“The Fed has effectively shifted from lender of last resort for banks to a commercial banker of last resort for the broader economy,” said JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli.

The coming rain of credit -- historic in both size and scope -- will be made possible by $454 billion set aside in the aid package for Treasury to backstop lending by the Fed. That’s money the central bank can leverage to provide massive amounts of financing to a broad swathe of U.S. borrowers.

“Effectively one dollar of loss absorption of backstop from Treasury is enough to support $10 worth of loans.” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in in a rare nationally-televised interview early Thursday morning. “When it comes to this lending we’re not going to run out of ammunition.”

He told NBC’s “Today” show that the Fed was trying to create a bridge over what may well be a substantial decline in the economy in the second quarter, to a resumption of growth sometime in the latter half of the year.

“It’s very hard to say precisely when that will be,” he said. “It will really depend on the spread of the virus. The virus is going to dictate the timetable here.”

While the Fed can help by keeping interest rates low and ensuring the flow of credit, “the immediate relief” for Americans will come from the Congressional aid package, Powell said. The bill includes direct payments to lower- and middle-income Americans of $1,200 for each adult and $500 for each child.

Combined with an unlimited quantitative easing program, the Fed’s souped-up lending facilities are set to push the central bank’s balance sheet up sharply from an already record high $4.7 trillion, with some analyst saying it could peak at $9-to-$10 trillion.

The new stimulus plan is providing money to 90% of consumers, but also to corporations, municipals and both the government and corporate bond markets. In terms of both size and scope the package is designed to provide a life line to all markets and, so far, it is having the desired effect.

One of the most commonly asked questions by subscribers is how to find details of my open traders. In an effort to make it easier I will simply repost the latest summary daily until there is a change. I'll change the title to the date of publication of new details so you will know when the information was provided.

“If its price trajectory proves similar to 2008, we could see the precious metal’s benefits resurging as market stress continues to assert itself,” said Catherine Doyle, an investment specialist in the real-return team at Newton Investment Management. “We continue to have significant exposure for this very reason.”

Anyway we look at it, the efforts of governments and central banks to support economies and reflate asset prices are going to come at the expense of the purchasing power of their currencies. Therefore, any asset that offers insulation from currency devaluation, either by offering a higher yield or limited supply is likely to benefit.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

The Dow/Gold ratio has clearly broken its decade-long uptrend. In the last month it has broken below the 1000-day MA. That’s a monumental event because it has never happened in a secular bull market before. This has been achieved by the gold price going nowhere while the stock market has collapsed by approximately 30%

Over the past week, the Federal Reserve has hit the U.S. dollar funding markets with a barrage of liquidity and tools to ensure they remain lubricated. Yet indicators of funding stress are still showing pressure.

In an emergency action Sunday, the central bank slashed interest rates to zero, adjusted the parameters of global dollar swap lines, in additional to offering trillions of dollars of liquidity via operations for repurchase agreements. Here’s what some of the key metrics have to say about the level of distress in the financial system:

Despite the Fed action, the repo market remains volatile. At one point during Monday’s trading session, the rate for overnight general collateral was around 2.50%, according to ICAP, which is well above the central bank’s new target range for the fed funds rate of 0% to 0.25%. While the bid-ask spread is now around 2%/1.25%, the central bank said it plans to conduct another overnight repo offering of up to $500 billion.

Cross-Currency Basis Swaps
The Fed on Sunday also lowered the rate on its U.S. dollar liquidity swap lines in coordination with other central banks. As a result, the three-month cross-currency basis for dollar yen -- a proxy for how expensive it is to get the greenback -- briefly spiked to its widest on record Monday in Asian trading before pulling back, according to Bloomberg data since 2011. Strategists at Bank of America believe volatility may persist until the Fed fixes the commercial-paper market and there are “more avenues available to secure USD funding.”

Libor-OIS
The gap between the London interbank offered rate and overnight index swaps expanded Monday to the widest level since 2009, led by an increase in Libor’s three-month tenor.

Widening: QuickTake
Rates on three-month commercial paper for non-financial companies reached the highest level since the financial crisis relative to OIS. This suggests companies may be having difficulty selling commercial paper, as they tend to do during times of stress. As a result, Wall Street strategists expect the Fed to announce a resurrection of a crisis-era facility for commercial paper.

The Fed reactivating swap lines between other central banks, cutting rates to zero, reducing reserve requirements for banks to zero and announcing a $700 billion quantitative easing program all point to a clear effort to ensure the financial system remains liquid as the economy shuts down. Ensuring liquidity is a priority for central banks but it is a factor that sends a signal to stock market investors that there may be something else they need to pay attention.

Vontobel Asset Management’s risk-parity product has cut its stock position from 140% about a month ago to around 28%, while its bond exposure remains around 260%, says head of multi-asset Daniel Seiler.

“You reduce your volatility with a negative correlation and if that is not the case anymore, you will obviously need to reduce the volatility with a different measure and this could deleverage your whole portfolio,” he said from Zurich, referring to the link between bonds and shares.

On a positive note, for both asset classes to fall in tandem for an extended period, “what you would need is an inflationary shock and at the moment I don’t see that at all,” Seiler added.

With bond yields now so low, there are others on Wall Street who may disagree.

An inflation scare is one possible scenario where both bonds and equities fall at the same time. It is not the only one. Against a background where the pace of economic activity is taking a war-like dislocation the bigger risk is a solvency crisis or a liquidity crisis.

With West Texas Intermediate crude trading just above $30 a barrel, America’s shale producers’
profitability problem just became much worse. Only a handful of companies in two areas of the country have breakeven costs lower than the current oil price. Wells drilled by Exxon Mobil Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp. Chevron Corp. and Crownquest Operating LLC in the Permian Basin, which stretches across West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, can turn profits at $31 a barrel, data compiled by Rystad Energy show, while Occidental’s wells in the DJ Basin of Colorado are also in the money at that price, which is where oil settled Monday. For everyone else, drilling new wells will almost certainly mean going into the red.

The most expensive segments of the oil sector focusing on higher cost production are at risk of being shut in. Even in the best of times a lot of offshore supply has a $40 cost of production but deepwater and Brazil’s pre-salt can stretch to $70. Canada’s tar sands can be among the highest cost production areas but legacy operations have lower costs. Meanwhile the low-price environment is likely to represent an acceleration in the pace of consolidation in the unconventional sector.

I hope you and the family are enjoying a normal coronavirus free lifestyle?

I was looking at some 2 year charts recently, and I know you are not always   fan, but I noticed quite large volumes spikes on some individual co charts, but especially on the DJ and the NASDAQ. Near the end of 2018 and again last week major volume spikes. My experience over the last 50 years has taught me though it's not 100 0/0 accurate, volume spikes can be a very useful tool for gauging tops and bottoms, more so for lows. I just thought subscribers might find this food for thought!!

Thank you for your concern. I’ve got some travel coming up over the weekend which I am not especially thrilled about but it falls into the necessary category. I intend to take a number of infection prevention measures while travelling. Other than that, it has been business as usual since we have stocked up on just about everything.

A link to the full memo is posted in the Subscriber's Area.

There is no doubting we saw evidence of contagion selling last week with everything selling off as quantitative strategies headed for the exits en masse and ditched ETF positions in the process. The growth of passive investing and the ease with which positions can be exited is contributing factor in the speed with which declines take place in today’s market.

“The coronavirus has clouded the near-term outlook for the global economy and means that global growth in the first half of 2020 will be lower,” Lowe said. “It is too early to tell how persistent the effects of the coronavirus will be and at what point the global economy will return to an improving path.”

In this case, though, Australia’s central bank isn’t going to have to face the downturn alone, with fiscal support in prospect.

“The Australian government has also indicated that it will assist areas of the economy most affected by the coronavirus,” Lowe said. Before the RBA meeting, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Treasury is working closely together with the other agencies “to address the boost that we believe will be necessary.”

Morrison urged major banks to pass on any RBA cut. The four top lenders have all since confirmed that mortgage rates will be reduced by the full amount.

The RBA now has only one 25 basis-point cut left in the locker before it reaches its effective lower bound of 0.25%. Lowe will find himself dragged toward quantitative easing, should the economy need further monetary stimulus.

The Australian Dollar has bounced over the last few days to partially unwind its oversold condition relative to the trend mean. The big question is whether the RBA will continue to hold the zero bound for interest rates and if it does that greatly increases scope for quantitative easing.

Though the Fed met Wall Street’s hopes for aggressive action with its half-point reduction, Chairman Jerome Powell seemed to unnerve markets by saying it’s unclear how long the virus’s impact will last. Traders were already pricing in another rate cut later this month, with more to come in June.

“The market is trading right now on a lot of fear and uncertainty,” said Gary Pollack, head of fixed income at DWS Investment Management. “The Fed certainly didn’t bring calm, and the virus continues. The Fed’s relatively large move also made people wonder what they know that we don’t.”

The central bank’s decision came a few hours after Group-of-Seven finance chiefs issued a coordinated statement saying they were ready to act to shield their economies from the virus. Policy makers faced pressure to act after the OECD warned the world economy faces its “greatest danger” since the 2008 financial crisis.

The market is pricing in the assumption the US economy is going to lock up in exactly the same fashion as the Italian or Chinese economies did as coronavirus concern/paranoia spreads. There is no doubt the virus is dangerous for at-risk groups, but the bigger question is whether its effects will persist beyond the first quarter or perhaps second quarter, not least because warmer weather will likely curtail its spread as temperatures rise.

A more urgent consideration is today is Super Tuesday. The biggest issue investors are worried about is the potential Bernie Sanders is going to be the next President of the USA. The range of proposals he has tabled include breaking up the banks, financial services taxes, capping interest rates, breaking up internet and cable companies, Medicare negotiations for drug pricing, importing foreign drugs, capping prices, end health insurance, banning fracking, insist on 100% renewable utilities and railroads, cars and manufacturing. It’s very unlikely any of these will become law without the Democrats retaining the control of the House and also winning the Senate. However, President Trump has demonstrated just how much power the executive branch has and therefore there are grounds for worry.

After a week characterised by selling across the board, a great deal of profit taking has taken place and many overextensions relative to the trend mean have been unwound. The question I believe many people will be concerned with is whether the coronavirus is going to be the catalyst for an economic contraction? I thought it would therefore be worth monitoring the kinds of instruments that offer a lead indicator for that kind of concern.

“It’s bloodshed,” Commerzbank AG analyst Carsten Fritsch said by phone Friday. “It first started with forced selling from equity investors who also sold their gold positions to cover their losses in equities and also to cover margin calls. Gold investors don’t want to sell but are forced to cover the losses in other asset classes.”

Spot gold fell the most intraday since June 2013, according to Bloomberg generic pricing. The metal was down 4.5% at $1,571.05 an ounce as of 1:35 p.m. in New York. Other precious metals including silver and platinum also dropped, with palladium sliding the most since 2008.

Fear over the economic fallout from the coronavirus has unnerved markets, sending the S&P 500 index toward its worst week since 2008. The outbreak has further undercut investor demand for raw materials, which was already wavering because of increasing supplies and concerns over global trade wars. Returns from commodities have plunged on worries that the fast-spreading virus will crush demand for raw materials, fuel and food across the globe.

The baby is currently being thrown out with the bath water, to coin a phrase. Contagion selling sets up some of the most attractive buying opportunities in assets not directly linked to the epicentre of risk. Therefore, this is an important time to monitor the precious metals sector.

Global investors are stashing more and more assets into gold as the coronavirus outbreak spreads and appetite for risk takes a hit.

The global tally of bullion in exchange-traded funds swelled by the most in more than a month on Tuesday as equities sank. That was the 25th consecutive day of inflows, a record. At 2,624.7 tons, the holdings are the largest ever.

