Thai Guru's Gold und Silber ... (Informationen und Vermutungen)

US net capital inflows surge to $91.5 bln in Jan

WASHINGTON, March 15 (Reuters) - Net inflows of capital into U.S. assets surged to a more-than-expected $91.5 billion in January, the second biggest inflow on record and more than enough to finance the nation's current account deficit that month, a Treasury Department report showed on Tuesday.

Net inflows of capital climbed from a revised $60.7 billion in December that was originally reported as $61.3 billion.

January's capital inflows were the largest since $103.9 billion in May 2003, Treasury said.

Currency analysts had forecast a net inflow into U.S. assets in a range between $55 billion and $75 billion for January.

Financial market participants watch the report as a measure of foreigners' appetite for U.S. assets.

The United States depends on foreign investors buying U.S. assets like Treasury bonds to finance its current account deficit. Net inflows short of the deficit could increase selling pressure on the dollar.

January inflows handily offset the monthly U.S. trade deficit of $58.3 billion in the first month of 2005.

-END-

Hold on just one minute here. Let’s get to what is really going on here:

Hi Bill,
As you’ve seen today, net foreign purchases of US Treasuries in January 2005 was $24 billion (http://www.ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt ) of which Caribbean Banking Centers bought $23 billion.

Is this what it has come to? The United States of America is dependent upon "Caribbean Banking Centers" to buy its treasuries and keep the economy afloat?

China, Japan, U.K., Germany, France – they’ve all stopped buying appreciable amounts of US Treasuries.

How long do you think it will take the Bond Market (and the stock market) to see through these numbers? We are in for some interesting action on the bond market.
Regards,
Dave

As wondered by a number in our camp, how much of this Caribbean Banking Center is really the US printing money (in addition to hedge funds operating out of the Caribbean), sending it to the Caribbean in off-shore accounts, and then repatriating the very same money to make it look like foreigners are buying our debt rather than us monetizing the debt.

MOODY'S CUTS OUTLOOK ON AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP, INC. DEBT TO 'NEGATIVE'

What Barrick and Morgan want to avoid:

March 15 (Bloomberg) -- Former WorldCom Inc. Chairman Bernard Ebbers, the ex-milkman and bouncer who built a small Mississippi telephone company into the second-largest U.S. long- distance provider, was convicted of directing an $11 billion fraud that triggered the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Jurors in federal court in Manhattan rejected the claim by Ebbers that he didn't know his subordinates were cooking the books and convicted him of all charges. The verdict -- guilty of conspiracy, securities fraud, and seven counts of lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission -- came in the eighth day of deliberations. Ebbers, 63, testified in his own defense. Eight of the nine charges carry maximum prison terms of 10 years each.

-END-

How many conspiracies have to surface like this before the world wakes up to the grandest one of all?

Rhody on leasing:

Morning Bill:
I didn't comment on lease rates yesterday because I didn't trust the data feed from Kitco. The same applies today. Look at gold one month lease rates. They are up .10% to .10%. That would mean that yesterday, the one month rate was at zero, which is impossible. I have more faith in the silver data which shows lease rates firmly up for all terms, but with the higher changes front loaded in the one to three month terms. That means "they" are leasing down the silver spot market again, ad nauseum.

This rigging of commodity prices (and it is occurring in all commodity areas) makes me wonder what the world reaction will be when this information becomes generally known. Will anybody be selling commodities to the United States after it becomes known how many hundreds of billions of real wealth has been cheated from the 80% of humanity living in the third world?
Regards, Rhody.

An update on Germany’s gold position:

Bundesbank says gold sales decisions not political

FRANKFURT, March 15 (Reuters) - A decision by Germany's central bank last year not to take up an option yet to sell gold reserves was not driven by political considerations, Bundesbank President Axel Weber said on Tuesday.

"The Bundesbank profit is a residual issue for me...I don't enter into any strategic considerations about Bundesbank profits, neither in the morning, afternoon or evening," Weber told the central bank's annual news conference.
Germany's central bank has an option to sell 600 tonnes of gold over the next five years under an agreement between European central banks, but has not said yet if it will exercise it.

