives to literally every civil service function currently provided by industrial institutions. They see politics as the problem, and they see decentralized networks as the solution.
I lived in that first city several years ago. I was angry and depressed all the time. I thought the answer was to fight the trends; fight the world. I was stressed to the max, and terribly unpleasant to be around...just ask my wife.
When I eventually got tired of being angry and depressed my mind switched gears, and I moved to the second city. It's much more pleasant here, and the people are friendlier. The people in this city aren't trying to change the world - that's a win-lose proposition. Instead, they are building an alternative world based upon participatory networks and voluntary association utilizing modern technology.
Never before has this been possible in recorded human history.
While the crowd is focused on fighting the existing status-quo on the macro scale, a growing number of individuals are focused on building a better model on the micro scale. The new model is not fixated upon enacting "social change", it is geared towards empowering individuals. In fact, it's not much of a model at all in the traditional sense. It is not about replacing the old structure with a new one. Instead, the new model is a perspective paired with an understanding of the economic trends, digital technologies, and financial tools necessary to build a life of freedom, wealth, and fulfillment to the fullest extent possible.
This is the theme of the third edition of my book titled The Individual is Rising: Transcending the Industrial Order and Prospering in the Digital Age.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...-%20Final2.jpg

Pick up a digital copy absolutely free at http://theindividualisrising.com/.

The book is available in both paperback and Kindle format on Amazon. But at the moment I’m not terribly interested in selling copies as much as I am in distributing copies. Anyone interested can pick up a digital copy absolutely free athttp://theindividualisrising.com/.
If you are tired of politics and its associated corruption, this book is for you. You see, in every developed industrial country there is a glass ceiling of-sorts over the middle class. When you add up all of the taxes across all levels of government, the middle class pays at least half of their income to their governments each year.
In addition to taxes, the middle class is also subjected to the whims of their rulers almost entirely. They just don't have any other options - they are stuck. And truthfully very few in the middle class even think about it. After all, the rat-race consumes the bulk of their time and energy.
But what if you don't want to participate in any of their political programs? What do you do when you just want to be left alone to experience this life in a meaningful way, but politics and its supporters are hell-bent on forcing you to play their games and participate in their schemes? What do you do when the moral busybodies are determined to keep you corralled within their systems of taxation and surveillance? What do you do when your logic is met with anger and condemnation?
Historically, the answer has been to fight; to use force - politically or even physically - as a means of instituting change. This is a losing proposition, and it is completely unnecessary in the digital age.
In the old days, the dreamers, visionaries, philosophers, and wayfaring souls were forced to meet secretly in the back rooms of taverns, inns, and speak-easies to discuss their radical ideas. Today, they can all connect with one another to share information and ideas instantaneously on the Internet, in total privacy thanks to encryption technology, from the comforts of their own home.
What this means is individuals can create their own future independently; they no longer need to fight to reform society in accordance with their own ideals and preferences. As systems theorist Buckminster Fuller pointed out, fighting the System only strengthens it. Here's Bucky:
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
For perhaps the first time in history, the Information Age and its digital economy are enabling individuals to build and experiment with new models on a global scale in relative peace and freedom. I don't think the significance of this is well-understood or appreciated as of yet.
This dynamic is unprecedented and absolutely revolutionary. And it is irreversible. The rulers can certainly build censorship and misinformation into popular social media sites, search engines, and top-level domains, and I suspect they will. But they cannot censor or shut down distributed networks designed to decentralize the Internet and all of its applications by bypassing third parties entirely.
The rabbit is out of the hat, and it won't be going back in. It is the Gutenberg Press all over again, except on a much greater scale. Fundamentally, the encryption technology driving decentralization is just a branch of mathematics. No matter how much legislation is passed, and no matter how many guns are drawn, the rulers cannot alter mathematics. 2 + 2 will always equal 4.
This presents the disenfranchised individual with a unique opportunity.
Most aspects of our society are digital today. Information is digital. Communication is digital. Vital records are digital. Money is digital. Wealth is digital. Transactions are digital.
I don't think this dynamic is well understood, nor do I think it is particularly welcomed by those of us who came up according to the rules of the Industrial Age. But those who understand the trends and the available technology can organize their affairs to bypass the abusive structure to the fullest extent possible to enhance their quality of life. Further, they can build alternative networks geared towards any desired purpose; they can construct better alternatives to the existing model which is based on centralization, hierarchy, monopoly, coercion, and political power.
Now this doesn't reduce the need for basic resiliency - food, water, shelter, and gold... but those are chaos hedges. My experience is that a fixation upon chaos hedges tends to foster an unpleasant and rather defeatist perspective. I am not sure that fulfillment can ever come to those with a defeatist mindset. Simply, a focus on negativity necessarily crowds out the inner genius capable of building a custom-tailored life.
Einstein once mused: "I think the most important question facing humanity is, 'Is the universe a friendly place?'."
If we come to the conclusion that the answer to Einstein's question is no, then we are doomed to a Hobbesian life of scarcity, struggle, and subservience. But if we decide the answer is yes, then a whole new world of opportunity opens up to us. As to what, specifically, that opportunity is - that is up to you.
It's all just a choice...

Joe Withrow
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%20clean_0.jpg

https://mishtalk.com/2016/12/18/two-...opulists-will/

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My article Deflation Bonanza! (And the Fools Mission to Stop It) has a good synopsis.
And my Challenge to Keynesians Prove Rising Prices Provide an Overall Economic Benefit has gone unanswered.

There is no answer because history and logic both show that concerns over consumer price deflation are seriously misplaced.
The BIS did a study and found routine deflation was not any problem at all.

Deflation may actually boost output. Lower prices increase real incomes and wealth. And they may also make export goods more competitive, stated the BIS study.
Its asset bubble deflation that is damaging.

And in central banks seriously misguided attempts to fight routine consumer price deflation, central bankers create very destructive asset bubbles that eventually collapse.

When those bubble burst, and they will, it will trigger debt deflation, which is what central banks ought to fear.
For a discussion of the BIS study, please see Historical Perspective on CPI Deflations: How Damaging are They?
Meanwhile economically illiterate writers bemoan deflation, as do most economists and central banks. The final irony in this ridiculous mix is central bank policies stimulate massive wealth inequality fueled by soaring stock prices.

The Solution
This is what it comes down to: There was a credit explosion to the benefit of banks and the wealthy once Nixon closed the gold window. At that point, governments could print at will, and they did.
https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/...ng?w=529&h=295
Central bank policy cannot fix structural problems, only the free market can. And that includes a truly free market in money as well.
Also see Hugo Salinas Price and Michael Pettis on the Trade Imbalance Dilemma; Golds Honest Discipline Revisited.
Mike Mish Shedlock


https://mishtalk.com/2011/07/08/hugo...ine-revisited/

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Posted by mishgea | July 8, 2011 1:42:00 | Uncategorized

Michael Pettis at China Financial Markets gets to the heart of the trade imbalance issue in his email update today: “The Trade Imbalance Dilemma and Soaring Chinese Debt“.