After surging 18% last year, gold has extended its rally in 2020, with prices hitting the highest since 2013. The haven has been favored as the virus outbreak has spread beyond China, threatening a pandemic and slower growth.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has said that should the disruption from the disease stretch into the second quarter, prices may rally toward $1,850 an ounce. Spot bullion was last at $1,644.67, up 0.6%. It touched $1,689.31 on Monday.

A global recession is likely if the coronavirus becomes a pandemic, according to Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi. The odds of that outcome now stand at 40%, up from 20%, he said in a note.

The threat of a prolonged downturn in growth due to the impact of the virus may keep gold elevated, according to Morgan Stanley. Further ETF inflows are likely as long as real interest rates remain negative, it said in a note.

The Total Known Holdings of Gold in ETFs hit a new all-time high yesterday. The most significant point about the advent of ETFs as a major holder of bullion is even during the bear market for gold, ETFs still held 45 million ounces. Today it’s almost 85 million ounces.

Gold producers are “gushing cash,” said John Hathaway, senior portfolio manager at Sprott Asset Management, in support of the higher dividends. “They are in a position to raise their dividend,” he said. “And there will be boardroom pressure and shareholder pressure to do that.”

The industry has been blasted in the past for underspending on production, overspending on acquisitions and piling up debt. Now, though, after years of fat-trimming, miners and their investors are well-positioned to gain from the higher prices. That’s allowed companies including Barrick and Newmont to boost free-cash flow and, to varying degrees, reward shareholders.

Earlier this month, though, Mark Bristow, Barrick’s chief executive officer, sent a warning shot across the bow of the industry. Even if all current projects work out, he said, gold supply will still fall 30% globally by 2029. While sinking supply would be bullish for bullion prices, margins and revenues could be hit if companies are forced to mine lower-grade or hard-to-access deposits.

All-In-Sustaining-Cost estimates were introduced following the gold crash because investors were tired of seeing every available cent poured into investments in new production. It’s easy to see why miners were anxious to invest. The gold price had been in a bear market for decades and they had not been able to source capital for exploration or new projects. Higher prices ensured the survival of the sector but it came at the expense of stock market performance.

Masahiro Kami, an infectious diseases expert, said he was skeptical that the suspension of some public events would have a significant impact on the spread of the virus. “Commuting on a packed train, for instance, is way worse than taking part in the Tokyo marathon,” he said.

Dr. Kami, who heads a nonprofit organization called the Medical Governance Research Institute, said a media focus on the few cases of serious illness from coronavirus infection in Japan had created a panic over the need to cancel events.

While Japan initially had a handful of cases involving people who had come from Wuhan, the center of the epidemic in China, or had direct contact with someone from Wuhan, a surge of cases in the past week included many whose path of infection wasn’t clear. The cases span from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the far south.

More than 1,000 people disembarked from the Diamond Princess cruise ship between Wednesday and Friday, and they entered Japan without restrictions on their movements. All of those passengers tested negative for the virus, but in some cases people have tested positive after a negative test—including two cases reported Friday in Australia, which sent a flight to Japan to repatriate citizens who had been on the ship.

The coronavirus popping up in unrelated areas in Japan is not exactly good news. Additionally, the lax quarantine imposed on the passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise liner greatly increases the potential for the virus to spread even further. At a minimum the potential is for much tighter measures to contain the spread across Japan and other countries. This is also going to create a headache for Abe’s government.

“The minutes suggest that the bar to ease policy is clearly lower than to lift rates,” Colin Hamilton, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said in an emailed note Thursday. “In particular, they back up Powell’s recent comment that policymakers would not tolerate continued below-target inflation. This commentary was viewed as supportive gold.”

Spot gold advanced for a third straight day, rising as much as 0.7% to $1,623.73 an ounce. Holdings in global exchange-traded funds backed by bullion have risen to a fresh record, and are on course for a sixth weekly expansion, the longest streak since November.

“It looks like a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said ABN Amro Bank NV strategist Georgette Boele. As prices broke out, the move has attracted more investors into gold, she said.

Gold could reach $1,650 over the coming weeks, according to UBS Group AG’s Global Wealth Management unit. “With U.S. equity valuations elevated, any further upsets could see another bout of volatility, a further rally in government bonds and a higher gold price,” analysts Wayne Gordon and Giovanni Staunovo said in a note.

Investors are accustomed to the fiction of China’s economic statistics and therefore have little faith in the reliability of their reporting of the number of viral infections either. The one thing we can monitor with some accuracy is the success of containment efforts outside of China. So far these have been relatively successful in containing an exponential spread of the disease. The big question is how much of a toll is it taking on the Chinese economy and how much stimulus will be required to revitalise consumer demand.

“A week of unpaid leave is very painful,” said Jason Lam, 32, who was furloughed from his job as a chef in a high-end restaurant in Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui neighborhood. “I don’t have enough income to cover my spending this month.”

Across China, companies are telling workers that there’s no money for them -- or that they shouldn’t have to pay full salaries to quarantined employees who don’t come to work. It’s too soon to say how many people have lost wages as a result of the outbreak, but in a survey of more than 9,500 workers by Chinese recruitment website Zhaopin, more than one-third said they were aware it was a possibility.

The salary freezes are further evidence of the economic hit to China’s volatile private sector -- the fastest growing part of the world’s second-biggest economy -- and among small firms especially. It also suggests the stress will extend beyond the health risks to the financial pain that comes with job cuts and salary instability. Unsurprisingly, hiring has all but ground to a halt: Zhaopin estimates the number of job resumes submitted in the first week after the January outbreak was down 83% from a year earlier.

“The coronavirus may hit Chinese consumption harder than SARS 17 years ago,” said Chang Shu, Chief Asia Economist for Bloomberg Intelligence. “And SARS walloped consumption.”

The knock-on effect of meeting payroll when there is no money coming in is no laughing matter for the service sector; particularly when it is fuelling growth. The gravity of the threat means the range of policy options being explored is open-ended. Everything from direct payments to employees, tax holidays, relaxing regulations, cutting interest rates and boosting money supply are possible and probable.

If the impact of the outbreak can’t be contained this quarter, annual growth forecasts will need to be revised down, Huw McKay, BHP’s vice president of market analysis and economics, said Tuesday in a blog post. “This would then flow directly through to lower commodity demand and price expectations.”

BHP forecasts China’s growth to slow to about 6% this year and as low as 5.75% in 2021 based on a swift recovery from the virus outbreak. In a worst-case scenario that combined a lingering impact from the virus and a re-escalation of trade war tensions, the nation’s economic expansion this year could slip to 5.5%, the miner said.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Macquarie Group Ltd. are among banks who’ve cut China growth forecasts for both the first quarter and the full year as a result of the outbreak. China’s gross domestic product will grow 4% in the first quarter, according to the median of 18 forecasts since Jan. 31, which would be the lowest level since 1990.

The working assumption most investment models are relying on is the trajectory of the coronavirus outbreak and recovery is going to follow that of SARS. Even though the number of cases and deaths is larger and the coronavirus is more contagious, the measures taken to contain it have been much more aggressive. Therefore, the majority of investors have concluded that a V-shaped recovery is the most likely scenario.

The Aureus Fund (Ireland) plc. is an accumulating fund under Irish Law. The physical allocated gold investment will at all times between 51% and 60% of the Net Assets. Although the focus is on Gold, the Aureus Fund aims to invest in physical precious metals (Silver, Platinum and Palladium) to diversify risk. As an ancillary investment policy the investment manager has the option to invest in gold derivates for hedging and gold mining funds.

This fund popped up in a search I performed on Bloomberg of gold mining funds but it carried no additional details of holdings. My supposition on Friday that it is heavily weighted in platinum miners was incorrect and I am thankful to a subscriber for clearing up this misunderstanding. Instead, it has a heavy weighting in palladium; directly through its physical holdings. That has helped to supplement returns over and above the price if gold in Euro.

The long run outlook for gold is very encouraging. Even in the short run, competitive devaluations by CBs are supportive.  Coronavirus is also supportive.  Do you think that investing in a gold ETF is a reasonable hedge against a short-term correction on the S&P500? Are frightened investors likely to seek the security of gold or are they more likely to flock to cash?

 

Thank you for these questions which may be of interest to other subscribers. Gold and the Dollar have been rallying together against a background of increasing virus-hedging activity. That suggests investors have a preference for classic hedges rather than cash at present.

I hope you are well & not working too hard!

Just completed the ‘corporate action’ required to take the shares for Sibanye. To me all your excellent recommendations are just exotic names & lines on a screen, and whatever spare brain processing power I have these days perhaps best left for other things.

Please may I ask a favour? Do you have any ideas for an ETF or even generalist fund which I could use to provide gold miner ‘sector’ exposure? In broad terms would you suggest something holding larger cos or junior miners? If you have any thoughts, I would be grateful. I know you cannot give advice & it would never be construed in that way.

On gold miners shares per se, can you clarify a point? I was talking to the manager of a UK listed investment trust the other day, managed on what used to be called an ‘absolute return’ basis, which actually has delivered a consistent return. They look at things very simply & believe that at some unknown point in the future, there will simply be a tipping point where the discount rate applied (across all asset class valuations) spikes.  They don’t speculate how this will unfold. I think I can guess what this will do to Netflix or Tesla but in broad terms, what happens to gold miners? Do you take the view that in essence the (future) value of their gold in the ground will likely mitigate a higher interest rate assumption? Perhaps what I am really meaning to ask is that if the equity bull market bubble bursts, do you have a view on what might happen to gold miners as a sector in terms of correlation?  

I really don’t like to ask you questions like this as you probably add me to the list of bears to assist with the calculation of your contrarian market indicators,

All the very best

Thank you for this question which I believe will be of interest to other subscribers. I think you will agree that it is not hard work when you are doing something you love, though sometimes Mrs. Treacy may beg to differ.

 

Output in the world’s largest auto market could be cut by more than 1.7 million cars should the spreading virus resulted in more shutdowns of manufacturing facilities across China, lasting into mid-March, according to an IHS Markit estimate last month.

The auto industry accounts for more than 80% of demand for the precious metal, according to a Johnson Matthey report released Wednesday. That makes it difficult for the market to ignore the shutdowns in China.

“The effects on the wider, global supply-chain are also starting to show,” refiner Heraeus Holding GmbH said in a research note. “Plants across Europe and the wider Asia region are also at risk now because of problems sourcing Chinese-made parts.”

The palladium market is another area where investors and traders are paying scant regard to the risk of a Chinese slowdown despite the fact prices are at elevated levels.

Leading indicators to monitor

Situation: Confirmation of sustained transmission outside of China
Implication: Most cases outside China have been linked to recent travelers. If evidence emerges of ongoing acquisition of disease in patients who did not travel or have contact with someone returning from China, the potential public health impact of the disease will rise significantly.

Situation: Rapid increase in case numbers in affected countries
Implication: Many unknowns remain. Rates of transmission in asymptomatic individuals, viral mutations, and decreased efficacy of protective measures, for example, could lead to increases in infection rates. Weaker health systems, in particular, could be at higher risk. This would increase uncertainty on potential recovery.

Situation: Signals of supply chain restart
Implication: Signals of supply chain restart in China would be an early sign of recovering markets. Early markers could include government reports, social media chatter, firms conversations and / or communications with their customers.

Situation: Changes in consumer spending indicators
Implication: In epidemic settings with containment measures, consumer spend decreases. Changes in consumer spending indicators, especially in China, India, and broadly globally, may point to potential recovery and / or protracted nature of the situation.

Situation: US treasury yield curve
Implication: Overall market fluctuations and associated treasury yield curve, especially in the US, will point to overall confidence in market and expected trajectory. Increasingly negative curves may hint to longer economical impacts.
 

The number of reported “official” cases continues to trend lower which is seen as positive by investors. The question of how much the official figures can be trusted amid a reclassification of how China defines a confirmed case does not appear to be priced into markets.

Maybe 18 months ago you were looking at Rare Earths outside China. One you mentioned in Australia - Alkane Resources - has recently perked up considerably on gold exploration but also on the likely demerger of its Rare Earths project at Dubbo. I'm a shareholder so noticed(!) You might like to re-visit some time as it is a happy graph for holders

Congratulations on taking the opportunity in Alkane Resources. The company found new gold in September, which was the reason for the initial break higher. Meanwhile the strength over the last couple of days is based on the appointment of a new managing director to the Dubbo project which is a step closer to developing the mine into a commercial reality.

The RBA reiterated Governor Philip Lowe’s comments Wednesday that the current balance in the economy favored a policy pause, but this could change in the event of a weakening in the labor market and inflation moving away from target. It acknowledged that coronavirus is “a significant near-term risk” to the outlook for China and Australia’s other key trading partners.

The currency ticked down to 67.23 U.S. cents after the release from 67.29 just prior, and was trading at 67.20 cents at 12:03 p.m. Traders are pricing in a less than 50% chance of a rate cut this half, before climbing to 55% in July and higher thereafter.

Australia’s linkages to China are broad and deep: it’s the biggest buyer of Australian iron ore and Chinese tourists and students lead those sectors, taking more than one-third of exports from Down Under.

The RBA is basing its expectations of a quick rebound from the virus on the SARS epidemic of 2003. But it is clear that this will require rapid containment of the outbreak.

Continued stimulus and a reluctance to raise interest rates not least in response to the impact of the wildfires and the need to rebuild are likely to ensure abundant liquidity for the Australian economy outside of the threat from the coronavirus and China.

Policy makers capped their easing cycle this week in a bet that aggressive borrowing cost reductions will help fuel growth without jeopardizing inflation control. Central bank President Roberto Campos Neto has said he’s comfortable with the consumer price outlook despite a recent spike in meat costs and possible pressures from a weaker real. Economists surveyed by the monetary authority expect inflation to ease well below target by year-end.

Brazil cut interest rates this week and now has negative real interest rates. Water shortages in Rio de Janeiro are only going to make the case for additional stimulus more compelling since repairing vital infrastructure is unlikely to meet which much local opposition.

Palladium could be an interesting trade given potential supply disruptions to China because of the coronavirus, Jeffrey Currie, head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs, told Bloomberg TV.

“The one I like right now that we are watching in the commodity market is palladium -- when palladium gets so tight that you actually start to shut down auto manufacturing.”

Yet, “you don’t know when you hit one of these physical shortages until you actually hit them.”

NOTE: Spot palladium traded near $2,412/oz Thursday, heading for a ~5% weekly gain after dropping a week earlier from record highs.

Currie said last month he sees the potential for palladium to test $3,000/oz, then slide.

With auto manufacturers shutting down production because of a lack of Chinese manufactured intermediate parts, the most bullish forecasts for palladium are being questioned.

Still, a last taste of aid is creating a temporary buffer. Payments of the final tranche started in January, contributing to the gains for this year’s profit projection. The USDA forecasts farmers will receive $15 billion in direct government payments in 2020, down from $23.7 billion in 2019 but still above the $11.5 billion received in 2017, before the trade war started.

While the USDA’s estimates take into account the trade pact, they may not reflect the true scope of the impact, according to Carrie Litkowski, a senior economist with the USDA’s Economic Research Service.

The projected gain for income also doesn’t reflect any potential blow-back from the outbreak of the deadly coronavrius in China, the world’s biggest food importer. The health crisis has in recent days called into question whether the Asian nation will meet the purchase targets established in the trade deal.

Soybeans has been ranging mostly above 850¢ since 2018 and returned over the last month to test the lower side of its range. This area represents the lower side of the volatile trading pattern which has evolved since the breakout in 2007. Bull markets in commodities are defined by an increase in the marginal cost of production and prior to 2007 the price failed to hold moves above 850c. That suggests we are seeing a long-term example of past resistance offering future support.

Almost two-thirds of U.S. natural gas production is at risk of being cut as prices tumble, according to Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.

About 55 billion cubic feet a day of gas in basins from Texas to Appalachia could be curtailed, analysts at Tudor Pickering wrote Monday in a note to clients. That’s roughly 60% of current dry gas output, based on BloombergNEF estimates.

Mounting debt, a lack of access to capital markets and a drop in hedging will lead to a decline in drilling starting in the second half of this year, Tudor Pickering said. The energy-focused investment bank says only two or three companies, including Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., can afford to keep output flat with prices below $2.25 per thousand cubic feet, or about $2.17 per million Btu.

“We do expect to see a significant number of bankruptcies if gas prices stay this low,” Matthew Portillo, managing director of upstream research at Tudor Pickering, said by phone. Producers have no gas hedges in place beyond 2021, he said.

Gas has lost about a third of its value since early November, sinking below $2 per million British thermal units for the first time in almost four years as production from shale basins overwhelms demand amid a mild winter.

“What you’re starting to see is the forward curve not only in 2020 but in 2021-plus has moved to such a low price that companies are not able to drill within cash flow to hold drilling steady,” Portillo said.

Drilling in the Haynesville shale in Louisiana is set for a “significant collapse” if prices remain low, he said.

Unconventional supply is prolific but expensive. The vast majority of companies rely on continued high prices to support their drilling activities. That ensures the cyclicality of prices. The higher prices are the more oil and gas can be produced but declines in prices mean drillers can no long source funding and some will inevitably go bankrupt. That will temporarily withdraw supply from the market which will support prices and open the way for new drilling to take place.

Chinese officials took issue with U.S. comments about the country’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, and promised they would bring the infection under control.

“U.S. comments are inconsistent with the facts and inappropriate.” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in statement posted online Friday. The World Health Organization “called on countries to avoid adopting travel bans. Yet shortly afterward, the U.S. went in the opposite direction, and started a very bad turn. It is so unkind.”

U.S. officials said this week that they had difficulty getting specialists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the front lines of the outbreak in China, and late Thursday the State Department advised Americans traveling in China to come home. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Thursday also said the outbreak may help bring jobs back to the U.S.

China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Chen Xu, said during a press conference in Geneva that the country had been transparent about the disease.

“We have conducted our business in an open and transparent manner with the outside world,” he said.

Xu said that China would work with the World Health Organization to bring the disease under control, following a declaration by the WHO that the outbreak was an international emergency. The declaration will “not only coordinate global prevention control measures but enables us to mobilize international resources to respond to the epidemic,” he said.

“Official” figures are just below 10,000. This Lancet article suggests 76000 infections. The death toll is reported at around 200 but if that is the case why are crematoria running 24/7? The biggest challenge the Chinese administration has is their claims of full disclosure are being met with doubt because they have such a poor record of reporting accurate facts about any part of the economy. Little wonder that other countries are taking more forceful measures to isolate the country until the infection rate peaks and begins to decline.  

Morgan Stanley (equal-weight, PT 2,270p) says 4Q results should trigger “a negative response,” as both earnings and cash flow were lower than consensus expectations and gearing increased on a quarterly basis

Analysts Martijn Rats and Sasikanth Chilukuru say that while integrated gas was largely hit by lower trading profits, margins within chemicals appear to have been hit more than expected by the weaker macro

Oil products and upstream seen benefiting from strong marketing results and higher production volumes, respectively

RBC (sector perform, PT 2,600p) says the decision to reduce the quarterly run rate for its buyback to $1b from $2.75b into 2020 was largely factored into the stock’s recent performance and the new rate “looks well covered,”

Given gearing is 29%, analyst Biraj Borkhataria says that “Shell is right to be more cautious”

Royal Dutch Shell took a big bet on natural gas and has succeeded in getting the product to market from its massive Australian offshore facility. The challenge is there is no intense competition in the LNG market as major producers vie for market share. Meanwhile Shell is also looking at lower oil prices and increasingly aggressive emissions regulations all over the world.

5. Electronic money (E-MONEY) and cryptocurrencies (C-MONEY) vs. central bank money (CB-MONEY): the death knell for paper money? Credit cards or electronic money in general are being used for an increasing number of ever smaller payments due to better, quicker, easier and more widespread infrastructure. The dissemination of electronic payments, and of cryptocurrencies to a lesser extent has reduced the use of notes and coins, i.e. central bank money. Central banks accompany this trend, by removing high-denomination notes from circulation and / or by taking steps to limit payments in cash. With new forms of E-MONEY and C-MONEY, it is evident that payments are currently seeing another period of rapid innovation and transformation. The use of e-payments is booming, while technology companies and financial institutions are investing heavily to be the payment providers of tomorrow. However, despite the continuing digitalisation of the financial system, cash in circulation is not dropping for most countries. The demand for cash still increase in several advanced economies since the Great Financial Crisis, driven by store-of-value motives. Negative rates represent another factor for accumulation of cash. The total elimination of paper money is nevertheless being seriously discussed, for at least two reasons: • The rapid expansion of e-payments, it would help fight the black market and organised crime, • It would free central banks from any constraints on how deeply they can cut interest.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area.

The war on cash is a well understood theme. Governments have a clear incentive to ensure all transactions are recorded on a digital ledger so they can be taxed and the wealth of individuals monitored.

The motivation for that level of oversight is only exacerbated by the need to pay for all of the unfunded liabilities built up over decades of social democratic crowd-pleasing budgets. Meanwhile the ease of doing business online and the competitive advantage online retail has over physical stores.

March silver futures hit a four-week low. The silver bears have gained the overall near-term technical advantage as a downtrend has been restarted on the daily bar chart. Silver bulls’ next upside price breakout objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $18.00 an ounce. The next downside price breakout objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at $17.00. First resistance is seen at $17.75 and then at $18.00. Next support is seen at $17.42 and then at $17.25.

Buying the dip on the promise of Chinese stimulus has been the primary story in today’s market. It helped to support stock markets and removed some of the impetus from safe havens.

Two aspects of the current outbreak I find especially concerning, speaking as a retired veterinarian of some fifty years’ experience. I understand the symptoms can vary from barely perceptible with no fever to severe and fatal Some. people with the virus may be unaware they have it but may be very infectious to others, acting as symptomless carriers. My experience with animals which are subject to lockdown on account of infectious disease is that they tend to become very stressed and anxious, this in turn tends to make them more liable to spread infection on account of diminished resistance. I would suggest bottling up millions of Chinese in these cities has its own hazards regarding virus spread.

Thank you for this insight which I believe will be of interest to other subscribers. The reaction of the Chinese administration to the speed of the outbreak has been panicky. The long gestation period where no symptoms are evident but where transmission is possible represents a significant challenge to containment. That was the reason for the quarantine but it is impossible to corral that many people. On top of that 5 million left the city before the quarantine and very little comment has been made on how migrant workers are counted.

Economists had a broad range of forecasts for when the Fed would stop buying Treasury bills, though June 2020 received the highest response at 43%. Respondents overwhelmingly expected officials will taper the monthly purchases rather than stop them suddenly. The Fed has been buying $60 billion in T-bills each month since October.

A scarcity of bank reserves was blamed for an unexpected spike in overnight funding rates in September. This led the fed funds rate to stray briefly out of its target range. The new cash created by the Fed’s T-bill purchases has since relieved that scarcity. The Fed, intent on ensuring an ample supply of reserves, has said it will continue the purchases at least into the second quarter.

The news headlines are full of news about the coronavirus and the number of countries where it has been found continues to rise every day. That injected a degree of caution in the markets that was not present a week ago. The clearest effects are evident in safe haven assets where Treasuries, precious metals and the Dollar have steadied.

The biggest risks and tradable opportunities discussed by the panel members focus on the fixed income markets but it did get me to thinking where I see the biggest risks and where are the biggest opportunities right now.

The raw material used in autocatalysts has soared in the opening weeks of 2020 amid a sustained global deficit, with the extraordinary rally seeing prices hit records day after day before a pullback on Tuesday. Over the past 15 years, mine supply of palladium has shrunk by 1 million ounces, or 12%, while demand has risen 4 million ounces, or 57%, according to estimates from UBS Group AG. Palladium’s sister metal, rhodium, has jumped too.

“Commodity prices can completely disconnect from their marginal cost of production when inventories run down to critical levels, and this is precisely what is occurring in palladium and rhodium at present,” Citi said. “Palladium has for some time now presented the hallmarks of a genuinely tight market, including an extreme backwardation.”

Another day, another $100+ advance in palladium. This speed of the acceleration since the announcement of the trade deal is nothing short of historic. There has been a lack of a supply response to date not least because of the uncertainty about the trajectory of global growth. If the continued supply of liquidity has the desired effect of confirming the trough in global growth, it will both be a boon for palladium demand but will also encourage additional supply into the market.

Fiat Chrysler and Foxconn plan Chinese electric vehicle joint venture - This article from Reuters may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

FCA last month reached a binding agreement for a $50 billion tie-up with France’s PSA (PEUP.PA) that will create the world’s No. 4 carmaker. FCA said that the proposed cooperation was initially focused on the Chinese market.

It “would enable the parties to bring together the capabilities of two established global leaders across the spectrum of automobile design, engineering and manufacturing and mobile software technology to focus on the growing battery electric vehicle market,” it said.

FCA said it was in the process of signing a preliminary agreement with Hon Hai, aiming to reach final binding agreements in the next few months.

However, it added there was no assurance that final binding agreements would be reached or would be completed in that timeframe.

Foxconn has been investing heavily in a variety of future transport ventures for several years, including Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride services giant, and Chinese electric vehicle start-ups Byton and Xpeng.

Foxconn also has invested in Chinese battery giant CATL and a variety of other mostly Chinese transportation tech start-ups.

This is an example of the most profound change batteries are bringing to the automotive sector. They are rapidly commoditizing the car. The difference between an Apple, Samsung or Google phone is less about what is on the inside than familiarity with the brand, ease of operation. software, the app ecosystem and the camera. Other than that, they all have pretty much the same internal composition with some minor differences in the design of the chips while manufacturing is outsourced to a third party.  

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Gold miners are more interested in M&A activity at present than borrowing a pile of money to plough into the uncertain prospect of exploration and development. Even if they were eager, banks are in no mood to lend them the requisite capital considering how fresh the memory of malinvestment is. That’s good news from the perspective of investors because it allows miners to accrue profits so they can pay down debt, raise dividends and buy back shares.

“There is already a transition going from coal to gas, which is very beneficial for the environment,” Alvera said. “The next step of the transition is getting away from oil and replacing to gas. After we do that phase one, we can ramp up electrolyzers and have green gas.”

The executive’s view about hydrogen reflects concern within the gas industry that governments are moving to limit fossil-fuel emissions and will hit gas soon. That raises the risk that the investments they’ve made in pipelines, compressors and storage tanks could become stranded assets.

In Italy, Snam decided to double the amount of hydrogen it blends into the grid to 10%. Alvera believes hydrogen could supply a quarter of Italy’s energy demand by 2050 and announced in November a new round of investments to boost transition toward clean energy.

Hydrogen stocks are having a moment. In any bull market there needs to be a demand narrative which encourages a supply response. The element’s energy density and clean burning characteristics are burnishing the argument for using more hydrogen as the desire to promote a zero carbon energy sector gains ground. The future of air travel is probably going to include cryogenic hydrogen but that is still a ways off. Meanwhile the low price of natural gas encourages experimentation because the cost of producing hydrogen is compressing.

In a tweet posted Wednesday, precious metals consultant and analyst Dan Popescu shared a picture of a long line of people waiting in front of “Degussa store to buy gold in Köln.” Popescu described, “From Jan. 1, 2020, the limit to buy gold anonymously drops from €10,000 down to €2,000. Only two years ago the limit was €15,000.” One user posted his own photo and replied “This is me line at Degussa in 23rd. The employees said they haven’t seen anything like it before.” To give an idea of the relatively small amount of gold €2,000 (~$2,224) can buy, even a 50g gold bar is currently too expensive.

Negative rates are currently only being imposed on depositors with more than €300,000 because the authorities believe wealthier people are less likely to put cash under the mattress. What they fail to understand is many people choose to hold their cash in gold when the risk of debasement is running high.

Iron ore imports by China surged in December to the second-highest volume on record as mills boosted purchases ahead of the earlier Lunar New Year and Australian supply picked up.

Inbound shipments totaled 101.3 million tons last month, just shy of the record 102.8 million tons in September 2017, according to customs data. The end-of-year surge saw full-year imports increase 0.5% to 1.07 billion tons.

The ramping up of the Chinese steel production sector is a positive development for the argument supporting the global reflation theme.

This report from Bloomberg highlights the capacity buildout for industrial robot, semiconductor and increasing demand for 5G enabled products is potentially one of the primary drivers behind renewed demand for Chinese steel.

One of the most commonly asked questions by subscribers is how to find details of my open traders. In an effort to make it easier I will simply repost the latest summary daily until there is a change. I'll change the title to the date of publication of new details so you will know when the information was provided.

If gold’s implicit prediction is right, it has two implications. The first and most important one is a belief that inflation is at last due to return, after many false alarms. The second is that gold is now settled in a bull market. 

So, is gold good value? The metal doesn’t throw off any income streams, and has very few industrial uses, so it is very hard to come up with a measure of fair value. But the following chart, using data drawn up by Charlie Morris of Catley, Lakewood and May in London, is a heroic attempt to arrive at one. Morris devised a formula for fair value using the consumer price index and the average of 10- and 30-year inflation expectations. This indicator briefly showed that gold was wildly overpriced during the worst of the 2008 crisis, a phenomenon that may have been driven by the illiquid markets of the time, that created an unrealistic inflation forecast. Exclude this incident, and we see a steady bull market for gold from 2005 to 2011, followed by a steady bear market, where it moved to a discount. In the last two years, it looks as though it may have started another bull market. By Morris’ calculations, gold is now about 11% over fair value. 

Gold is still far from the confident prediction of runaway inflation that it briefly produced for a few years after the crisis, even though it is buoyed by safe haven demand at present, along with seasonal interest in gold jewelry, notably from China where the lunar new year is almost here, and by resumed interest from central banks.

On the supply side, gold-mining groups are merging, creating a reasonable hope of avoiding over-supply in the near future. So, if this move in gold prices is confirmed by a move down in real yields, followed even by an increase in inflation, then this could be part of a bull market to match the one from 2005 to 2011. The critical question is whether the gold market proves to be right this time in its forecast of inflation.

Gold is often viewed as a hedge against inflation but that is a largely a corollary to its prime position as a monetary barometer. The foreign markets are relative value oriented. One can’t really say a currency is strong or weak unless it is compared to whatever it can be converted into. All fiat currencies are subject to the tendency of governments to print with abandon at the first sign of trouble. Gold does best in periods when competitive devaluation becomes a factor, which is exactly what we have today; with a growing trend of synchronised monetary and fiscal stimulus. Inflation is a side effect of that profligacy.

The global iron ore market “is expected to shift into a major surplus with inventories expected to recover to pre-Brumadinho levels by early 2021,” Citigroup Inc. says in note, referring to the Vale SA operation that experienced a dam burst last year.

“We maintain our directional convictions on iron ore and coking coal, while acknowledging that big price moves might not happen until post-Chinese New Year,” bank says in note, which in part recaps analysis on bulks market issued last month

“Most market participants agree that iron ore prices will likely drift lower during 2020, with the primary debate being about the timing and extent of any sell-off,” bank says

“Concerns about 1Q Australian supply-disruption risks and weak Brazilian exports are already reflected in iron ore prices,” it says

After Lunar New Year, “we see iron ore supply recovering and potential profit-taking by Chinese steel longs,” Citi adds

Vale believes it will return to full production next year so market participants are beginning to position for that outcome. The clear outperformance of iron-ore last year was certainly due to supply constraints but the question for 2020 will be in how much demand for industrial resources picks up with global growth improving.

Tech giant Sony shocked attendees at this year’s CES by unveiling a new electric car.

The Japanese company, which is best known for its PlayStation games consoles and high-end televisions, revealed the Vision S concept saloon.

The prototype boasts 33 sensors to monitor inside and outside of the car, as well as an ultra-wide monitor which will be used for entertainment and information purposes.

Sony chief executive Kenichiro Yoshida said that cars will be redefined as a “new entertainment space”.

“To deepen our understanding of cars in terms of their design and technologies we gave a shape to our vision,” Mr Yoshida told the tech conference in Las Vegas.

“This prototype embodies our commitment to the future of mobility and contains an array of Sony technologies.”

The new concept car also features “360 reality audio”, which Mr Yoshida says will give users an “immersive experience”.

The Consumer Electronics Show is where companies go to showcase their most aspirational vision of what they hope to bring to market in coming years. Electric cars started popping up a few years ago but this year electric vehicles dominated the product line. Sony, Mercedes Benz and Fisker debuted electric vehicles, with the latter production ready.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi condemned the targeted killing as a violation of the terms underpinning the U.S. troop presence in the country.

Mr. Abdul-Mahdi said he had submitted a formal request for parliament to convene in order to adopt necessary measures “to protect Iraq’s dignity and sovereignty.” He didn’t say what those measures would be.

The killing of the two men is likely to mark the beginning of a dangerous new chapter in the rivalry between the U.S. and Iran, which escalated after supporters of an Iran-backed Shiite militia attempted to storm the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad earlier this week. Mr. Mohandes was deputy leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group that led the embassy attack.

Anyway we look at it, the geopolitical risk premium just racketed up. Iran’s response to losing the commander of the Revolutionary Guard can be expected to be bloody and will probably splash around the entire region considering how broad Iran’s terrorist network is.

The price of gold could rally another 11% over the next two years, tacking on to last year’s 19% gain, according to RBC Capital Markets.

Gold prices have historically been volatile and may see some fluctuations in 2020 and 2021 on quarterly basis. On a yearly basis, however, the trajectory is likely higher, the bank’s strategists led by Christopher Louney wrote in a note.

RBC is expecting an average gold price of $1,552 per ounce in 2020, with a bear-case of $1,437 per ounce and bull-case of $1,613 per ounce. By 2021, they forecast the average price to reach $1,625 per ounce with a bull-case of as much as $1,700 per ounce.

Meanwhile, the Street is forecasting a much dimmer outlook. The median estimate for 2020 is $1,532 per ounce and $1,561 per ounce for 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Spot
gold is currently at $1,528 per ounce.

The bullion, last year, was able to seal its best year since 2010 due to loose global monetary policy, a buying spree from central banks, the U.S.-China trade dispute and other geopolitical unrest. The rally marked a positive shift in investor attitude toward gold, which is among the main reasons why RBC is bullish on the precious metal. “Sentiment almost always plays an outsized role for gold compared to other asset classes given its unique nature,” the strategists wrote.
 

China announced over the New Year break it is cutting its reserve requirements and injecting additional liquidity to the economy to support growth. The clear message is we are moving progressively closer to synchronised global monetary and fiscal stimulus. That is designed to continue to support asset prices but comes at the expense of the purchasing power of fiat currencies

China approved a new strain of genetically modified soybeans developed by a U.S. company, a move that could bolster looming trade talks.

The variety approved for import is an insect-resistant soybean from Dow AgroSciences LLC, according to a list published by China’s agriculture ministry on Monday. The nation also approved a new type of GMO papaya and renewed permits for 10 crop varieties, including corn and canola.

China and the U.S. are gearing up to sign the first phase of a trade deal, with the South China Morning Post reporting Chinese Vice Premier Liu He is set to lead a delegation to Washington on Jan. 4. The countries agreed to speed up the approval process for imports of GMO crops as part of efforts to boost bilateral trade.

“The news helps confirm China’s opening of its market to U.S. GMO products and dropping additional non-tariff barriers,“ said John Payne, senior futures and options broker at Daniels Trading in Chicago.

GMO crops have been a source of tension with the U.S. arguing China’s stance isn’t based on science and has been used as a non-tariff barrier. In 2013, China rejected several cargoes of corn and distillers dried grain from the U.S. due to the presence of a GMO variety that took the Asia nation almost five years to approve, said Darin Friedrichs, a senior analyst at INTL FCStone in China.
 

The Phase 1 agreement to at least usher in a hiatus in the trade war means China will be buying a lot more US agricultural products. The challenge is that will bring the total to a record and there are questions about how sustainable that is with the USA’s current production figures. The move to accept more genetically modified grain is reflective of the efforts under way to lower barriers to additional imports.

Hong Kong’s purchases of gold coins from China surged last month as demand for haven assets soared amid the ongoing social unrest.

Imports of coins jumped to 3,246.5 kilograms in November from 14 kilograms a month earlier, according to data from the city’s Census and Statistics Department obtained by email.

“The import of gold coins by Hong Kong shows that its citizens are worried about the situation in Hong Kong and prefer to have gold coins as safe haven,” said Georgette Boele, senior FX and precious metals strategist at ABN Amro Bank NV.

The increasingly violent pro-democracy protests have undermined Hong Kong’s economy, discouraging tourists from visiting and slashing retail sales. Gold demand typically strengthens ahead of the Lunar New Year, which will fall in late January.

Data from the department also showed that total exports of gold from Hong Kong to China continued their decline from a peak in 2013. Figures for November showed shipments dropped to 5,717 kilograms from 14,896 kilograms in October. Hong Kong’s total imports from China were 5,824.5 kilograms, bolstered by the surge in gold coin purchases, which meant Hong Kong had net imports of gold from China for the first time since January 2011.

Gold coin imports suggest retail demand rather than from institutions. That’s hardly surprising considering the strife on the streets but is also representative of the fact China is the world’s largest producer and the price is rising. Demand for gold as a safe haven against the concerted efforts of governments to debase their currencies is more relevant today than it has been in years as the trend of synchronised global fiscal stimulus progresses.

“The potential that China could secure an additional 5 to 6 million tons of world wheat annually is underpinning Chicago Board of Trade wheat,” Chicago-based consultant AgResource Co. said in a report Thursday.

Wheat traders expect China will soon release the quota, according to AgResource, and prices are already reacting. On Friday, futures for March delivery rose as much as 2.2% to $5.61 a bushel in Chicago, the highest for a most-active contract since August 2018. Futures traded in Paris reached the highest since June.

If Chinese purchases were to reach the quota mark of 9.6-million metric tons, that would represent a big jump in demand. In the six years through 2017, buying has averaged less than 50% of the allotment.

The partial agreement reached between the USA and China removes some uncertainty but holds out the prospect China will be a greater importer of commodities over coming years. That is helping to increase speculative interest in the commodity sector generally and not least because prices are quite low relative to their bull market peaks.

It’s important to remember that oil refineries and shipping companies spent billions getting ready.

Some shipowners installed scrubbers, units that can cost several million dollars each and allow carriers to remove sulfur from fuel as it’s burnt. This enables them to keep using today’s cheaper product. Likewise, refineries have invested in technology to convert sulfur-rich crude into higher-quality fuels.

For compliant companies, cheating by others is a problem. Yet there could be non-compliance, at least initially. Industry estimates are that something like 10%-15% of the fleet won’t comply with the rules at the start.

Not every country in the world signed up to the regulations, including some large coastal states with significant refining capacity. Even among those that did, not all look likely to start with strict enforcement. There’s also a disparity between what penalties will be imposed from one nation to the next.

South Africa, which sits on a shipping lane connecting eastern and western hemispheres, doesn’t yet have the domestic laws in place to punish non-compliant vessels. The United Arab Emirates, a vital refueling hub in the Middle East, has pledged to avoid draconian enforcement.

The risk of noncompliance, the difficulty in enforcement, the expense of retrofitting aging vessels and supplying new distillates suggest there is clear potential for the IMO2020 rules to represent a period of volatility over the coming months. It is going to take time for the new system to bed down and for companies to see the reality of the sector following the change.

“We’re going to get demand improvement,” Jonas Oxgaard, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in New York, said in a phone interview. “If the only thing we’re seeing is normalization, so we go back to the trend line, that’s still a pretty good outcome.”

Fertilizer prices may ease in 2020 as new global sources of supply emerge. EuroChem Group AG and OCP Group are expected to boost potash output, and 4 million metric tons of urea capacity are forecast to come online, Maxwell of Green Markets said.

Prices dropped in 2019 in tandem with lower costs for natural gas and Chinese coal, benefiting producers including CF Industries Holdings Inc. and Sinochem.

There might have been three poor planting seasons in the US Midwest but that has not done much to support a rally in grain and bean prices. There is plenty of supply from other sources and that has helped to keep prices down. The additional impact of swine flu, cutting out demand for grains, has been an additional factor in containing price momentum.

Rallying copper tends to indicate demand for home-building and other industrial inputs -- all signs of a reasonably strong economy, a message reinforced by range-bound gold prices, according to the billionaire bond manager. The gauge has worked “phenomenally well” as a short-term predictor of where Treasury yields are headed, Gundlach said.

“It’s one of the best indicators for near-term movement -- for the next month or next couple of months -- for 10-year Treasury yields,” Gundlach said in a phone interview. “It’s remarkable how well it’s worked and as time goes by, I feel more and more inclined to follow it and act on it.”

He said in September that markets had likely seen the low of the year in yields after the 10-year rate plunged to 1.43% that month, the lowest since 2016. So far that’s panned out.

Bond strategists largely see the 10-year Treasury yield struggling to breach 2% in 2020. On the bullish side, Citigroup Inc. predicts the rate will hit a record low of 1.25% next year, and Societe Generale predicts 1.2%.

At the American Association of Technical Analysts conference last March, when I opined 10-year yields were going all the way back down to 1.5% there was a lot of push back from delegates that a rally of that magnitude was even possible let along probable. By the time the rally peaked $17 trillion in bonds had negative yields. Today that figure is closer to $11.7 trillion and the trend points towards further contraction.

“If there were no issues with these mines they probably would have been taken out a long time ago, or even before they came into production,” said James Bell, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “It gives the mid-tier miners an opportunity to get hold of large assets.”

There has been constant talk about more deals in the past year after Newmont Mining Corp.’s $10 billion acquisition of Goldcorp Inc. and Barrick Gold Corp.’s $5.4 billion takeover of Randgold Resources Ltd.

Takeover targets being mentioned include Pretium Resources Inc. and TMAC Resources Inc., which mine in Canada, said Peter Grosskopf, chief executive officer of money manager Sprott Inc. Torex Gold Resources Inc., which operates in Mexico, has also been touted as a potential target, he said.

Gold miners are still shy about spending money on speculative greenfield projects and perhaps more importantly banks are not exactly enthused at the prospect of funding commodity speculation after their experience of the last few years. That means acquisitions are the only way right now to boost supply meaningfully for individual miners and the reasonable valuations still present in the sector lends some urgency to decisions.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa cut short a trip abroad to deal with an escalating crisis at the state power company, which imposed a sixth day of blackouts that threaten to tip the economy into recession.

The rand declined the most in a month Tuesday as Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. said there’s a high likelihood of power cuts all week and mining companies including Sibanye Gold Ltd., the world’s biggest platinum producer, temporarily halted operations. Vodacom Group Ltd., the nation’s biggest mobile operator, said the outages are disrupting its service.

The Eskom debacle is the result of graft running rampant following the end of apartheid and this is not the first time powercuts have been an issue in South Africa. The massive run-up in the price of platinum in 2007/08 was in no small part as a result of power being cut off to mines. When power was reinstated the price came back down.

One of the most commonly asked questions by subscribers is how to find details of my open traders. In an effort to make it easier I will simply repost the latest summary daily until there is a change. I'll change the title to the date of publication of new details so you will know when the information was provided.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

The biggest takeaway from this report is RBC, one of Canada’s largest banks, is only now re-assuming coverage of the North American gold mining sector. Nothing signals a prolonged bear market like banks culling trading desks and firing analysts. As prices deteriorate, interest evaporates, liquidity declines and coverage disappears. When a new bullish story evolves it takes time for management teams to warm up to the idea of spending the money necessary to build a business unit to profit from it. The fact more banks are now engaging with the market suggests the sales effort is also going to receive a boost.

The estimate of the Brazilian coffee crop of 2019 is 49 million bags of 60 kg This means a 20 % drop from 2018, when Brazil produced a record crop of 62 million bags. This is a big difference. But it is due to the fact, first that Brazil is in the “off-year” of its two-year coffee production cycle, which alternates between years of high and low production cycles. The coffee trees are resting one in two years. Second, there has been irregular weather that was not good for the crop. And third, the farmers are diminishing the crop care because of prices that have fallen too low. This is happening after a bumper “on-year” which brought a collapse of prices. The influence of Brazil on the world coffee market is important because it is the largest producer. (62 million bags on a total world production of 175 million bags). But in the other countries the same causes have most of the time had the same effect.

What must be noticed also is that very low prices because of overproduction were normal to a certain extent, but as always, investment funds and speculators (or call these also investors with a euphemism) went about 51.000 contracts short (equals 12.750.000 bags) and then suddenly reduced these short positions to about 17.000. This of course amplifies the movements of the market, this time to higher but still not normal prices. In the meantime, the farmers are starving with a daily income of 3 dollars, flee their central American countries and try to get in the U.S. It’s a shame, a hard world. That’s why in my company we promote Fair Trade Coffee, now at about the double of the price of the market. We are making nearly half of our turnover with this coffee.

The Real is also an important parameter, but it is not the only one. The two charts of coffee and Real are often linked, but not always when such fundamental events are happening;

Thank you for this valuable insight into the machinations of the coffee market. The two-year cycle of coffee tree productivity is an important consideration when weighing the likelihood of a downtrend due to overproduction persisting. The fact farmers are walking off their farmers in Central America is an inhibitor to increasing supply but as you point out Brazil is the primary source of Arabica.

Linking his trade agenda with his Fed criticism in an early morning tweet, he said the two South American countries “have been presiding over a massive devaluation of their currencies, which is not good for our farmers.”

The president’s action amounts to retaliation against two nations that have become alternative suppliers of soybeans and other agricultural products to China, grabbing market share away from the U.S. Rural voters, including farmers, are a key constituency for Trump as he heads into the 2020 presidential elections.

While the steel tariffs could crimp trade, the Latin American countries gain much more shipping crops to Chinese buyers. In the first 10 months of the year, Brazil has shipped $25.5 billion in farm products including soybeans and pork to China. That’s more than 10 times the value of steel and iron product sold to the U.S.

This action is as much about the persistent strength of the Dollar as it is about pandering to farm voters in swing states. The US Dollar has been trending higher against the vast majority of international currencies for the last few years. The growth differential the USA has enjoyed has been one factor in that strength but the Fed’s policy of balance sheet contraction and hiking interest rates was more important.

Instead, he said he wanted to demonstrate the strength of his nation’s $586 billion economy -- the largest in the EU’s east. Poland has doubled its gold holdings in the past two years and now has the region’s biggest stockpile.

Hungary, though, has been an active buyer too. Gold reserves surged 10-fold last year, setting the clamor for the metal in the countries around it in motion. Serbia’s strongman leader Aleksandar Vucic took note, ordering the central bank to boost reserves and prompting the purchase of nine tons in October. Vucic said last week that more should be bought because “we see in which direction the crisis in the world is moving.”

The biggest nation to emerge from the breakup of Yugoslavia still keeps some of its gold abroad, the central bank said by email. The region is buying more of the metal because of global uncertainty over trade and politics, Brexit and low interest rates, it said.

Romania had also sought to relocate some of its gold reserves from the U.K., but those plans were put on hold when the government behind them was ousted in October.

The massive investments in new gold supply made during the commodity bull market, in the decade to 2011, have resulted in mined supply of gold rising steadily. One of the reasons the gold market has been able to sustain a breakout from its base formation is because much of that supply is being acquired by global central banks. They are attempting to insure themselves against the threat of a disorderly resolution to the looming debt mountains built up over the course of a forty-year secular bull market for bonds.

Investors remain very concerned about the impact of slowing economic growth on global oil demand. While Q2 did show some softening, there have been several very bullish developments that most investors seem to ignore. For example, analysts focused all of their attention on the IEA’s recent downward revision of 2020 global demand projections by 100,000 b/d over the course of the last three months. However, at the same time, the IEA quietly revised historical demand higher by 190,000 b/d in 2017 and 110,000 b/d in 2018–a fact that few people wrote about. Notably, Q4 of 2018 was revised higher by a very large 300,000 b/d.

Our models tell us that more revisions are forthcoming. As always, our analysis revolves around the “missing” barrels. For example, the IEA still claims after its latest set of historical revisions that global demand for all of 2018 equaled 99.3 mm b/d while total supply equaled 100.3 mm b/d. This suggests that inventories should have grown by 1 mm b/d or 365 mm b for the full year. Instead, the IEA reports that inventories were unchanged for the year. We refer to the “missing” barrels as oil that was produced but neither consumed nor put in storage. We have long argued that “missing barrels” are a clear indicator that the IEA will revise higher its demand figures and once again that has been correct.

The IEA has a long history of demand underestimation. In eight of the last nine years, they have been forced to revise global demand higher by 1.1 m b/d on average (a number that is creeping higher). Despite this chronic underestimation and the continued presence of “missing barrels,” investors continue to ignore the warning signs of stronger than expected demand.

The backwardation in the oil price curve suggests at least a near-term supply deficit relative to demand. That has been created either by the slowdown in the global economic which could have impacted demand growth or it is a combination of factors like the reduction in OPEC and Russia supply and the slowdown in unconventional onshore US production. Regardless of the argument, the backwardation doesn’t lie.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Christine Lagarde’s first speech was today and she made a point to saying the EU’s governments need to step up and make a contribution to providing stimulus. The USA, UK, Australia, Canada’s provinces and China are already engaged in fiscal stimulus. The USA is also now inflating the size of its balance sheet and the total asset figure for the world’s major central banks is up by a commensurate amount suggesting the other central banks have not yet embraced the need for major additional asset builds.

The investment data shows how cautious private companies have become, with their spending in the first 10 months of the year at the lowest level since 2016. The continued stability in spending by state-owned firms’ is preventing an even stronger drop in the headline data.

Investment in the property market is one bright spot, with spending by the manufacturing sector barely above the record low recorded in September. Infrastructure investment growth continued to bounce along around 4% as it has all year.

“I’m quite concerned with property investment, the only stable element in fixed-asset investment now,” according to Xue Zhou, analyst at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd in Hong Kong. “Monetary policy needs to be more supportive on economic growth and there should be more cuts to banks’ reserve ratios to help smaller banks.”

The first couple of months of the year are when the Chinese financial system gets its annual quota for lending and generally makes its full allocation by around Chinese New Year. That sends a surge of liquidity into the market in January and February but the broader question is how much of that is already priced in considering it is so predictable.

Finally, there’s little evidence that negative rates have held back lending. A recent ECB working paper shows deposits with commercial lenders have increased since the central bank introduced negative deposit rates. At the same time, companies with large cash holdings have cut their deposits and invested more. That’s exactly the goal of this policy.

In fact, banks that pass on negative rates to customers appear to provide more credit than other lenders. This suggests that, contrary to what those Wall Street titans say, the problem with negative rates is that not enough banks inflict them on their clients.

It’s certainly possible that monetary policy becomes less effective as central banks cut interest rates deeper into negative territory. Gauti Eggertsson of Brown University and Larry Summers of Harvard have looked at Sweden, a pioneer in cutting rates below zero. They concluded that while its first two negative moves reduced lending rates, this wasn’t repeated after two later cuts.

However, similar diminishing returns are seen in other unorthodox measures, including asset purchases. The authors also acknowledge that the rate cuts might have boosted Sweden’s economy via other channels, for example by depreciating the krona, allowing the government to borrow more and boosting asset prices.

Forcing people into speculative activity when asset prices are already at record highs is not exactly a recipe for financial security over the medium to long term. In the short-term it greatly increases bubble risk.

Drier than average conditions are forecast across the Brazilian coffee region over the next five days, particularly in Cerrado, Marex Spectron said in emailed weather report.

Regions of southern Espirito Santo, southeast Minas Gerais and southeast Sao Paulo are forecast to be wetter than average
In the next five days thereafter, the whole Brazilian coffee region is expected to be wetter than average, except for the northern coffee region, which is expected to be slightly drier than normal

VIETNAM

Typhoon Nakri is forecast to weaken to a tropical depression before it makes landfall over central or eastern Vietnam between Nov. 10 and 11

“It is associated with heavy rain and strong, sustained winds”

There is an anomaly of 10 mm predicted across the Central Highland region over the next five days
Drier than average conditions expected in the northern coffee areas
NOTE: Vietnam Coffee Harvest Threatened by Tropical Storm: Maxar

Arabica coffee is particularly affected by weather conditions in Brazil and the price is also influenced by the outlook for the Real. Meanwhile Robusta coffee is much more dependent on growing conditions in the Vietnamese highlands

“If China, U.S. reach a phase-one deal, both sides should roll back existing additional tariffs in the same proportion simultaneously based on the content of the agreement, which is an important condition for reaching the agreement,” Gao said.

Such an understanding could help provide a road-map to a deal de-escalating the trade war that’s cast a shadow over the world economy. China’s key demand since the start of negotiations has been the removal of punitive tariffs imposed by Trump, which by now apply to the majority of its exports to the U.S.

The US Presidential election is less than a year away. The time to prime the pump so growth is humming by the time people vote is now. China might have suffered more from the tariffs, because it has more to lose, but it is also well aware of the electoral timing the Trump administration is pressured by. That suggests a deal is likely to be signed and it is likely to be valid for at least a year.

“The jobs data was not really inflationary but very good for the stock market,” George Gero, a managing director at RBC Wealth Management, said by phone Friday. “On the other hand, you don’t see any kind of a sell-off because of all the global worries. So now it’s a waiting game to see what will happen with interest rates and the stock market and all the worries.”

I like that expression “all the worries”. It implies the only reason gold can rally is because of worry about something else. There is some accuracy to that statement but the bigger point is a hedge is a risk mitigation strategy. If you are not worried about something as an investor, it is really time to take a close look at one’s portfolio. The best definition of bravery I have heard is “feel the fear and do it anyway”. That’s about as close to the best maxim for investing I have ever seen. When we worry about nothing, and are supremely confident in our convictions, it is usually when we are at most risk.

But about 95% of gas stations with convenience stores are independently owned, which includes mom-and-pops that license brand names. Some consumers will pay more for brand-name gas as they will for Prada purses or Starbucks lattes. As gas prices rise, consumers may also burn more money than they save driving in search of the cheapest stations.

Notably, the commission ignores that retail margins include labor costs, utilities, rent and taxes. In 2012 the state increased taxes on high earners, which hit many small businesses. California’s minimum wage has increased by 50% since 2013. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, worker wages at California gas stations over the last five years have increased 50% more than nationwide.

Mr. Newsom has threatened legal action against oil companies to “protect the public.” But liberals have long wanted higher gas prices so folks will ditch gas-powered cars. The Governor last month ordered revenue to be redirected from the last gas tax hike, which was supposed to fund highway construction, to projects that “reverse the trend of increased fuel consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

So Californians in the future can look forward to paying more to drive on deteriorating roads as they head to homes without electricity due to blackouts. How long will it take California voters to figure out that these are problems made in Sacramento by politicians?

Spikes in crude oil prices are associated with recessions because they represent a tax on consumption. It’s not coincidence that one of the reasons Europe’s economies have subpar growth is because they tax economic output through regulation and carbon trading with the express aim of increasing costs. California is well on the way to achieving the same outcomes.

“Can you please give me the key to charting gold bullion in GBPs from your chart library. Many thanks in advance”

Thank you for this question which may be of interest to subscribers. Gold tends to do best in a negative real interest rate environment and when it is appreciating against most currencies.

There are a number of charts for gold in various currencies in the Chart Library. The easy way to find them is using the ticker code for gold as a currency which is XAU. Using XAU as the search term you will find charts for Gold in South African Rand, Indian Rupee, Swiss Franc, Brazilian Real, New Zealand Dollars, Swedish Krona, Singapore Dollars, Japanese Yen, Turkish Lira, Chinese Renminbi, Euro, British Pounds and Australian Dollars.

“There is a lot of confusion and uncertainty out there,” said Paolo d’Amico, head of Intertanko, a trade body representing tanker owners. “Everyone is afraid of being hit by the U.S., sanctions, rendering about 50 VLCCs untouchable.”

U.S. oil exports to Europe, which usually move in smaller tankers, hit a record 1.8 million barrels a day for the week ending Oct. 7, according to Kpler, an energy market intelligence company. The figure is double the 924,000 barrels in the previous week. But shipments to Asia, which are typically done on VLCCs, were reduced almost in half to 508,000 barrels.

A Singapore broker said rates for some VLCC cargoes on sailings from the U.S. Gulf Coast to the Far East were more than $120,000 on Thursday. Average earnings for supertankers picking up cargoes from around the world hit $94,124 a day, up from $18,284 on Sept. 25, when Washington blacklisted the Cosco fleet.

“VLCCs to Asia are a rare commodity, the market is red hot and will stay that way while the U.S. sanctions on Cosco ships are in place,” said the broker, who asked not to be named because he isn’t authorized to talk to the media.

The Baltic Dirty Tanker Index broke out on the upside last week, to trade above 1500 for the first time since 2008. That follows the breakout in the Baltic Dry Index in August. The latter’s move has not been as pronounced but does highlight the additional pressure on the shipping sector from the impending implementation of the IMO2020 rules on ship emissions.

I have to admit I don’t look at the internals of the market all that often because it is the trend rather than the day to day moves which lend some insight into the health of the market. I thought it might be useful to look at some of the most common measures to discern if any clues to market direction are evident.

The Total Number of New 52 Week Highs on the NYSE Index is coming back down towards the lows December 2018 and towards the end of 2015. The significant spike on the upside in late 2017 was an anomaly suggesting a period of underperformance ahead, but generally lows are better predictors of market bottoms than spikes are of tops.

