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TND Guest Contributor: Dave Kranzler |
First, today was the monthly Government non-farm payroll report folly. The best part about is that is gives us the entertainment content of watching CNBC’s Steve Lieman and Mark Zandi make absolute idiots of themselves.
The big media spin is that, supposedly, the economy has finally “recovered” the number of jobs that had been lost 2007. Even if that were true, big deal. If you look at the labor force participation rate, it’s at a 62.8% – a level last observed in early 1978 (Link), which is when most households were still one-worker families. Since 2007, 12.8 million people have disappeared from the labor force (retired, disability insurance, student loans, stopped looking/welfare). If you factor in population growth, getting back the jobs lost since 2007 is pathetic. And most of those jobs are lower-paying, temporary, or statistically created by the Government’s “birth/death model.”
As for Goldman Sachs’ hypothecation of Ecuador’s 13 tonnes of gold. Ecuador has 26 tonnes in total. You don’t manipulate the market with 26 tonnes. China withdraws over 30 tonnes per week from the Shanghai Gold Exchange. Then there’s India. Then there’s Russia. Then there’s Viet Nam (Viet Nam is the 5th largest gold importer in the world – that’s a fact). Then there’s all the other gold-buying countries. At least 50 tonnes of gold gets bought every week. This is gold that has to be delivered.
Coincidentally, or not coincidentally, Russia bought 25.5 tonnes in April. My bet is that Goldman may have needed that gold from Ecuador to deliver to Russia. If not Russia, then to any of the other buyers I mentioned above. It’s not the Govt of Viet Nam that buys gold. It’s the people. They want the real stuff, not a paper certificate.
Finally, we know the Bank England was missing 1300 tonnes of gold after the April 2013 $200 price takedown. It takes 1300 tonnes to manipulate the market, not 13 tonnes.Goldman has hypothecated 13 tonnes of gold from Ecuador that Ecuador likely will never see again.
How come no one is asking about the 1500 tonnes of German Govt gold that is missing from the Fed? How come no one is asking about the 1,000+ tonnes of gold that the Italian Govt keeps at the Fed? Ecuador’s 13 tonnes gets bought and delivered in less than 1/2 a week.
Finally, Zerohedge posted a piece by Charles Hugh-Smith in which he avers that the U.S. dollar is in an uptrend. He’s wrong. And it shows the problem with taking geometric shapes from 5th grade geometry and imposing them on the price-charts of things traded in the financial markets. Here, have a look:
(click in graph to enlarge)
I’m not saying that the U.S. dollar won’t go into an uptrend, but I am saying that it is definitively NOT in an uptrend. It needs to get over 81.53 before we can start debating “uptrend/no uptrend.”
I would bet against that happening – short of Fed manipulation. As you can see, the accumulation/distribution line is indicating that the dollar is now being sold in greater quantities than it’s being bought plus the RSI and MACD momentum indicators are rolling over. You can see the accum/distro line is actually rolling over on a 1-yr chart.
I stopped reading CH-S quite some time ago and that’s an example of why.
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About Dave Kranzler
I spent many years working in various analytic jobs and trading on Wall Street. For nine of those years, I traded junk bonds for Bankers Trust. I have an MBA from the University of Chicago, with a concentration in accounting and finance. My goal is to help people understand and analyze what is really going on in our financial system and economy. You can follow my work and contact me via my website Investment Research Dynamics. Occasionally, I publish on Seeking Alpha too. As a co-founder and principal of Golden Returns Capital, LLC Mr. Kranzler co-manages the Precious Metals Opportunity Fund, a metals and mining stock investment fund.
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