Over the past two years we have become pretty used to the spectacle of Chinese government officials warning the US about its responsibility to maintain the value of the huge amount of US treasury bonds the PBoC has accumulated. More recently we have been hearing complaints in Germany about the possibility that defaults in peripheral Europe will lead to losses among the many German banks that hold Greek, Portuguese, Irish, Spanish and other European government obligations.

In both cases (and many others) there seems to be an aggrieved sense on the part of creditors that after providing so much helpful funding to undisciplined debtors, the creditors are going to be left with losses. There is, they claim, something terribly unfair about the whole thing. To me this whole argument is pretty surreal. Not only have the creditors totally mixed up the causality of the process, and confused discretionary foreign lending with domestic employment policies, but an erosion in the value of the liabilities owed to them is an almost certain consequence of their own continuing domestic policies. It is largely policies in the creditor countries, in other words, that will determine whether or not the value of those obligations must erode in real terms.

Take the US-China case, for example. The US has been arguing for years that China had to raise the value of the currency sharply in order to re-balance the global economy and bring down China’s current account surplus and, with it, the US deficit.

China responded that it could not do so without causing tremendous damage to its economy and that anyway the problem lay with the US propensity to consume. For that reason China continued to accumulate US dollar assets. As it bought US government bonds it was able to generate higher domestic employment by running large trade surpluses, with corresponding deficits in the US.

Likewise with Germany. The strength of the German economy in recent years has largely to do with its export success. But for Germany to run a large current account surplus – the consequence I would argue of domestic policies aimed at suppressing consumption and subsidizing production – Spain and the other peripheral countries of Europe had to run large current account deficits. If they didn’t, the euro would have undoubtedly surged, and with it Germany’s export performance would have collapsed. Very low interest rates in the euro area (set largely by Germany) ensured that the peripheral countries would, indeed, run large trade deficits.

Trade Imbalances Lead to Debt Imbalances
The funding by German banks of peripheral European borrowing, in other words, was a necessary part of deal, arrived at willingly or unwillingly, leading both to Germany’s export success and to the debt problems of the deficit countries. If the latter behaved foolishly, they could not have done so without equally foolish behavior by Germany, and now both sets of countries – surplus countries and deficit countries – should have do deal jointly with the debt problem.
As long as Germany runs current account surpluses for many years and Spain the corresponding deficits, it is by definition true there must have been net capital flows from Germany to Spain as Germany bought Spanish assets (which includes debt obligations) to balance the current account imbalances. The capital and current accounts for any country, and for the world as a whole, must balance to zero.

In the old days of specie currency – gold and silver – this meant that specie would have flowed from Spain to Germany as the counterbalancing entry, and of course this flow created its own resolution. Less gold and silver in Spain relative to the size of its economy was deflationary in Spain and more gold and silver in Germany was inflationary there – until the point where the real exchange rate between the two countries had adjusted sufficiently because of changes in domestic prices to reverse the trade imbalances.

The Current Account Dilemma
In today’s world things are different. There is no adjustment mechanism – specie flow or imperialism – that permits or prevents persistent current account imbalances.
This means that if Germany runs persistent trade surpluses with Spain, there are only three possible outcomes. First, Spain can borrow forever to finance the deficit (of which the ability to sell off national assets is a subset). This may seem like an absurd claim – no country has an unlimited borrowing capacity – but it is not quite absurd. If Germany is very small – say the size of Sri Lanka – or if Germany runs a very small trade surplus, for all practical purposes we can treat the borrowing capacity of Spain as unlimited as long as the growth in debt is more or less in line with Spain’s GDP growth. However if Germany is a large country or runs large surpluses, this clearly is not a possible outcome.

That leaves the other two outcomes. First, once Spanish debt levels become worryingly large Germany and Spain can reverse the policies that led to the large trade imbalances. In that case Germany will begin to run a current account deficit and Spain a current account surplus. In this way German capital flows to Spain can be reversed as Spain pays down those claims with its own current account surplus. Neither side loses.

Second, Spain can take steps to erode the value of those claims in real terms. It can do this by devaluing its currency, by inflating away the value of its external debt, by defaulting on its debt and repaying only a fraction of its original value, by expropriating German assets, or by a combination of these steps.
Why must those claims be eroded? Because Spain does not have unlimited borrowing capacity (and presumably does not want to give away an unlimited amount of domestic assets). If Spain’s current account deficit is large enough, in other words, its debt must grow at an unsustainable pace and so it must eventually default (this, by the way, is a variation on the famous Triffin Dilemma). The only way to avoid default is to erode the real value of the debt, and ultimately these are variations on the same thing – Germany will get back in real terms less than it gave.

Without unlimited borrowing capacity these are the only two options, and once the market decides debt levels are too high, a decision must be made. Either Germany must accept a reversal of the current account imbalances or it must accept an erosion in the value of the Spanish assets it owns as a consequence of the current account imbalances. This is the important point. Once you have excluded infinite borrowing capacity there are arithmetically no other options.
It is pretty clear that the countries of the world represented in my example by Germany (Germany, China, Japan, etc.) are doing everything possible to resist the first option. They are not taking the necessary steps to reverse their anti-consumptionist policies and plan to continue running current account surpluses for many more years. Even Japan, for example, a country that has abandoned its old growth model and has finally been adjusting domestically for nearly two decades has been unable, or has refused, to take the necessary steps to reverse its current account surplus.

In that case some mechanism or the other must erode the value of the Spanish assets the German banks have accumulated. Either Spain must devalue, or if must inflate away the real value of the debt, or it must default, or it must appropriate German assets – perhaps in the form of a large German gift to Spain.
Given the limits, especially debt limits, it is irrational for anyone to expect that Germany can continue to run large current account surpluses while Spain does nothing to erode the value of Spanish assets held by Germans. This is an impossible combination. We must have either one or the other. I suspect that Germany is hoping and arguing that Spain can somehow reverse its current account deficit without the need for Germany to undermine current account surplus. But this won’t work.

China, for example, implicitly makes the same argument when it demands that the US raise its savings rate while China avoids making the necessary domestic adjustments, including to the currency. But of course this means nothing more than that some other country must replace the US as the current account deficit country of last resort. This obviously cannot solve the underlying problem. It simply pushes off the imbalance onto another country, and ultimately with the same dire consequences.

8-Point Plan Proposed, 9th Key Point Missing
In response to Bill Gross’ Fatally Flawed Plan to Fix the Education System and the Fractured U.S. Job Market; Mish’s 8-Point Alternative Plan I received a nice email from Hugo Salinas Price informing me that I left off a key point in my 8-point plan.
Hello Mish!

I see your 8-point plan for jobs and education. However, you forgot to mention the fundamental problem that has created trade and jobs imbalances.
Since dollars became a “means of settlement of debt” in 1971, and gold was eliminated from the international monetary system, the tendering of dollars as settlement of international trade balances allowed first Japan, and now all Asia and China in particular, to flood the US and the rest of the world with cheap goods. Meanwhile, China buys much less from both the US and the rest of the world.
This is what has destroyed jobs in the US, and will continue to do so.
With best regards
Hugo

Gold’s Honest Discipline
I did indeed fail to mention the consequences of Nixon closing the gold window as the cause of all sorts of global imbalances.
However, I have discussed that concept on many occasions, even as early as 2005, shortly after I first started my blog.
Please consider Gold’s Honest Discipline

I just finished reading a copy of a book entitled “The Monetary Elite vs. Gold’s Honest Discipline” by Vincent R. LoCascio.

LoCascio makes a compelling case that although it’s possible to maintain the integrity of money in a fiat system, historically only the discipline of a gold standard has succeeded in preventing massive abuses by the monetary elite.
Of course the above should be painfully obvious to everyone by now, but unfortunately it is not.
I offer as proof Ron Paul’s final debate with Greenspan before the House Financial Affairs Committee, July 20, 2005. ….

I invite you to finish reading that post and also to pick up a copy of LoCascio’s book.

Gold Standard is Generator and Protector of Jobs
Hugo Salinas Price writes The Gold Standard: Generator and Protector of Jobs
The abandonment of the gold standard in 1971 is closely tied to the massive unemployment the industrialized world has suffered in recent years; Mexico, even with a lower level of industrialization than the developed countries, has also lost jobs due to the closing of industries; in recent years, the creation of new jobs in productive activities has been anemic at best.

In this article we discuss the relationship between loss of the gold standard and the present financial chaos, which is accompanied by severe “structural imbalances” between the historically dominant industrial powers and their new rivals in Asia.

In the early months of 1971, Henry Hazlitt, a solid classical economist, predicted that the dollar would have to be devalued; he said it would be necessary to increase the number of dollars that would be needed to obtain an ounce of gold from the United States Treasury.
What Henry Hazlitt never imagined was that instead of devaluing the currency – the recommendation of Paul Samuelson, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, published the week before August 15, 1971 – President Nixon took the advice of Milton Friedman and declared that from that time forward the US would no longer redeem dollars held by the world’s central banks at any price. The US unilaterally violated the terms of Bretton Woods. In effect, it was actually financial bankruptcy.

Since then, all world trade – or most of it, as the euro, the pound sterling, and to a lesser extent the yen all compete with the dollar – is conducted using dollars that are nothing more than fiat money, fake money. Because all the world’s other currencies were bound to gold through the dollar, the immediate consequence was that simultaneously they also became fiat money, fake money with no backing.

Consequences of abandoning the gold standard
The consequences of that fateful day have overthrown all order and harmony in economic relations among the nations of the world, while facilitating and expediting the global expansion of credit because part of the dollars exported by the US ended up in the reserves of Central Banks around the world.
As the loss of gold ceased to be a limiting factor, the last restrictions on the expansion of credit were stripped away. A heavy flow of dollars to all parts of the world spurred the expansion of global credit, which did not stop until 2007.

The US, which paid the rest of the world with its own irredeemable dollars of no intrinsic value, lauded the adoption of “free trade” and “globalization”. The US could buy whatever it wanted, anywhere in the world, in any quantity, and at any price. Starting in the 1990s, its export deficits became alarming, but nothing was done to reduce them; on the contrary, they grew year by year.

Free Trade is unquestionably beneficial for humanity at large. It is good to be able to buy goods where they are cheapest; some countries enjoy conditions that favor them in production of certain things; each country should produce those things in which it has an advantage over other countries. Thus, the whole world can benefit from the good things each country has to offer. It is an appealing and sound doctrine, but… there is a crucial catch: the doctrine of Free Trade was conceived for a world where the sole means of payment was gold.

When the doctrines of “Free Trade” and the “Comparative Advantages of Nations” were developed, the economists of the day could not imagine a world that did not use gold, but instead relied on a fiat money that could be created at will by a single country.
The “globalization” of the 1980s and 1990s and to date is based on the ideas of “Free Trade”. However, in the absence of the gold standard that existed when the doctrine was conceived, “globalization” had completely destructive results, which have caused the de-industrialization of the West and the rise to power of Asia.

My readers will know how many industries, large and small, have ceased to exist in the US and the West in general, because Chinese competition killed them. They will know as well how hard it is to find a product that can be produced at a profit in the developed countries. It is very difficult to find a niche for any product to be manufactured locally. The flight of factories to Asia to take advantage of lower wages caused unemployment where local factories were closed. For the same reason job creation is slow or non-existent.

The gold standard imposed order and harmony. If President Nixon had not “closed the gold window” in 1971, the world would be radically different today.
Everything changed because the United States, having removed gold from the world monetary system, could “pay” everything in dollars, and without the gold standard as a limiting institution, it could print dollars ad libitum – without limit. Thus, in the 1970s the United States started to buy huge amounts of high quality products from Japan, while the Japanese boasted: “Japan sells; Japan does not buy.”
A situation that was impossible under the gold standard became perfectly possible under the fiat dollar standard. The Japanese became gigantic producers, their country an island transformed into a factory. Japan accumulated vast reserves of dollars sent from the US in exchange for Japanese products. This in turn triggered the de-industrialization of the US.

It is no coincidence that some analysts have observed that in real terms, American workers have had no real increase in their income since 1970.

The current malaise: financial crisis, industrial crisis, crisis of unemployment
Today the situation is far worse. China, with a population of 1.3 billion, has become a formidable power. No one can compete with China in price. China sells vast quantities of goods to the rest of the world, without the rest of the world having any chance of selling similar quantities to China. China can do so, because today trade deficits are “paid” not in gold, but in dollars or euros or pounds sterling or yen, which will never be scarce: they are created at will by the USA, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, or the Bank of Japan.

A fearful monster has been created as a consequence of the elimination of the gold standard, which imposed a limit: “You can only sell to those who sell to you; you can only buy from those who buy from you.” This limit no longer applies; everything is disarray, inequality, imbalance; “structural imbalance” prevails because we no longer have the gold standard.

Richard Nixon’s elimination of the gold standard has proven to be the US’s best possible strategic gift to China and the rest of Asia. Today, China has a colossal industrial base that might have taken centuries to build, while the US is to a great extent devoid of factories and incapable of reclaiming its former glory. How tragic a fate for the US!

Gold vs. Paper Reserves
https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/...rves.png?w=217
Gold, up until the Bretton Woods Agreements of 1944, figured as the complement to the international exchange of merchandise or services and did settle outstanding balance of payments deficits, because it was a merchandise or commodity used as money.
According to the Bretton Woods Agreements, the fiduciary dollar was accepted as being as good as gold, with trust on the part of Central Banks upon the ability to redeem the dollar into gold. From 1944 up until 1971 then, these fiduciary dollars were held in Central Bank reserves as a credit call upon US gold; the final payment had not been effected and was delayed as a credit granted to the US until the dollars held in reserves were to be cashed in for gold at some future date.

Insoluble Enigma
In 1971 the US reneged on the Bretton Woods Agreements of 1944, “closed the gold window” and stiffed the creditor countries. No final settlement of international commerce debts took place in 1971, nor has any taken place since then; the truth of this statement is obscured by the mistaken idea that tendering a fiat currency in payment of an international debt constitutes settlement of that debt.

Once that false idea – that fiat money can settle a debt – is accepted as valid, then the problem of the enormous “imbalances” in world trade becomes an insoluble enigma.

The best and brightest of today’s accredited economists attempt in vain to find a solution to a problem that cannot be solved except by the renewed use of gold as the international medium of commerce.
I have been exchanging emails with Hugo Salinas Price for about two years. I consider him a friend. He is correct when he stated my 8-point proposal was insufficient.

For sake of completeness here is my proposal again.

Mish’s Proposed Plan for Jobs and Education

 

1. Scrap Davis-Bacon and all prevailing wage laws
2. Enact national right-to-work laws
3. Kill defined benefit plans for public workers
4. Scrap student loan programs entirely
5. End all support for for-profit colleges
6. Revise corporate tax laws
7. Stop corporate tax repatriation holidays
8. Slash military spending. The US can no longer afford to be the world’s policeman.

Those ideas will increase corporate tax revenues, end corporate tax unfairness to small US businesses, lower infrastructure costs, lower education costs, allow more public workers to be hired at the same costs as before thereby lowering the unemployment rate.
A key reason we have a jobs problem and an education problem is costs are too high. Gross purports to fix the problem via more government spending.
The solution cannot be the same as the problem, yet Gross proposes just that. Unions, untenable wages and benefits, and excessive government spending caused Greece to go bankrupt. Massive public works programs put Japan in a very precarious situation, with nothing but debt to show for its efforts.
History has proven time and time again that public spending proposals cannot and will not work. Gross and Krugman are blind to history. Immelt is talking about what is good for GE, not America.

The bond market forced Greece’s hand. If we listen to Gross, Krugman, and Immelt, the US will soon be in the same spot.

Internal vs. External Imbalances
The above 8 ideas are all valid. They will correct US internal imbalances.
However, as Hugo states, they will not correct external imbalances. Both are killing the United States.
Sadly, there is no impetus to fix either problem. Bankers and Wall Street benefit from “too big to fail” and monetary printing. Unions buy votes from corrupt politicians.
Inflation benefits those with first access to money. Who has that first access? Banks and the already wealthy.

Reserve Currency Sideshow
All this talk about the US losing reserve currency status to a “basket of currencies” is meaningless nonsense. It will not solve a damn thing, nor will it wreck the US dollar per se.

Nixon wrecked the US dollar by reneging on the Bretton Woods agreement. It has been downhill ever since for the middle class.
“Gold’s Honest Discipline” can restore balance. However, “Gold’s Honest Discipline” would also stop war-mongering, union pandering, and a host of other problems that banks and special interest groups do not want stopped.
Unfortunately, this means the imbalances will continue until the entire mess blows up in a currency and derivatives crisis of immense magnitude. I cannot tell you when that will happen, I can only tell you it will.

Addendum:
Please see Michael Pettis Warns of “Virulent Political Turn Against Euro”, Adds Clarification to “Gold’s Honest Discipline” for additional comments from Michael Pettis.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock


Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction.


http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/...rom=USD&To=CNY

THE WEEK AHEAD !!! I get ready for my Forex trading week by seeing what important events are going to be unfolding in the week ahead. Here is the first look of what we need to know.

http://www.marketpulse.com/20161216/...l6OU8ifQ%3D%3D

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BOJ weighing next action after Fed rate hike
The USD is higher across the board after the Fed finally announced its much awaited rate hike. The market had already priced in the 25 basis points rate hike to the Fed funds rate, but the hawkish tone of the FOMC statement, dot plot and Fed Chair Janet Yellens press conference have boosted the USD and solidified the strong dollar rally. Improving U.S. economic conditions were cited and the expectation now is of at least 3 rate hikes in 2017. The effect of those improved forecasts have been felt around the globe.

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) will release its Monetary policy statement and press conference between the end of Monday and the beginning of Tuesday December 20 EST. Analysts are expecting the central bank to keep the quantitative easing unchanged and negative rates on hold. The weak JPY and hawkish U.S. growth expectations have given the BOJ room to hold and even improve its economy assessment.

The Bank of England (BoE) and Swiss National Bank (SNB) both kept their monetary policies unchanged after the Fed and is now up to the Bank of Japan to close the year for major central banks.

http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/...rom=USD&To=CNY


https://www.oanda.com/labsds/graph/E...12-12_5d_m.png

The EUR/USD dropped 0.745 percent in the last 5 days. The single currency is trading at 1.0454 after the U.S. Federal Reserve hiked the U.S. benchmark rate as expected. The hawkish rhetoric from the statement and Fed Chair Janet Yellens press conference boosted the USD. The move from the Fed followed the European Central Bank (ECB) extension of the quantitative easing program, although the amount was tweaked with President Mario Draghi quickly pointing out its not tightening. The move was a clever way to appease both sides of the council. For the doves, there is more time for the QE program to run, while for the hawks there is a reduced amount that could be read as tapering without being called that. The Fed learnt the hard way that its hard to predict a market reaction to a taper announcement after the now famous taper tantrum of June 2013.

The ECB is gearing up to a difficult year. If anything 2016 showed the market the climate for political change and the far reaching impacts of the protest vote. With elections in Italy, France and Germany as well as the developing saga of Brexit there will be plenty of political risk jolting European markets.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann was bolder on Friday with his statement that monetary policy was powerless in reviving euro zone growth. The German has been a longtime critic of the ECBs stimulus as it takes the urgency away from much needed government reforms at the national level, which in Weidmanns view are the ones responsible for boosting growth.


https://www.oanda.com/labsds/graph/U...12-16_1d_m.png

The USD/JPY gained 2.116 percent in the week. The Yen is trading at 117.79 on the back of the Feds monetary policy decision and the possibility of 3 or more rate hikes in 2017. The biggest event risk will be which decision the Bank of Japan (BOJ) announces. The JPY has lost more than 13 percent since the results of the U.S. election, but a depreciation of the currency has helped the local stock market as an average price of 115 could boost corporate profits as much as 20 percent. The December Tankan survey showed positive business sentiment hitting a one year high which together with the USD strength could delay the BOJ from changing its monetary policy at the end of 2016.

The BOJ is also looking into alternative methods of fighting deflation after its massive QE program started with much promise only to face an uphill battle as global conditions deteriorated. Financial education is now being touted as one possible solution to unlock Japanese savings and put them to work by investing into asset management. There is plenty of scepticism on the results this route taken by the central bank, but after the printing press has not worked as desired, maybe education can be the solution.

The markets are awaiting the final outcome from the BOJ meeting before starting to ease into holiday mode. 2016 has been a bumpy ride from the beginning and traders will be looking for some time off to reflect on the hard lessons of this year and how to apply them to the next one.
Market events to watch this week:

Monday, December 19
4:00am EUR German Ifo Business Climate
7:30pm AUD Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes
Tentative JPY BOJ Policy Rate
Tentative JPY Monetary Policy Statement

Tuesday, December 20
Tentative JPY BOJ Press Conference

Wednesday, December 21
10:30am USD Crude Oil Inventories
4:45pm NZD GDP q/q

Thursday, December 22
8:30am CAD Core CPI m/m
8:30am CAD Core Retail Sales m/m
8:30am USD Core Durable Goods Orders m/m
8:30am USD Final GDP q/q
8:30am USD Unemployment Claims

Friday, December 23
4:30am GBP Current Account
8:30am CAD GDP m/m
*All times EDT
For a complete list of scheduled events in the forex market visit the MarketPulse Economic Calendar

http://www.goldpriceoz.com/us-dollar-index/

http://www.oann.com/monte-dei-paschi...ail-investors/

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Monte Dei Paschi In Last-Ditch Effort To Lure Retail Investors

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A logo of Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank is seen on the ground in Siena, Italy, November 5, 2014. REUTERS/Giampiero Sposito/File Photo

December 16, 2016

By Stephen Jewkes and Silvia Aloisi

MILAN (Reuters) – Troubled Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena <BMPS.MI> sought on Friday to convince 40,000 retail investors to take part in its last-ditch rescue plan, warning them they could face bigger losses if they did not convert their bonds into shares.
Italy’s third biggest bank has until the end of this month to raise 5 billion euros ($5.2 billion) in equity or face the risk of being wound down, potentially triggering a wider banking and political crisis in Italy.

Should the privately-funded plan fail, the government is ready to step in with state money to keep the Siena-based bank in business, though such a move would require both retail and institutional investors to share in losses.
Monte dei Paschi said on Friday market watchdog Consob had given the go-ahead to the extension of a voluntary debt-to-equity offer to retail investors owning 2.1 billion euros of its junior debt. The offer runs from December 16 to 21.


The bank, noting there could be no certainty Rome would pump in public money, warned that any state aid could force bondholders to convert their securities on worse conditions than those of the lender’s voluntary debt swap offer.

Underscoring its vulnerability, the bank said on Friday deposits had fallen by 6 billion euros between September 30 and December 13.
Outflows have totaled 2 billion euros since a December 4 referendum on constitutional reform which triggered the resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, throwing the bank’s rescue plan into disarray.

With the clock ticking, the chances of the bank pulling off the fundraising look slim, and bankers and analysts say state intervention looks increasingly on the cards to help restore confidence.

Sources close to the matter said on Thursday Italy was ready to inject 15 billion euros into the Tuscan lender and other weak banks. An emergency decree could be approved next week as soon as the results of Monte dei Paschi’s debt swap and share sale are known.
In its prospectus for the reopened debt swap offer, the bank said the European Central Bank had told it that under a negative stress-test scenario, the lender has “a 29-day time horizon in which it can meet its liquidity needs without resorting to new intervention.” The stress-test scenario assumes a liquidity outflow of 10.3 billion euros within a month.

Shares in the bank fell 3 percent by 1513 GMT.

Besides the bond conversion, the bank’s last attempt to avert state aid also envisages selling shares to cornerstone investors and on the market.
However, a source close to the matter said on Thursday that Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund – which bankers had said could invest 1 billion euros – had yet to make up its mind about whether to put money in the bank.

“Qatar is still at the window,” the source said.

Following the political turmoil triggered by Renzi’s resignation, JPMorgan and other investment banks that had made a preliminary commitment to underwrite the share sale walked out of the deal, citing adverse market conditions.
Monte dei Paschi estimates the cost of its rescue deal, including fees paid to investment banks, at 558 million euros, it said in the prospectus published on Friday.

The ECB last week rejected Monte dei Paschi’s request for more time to raise the funds, saying a delay could trigger a further deterioration in the bank’s liquidity and capital position, putting its survival at risk.

(Editing by Adrian Croft)

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-new...thing_12132016

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There are scores of organizations working on ways to interpret user data on the internet to help predict future events. Law enforcement agencies and financial institutions having been working on this predictive technology for over a decade. In most cases, none of that information is ever shared with the general public.

Clif High of HalfPastHuman, however, has taken a different course. Since the mid-1990’s High’s algorithms have been scouring the internet. With the advent of social networks and tens of thousands of citizen-driven blogs, that data has gotten ever more accurate. So accurate in fact, that on October 27 High’s automated “Web Bots” predicted that not only would Trump win by a landslide, but that Hillary Clinton would be “missing” following the election, a prediction that was so accurate it blew away just about every professional analysis firm in the world.

Now the Web Bots are predicting another paradigm-shifting event. According to Clif High, it appears that a massive financial shock is brewing for early 2017:
We’re facing the following situation…

The confusion, the degradation of the bond market, the crumbling of everything else…
I call it deflation, but maybe we should better define it as debt destruction and inflation because The-Powers-That-Be, the Federal Reserve and all these guys… in the data sets that I’ve got are showing that they’re really worried by very early January… actually they start getting extremely worried by sometime around the 12th or so of December and that it breaks out into the public so to speak by early January.
Now, what they are worried about is the destruction of all of this debt… it’s a destruction of all of these derivatives…
…
To sort of get a handle on it, we’re looking at a period of time where there will be a lot of things that you really can’t sell because there won’t be enough currency floating in your local economy to, for instance, have a garage sale because your neighbors won’t have enough extra currency to buy your stuff…
At the same time that that’s going on the cost of milk is going to go up… the cost of gasoline is going to go up… Even though there’s going to be an oil glut… As we have this deflationary event the actual beginning of that hyperinflation is already going to be ongoing.

You’ll be dealing with huge numbers… but you’ll be able to see it starting long before then because you’ll be paying 40 cents more for milk this week than you did the week before…
… I have language that says at some point in 2017, probably past mid year, we’re going to be looking at hyperinflation so bad that the Dow will be measured at around 100,000 to 125,000.
Watch the full interview with Greg Hunter’s USA Watchdog:

If Clif High’s web bot data sets are correct, we’re in for a very rocky 2017 and one that could far exceed the financial calamities we witnessed in 2008.
Should debt destruction originating in the bond market begin in the early part of 2017, the Federal Reserve will no doubt dump trillions of dollars of “liquidity” into the system in order to stave off collapse. But as High notes, this will be the beginning of hyperinflation that will take hold after mid year, the effect of which will be a skyrocketing Dow Jones index and gold prices exceeding our wildest expectations.

But perhaps the most important takeaway is that, should a financial crisis of this magnitude take place in 2017, even the most basic of necessities will be impossible to acquire unless you have tradeable monetary instruments or goods to barter with.
With Donald Trump soon to take over the Presidency many believe that the fundamental problems facing America can be fixed. But what if there’s not enough time? What if the destruction of the world as we have come to know it is now irreversible?

The elite are preparing to hole up in bunkers as if they know something the rest of us do not. Perhaps it’s time the rest of us ensure our preparedness plans are in order. Things could get a bit rough in the next few months.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...ops+to+zero%29

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Euro Crisis and Contagion Coming In 2017



http://www.goldcore.com/ie/wp-conten...ld-in-euro.png
The people who are likely to win the next election want to take Italy out of the euro and replace the euro with their own currency, the lira. Unfortunately for the EU, if Greece was a tricky issue to deal with, Italy is in economic terms a massive Greece
Read More Here

Our trading hours over the holiday period:
Friday 23/12/2015 - 0900-1700 GMT
Wednesday 28/12/2015 - 0900-1700 GMT
Thursday 29/12/2015 - 0900-1700 GMT
Friday 30/12/2015 - 0900-1700 GMT
Tuesday 03/01/2016 - 0900-1700 GMT

Gold and Silver Bullion - News and Commentary
Gold slides to 10-month low on post-Fed dollar surge (Reuters.com)
Indian Gold imports up 23.24% in November (Business-Standard.com)
Gold Makes Pushback After Getting Smoked by Feds Hike, Trump (Bloomberg.com)
Dollar, Stocks Hit Speed Bump in Fed-Driven Rally; Bonds Gain (Bloomberg.com)
Asia Gold-China premiums jump to 3-yr highs, Indian demand stays weak (Reuters.com)

http://www.goldcore.com/ie/wp-conten...s-contract.png

(Image Source: Frisby and Money Week)

Near a Tradable Low for Gold - Frisby (MoneyWeek.com)
All that glitters remains gold in India (TheHindu.com)
Greece faces permanent crisis as IMF warns bail-out plan 'simply not credible' (Telegraph.co.uk)
Gold Gets Smoked With Six Weeks of Losses to Near Bear Market (Bloomberg.com)
Gold Chart Annotated With Exchanges Between Market-Manipulating Traders (GoldChartsRus.com)
http://www.goldcore.com/news/wp-cont...BlogBanner.jpg
Gold Prices (LBMA AM)
16 Dec: USD 1,134.85, GBP 911.17 & EUR 1,084.80 per ounce
15 Dec: USD 1,132.45, GBP 904.37 & EUR 1,080.70 per ounce
14 Dec: USD 1,160.95, GBP 917.38 & EUR 1,091.99 per ounce
13 Dec: USD 1,157.35, GBP 911.18 & EUR 1,090.80 per ounce
12 Dec: USD 1,154.40, GBP 916.82 & EUR 1,089.41 per ounce
09 Dec: USD 1,168.90, GBP 927.64 & EUR 1,100.75 per ounce
08 Dec: USD 1,174.75, GBP 925.47 & EUR 1,088.64 per ounce
Silver Prices (LBMA)
16 Dec: USD 16.05, GBP 12.91 & EUR 15.36 per ounce
15 Dec: USD 16.14, GBP 12.95 & EUR 15.51 per ounce
14 Dec: USD 17.11, GBP 13.52 & EUR 16.07 per ounce
13 Dec: USD 17.01, GBP 13.39 & EUR 16.04 per ounce
12 Dec: USD 16.86, GBP 13.34 & EUR 15.90 per ounce
09 Dec: USD 16.95, GBP 13.45 & EUR 16.03 per ounce
08 Dec: USD 17.13, GBP 13.50 & EUR 15.88 per ounce

Recent Market Updates
- Fed Raised Rates 0.25% Rising Rates Positive For Gold
- Silver Fixing By Banks Proven In Traders Chats
- Euro Crisis and Contagion Coming In 2017
- ECB Bazooka Reloaded Until At Least December 2017 Euro Gold Rises 1%; 13% YTD
- UK 6 Billion Worse Off After Multi Billion Pound Gold Accounting Error
- Buy Silver May Replace Gold As Money In India
- Shariah Gold Standard Approved for $2 Trillion Islamic Finance Market
- Potential Systemic Crisis In Eurozone After Italy Votes No, Renzi Resigns
- Gold and Silver Will Protect From Coming Financial Crash Rickards
- RBS Fail Bank of England Stress Test
- Peak Silver Supply Deficits Mean Higher Prices
- Bail In Risk 4 Trillion Banking System In Italy Poses Contagion Risk as Referendum Looms
- Gold Down 13.5% In 13 Days Trump Bearish For Gold?




http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/...rom=USD&To=CNY






Comments from Benjaminis: You do not need to read everything. It is just here for reference purposes. When I read the articles if anything needs to be discussed further then I post more of it so I can share.

UPDATE ON TRADING COURSE !!! I have 3 Forex Traders now and have space for 3 more so Welcome Aboard !!!

Good Morning

We now have three demo accounts open with FXCM UK. I want to welcome our third Forex Trader.

Hello Benjaminis,

Opened an account with FXCM as required.


Dildubai

Now what I need you to do is to set up the 16 currencies pairs that we use. If you have any questions just post them here and if need be I will access your platform and help you. For the moment we are standing clear until the dust settles. One of my TOP Trade Plans is to short US 30.

When your pairs are in place please post here and I will suggest your first Trade Plan. Each Trade Plan is using in groups of three positions so when I give the green light to SHORT US30 (Dow) then your first position will be scaled in and you will enter a STOP LOSS of $1000 US so you know your MAXIMUM LOSS and if you were to lose your DEMO FUNDS on your 3 positions YOU KNOW in advance your MAXIMUM LOSS is $3000 US which is 6% of your Total Trading Capital.

If and when the Dow goes to 19,000 probably during 2017 then your profits will approach $10,000 US a Trade Position. Of course we do not need to be greedy so once your position is entered you enter a Limit Out and then go enjoy your day instead of sitting in front of your monitors 8 hours a day.

Here is the 5 Minute chart on the US30 (Dow) from Finviz

http://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=YM&p=m5

The FLOWS continue from the YUAN to US Dollar inside China as well as outside China which leads to the following MAJOR Problem for China and also for the US Dollar as a STRONG US dollar causes losses for US Multi-National corporations which will leads to a dropping of the US30 (DoW) which will leads to money Flowing to USD/JPY !!!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-as-yuan-tanks

Snippet:

Chinese savers, eager to convert their yuan before the currency keeps depreciating, are snapping up U.S. dollar investment products that offer options for keeping money at home instead of sending it overseas.

The latest wealth management products from China Merchants Bank Co. in Shanghai last week, paying 2.37 percent annual interest on U.S. dollars, sold out in 60 seconds flat.

"You won’t be able to get it online because it’s gone in less than a minute," said a branch manager, who would only give the surname Xu, and encourages customers to book a day in advance next time.

A growing number of offerings of such U.S. dollar funds and how quickly they’re being purchased show the surging demand for foreign currency amid outflows that are estimated to have totaled more than $1.5 trillion since the beginning of 2015. By shifting into dollars -- U.S., Australian and Hong Kong are among the favorites -- deposit holders are shielded from the yuan’s losses without having to take their money out of the country to seek returns.

"It seems an attractive choice to convert the yuan into the dollar sooner rather than later," Harrison Hu, Singapore-based chief greater China economist at NatWest Markets, a unit of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, wrote in a note. He estimates that household purchases of foreign exchange could double to $15 billion a month in the coming quarter, absent new controls.

A more hawkish than expected outlook from the U.S. Federal Reserve after it lifted interest rates last week has helped accelerate a dollar rally, with analysts predicting further gains.

For more: PBOC Headache Worsens as New $50,000 Conversion Quota Looms
As the yuan has declined, China’s authorities have tried to vigorously enforce strict rules on moving cash over the border, where it is often invested in purchases such as real estate. Chinese citizens are limited to exchanging the equivalent of $50,000 a year into foreign currency.
Outflows may have edged up to $80 billion in November from $75 billion in October, according to Bloomberg Intelligence estimates. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange on Friday said that although November’s outflows were bigger than the previous month, they remain in a stable range.
https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/...k/v2/-1x-1.png
In recent weeks, policy makers in Beijing have put the brakes on everything from companies buying assets overseas to offshore purchases of life insurance to stem the tide of cash outflows. The fresh measures include checks by the currency regulator on any capital account transactions involving foreign exchange of $5 million or more. That followed steps earlier this year to ban the sharing of foreign-exchange quotas.

In November, banks sold 49 percent more foreign-currency denominated wealth management products, most of them in U.S. dollars, than in October, according to PY Standard, a Chengdu-based wealth management research and ratings firm that tracks the data. November’s foreign currency deposits increased 11.4 percent from a year earlier, more than double the 4.8 percent rise in October, according to the People’s Bank of China.

Buying Bonds
Banks often use proceeds from WMPs to buy dollar-denominated bonds sold by Chinese companies offshore, according to Liu Dongliang, a senior fixed-income analyst at China Merchants Bank. It’s easier for Chinese companies to get cheaper funding offshore, and they then can bring the money back onshore to be converted into yuan -- an activity encouraged by the government, Liu added.

To avail of China Merchants Bank’s 2.37 percent dollar WMP, customers need to put in a minimum of $18,000, and the amount can redeemed at any time. The return on a similar product last year was only about 1.8 percent, according to the manager. China Merchants Bank pays only 0.7 percent on one-year dollar time deposits.

Down the street, Ping An Bank offers a one-year U.S. dollar WMP with an annualized return of 2 percent. The latest issuance will have a quota of $10 million, and each customer needs to buy a minimum of $20,000. A bank executive said last month when a similar product was issued, it was gone in 5 minutes.

Don’t Care
"Many customers converted yuan into dollars without any idea of where to invest the dollars," said a branch manager in Shanghai who gave the surname Pang. "They don’t really care about the interest rate on the dollar, they just wanted to preempt further yuan depreciation."

The yuan has fallen 6.7 percent against the dollar this year. It will weaken another 1.4 percent in the first quarter of next year, according to the median of estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The government has been spending its international reserves to slow the yuan’s fall. Beijing’s foreign currency holdings, the world’s largest, fell in November by the most since January after the yuan declined to an eight-year low.

"Investors have realized that the yuan has become a uni-directional play, so they are looking to hedge themselves," said Keith Pogson, a Hong Kong-based managing partner at Ernst & Young. "It is more subtle than the ‘I want to get my money out of China’ dilemma that you have had previously."

‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’
Banks dangle attractive yields to keep depositors from fleeing to the competition, said Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong.

"It’s like prisoner’s dilemma," said Hu. "If you don’t offer a higher return, other banks will, and your customers will leave."
To be sure, foreign-currency denominated WMPs remain a small portion of the nation’s 26.3 trillion yuan ($3.8 trillion) market for wealth management products. And the yields offered aren’t attractive enough to prompt the savers to convert their holdings from yuan, said Wei Jiyao, an analyst at PY Standard. Rates paid on yuan are around 3.5 percent to 4 percent.

Instead, the target base is those who already hold dollars.
"People with dollars on hand also need a way to preserve their value, so low-risk dollar WMPs become their top choice," Wei said.

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/12/18/les...e-crime-scene/

Snippet:
Part of the €360 billion of toxic loans resulted from a culture of corruption, political kickbacks, fraud, and abuse.
By Don Quijones, Spain & Mexico, editor at WOLF STREET.

The Bank of Italy’s Target 2 liabilities towards other Eurozone central banks — one of the most important indicators of banking stress — has risen by €129 billion in the last 12 months through November to €358.6 billion. That’s well above the €289 billion peak reached in August 2012 at the height of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

Foreign and local investors are dumping Italian government bonds and withdrawing their funding to Italian banks. The bank at the heart of Italy’s financial crisis, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), has bled €6 billion of “commercial direct deposits” between September 30 and December 13, €2 billion of which since December 4, the date of Italy’s constitutional referendum.

Italy’s new Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who took over from Matteo Renzi after his defeat in the referendum,said his government — a virtual carbon copy of the last one — is prepared to do whatever it takes to stop MPS from collapsing and thereby engulfing other European banks. His options would include directly supporting Italy’s ailing banks, in contravention of the EU’s bail-in rules passed into law at the beginning of this year. Though now, that push comes to shove, the EU seems happy to look the other way.

While attention is focused on the rescue of MPS, news regarding another Italian bank, Banca Erturia, has quietly slipped by the wayside.
On Friday it was announced that the first part of an investigation concerning fraudulent bankruptcy charges, in which 21 board members are implicated, had been closed. This strand of the investigation concerns €180 million of loans offered by the bank which were never paid back, leading to the regional lender’s bankruptcy and eventual bail-in/out last November that left bondholders holding virtually worthless bonds.

The Banca Erturia scandal is a reminder — and certainly not a welcome one right now for Italian authorities — that a large part of the €360 billion of toxic loans putrefying on the balance sheets of Italy’s banks should never have been created at all and were a result of the widespread culture of corruption, political kickbacks, and other forms of fraud and abuse infecting Italy’s banking sector.
Erturia is also under investigation for fraudulently selling high-risk bonds to retail investors — a common practice among banks in Italy (and Spain) during the liquidity-starved years of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.



Put simply, “misselling” subordinated debt to unsuspecting depositors was “the way they recapitalized the banking system,” as Jim Millstein, the U.S. Treasury official who led the restructuring of U.S. banks after the financial crisis, told Bloomberg earlier this year.

At MPS, billions of euros worth of subordinate bonds were sold to retail customers, who now risk losing much, if not all, of their savings as a result. Their perilous fate is often held up as justification — some might even call it blackmail — for not bailing in junior bondholders as part of the bank’s resolution, as happened three years ago in Cyprus.

MPS is also facing criminal investigation for cooking its own books, with the help of two other banks. In early October MPS’s head offices, fittingly housed within a restored ancient fortress in downtown Siena, were transformed into a gargantuan crime scene after a Milan court ordered MPS, Nomura, and Deutsche Bank to stand trial for a string of alleged financial crimes. They apparently include crimes that the Bank of Italy, under Mario Draghi’s tutelage, apparently knew about yet sat on its hands.

The court also indicted 13 former and current managers from the three banks over the case, with prosecutors alleging they had used complex derivatives trades to conceal losses at MPS.


Yet, as has happened in just about every Western jurisdiction since the Global Financial Crisis (bar Iceland, of course), no one will be held to account for the myriad “alleged” white-collar crimes, misdeeds and misdemeanors that paved the way to Italy’s unfolding banking crisis. As in Spain, high-profile investigations will be launched and trials will be held, yet they will lead nowhere. And they will take years getting there.

In Spain judge Elpidio Silva dared to buck this trend when, in 2013, he sent Miguel Blesa, former CEO of Caja Madrid (now part of rescued Bankia), to jail for his role in alleged financial fraud and the wrongful “appropriation of funds.” But it was the judge who paid the price. Within days, Blesa was released by Spain’s public prosecution service. Judge Silva was forced to face trial on three counts: perversion of justice, infringing a defendant’s individual liberty, and turning the case into a cause célèbre against the banking profession. He was found guilty and expelled from the judiciary for 17.5 years.