Multiple surveys show that traders and investors see the U.S.-China trade war as the biggest risk facing markets. Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s latest monthly poll of global fund managers, released in mid-September, revealed that the number of respondents who said trade tensions were the biggest danger outstripped by far those who cited ineffective monetary policy and the potential bursting of the bond bubble. In her first major address as head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva said Tuesday that the global economy is in a synchronized slowdown, in part due to trade uncertainty. Also on Tuesday, the National Federation of Independent Business said its small-business sentiment index fell to near the lowest level of Donald Trump’s presidency. Even more notable was that the part of the index measuring “uncertainty” plunged to its lowest since February 2016.  “More owners are unable to make a statement confidently, good or bad, about the future of economic conditions,” the group said, with 30% of respondents reporting “negative effects” from tariffs. To cut to the chase, if businesses can’t forecast with any confidence, how can investors or strategists?

U.S. and China trade negotiators are scheduled to meet on Thursday to resume talks. What’s discouraging is that instead of making conciliatory comments, each side seems to be hardening their stances. Chinese officials said Monday that what isn’t on the table from China’s perspective — and never will be — are changes to its laws to protect foreign intellectual property. Later that day, the U.S. placed eight of China’s technology giants on a blacklist over alleged human rights violations against Muslim minorities. In response, China hinted that it might retaliate. Then the news broke that the Trump administration is moving ahead with discussions around possible restrictions on portfolio flows into China. None of this sounds like either side is ready to make a deal.

Political rhetoric amplifying ahead of the start of negotiations have been a trend that has evolved over the last year. Each of the other occasions has ended in disappointment and the market is now pricing in a similar conclusion to the upcoming talks.

On a global level, bonds with a value of about $15 trillion currently trade with a negative yield. What’s going on here?

For every investor today, the starting point must be the bond market. Just a few weeks ago, we had $17 trillion of negative yielding debt. We’re now down to about 15, but even that is way too much. This is investment money that is guaranteed to produce a loss of capital. These extreme levels in today’s bond market can only have three possible explanations. One, the world faces an economic meltdown of epic proportions. Two, the bond market is the biggest bubble we have ever witnessed, and three, we have just experienced a massive buying panic in bonds.

I agree with all three of these points so we then need to address the question of what will happen to deflate the bubble. The answer is inflation which is like kryptonite for the bond market. The only way anyone can justify buying bonds with a negative yield is if they believe the deflationary argument is self-fulfilling. 

High pork prices in the northeastern province of Jilin is prompting farmers to raise pigs to reach an average weight of 175 kilograms to 200 kilograms, higher than the normal weight of 125 kilograms. They want to raise them “as big as possible,” said Zhao Hailin, a hog farmer in the region.

The trend isn’t limited to small farms either. Major protein producers in China, including Wens Foodstuffs Group Co, the country’s top pig breeder, Cofco Meat Holdings Ltd. And Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co. say they are trying to increase the average weight of their pigs. Big farms are focusing on boosting the heft by at least 14%, said Lin Guofa, a senior analyst with consulting firm Bric Agriculture Group.

The average weight of pigs at slaughter at some large-scale farms has climbed to as much as 140 kilograms, compared with about 110 kilograms normally, Lin said. That could boost profits by more than 30%, he said.

The large swine are being bred during a desperate time for China. With African swine fever decimating the nation’s hog herd -- in half, by some estimates -- prices of pork have soared to record levels, leading the government to urge farmers to boost production to temper inflation. Wholesale pork prices in China have surged more than 70% this year.

There is no cure of African Swine Flu and it is almost always fatal for pigs that contract the disease. That spread of the disease in China has put upward pressure on the price of pork and rebuilding the national herd is going to take at least a few years. That is assuming the necessary sanitation measures are taken to insulate the supply chain from cross contamination, which represents a significant additional cost.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area.

The one thing we know is the consensus’ in markets seldom reach the worst or best predictions of investors. The rationale for MMT is compelling. The US government is already running a $1 trillion deficit in a boom and needs to pay for that with a large issuance of bonds. Since this is occurring before a crisis, investors logically conclude that trend has to continue in a linear manner. However, we have ample evidence of outcomes eventually working out much differently in reality.

A strengthening dollar and the rally in equities is spoiling the party for gold bulls. Gold futures tumbled to the lowest in almost eight weeks after the Trump administration partially refuted a report that it would target Chinese capital market. Speculation is mounting that Washington issued the statement to encourage Beijing to move closer to signing a deal with Washington, a strategist at R.J. O’Brien & Associates said.

Monday’s slump trimmed the precious metal’s fourth straight quarterly gain, the longest winning streak in eight years. Bulls are retreating after taking their net-long position in gold to the highest in government data going back to 2006.

The strength in the greenback “is the biggest headwind for gold right now,” Phil Streible of RJO said by phone from Chicago.
 

The point I find most interesting about the move we are seeing in gold is how similar it is in magnitude to what occurred in the early 2000s. The initial spike occurred in 1999 but it took about two and half years for the price to breakout to new highs. It subsequently rallied 18% from the breakout point and retraced the whole move, to test the upper side of the base, before trending higher in an impressive manner for the next nine years.

Police of the PRC searched the house of Zhang Qi, 57, the former mayor of Danzhou and found a large amount of cash, as well as 13.5 tons of gold in ingots in a secret basement of his home, reported local media.

In addition to the mayor’s post, the official held others, such as the Secretary of the Communist Party. According to unofficial reports, in addition to the gold, cash worth 268 billion yuan was discovered.

Luxurious real estate with a total area of ​​several thousand square meters, which the former city manager had been hiding for a long time, became the cherry on the cake for the Chinese Anti-Corruption Committee.

One of the most memorable quotes I’ve heard in China was back in 2011 when the communist official from a small town a couple of hours north of Beijing said to me “I’m only a small guy so I’m only a little corrupt”. His boss was the county head and the gift to attend his daughter’s wedding was a stack of CNY100 notes six inches tall. They were counting the money in cubic metres. Then think about the head of the head of a province like Hainan which is being developed as “China’s Hawaii”. From that perspective the monopoly money sums are still huge but do help to highlight just how engrained corruption is.

Peloton Interactive Inc. fell as much as 9.5% Thursday after raising $1.16 billion in its U.S. initial public offering, becoming the latest unprofitable startup to fail to win over investors in its trading debut.

Peloton’s shares opened at $27 and were down 7.2% to $26.90 at 12:38 p.m. in New York trading, giving the company a value $7.5 billion. The fitness startup sold 40 million shares for $29 each on Wednesday, after marketing them for $26 to $29.

It marks the third-worst trading debut in 10 years in the U.S. for companies that have raised at least $1 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The IPO also comes as investors have been rattled by the sudden disintegration of WeWork’s plan to go public in September.

Peloton Chief Executive Officer John Foley said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that he had “some disappointment” about the reception but was confident in his company’s prospects.

The one point that seemed to get very little commentary in the lead up to this IPO was just how fad-prone the fitness industry is. Soul Cycle and spinning are all the rage at the moment. I personally go to at least two, if not three, hybrid cycling and toning classes a week. After 18 months of these classes I am starting to find them monotonous and that is a big challenge for a company that is trying to sell a range of workouts via phone or its enormously overpriced pieces of equipment. I just can’t see why someone would pay $40 to Peloton for online classes when they can pay the same or less at an LAFitness without the capital expense and space requirement of the exercise equipment.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Germany failed to sell a 2 billion zero coupon bond in August which was a precursor to the reversionary move seen in bond prices. However, the economy is recession and there is no prospect of the ECB raising rates. Instead quantitative easing will further increase the ECB’s holdings of regional sovereigns.

Richard Russell used to say “print or die” and that is exactly what the central banks of the world are going to do. What I find particularly interesting is the comparison with debt levels only being approximating current levels during wartime. That must mean we are in a war but this time it is with ourselves and the contention is about the ability to pay unfunded liabilities.

One of the most commonly asked questions by subscribers is how to find details of my open traders. In an effort to make it easier I will simply repost the latest summary daily until there is a change. I'll change the title to the date of publication of new details so you will know when the information was provided. 

Despite that optimism, gold miners say they aren’t planning the same sort of megaprojects and acquisition sprees that characterized the last ramp up in prices in the years ahead of 2011. Instead, wary of volatile prices, they plan to pay down debt and return money to shareholders.

Many companies, including the world’s largest gold miner, Newmont Goldcorp Corp., say they will only approve new projects if they can make money with gold at $1,200, about 20% below where the metal currently trades. Gold prices also have spent the majority of the eight years since 2011’s bust trading above that level, underscoring how conservative companies have become.

“We won’t push ahead with investments that would struggle to sustain themselves if the gold price trades lower,” said Kelvin Dushnisky, chief executive of AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. “This was a common mistake for many gold producers in the previous upcycle.” The South African miner, whose share price has risen 62% in the year to date, is among the companies sticking by the $1,200 threshold for new projects.

In the early part of a mining investment cycle, miners have been so scarred by the depth of the bear market that they run tight ships and eschew debt. However, the higher prices rise and the more pressure they come under to replace reserves and increase supply, the lure of debt, mergers and exploration increases leverage ratios.

One would be forgiven for concluding that algorithms have been programed with round numbers in mind. Roundophobia has been a topic of conversation at The Chart Seminar for decades but it is particularly relevant now because so many instruments have paused in the region of big round numbers. I’m greatly looking forward to the next event which will be in London on October 3rd and 4th.

“In reality, FedEx’s release is largely the result of many management missteps over the years, including overspending on aircraft despite weaker returns in Express over the long-term, and acquisition debacles,” he said in note to investors.

Trade-War Impact
The U.S.-China trade war has weighed on manufacturers, disrupting a key market for FedEx. A surge in industrial jobs seen in the first two years of Trump’s presidency has reversed in parts of the country, and there’s evidence that some corners of the U.S. economy are sliding toward recession. Companies have slowed business investment and capital expenditures as uncertainty over trade policies has clouded the outlook for future growth.

For FedEx, the weaker outlook underscored the hurdles as the company introduces costly changes to its ground network to handle surging e-commerce deliveries while contending with rising competition from Amazon.

Amazon is now a larger shipper of items than either UPS or Fedex within the US market, from a standing start a couple of year ago. UPS still ships items for Amazon but that business is declining while Fedex is attempting to forge relationships with upstarts in the warehousing sector like Deliverr and Shopify. If the share price is any guide that latter strategy is in its infancy at best. Meanwhile it has been my experience that Fedex is successfully. competing on price for international bulk shipping business to Amazon’s European warehouses.

China’s central bank drained funds from the financial system and kept the one-year rate on medium-term loans steady on Tuesday morning, a move analysts said shows it’s sticking with its prudent approach to stimulus. That’s even after data Monday signaled the economy slowed in August, with industrial output, retail sales and fixed-asset investment rising less than anticipated.

“Investors now realize the central bank won’t ease its monetary policy as aggressively,” Zhang Gang, a strategist with Central China Securities Co. “The market was due for a pullback after the Shanghai index climbed above 3,000-point level. Turnover failed to keep up.”

China’s government is more worried about a property bubble than a growth slowdown. it would be tempting to think they have reached the conclusion that massive money printing only helps to inflate asset prices and does not deliver quality growth which is capable of sustaining the economy during tough times. On the other hand perhaps they have an inflationary problem and don't want to exacerbate it. 

Industrial output rose 4.4% from a year earlier in August, the lowest for a single month since 2002, while retail sales came in below expectations. Fixed-asset investment slowed to 5.5% in the first eight months, with the private sector lagging state investment for the 6th month.

The data add support to the argument that policy makers’ efforts to brake the slowing economy aren’t sufficient as the nation grapples with structural downward pressure at home, the risk of yet-higher tariffs on exports to the U.S. and now surging oil prices. Nomura International Ltd. said this all raises the likelihood that the People’s Bank of China will cut its medium-term lending rate on Tuesday.

China’s monetary and fiscal policy arms are walking a tight wire between overstimulating the property market, which already has bubbly characteristics, versus trying to support flagging growth in the industrial sector which is hurting from the global slowdown and the trade war. The devaluation of the Renminbi is a partial solution but there is a clear need for more conclusive action to support the economy not least because a weaker currency stokes inflation for such a large commodity importer.

China is encouraging companies to buy U.S. farm products, and will exclude them from added tariffs. Many crop prices are heading for their best week since at least June on optimism that Beijing and Washington are inching toward a deal. The year-long trade spat has undercut farmer profits and boosted debt levels in the U.S. as Chinese demand fell off.

There was evidence of fresh Chinese buying Friday as the U.S. government reported 204,000 tons of soybeans sold to the Asian nation, the first such announcement in more than two
months.

“We are hopeful that this apparent gesture of goodwill by China leads not only to more sales of U.S. pork, but that it contributes to a resolution of U.S.-China trade restrictions,” said David Herring, a North Carolina hog farmer and president of trade group National Pork Producers Council.

The balance of the trade war hangs in how much domestic damage can be tolerated versus damage inflicted on an adversary. Food price inflation for China may be of a more urgent dilemma than the trade war at present. China is nowhere near being self sufficient in soy and the scourge of African swine flu has destroyed the domestic pig industry. Since pork is the staple protein for a significant proportion of the population that represents an issue not least as prices surge.

The unprecedented revolt took place during a fractious meeting where Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau joined more traditional hawks including his Dutch colleague Klaas Knot and Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann in pressing against an immediate resumption of bond purchases, the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity, because such discussions are confidential.

Those three governors alone represent roughly half of the euro region as measured by economic output and population. Other dissenters included, but weren’t limited, to their colleagues from Austria and Estonia, as well as members on the ECB’s Executive Board including Sabine Lautenschlaeger and the markets chief, Benoit Coeure, the officials said.

The competition to influence the replacement of Mario Draghi as head of the ECB is heating up. Verbal opposition to the policies announced today came from a number of the countries who were contenders in the race for the top job. Proving your verbal commitment to monetary prudence is almost a pre-requisite in some countries, regardless of the reality once in office. 

U.S. stocks edged higher, and Treasuries inched lower after a mixed jobs report fueled bets the Federal Reserve will cut rates in two weeks. The dollar declined.

The S&P 500 headed for its second weekly gain as investors keyed on underlying strength in the report that signaled a solid labor market that isn’t too strong to deter further central bank easing. Megacap technology stocks weighed on benchmarks after New York opened an antitrust probe into Facebook Inc.

The 10-year Treasury yield erased most of its earlier gains, while the dollar headed for its fourth straight fall following the payroll numbers. Chairman Jerome Powell is set to make public remarks Friday. Crude sank toward $55 a barrel in New York.

The bond market has already priced in at least a 25-basis point cut so the soft jobs report confirms the need for additional easier policy. China also cut its bank reserve requirements today in an effort to extend credit. The ECB is expected to announce some form of easing when it meets next week and the region’s bond markets have been busy pricing in a negative short-term interest rate. All of these measures contribute to stimulative measures.

We treat gold as a separate real asset type due to its well-accepted role as a store of value. Gold enjoyed more than a 10-fold price increase from the 1970s through its peak reflecting a period of rapid inflation. During periods of inflation uncertainty, investors seek gold as an inflation hedge.41 Similarly, gold may be a good recession hedge. In 2007-2008, while the S&P 500 was down -18.5% gold was up 16.6%, and in 2001-2002, while the S&P 500 was down -17.2% gold was up 12.1%. Investors can invest in physical gold but that incurs storage and insurance costs. Investors can also invest in COMEX gold futures (which trades the gold equivalent of 27m ounces per day). The roll yield on gold futures has been only slightly negative (-0.2% from 1996 to 2017). Investors may also invest in gold mining stocks and can enter into gold royalty agreements. Although gold is an under-owned institutional asset, some institutional investors such as government pension funds have target allocations to gold-related assets (including derivatives).

A link to the full report is posted in the Subcsriber's Area.

Gold is a hedge against uncertainty but perhaps most importantly against the worst inclinations of governments to debase their currencies. While there is a clear trend towards that latter point moving into overdrive all over the world, the gold market is notoriously volatile and we still do have a clear idea of what the consistency characteristics of the evolving medium-term trend are going to be.

However, the following chart illustrates the severe decline in production, i.e., peak gold, by the six largest gold miners. This particular group of companies has gone steadily downhill from an all-time high of 955 tonnes, or over 40% of world production in 2006, to a multi-decade low of 705 tonnes, or 22.5% of world production in 2017.

So not only are majors declining in the numbers of ounces (-26% over 12 years), they have also lost a significant share of the world gold mining market (-18%):

We have shown that the current narrative promulgated for peak gold applies to the major gold miners only and not for the gold mining industry as a whole. That said, the data presented above cover a relatively short time frame of 19 years: the end of a bear market for gold (2000-2002); a long bull market cycle (2003-2012); a relatively short but deep bear market (2013-2015); and a lower, range-bound gold price over the past three years (2016-2018).

To fully assess the idea of peak gold, I submit we must take a much longer-term view and determine what factors drive mining of the yellow metal.

According to the USGS, world gold production increased from 386 tonnes in 1900 to 3150 tonnes in 2017. That is an eight times increase and an average gain of 1.8% per year:

Mines are wasting assets by definition and the only way to continue to increase production is to spend more money on digging deeper. If that cost can be contained by technological advances then the mine can make a profit, otherwise they are wholly dependent on the price of the commodity rising to justify the expenditure. Therefore, secular bull markets in commodities are defined by a rise in marginal cost of production to a sufficiently high level which encourages new supply into the market.

One of the most commonly asked questions by subscribers is how to find details of my open traders. In an effort to make it easier I will simply repost the latest summary daily until there is a change. I'll change the title to the date of publication of new details so you will know when the information was provided. 

At the end of last year, a return of inflation was assumed to be inevitable with the 10-year Treasury yield trading comfortably above 3%, commodity prices recovering, wages marching higher, full employment and high capacity utilisation. The perspective could not be more different today.

Interminable deflation has been priced in to Treasury yields as they test the lows of the last eight years. Commodity prices are under pressure, the trade war has resulted in a number of export dependent nations flirting with recessions, purchasing managers indices suggest contracting manufacturing activity and an inverted yield curve has started the clock on the next recession. Meanwhile gold has exploded on the upside to complete a six-year base formation.

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan said on Friday that the nickel export curbs are "in line with President Joko Widodo's directives".

Indonesia's current account deficit reached US$31.1 billion (S$43.2 billion) in 2018. The widening deficits were an issue Mr Joko's political opponents frequently played up during his presidential campaign ahead of the April election. Mr Joko will be sworn in on Oct 20 to begin his second and final five-year term.

A senior government official had earlier argued that Indonesia could have recorded even higher deficits had the country not boosted efforts to climb up the value chain in the iron and steel sector, encouraging investors to build plants at home to process raw nickel into intermediate products such as stainless steel slabs.

Indonesia has long sought to gain more economic benefit from its commodity exports. That was particularly true of the tin market when exports were limited to refined products in 2013. The aim was to try and build up the domestic refining business but the collapse in prices in 2014 and 2015 killed off that idea. It now appears Indonesia is attempting to do something similar with nickel exports.

Reserve Bank of Australia comments in 2019/20 corporate plan released on website Friday.

“Over 2019/20 to 2022/23, the structure of the Australian economy will continue to evolve and economic shocks -- which, by definition, are not forecastable -- will occur. Movements in asset values and leverage may be more important for economic developments than in the past given the already high levels of debt on household balance sheets”

“Especially in the context of weak growth in household income, high debt levels could complicate future monetary policy decisions by making the economy less resilient to shocks”

“The flexible medium-term inflation target is the centerpiece of the monetary policy framework in Australia and has been well established for more than two decades. Since the early 1990s, it has provided the foundation for the bank to achieve its monetary policy objectives by providing an anchor for inflation expectations. The bank will remain alert to new developments that may have a bearing on the framework for monetary policy”

The Australian Dollar remains in a medium-term downtrend, moving to a new closing low today. With energy and iron-ore prices declining and the domestic housing market in a parlous condition the RBA may be required to embark on the same counter deflationary measures other developed markets have endured over the last decade.

Since then, we have had a mirror-like symmetrical reversal (a dis/deflationary blow-off). Look at the current inflation rates at the current cyclical peaks (i.e. not much inflation despite the world economy and financial markets being near a peak and despite all the central banks’ money printing) and imagine what they will be at the next cyclical lows. That is because there are strong deflationary forces at work as productive capacity has increased greatly. These forces are creating the need for extremely loose monetary policies that are forcing central banks to drive interest rates to such low levels and will lead to enormous deficits that are monetized, which is creating the blow-off in bonds that is the reciprocal of the 1980-82 blow-off in gold. The charts below show the 30-year T-bond returns from that 1980-82 period until now, which highlight the blow-off in bonds.

Today’s 7-year auction of Treasuries came in well below expectations suggesting at least some reticence to participate at decade-low yields. The effect on yields was minimal but we did see a pause in the run-up in gold.

Earlier this month Freeport LNG Development LP’s export terminal in a beach town south of Houston began buying and liquefying gas with the expectation of sending out its maiden cargo in September. The Freeport facility, the fifth to begin operating in the lower 48 states since the first opened in early 2016, should help push gas consumption from LNG exporters to a new high. Last week, a record nine LNG vessels left the U.S. carrying cargoes, according to Jefferies Financial Group Inc.

In July, LNG exporters consumed an average of about 6 billion cubic feet of gas per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That is the most yet and is equal to roughly 7% of total U.S. gas production. Analysts expect demand from LNG facilities to absorb about 12% of total production by next summer as additional facilities start up and existing terminals boost their capacity.

But if those projects are delayed because of low prices overseas or if existing LNG plants slow down or take advantage of the lull to perform extended maintenance, then the domestic gas market could be swamped, sending prices even lower.

“If that demand goes away even for a couple months, it becomes a real problem for the balance of the market,” said Welles Fitzpatrick, an analyst with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

Natural gas is a commodity widely associated with the rise of the global middle class. As living standards improve, and infrastructure is laid down, demand for cleaner burning fuels trends higher. The big change in the market over the last few years has been the creation of the global market for natural gas. Prior to this it was primarily a regional market because of a lack of transportation options. Significant investment in LNG terminals all over the world is turning the USA, Australia and potentially Canada into natural gas exporting giants to compete with Russia and Qatar. That represents a significant change to the status quo.

We’ve seen some important moves in gold and the precious metals over the last couple of months with the yellow metal emphatically breaking out of a six-year range base formation. The total of debt with negative yields is an important support for prices but the broader conclusion that competitive currency devaluation is now a reality is a more important bullish medium-term catalyst.

Gold and silver futures rose on Tuesday (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-higher-but-silver-sets-the-pace-2019-08- 7), with gold settling at a level not seen since 2013, and silver scoring its highest finish in more than two years. Prices for the precious metals got a boost from losses in the U.S. stock market, a drop in Treasury bond yields and a weaker dollar--all of which helped lift the metals' investment appeal. December gold climbed by $14.60, or 1%, to settle at $1,551.80 on Comex. That was the highest most-active contract settlement since April 2013, according to FactSet data. September silver added 51.2 cents, or 2.9%, to end at $18.153 an ounce, the highest since April 2017

The continued compression of government bond yields is creating significant demand for gold as a hedge against competitive currency devaluation. That is now starting to be manifested in other precious metals with silver playing catch up and platinum beginning to garner attention.