Earlier the Bundesbank reported a 2004 profit of 676 million euros, far below the two billion euros the government had hoped to garner for its 2005 budget.

-END-

Chuck checks in:

The selling pressure has been relentless even though there has been little to show for it. The spread between short and long-term rates keeps narrowing, and we are seeing some good weakness in the Rand. A very interesting confluence. My take is that there is a definite change in the landscape that has arrived, particularly since this can be a very weak time zone in the market. Also, a few more days of correction in gold and the shares, and we should be ready to blast out of here.

The complacency all around is scary. The real estate bubble might be a surprise casualty if the rates rise much more here. What me worry? Chuck

More goodies from Dan N:

Hi Bill:
Here's the kind of story we SHOULD be seeing in regards to gold instead of the abysmal performance in light of a soaring CRB index. Notice particularly the last two paragraphs of the story and the comments made from the traders. That is PRECISELY what NORMALLY happens in any commodity market as both you and I have been pounding the table relentlessly about of late. In a FREE market, short sellers are TERRIFIED of fund buying and will simply step back before taking them on. The gold market is the ONLY market that I am aware of in which this does not occur. All the fund buying is simply laughed at and ignored as one bid after another bid is hit. Even the normal "commercials" cannot stand in front of the kind of firepower that can be amassed by the trading funds. Only an official sector entity could do so.

Like we say, if we were in a court and needed evidence that was beyond a reasonable doubt to convict someone of a crime, this repeated anomalous pattern of selling would be more than sufficient to convince any would-be juror that something very strange is going on in the gold world.

When you add the rest of the massive body of evidence that GATA has collected concerning the formerly surrepticious intervention and price capping - I use the word "formerly" since it is as clear as the noonday sun what these thieves are doing as they no longer both to even cloak their price capping - that is just more icing on the proverbial cake and only serves to make our case increasingly airtight and irrefutable.

Meanwhile, back at Lemming headquarters, the mindless dolts who make up the financial media either refuse to see the obvious or look the other way. Same holds true for many of the "expert analysts" in the gold world who remain as clueless as Inspector Clousseau.

The particular CRB index that I use in my research recorded an all time monthly CLOSING high of 334.80 in November, 1980. Today's close, using the same particular index, came in at 316.75. Only three other months registered a closing price higher than this ----- and gold just yawns....... while long term rates slowly tick up and the stock market looks increasingly fragile.....

9/30/1980
319.40

10/31/1980
327.10

11/28/1980
334.80

Best,
Dan

Massive fund buying buoys CBOT grains and soy

By Sam Nelson

CHICAGO, March 15 (Reuters) - Another wave of massive buying by investment funds boosted Chicago Board of Trade grains and soy complex futures to a strong close on Tuesday, traders and analysts said.

The overwhelming display of purchasing power by the funds drove wheat, corn and soybean futures through numerous technical resistance areas, touching off buy-stops and propelling wheat to a nine-month high, corn to a 6-1/2 month high and soybeans to a seven-month top.

"It was completely technical today. A lot of people are scared to be short the market at this point with the funds buying," said Citigroup analyst Terry Reilly.

The near-relentless pattern of fund purchases of commodities has boosted the CBOT soybean market by roughly $1.50 per bushel, or about 30 percent, in just over four weeks. Bellwether May soybean futures closed up 25 cents at
$6.81 per bushel, and some think the market may be headed for $7 per bushel or more despite the production last year in the United States of a record large 3.1 billion bushel soy crop and an adequate crop this year in South America despite a drought.

"There's some talk now that $7 beans are possible, so we'll have to see how long this fund buying lasts," Reilly said.

Traders were put on notice before the sun rose on Tuesday that something big was going to happen during the CBOT open-outcry session, which began at 9:30 a.m. CST (1530 GMT) and ended at 1:15 p.m. CST (1915 GMT).

"The Chinese market was the catalyst today. Usually they follow us -- we followed them today," said A.G. Edwards floor spokesman Vic Lespinasse.

