SNB Talks Of Taking Their Negative Rates Further Into Negative Territory!

April 24, 2019

* The dollar gains VS almost all currencies and metals yesterday…

* Russian ruble is lone wolf currency gaining VS the dollar yesterday… 

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! From 13 runs one night to barely able to sneak across a run or two last night, was the roller coaster ride for Cardinals fans… That’s baseball! Today is a day game, and I thought I was going, but a death in the family of a friend, put those best laid plans of mice and men to rest… It’s supposed to be a day with periods of rain, so, I guess it’s better this way. I had a great lunch yesterday with longtime friend Frank, who told me all about his recent journey through the mountains and wilderness in Argentina, on foot! WOW! Led Zeppelin greets me this morning with their song: All Of My Love…

Well, stuck in the mud no more was the scene for the currencies yesterday, as they lost more ground throughout the day… Not HUGE moves but still downward moves and that’s not what I would expect given the rotten data that has been shooting out of the pipeline here in the U.S. I really don’t get it, but then all my magical powers of yesteryear have seen to have drifted away from me… And when I see something that appears evident, it turns out to be that it’s not imminent!

Here’s the explanation of the dollar strength yesterday from Reuters… “The dollar hovered near a 22-month high against its peers on Wednesday, after strong U.S. housing data further eased concerns of a slowdown in the world’s biggest economy.”

Really? Strong data? Currency traders are pinning their colors to the mast of “housing data”? Well, bust my buttons (which is what I’ve been doing latey, as I gain more weight once again! UGH), I would have never thought that Currency traders would be so thin skinned… and dumb! But I digress, here… Let’s talk about something else!

In something that should count as a reason for a currency to rally, much more than a split decision on Housing Data (recall yesterday I told you that Existing Home Sales dropped big time) and that is the German sentiment index as measured by the think tank IFO, was up for this month VS March… Shouldn’t that be a more of a reason to buy euros, than the split decision in housing data was to buy dollars? Well, yes… I’ll answer my own question, because you know what I was getting at!

Yesterday, I mentioned the Swiss franc and how it was losing ground because of the euro’s inability to find a bid… But there’s more to the story than that, and it came across my desk yesterday, in the form of an email… That stated that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) was seriously thinking about taking their current negative rates even further into negative territory! What on earth, are these dolts at the SNB thinking? I guess they want to see the franc get Smack, crack, bushwhacked Tie another one to your racks, baby…. (thanks REM!)

The price of Oil continues to ratchet higher each day, and this morning its trading with a $66 handle…  I haven’t had to fill my gas tank since I’ve been back (I just don’t drive much any longer) So, I not aware of the price gouging in refined gas, but I’m sure it’s there!  Higher gas prices as we draw nearer to the summer driving season, is a sure way to put a crimper on consumer spending for other things… I’m just saying… 

Hey! I’ve got a great piece on metals manipulation in the FWIW section for you today, but before we get there I have this… Did you know that…. There was a recent interview in which former CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton confirmed that JPMorgan took over Bear Stearns’ short positions and dominated and controlled the short side of COMEX silver despite CFTC demands that it cease is a case in point. Did I make myself celar there, the CFTC demanded that JPMorgan cease their short paper trading in Silver, and JPMorgan chose to ignore this demand from the commodities regulator?

What On earth is going on here? OK… here’s my take on this, if you don’t want to hear this I suggest you skip ahead, for I’m going to go down a very dark rabbit hole on manipulation… OK, everyone that wants to hear this with me now? OK, opening up the hatch on the rabbit hole, and here I go! I’ve long told you all that I believed the U.S. was behind the manipulation, for the reason that is so evident right now, they can’t have people/ countries/ central banks leaving the dollar… Ok, got that?
Now skip to this new revelation that the CFTC did see a problem with the shorting of Silver, but having demanded that JPMorgan stopped, they did nothing, tells me that I was correct for years now that JPMorgan etal, may be the executor of the short trades, but they are given the wink and nod from the U.S. Government, all the while knowing that (JPMorgan) wouldn’t be penalized by the CFTC, because the Government had their back!

OK, I know that’s a lot to take in so early in the morning, and believe me, if I were still employed by a bank (any bank not just my former bank) they wouldn’t have allowed me to say all that… Remember when Bart Chilton of the CFTC would go on TV and tell the world that the CFTC couldn’t find any sign of price manipulation? I would say that that time that he was lying between his teeth! And now, there’s proof!