If the last nine years have taught us anything, it is that banks — and bankers occupying the corner offices — operate above the law of just about any land. All too often they’re too big not to bail and too important and well-connected to jail. In some cases, banks are even deemed too broke to fine. As long as the people gaming the financial system remain immune from criminal prosecution, the crises will continue. By Don Quijones, Raging Bull-Shit.
“There is not and there will not be a banking crisis in Italy, nor will there be a European financial crisis coming from Italy,” explained European Commissioner Moscovici. But wait… So Who Gets to Pay for Italy’s Banking Crisis?

http://gainspainscapital.com/2016/12...type-meltdown/

Snippet:
Just as we predicted, the Bank of Japan has begun to lose control.
Since the November US Presidential election, the Bank of Japan has been aggressively devaluing the Yen. They are doing this to take advantage of the brief window between the election and when Trump takes office and trade deals are renegotiated.
http://gainspainscapital.com/wp-cont.../GPC121316.png
As I wrote previously, this scheme will work for a while, but eventually something will break.
It just did.

When the Yen collapses, the $USD rises sharply. And this is a MASSIVE problem for China which has its currency pegged to the $USD.
China is the second largest economy in the world. And every day that the $USD moves higher, it puts tremendous pressure on Chinas financial system.
See the below story:

Chinas foreign exchange reserves fell nearly $70bn last month as the countrys central bank burnt through more of its war chest in its battle to defend the renminbi from greater depreciation on the back of accelerating capital outflows.
Source: Financial Times
If youll recall, it was precisely this situation that caused the market meltdown of August 2015and January 2016.
http://gainspainscapital.com/wp-cont...GPC1213162.png
Were set up for the another similar meltdown. Stocks are severely overbought. Everyone is super bullish. The markets are literally one giant lopsided trade waiting to implode.
THIS WILL HIT BEFORE THE END OF JANUARY.

Another Crisis is brewing the time to prepare is now.

Chief Market Strategist
Phoenix Capital Research

http://finviz.com/forex_charts.ashx?p=d1&t=USDJPY

Comments from Benjaminis: Have a look at the USD/JPY chart and see the drop !!!

https://mishtalk.com/2016/12/17/five...ke-even-twice/

http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

http://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?p=d1&t=YM

http://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=ZN&p=d1

http://finviz.com/forex_charts.ashx?p=d1&t=EURUSD

http://finviz.com/forex.ashx

 

1. Canadian Dollar(CAD)
2. Chinese Yuan(CNY)
3. http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/...rom=USD&To=CNY

Gold Price Charts

 

1. Gold Price Per Ounce
2. Gold Price Per Gram
3. Gold Price Chart
4. Live Gold Price
5. Gold Silver Ratio

Gold Price Other Currency

 

1. Canadian Dollar(CAD)
2. Chinese Yuan(CNY)
3. http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/...rom=USD&To=CNY

http://www.goldpriceoz.com/gold-silver-ratio.html


http://www.goldcore.com/ie/wp-conten...ld-in-euro.png
The people who are likely to win the next election want to take Italy out of the euro and replace the euro with their own currency, the lira. Unfortunately for the EU, if Greece was a tricky issue to deal with, Italy is in economic terms a massive Greece
Read More Here

Our trading hours over the holiday period:
Friday 23/12/2015 - 0900-1700 GMT
Wednesday 28/12/2015 - 0900-1700 GMT
Thursday 29/12/2015 - 0900-1700 GMT
Friday 30/12/2015 - 0900-1700 GMT
Tuesday 03/01/2016 - 0900-1700 GMT

Gold and Silver Bullion - News and Commentary
Gold slides to 10-month low on post-Fed dollar surge (Reuters.com)
Indian Gold imports up 23.24% in November (Business-Standard.com)
Gold Makes Pushback After Getting Smoked by Feds Hike, Trump (Bloomberg.com)
Dollar, Stocks Hit Speed Bump in Fed-Driven Rally; Bonds Gain (Bloomberg.com)
Asia Gold-China premiums jump to 3-yr highs, Indian demand stays weak (Reuters.com)

http://www.goldcore.com/ie/wp-conten...s-contract.png

(Image Source: Frisby and Money Week)

Near a Tradable Low for Gold - Frisby (MoneyWeek.com)
All that glitters remains gold in India (TheHindu.com)
Greece faces permanent crisis as IMF warns bail-out plan 'simply not credible' (Telegraph.co.uk)
Gold Gets Smoked With Six Weeks of Losses to Near Bear Market (Bloomberg.com)
Gold Chart Annotated With Exchanges Between Market-Manipulating Traders (GoldChartsRus.com)
http://www.goldcore.com/news/wp-cont...BlogBanner.jpg
Gold Prices (LBMA AM)
16 Dec: USD 1,134.85, GBP 911.17 & EUR 1,084.80 per ounce
15 Dec: USD 1,132.45, GBP 904.37 & EUR 1,080.70 per ounce
14 Dec: USD 1,160.95, GBP 917.38 & EUR 1,091.99 per ounce
13 Dec: USD 1,157.35, GBP 911.18 & EUR 1,090.80 per ounce
12 Dec: USD 1,154.40, GBP 916.82 & EUR 1,089.41 per ounce
09 Dec: USD 1,168.90, GBP 927.64 & EUR 1,100.75 per ounce
08 Dec: USD 1,174.75, GBP 925.47 & EUR 1,088.64 per ounce
Silver Prices (LBMA)
16 Dec: USD 16.05, GBP 12.91 & EUR 15.36 per ounce
15 Dec: USD 16.14, GBP 12.95 & EUR 15.51 per ounce
14 Dec: USD 17.11, GBP 13.52 & EUR 16.07 per ounce
13 Dec: USD 17.01, GBP 13.39 & EUR 16.04 per ounce
12 Dec: USD 16.86, GBP 13.34 & EUR 15.90 per ounce
09 Dec: USD 16.95, GBP 13.45 & EUR 16.03 per ounce
08 Dec: USD 17.13, GBP 13.50 & EUR 15.88 per ounce

Recent Market Updates
- Fed Raised Rates 0.25% Rising Rates Positive For Gold
- Silver Fixing By Banks Proven In Traders Chats
- Euro Crisis and Contagion Coming In 2017
- ECB Bazooka Reloaded Until At Least December 2017 Euro Gold Rises 1%; 13% YTD
- UK 6 Billion Worse Off After Multi Billion Pound Gold Accounting Error
- Buy Silver May Replace Gold As Money In India
- Shariah Gold Standard Approved for $2 Trillion Islamic Finance Market
- Potential Systemic Crisis In Eurozone After Italy Votes No, Renzi Resigns
- Gold and Silver Will Protect From Coming Financial Crash Rickards
- RBS Fail Bank of England Stress Test
- Peak Silver Supply Deficits Mean Higher Prices
- Bail In Risk 4 Trillion Banking System In Italy Poses Contagion Risk as Referendum Looms
- Gold Down 13.5% In 13 Days Trump Bearish For Gold?






Comments from Benjaminis: You do not need to read everything. It is just here for reference purposes. When I read the articles if anything needs to be discussed further then I post more of it so I can share.