As most Americans slept on Monday night, China's Dalian soybean, soymeal and corn futures markets rolled to a strong close as did palm oil futures traded in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

Also, the volume was heavy overnight on the e-cbot electronic trading platform as grains and soy complex futures raced to a strong close there as well.

Jerry Gidel, analyst for North America Risk Management Inc., said, "Fund buying definitely was the byword today. Beans definitely were again leading everything up and they were aided today by strength in Asia last night."

Veteran CBOT floor grains traders were in awe at the ability of grains and soy to continue surging and also cited the impressive display of the Reuters Commodity Research Bureau index which jumped to a fresh 24 year high on Tuesday.

"I have never seen anything like this. The fundamentals may be bearish, but no one is going to stand in the way of this fund buying," one veteran floor trader said.

-END-

The XAU lost .21 to 100.62 and the HUI gave up .52 to 218.70.

The gold shares continue to bide their time. More and more investors are fleeing the sector as gold fails to respond to soaring commodity prices for the first time in history. Whether they know of the gold price management, or not, even someone operating with only half a deck in his/her brain can see something is very wrong here.

Keep The Faith.

GATA BE IN IT TO WIN IT!

MIDAS

Appendix

An FYI on ECU Silver for you:

Hi Bill:
As I am not able to properly decipher the assay results, I decided to crunch some numbers that I can understand.

Since September, inclusive, when ECU began its last (we hope and they have stated) rounds of financings, they have issued (all these numbers need to be checked for errors):

42,991,151 common shares (average issue price just under 30 cents Cando)

26,899,193 warrants (average issue price 34,6936 cents Cando)

Since ECU started trading again in August 2003, we have had:

4 months with volume over 20 million shares (max=~28mm)

4 months with volume between 10 and 20 million shares

Over 70% of the above issues have become free to trade following their 4 month holding period. Adding the stock and the warrants (42+26=68) we have roughly a 68 million share overhang on the market which is worth about C$ 23.8mm at 35 cents. While not all of the offerings will be sold into the market in the 30-40 cent level, a substantial portion is likely to be. If we assume that 50% will be sold into the market in order to make the rest free to the Private Placement placees, we have an overhang of 34 million shares, a more manageable size but still large given ECU´s recent trading volumes. February, ´05 saw a reasonable increase in volume to the 6-7 million share level (from about only 2.5mm in Jan, ´05) and March, ´05 is so far showing reasonable volume as well.

The above analysis will help me to be patient with ECU over the next few months. On the other hand, if just a couple of funds latch on to ECU, the overhang could evaporate rapidly and the stock soar. This is their chance, IMHO. Once this overhang is gone, it will be hard to find stock. The faster the official reserves are issued, the faster this will happen, assuming they are as fantastic as seems to be indicated by the sample assays.

There has been no, zero, zip shorting in ECU recently.

Just some thoughts FYI.

All the best,
David

Dear Mr Bagnell,
I have recently sent you two communications that relate to the above topic and I have to date not received any acknowledgement; however, I will not let that deter me from endeavouring to bring this crucial matter to your attention so that you may study the issue for yourself. I hope that by copying to here, a letter which was sent out on Sunday, 13th March to a number of gold and silver mining companies, this may facilitate a quick overview for you of the market manipulation – and the forthcoming plans of private organisations to address this. As my Member for Parliament I ask that you investigate and raise the issue in the House.

It will become apparent with study that the gold and silver companies, being beholden to the banks, are, for the most part, afraid to expose the truth of their market.

Is the Canadian Government part of this manipulation – for the Canadian gold reserve has gone? Are you going to work for a healthy mining sector in the Yukon by way of insisting on a free market for the price of gold and silver? It would be nice to hear that Yukon’s Member of Parliament has gone on the record as supporting a transparent and free, gold and silver market – and that he was actively participating in this effort.

I would appreciate that you give some of your time to studying the issue of market manipulation, especially as it relates to the pricing of gold and silver.

(When the CRB index was last above the 300 level, gold was priced at $600 an ounce – the disconnect is profound given world demand.)

Thank you,
Chris Larkin.

@ kritiker,

woher nimmst Du das Wissen über:

"Auffälig, hier auf den Goldseiten taucht überall dieser Name auf, er zieht die Fäden. " ?