The U.S. Data Cupboard gets past its dates with housing,  and gets to take a breather today, with no data prints on the docket…   But… tomorrow the Data Cupboard gets to some real economic data this morning with the March print of Durable and Capital Goods Orders… Recall this data for both was negative last month, and as I told you two days ago, I suspect the March data will also be negative… That will print very soon, so we don’t have to wait long for that! 

Gold and the other precious metals still can’t find a bid anywhere, and when one does surface, it gets snuffed out by the short Gold paper trades… Dirty rotten scoundrels! 

To recap…  The currencies finally moved out of the mud but went downward VS the dollar, to Chuck’s amazement, given all the rotten / weak economic data that’s been shooting out of the Data Cupboard lately…  He even goes as far as to compare how the markets treated the German IFO VS the split decision in Housing here in the U.S. …  Strange days indeed, so peculiar momma… 

For What It’s Worth… Thanks to the GATA folks who sent this to me yesterday… It’s Dave Krantzler taking on the writer at KITCO for saying something very stupid about the Gold selloff Monday, that I told you yesterday was manipulators… And it can be found here:

Or, here’s your snippet: “At 8:39 a.m. EST 523,200 ozs of paper gold were unloaded onto the Comex in the space of less one minute:

Anyone who’s traded big positions on a trading desk knows that the best way to unload a position that is larger than the immediate liquidity of the market in which the security trades (yes, Comex contracts are “securities,” not actual physical gold) is to feed it out over time.

In that chart above, why wouldn’t the seller try to sell its position in a way that would enable it to get a price for the entire position that was in the vicinity of the market price at the time the sell-order was executed? After all, the market has clearly rebounded to the price level at the time massive sell-order bombed the trading systems, suggesting that the seller could have achieved much larger sell proceeds with a little bit of patience in its selling

This is all rhetorical, of course, because the all-too familiar “fishing line” 1-minute chart is the blatant footprint of market manipulation. Of course, Kitco’s “reporter” on the scene chose to attribute the sudden price plunge to a market “hamstrung by not much risk aversion in the world marketplace” Kitco.com.

It’s hard to believe an educated person wrote that commentary (“Gold Prices Sink To 4-Month Low On Scant Risk Aversion” by Jim Wycoff). Honestly, that headline makes me chuckle. Well then, Jim, the Dow is now up 153 points as I write this 5 hours later, which by your logic would imply there’s even less risk aversion than the “scant” risk aversion at 8:39 a.m. How come, Jim, the price of gold rebounded to the level where it was trading when fear of “scant” risk aversion triggered someone to unload 16 tons of paper gold in less than 60 seconds if indeed fear of scant risk aversion was the catalyst for sell order?”

Chuck Again… Way to point that out Dave! But still we have naysayers to price manipulation, like the CFTC (the commodities regulator) and others who by now have to believe somewhat that Gold (&Silver etal) are getting sold to manipulate the price downward… It’s a sad, sad world we live in that allows stuff like this to happen folks… sad, sad, world, indeed…

Currencies today 4/24/19 American Style: A$.7030, kiwi $.6620, C$.7430, euro 1.1208, sterling 1.2942, Swiss $.9820, European Style: rand 14.3564, krone 8.5720, SEK 9.3679, forint 286.40, zloty 3.8260, koruna 22.9475, RUB 63.74 (the lone wolf currency that gained a bit vs the dollar yesterday)yen 111.86, sing 1.3591, HKD 7.8416, INR 69.97, China 6.7186, peso 18.95, BRL 3.9329, Dollar Index 97.69, Oil $66.07, 10-year 2.54%, Silver $14.86, Platinum $891.88, Palladium $1,392.04, and Gold… $1,273.36

That’s it for today… A lot to say today for sure! Cardinals pull out a back and forth game late for a win last night… Day game today, but like I said above, I’m grounded! HA! Our Blues will be playing the Dallas Stars in the 2nd round, which will begin tomorrow night here in St. Louis! Let’s Go Blues! It’s a late game which makes no sense given it’s in the Central Time Zone… But TV dictates the start times… UGH!  On Sunday, grandson Everett was very proud of his dollars he found in the egg hunt. I pulled out my Mogambo Guru one oz. Silver Coin and asked him which would he rather have, and he chose the coin… smart kid, either that or he just like bright shiny things! HA!   Chris Issac takes us to the finish line today with his haunting song: Wicked Game…  Which is apropos today given my explanation of the manipulation scheme going on… that I think is going on, I should say!  I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler