Oct 20, 2014
Has "it" begun?
Signs everywhere…
-third Chinese "backdoor QE" announcement in two months Friday
-heightened chatter of increased BOJ stock purchases
-European stocks plunging despite QE having started. Major Western sovereigns (even France, which had its outlook downgraded to negative by S&P last week) plunging to all-time lows…but PIIGS stocks and bonds collapsing, led by Greece (Athens stock index down 30% since April, and Greek 10-year yields up 200 bps last week)
-EU manufacturing, industrial production, sentiment plummeting, led by Germany - clearly in continent-wide recession, and falling quickly
-U.S. retail sales, industrial production plummeting. NFLX, WMT major earnings announcments last week, and IBM earnings catastrophe today
-Aritcle - "need or want, demand is dying"
Last week's market carnage, PPT not withstanding, was horrific
-vast majority of stocks in bear markets
-volatility surged, at times overwhelming "manipulation organizations" like the PPT, Fed, and ESF
-dollar index not "strong" last week b/c down vs. Euro, but continued to wreak havoc by surging against peripheral currencies
-Article - "the single most bullish PM factor imaginable"
-biggest one-day percentage drop in Treasury history Wednesday morning, when 10-year plunged from 2.2% to 1.9% in an hour (en route to Japanese and German levels sub 1%, before hyperinflation inevitably destroys them)
-Article - "most damning proof yet of QE failure"
-commodities continue to crash, as well as all indicators of global trade
-Articles - "Commodity Crash! (but don't worry, gold and silver are not commodities), "Crashing Oil prices portend unspeakable horrors"
Fed desperate to maintain calm
-Six Fed governors hinted at "QE and/or ZIRP to Infinity" last week, including Vice Chairman S. Fischer
-"coincidentally," five are on the 2015 FOMC voting committee, while the two biggest "hawks" (Plosser and R. Fisher) will be departing
- crucial FOMC meeting 10/29, when QE supposedly ends, just six days before critical mid-term elections (with both Presidential and Congressional approval ratings at all-time lows)
- Article - "Manipulation, Jawboning, and Prayer"
- of course, this is all that matters
PM fundamentals never stronger, with record physical demand for both metals
-for silver specifically, best risk/reward in history
-demand in India, the U.S., and Canada on pace to match 2014's record levels