Welche Daten von Dir sollen bei irgendjemandem landen? Es ist doch Deine freie Entscheidungen wieviel und welche Informationen Du von Dir freigibst, oder?

Gruß,

cornosan

March 16 – Gold $443.10 up $3.10 – Silver $7.41 up 6 cents

US Financial System Lurches Closer To The Brink

"For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
-- John F. Kennedy

GO GATA!

The 'myth' of course is that The Gold Cartel is not intervening in the gold market.

What can you say except to insult the morons in the mainstream gold world again who refuse to tell the truth about the rigged gold market and acknowledge GATA has been right all along.

It seems like each day the reasons for the price of gold to explode go off the charts. However, thanks to the crooks in the cabal all historical market/gold relationships have been suspended due to Orwellian decree. Any analyst commenting on gold who fails to take this into account has no clue what he is talking about.

Today was ridiculous. The dollar was battered, falling .55 to 81.58 and against all the major currencies. The euro rose .99 to 134.44. The CRB made another new high at 322.42, up 1.92, and is close to making all-time highs. Crude oil led the way, making its own all-time high in the process at $56.50, up $1.45 per barrel. And the US stock market was hit to some degree due to bad news on almost all fronts.

Yet, gold was barely allowed to rise at all, held back by some of the most massive Gold Cartel selling ever. It doesn’t matter how much the funds buy, the cabal sells. Yesterday’s sharp open interest rise proves the point. It gained 7563 contracts to 335,503, yet gold fell. That sort of substantial fund buying has other commodity markets on a tear. All day long CNBC was harping on the commodity boom and how speculators are buying them as an inflation hedge. Why aren’t the dummies in the gold world, or in the rest of the investment world for that matter, asking why gold and silver are not participating in the same commodities market boom? Historically, gold would lead the way, much less not participate.

Boy, am I tired of repeating the same rant. So I will get into what I think is the real story of the day and that is the US financial system continues to lurch to the brink of a major fiasco, a dramatic asset value meltdown.

The title for one of my MIDAS commentaries a few days ago was:

3/11 Potential For Serious Financial/Real Estate Market Chaos Builds

Developments are picking up almost at breakneck speed which make market chaos all the more likely and sooner (within months) rather than later. Take this news for example:

GM Sees $1.50-Shr First-Qtr Loss on U.S. Sales Slump

March 16 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., the world's biggest automaker, said it expects to post its biggest quarterly loss since 1992 and cut its 2005 profit forecast by more than half following a slump in North American sales.

GM, based in Detroit, said today it sees a first-quarter loss of $1.50 a share and full-year earnings per share of between $1 and $2, excluding certain items. The company earlier forecast it would break even in the first quarter and post a profit of $4 to $5 a share for the year. GM shares fell as much as 11 percent….-END-

08:08 GM credit ratings a source of speculation (33.72)
GM is currently rated BBB- at S&P, the last investment grade rating, and Baa2 at Moody's, two notches above junk. There is speculation that GM's credit rating will be downgraded to junk following this morning's reduction in guidance.
* * * * *

This news not good either – very dollar and Treasury Note bearish:

08:30 Q4 Current Account deficit reported record $187.9B vs. consensus $183B
Prior deficit revised to $165.9B from $164.7B.
* * * * *

Bill,
This was the scary number that got gold preemptively bashed. If it was this bad in the 4th quarter 04 I can't imagine what 1st quarter 05 will be, with $55 oil and the CRB at 320. Gold should be jumping $20 instead of $2. The Ides of March was a day late this year. So the government releases 2 dollar-bearish numbers far worse than even expected and gold is $3 LOWER than Friday. Yeah, that's the free market at work.
James

-END-

What is remarkable is how Wall Street and investors continue to yawn regardless of the news. Complacency rules the day in the American investment world. Of course, there is a reason for that. The US is managing its financial markets by reducing volatility and influencing markets at key times to affect order flow from the investment community and general public.

Each time the US stock market is about to take a big hit because of bad news, it just stops going down. This morning the DOW was down more than 100 points with the potential of dropping much further. Then it just stopped. A late 90 cent surge in the price of oil then sent the DOW down over 130. However, as always no serious panic was allowed to surface. The Hail Mary today was not a huge rally, but a 20 point move up off its low, bringing the loss on the day to an acceptable PPT level.

Of course, the most visible example of this Orwellian market management is the rigging of the price of gold. No matter how high commodity prices go; how low the dollar goes; how bad the news is; and how many funds buy; the price of gold is not allowed to reflect any true market conditions because The Gold Cartel, under US government auspices, stops all price advances by selling and selling and selling. See this April gold chart:

http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/GD/45

The news over the past week+ could not have been more gold bullish, nor the spec buying be in a more frenzied manner on the Comex, yet the price has gone nowhere.

By this time you are totally familiar with this scam. However, I believe market conditions are deteriorating so badly the bad guys are in a frightened sweat. That sweat has to do with a derivatives neutron bomb going off (a long held MIDAS opinion) – one which could be easily set off by a sharply rising gold price. The main reasons for the gold market manipulation over the years have to do with the US strong dollar policy and Gibson’s Paradox And The Gold Standard:

Reginald H. Howe
http://www.GoldenSextant.com
row@ix.netcom.com

August 13, 2001.

Gibson's Paradox Revisited: Professor Summers Analyzes Gold Prices.......

The price level under the gold standard behaved in a fashion very similar to the way the reciprocal of the relative price of gold evolves today. Data from recent years indicate that changes in long-term real interest rates are indeed associated with movements in the relative price of gold in the opposite direction and that this effect is a dominant feature of gold price fluctuations.
In other words, the bottom line of their analysis is that gold prices in a free market should move inversely to real interest rates. Under the gold standard, higher prices meant that an ounce of gold purchased fewer goods, i.e., the relative price of gold fell. Since under the Gibson paradox long-term interest rates moved with the general price level, the relative price of gold moved inversely to long-term rates. Assuming, as Barsky and Summers assert, that the Gibson paradox operates in a truly free gold market as it did under the gold standard, gold prices will move inversely to real long-term rates, falling when rates rise and rising when they fall...

http://www.lemetropolecafe.com/pfv.cfm?pfvID=1659

-END-

The Working Group on Financial Markets and The Gold Cartel are petrified a sharply rising gold price not only will set off a Gold Derivatives Neutron Bomb, it will lead to an Interest Rate Derivatives Neutron Bomb going off shortly thereafter.

All of the following significant US corporations have massive derivative operations. It was stated by Marc Faber this morning on CNBC that AIG alone has 500 people in its Connecticut office working on derivatives.

General Motors (GM)
http://new.stockwatch.com/swne…utilit_snapsh_result.aspx

Fannie Mae (FNM)
http://new.stockwatch.com/swne…utilit_snapsh_result.aspx

AIG
http://new.stockwatch.com/swne…utilit_snapsh_result.aspx

The chart patterns of all three of these major and significant US corporations suggest they have some serious problems. A common thread among all three is they have major derivatives exposure. Another common thread is each could face sizeable losses should US interest rates rise sharply.

This has to be a major reason why they are capping the gold price. Along with Gibson’s Paradox and keeping the dollar from total collapse, The Lawrence Kudlows of the world are another reason for the price rigging. They continually point to a stable gold price as proof inflation is not a problem in the US. What if the price of gold were to soar, which it should be doing? What would he and others say then? How would interest rates react in the US to $500+ gold? No doubt they would take off as investment managers cite the rollicking gold price as a sign US inflation IS a major problem, which might then set off some derivatives bombs.

The worst scenario of all would be a sudden, dramatic rise in the gold price as it would send gold derivatives option volatilities off the charts. This is what caused the gold panic after the first Washington Agreement was announced on September 26, 1999 and helped to do in Long Term Capital Management.

How imminent is the chaos I say is coming? Hard to know or predict. One way to have an inkling will be to keep an eye on AIG, GM and FNM. If one, or all three, of these stocks start to crater, then BEWARE. Because when some kind of derivatives neutron bomb goes off, the US stock and real estate markets will plummet.

PS on what else to watch: