iCharts Discussions

[ajayhkaul]

Thanks codered for your contribution to this thread. Pls keep adding more gems like these so the readers know the big picture also.

Recently the Chinese said that ' we should not rely on foreign rating agencies. We should have our own !!!' You know where this is going.....

See the Zimbabwe currency

[ajayhkaul]

Robert Kiyosaki was one of the first guys to talk about buying precious metals and this video is a must watch :

The statements that Robert Kiyosaki makes in the video posted below are absolutely jaw-dropping. Once upon a time he was all about teaching people how they could get rich, but now he is talking about storing food, buying guns, investing in precious metals and preparing for the coming crash.

The following are 11 of the best Kiyosaki "sound bites" from the video below...
#1 "when the economy crashes as we predict"

#2 "the crowds come rushing in to buy gold and silver"

#3 "we could either go into a depression or we go to hyperinflation"

#4 "or we could also go to war"

#5 "buy a gun"

#6 "I'm preparing"

#7 "I'm prepared for the worst"

#8 "so come to my house and I'm armed and dangerous and I'll welcome you"

#9 "we have food, we have water, we have guns, gold and silver, and cash"

#10 "the credit card system shuts down, the world shuts down"

#11 "the supermarkets have less than 3 days supply"

If you have not seen this video yet, it is definitely worth the 8 minutes that it takes to watch it. Robert Kiyosaki seems to be extremely alarmed about the future of the U.S. economy....

see it on You tube

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=robert%20kiyosaki%20talks%20about%20guns%20and%20gold&source=video&cd=5&ved=0CE8QtwIwBA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DVkelAtEZMAg&ei=Xxz4TtHTIMj5rAfaohw&usg=AFQjCNEmmAR8HOhk3DItpTkkwZXzBA1n8g

[psalm]

You can buy an egg with that amount....I mean with those Zimbabwe currency....LOL...

[SwingTrader]

Moving this thread to the newly created "Economy" section under "Markets".

[maddyprincess]

When the Indian cricket team tours Down Under , the sensex on Dalal Street also goes down under. Over the last two decades, as Indian cricketers faced 'chin music' from the fiercely competitive Australians on their home turf, the bears on Dalal Street somehow got lucky to have a go at the Bulls.

Data shows that since 1991, whenever India toured Australia, back home the stock market was hit either by a scam of unimaginable proportions , some crisis of confidence among investors or a global crisis with its origin in excessive speculation.

Consider this: India toured Australia in 1991-92 , then in 1999-2000 , 2003-04 and the last time was in 2007-08.


In 1992, it was the Harshad Mehta scam, while in 2000 it was the Ketan Parekh scam and the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Then in 2004, the market went into a tailspin after NDA was defeated while in 2008, it was the sub-prime crisis and the subsequent crash of Lehman Brothers.

The years on which sensex recorded its three worst singleday crashes in history were also the years Indian cricket team played in Australia. These were also the years the index recorded its worst yearly losses. Coincidence one may call, since there is definitely no direct link between the two, but it's another great example of what statisticians call an illusory or nonsense correlation.

"Though both are mutually exclusive events, but at the same time as we have in the US Presidential cycle market rally every four years and Santa Claus rally every year. Over time, we may consider this correlation in the same league," said K Anant Rao, achartered market technician.

Going back 20 years, in November 1991-92 , India, under the captaincy of Mohd Azharuddin, toured Australia. By April 1992, Mehta's scam was out in the open and soon after, on April 28, the sensex crashed nearly 13%. This still remains the worst percentage drop in sensex's history. During that year the sensex had lost 48% in just eight months.

After a long gap, the next Australian tour of India was in 1999-2000 , under the captaincy of Sachin Tendulkar. In the new millennium , the sensex, after scaling a new peak at 6,151 in mid-February , was hit by the twin impact of the end of the dot-com bubble in the US and the Ketan Parekh scam in our own backyard. As a result, the sensex lost about 43% from its peak, again in just eight months.

The next Indian tour was in 2003-04 , with Sourav Ganguly as the captain. That was the time BJPled NDA government's 'India Shinning' campaign was at its peak. But after NDA got a drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls in May 2004, and one of the Left leaders from the winning UPA coalition commented 'let the markets go to hell' , the sensex tanked over 11% in one session on May 17. This was second biggest fall in the index's history.

The next tour Down Under was in 2007-08 , under Anil Kumble's captaincy. In January 2008, the sensex scaled a new peak at 21,207, but within about 10 months it had lost two-thirds of its value to touch a low at 7,697. Thanks to the sub-prime crisis in the US and the bankruptcy filling by Lehman Brothers, on October 24, the sensex lost 11%, its third biggest fall in its history.

India is again touring Australia this year. And with the economy and the market in such a perilous situation, a correlation like this is sure to give arsenal to doomsayers.

[maddyprincess]

[ajayhkaul]

What a correlation ! Can we get this down to fours and sixes !??

Lets see , anyway...

[vinay28]

Actually it has nothing to do with cricket. our visit to australia is during our winter and their summer and it also happens to be the year end for markets.

[ajayhkaul]

Or is it that every 4 or 8 years we can expect a crash ( due to scams etc ) as things come to boil and as a fruition of all the economic sins committed in the past 4/8 yrs.

Cyclic stuff ?

[rk_a2003]

[codered]

Gold Down As China's Tightens Controls

It appears the PBoC is stepping up the monitoring and management of their gold reserves. Headlines, via Bloomberg, suggest controls tightening on the trading of gold away from official channels:

*CHINA TO INCREASE MANAGEMENT OF GOLD TRADING, PBOC SAYS
*CHINA GOLD TRADING RESTRICTED TO SHANGHAI EXCHANGES, PBOC SAYS
*CHINA ORDERS UNAUTHORIZED GOLD TRADING PLATFORMS TO STOP: PBOC
*PBOC ASKS SHANGHAI GOLD, FUTURES EXCHANGES TO BOOST MANAGEMENT

[codered]

Did Bankers Deliberately Crash MF Global to Crash Gold and Silver Prices?


Did bankers use the MF Global to suppress gold and silver prices and create the panicked appearance of collapsing precious metals to give themselves additional precious time to delay the crash of the Euro and the US Dollar? As crazy as this sounds, a closer investigation of some key data seems to imply this possibility. Though bankers claim that they created futures markets to provide a mechanism for commodity producers to hedge against volatile market prices, I have never bought the kool-aid the bankers were selling in this explanation for the rationale behind their creation of futures markets. Given that today, futures and spot prices for gold and silver in the short-term are entirely set by banker manipulation of the supply and demand for paper derivatives that often have no backing of any physical metal, I believe that bankers created futures markets for the explicit intent of allowing themselves to manipulate the prices of commodities and to enrich themselves, and themselves only, through the process of alternately and artificially inflating and deflating prices as would not be allowed in any type of free market. In other words, bankers invented futures markets to allow themselves to siphon off and steal money from other parties that wanted to invest in commodities with a mechanism, risk-free to them, that required deception and zero honest work and zero integrity.



The futures markets in commodities is such a deceptive market that it is hard to know even where to begin to unravel its many mechanisms of deceit in all their glory. Futures contracts traded on the world’s largest commodity markets such as the COMEX in New York and the LBM in London allow bankers to commit reverse alchemy, turning real physical gold and real physical silver into nothing but false paper contracts and air. Secondly, through futures contracts traded in New York and London, bankers routinely defy the economic principles of supply and demand, and set short-term prices for gold and silver that literally have zero to do with the supply and demand dynamics of the physical gold and physical silver market. In the world of physics, such an illogical, comparable feat of deception would be the indefinite suspension of the law of gravity. Bankers invented paper derivative gold and silver markets to allow themselves to literally defy and suspend every single sound economic principle that exists.



This is important to understand because not only does understanding this concept make the bulk of what you learn in business school a lie and entirely useless, but also because bullion banks such as Deutsche Bank, Citibank, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs et al that serve as the puppet conduits for more powerful families that control Central Banks, routinely used to lease physical gold into the open market as their primary mechanism to suppress the price of gold and silver. However, as their mechanism of fractional reserve banking began to threaten the viability and utility of the most widely used fiat currencies in the world, the USD and the Euro, bankers understood that they needed to utilize and/or create another mechanism to suppress gold and silver prices that could replace selling physical PMs into the open market as they no longer wished to give up a solid asset with no third party counter-risk for what they knew they were turning into essentially worthless pieces of paper. Thus bankers increasingly turned to the paper futures markets to manipulate and control the price of gold and silver and also served up additional bogus derivative products to the public like the GLD and SLV ETFs. Bankers knew that there was no way they could possibly control the price of gold and silver if the supply and demand determinants of physical gold and physical silver had anything to do with the price, so they conspired to fool the world into believing that the fake paper price they set was set by the supply and demand of the physical markets.




Collapsing OI of Gold/Silver Futures Markets Directly Related to MF Global Collapse?




And here’s where MF Global enters the banking cartel gold and silver price suppression scheme. Today, short-term futures and spot prices of gold and silver have almost nothing to do with the physical supply and demand dynamics of gold and silver, as odd as that may sound. Bankers created the futures markets and paper derivatives in gold and silver to kill free markets and for the express purpose of suppressing gold and silver prices. Today we literally have no idea what the free market price of gold and silver should be or could be, besides the fact that both would be multiples higher than their current price, because of the fake paper market in gold and silver that the bankers created.



As well, bankers ensured that they armed a legion of worker bees in commercial investment firms all over the world that would represent these paper derivatives backed by very little physical gold and silver to their clients as the equivalent of investing in 99.999% pure physical gold and silver. In doing so, the worker bees thereby lured people all over the world into what will turn out to be the fatal mistake of not buying millions of troy ounces of physical gold and silver and instead buying their offering of fool’s gold and fool’s silver. When we receive a massive default of gold and silver futures contracts that stand for delivery on the COMEX or LBM, or if the SLV and GLD default, then, and only then, will the public start to see true price discovery of physical gold and physical silver in action. However, for clients of MF Global, unfortunately, they have already experienced the mistake of buying fool’s gold and fool’s silver from the bankers and have received air in exchange for gold and silver futures contracts they purchased that stood for delivery.



Bankers invented fake paper gold and silver contracts, because they knew that if they could not fulfill contractual obligations to deliver physical gold and physical silver because the contracts were a binding lie to begin with), that they could always renege on these contractual obligations and give the people the nothingness they truly owned in return. And thus, we have the story of MF Global.



Ratings agencies downgraded MF Global on Oct 25 and MF Global declared bankruptcy on Oct 31. If one scours the data that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) releases via its aggregated Commitment of Trader (COT) reports during this time period, one may not notice any data that immediately stands. However, investigation of the disaggregated reports reveals far more interesting patterns that almost undoubtedly can be traced back to the collapse of MF Global. In a period just preceding the MF Global collapse, from late August to mid October, the open interest (OI) in longs in gold and silver futures within the Managed Money category collapsed by 33.75% in gold (202,430 to 136,103) and 44.74% in silver (29,849 to 16,494). During this exact same time period, shorts in the gold and silver futures in the Managed Money category increased by 19.3% and 83.82% respectively (see the chart below). Within the Managed Money category, between Sept 13th and 27th, in just a two-week period, the drop in OI in the longs in gold and silver futures was even more pronounced, with a 25.41% plunge and 34.3% plunge in silver. I imagine if someone could trace the connection of this plunge in OI in the Managed Money category in the gold and silver futures markets, one would discover that a good deal of the plunge was somehow directly tied to the impending MF Global bankruptcy and its freezing and/or liquidation of gold and silver futures accounts in its possession.







After Phase I of the collapse in OI in the gold and silver futures markets, Phase II followed. When the story about MF Global’s legalized client theft hit the presses, an enormous public distrust of the entire futures markets started to build. If clients lost millions of dollars in gold and silver futures accounts due to forced liquidation or freezing of contracts that they were holding for delivery, anyone that had considered using the futures markets to take delivery of real gold and real silver following the MF Global debacle obviously reconsidered their options. Thus, due to the massive fraud of the futures markets that was revealed by the MF Global collapse, another huge drop in the OI of gold and silver longs in the Managed Money category occurred during Phase II (as labeled in the above chart) that respectively amounted to an additional respective 11.79% and 7.48% plunge. In essence, it appears that the MF Global collapse served up the exact same price suppression effect as a CME issued initial or maintenance margin hike in gold and silver futures, which forces a tidal wave of unwanted and involuntary liquidation of gold and silver longs that consequently violate technical support lines and trigger technical sells.



Of course, we also have to factor in the temporary OI-increasing effect of the risk-on CME event when they lowered initial margins to a 1:1 ratio with maintenance margins at the onset of November. Still, given the figures presented in the chart above, it seems that bankers used the MF Global collapse to force liquidation of gold and silver longs in the futures market quite rapidly and drastically. Why is this important? This is important because typically strong hands ride out any temporary banker manipulations of gold and silver prices downward. In this case, strong hands, if they existed at MF Global, were not given this opportunity and were forced to liquidate or had their accounts frozen whether or not they desired such an outcome. Furthermore, if primarily strong hands were forced out of the futures market, this would leave the majority of volume in the gold and silver futures markets primarily in the hands of the criminal banking cartel. We’ve seen repeatedly, this past year in the US S&P 500 index, when low trading volume primarily controlled by the banking cartel has translated into curious and inexplicable market bounces of 2% in a single day. In other words, low trading volume allows bankers excessive and easy manipulation over markets. If this was indeed the scenario bankers deliberately created with the MF Global collapse, then the MF Global collapse and simultaneous collapse of open interest in gold and silvers futures certainly would have paved the way for the banking cartel to easily manipulate gold and silver prices.



There was also further circumstantial evidence that bankers used the MF Global collapse to collapse gold and silver futures markets at the end of 2011. For example, in an article posted on the SilverDoctors blog by Jim Willie in which he gathered data regarding the amount of physical gold and silver ounces represented by the longs at MF Global that were standing for delivery in the futures markets before these contracts imploded, he stated: “JP Morgan increased the amount of registered silver and gold by precisely the amount that was suppose to be delivered [by MF Global]…JP Morgan effectively averted both a Comex default and a European Sovereign Debt implosion.”



Silver Lining in the MF Global Debacle?



Can there be a silver lining in the MF Global debacle? I believe that in the long-term, this extremely unethical, negative event could transform into a positive game-changer in the way people buy large amounts of gold and silver. Obviously, the futures market is not a safe market for anyone seeking to take delivery of millions of dollars of physical gold and silver as many MF Global clients learned. The GLD and SLV ETFs, of course, are no safer than any gold or silver futures contract for the same reasons. So in the future, and I mean the immediate future starting now, I believe that large buyers of physical gold and silver will now opt to bypass the bullion bank’s middle men in the futures market and go directly to the gold and silver mining companies to buy large quantities of bullion. This should eventually help usher in the death of futures markets as a mechanism for buying physical gold and physical silver and be a step towards establishing a free market for gold and silver prices for the first time in our lives. Mark Cutifani, CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, recently echoed the same: "Major [asset management fund] buyers are finding it is hard to get physical gold. People are coming directly to us [for large gold purchases,] people who want tonnes of physical gold, people with serious financial muscle, because they are finding it is very difficult to secure the volume of gold they want. That is something we have noticed over the last 18 months, and it has been increasing in the last six months. People are finding it’s hard to get physical gold."



People that want to own physical gold and physical silver never should have been buying the GLD, SLV, or gold and silver futures. Now, in light of the MF Global debacle, scores of people will stay away from these fraudulent vehicles for good.

[ajayhkaul]

Great info, codered!

It seems same physical ONE oz of gold has been leased to 45

So what should the real price of gold be ? !!!! Boggles the mind .....

[ajayhkaul]

Who do Voodoo?

The Indian authorities though don't seem to be content with a voodoo of this kind. So it has gone ahead and created the base metal copper practically out of nowhere! What else would explain the fact that while India's copper related exports grew by a whopping 350% in FY11, there was no corresponding rise in either the domestic production of the metal or its imports? This shocking fact was brought to light by a leading daily who after consultation with the relevant firms and organisational bodies, came to the conclusion that there has been some serious misreporting in copper export numbers. Although there is no conclusive evidence, it is alleged that the numbers have been inflated so that illicit money can be made to enter into the country. And this could be just a tip of the iceberg. Using similar strategy perhaps, a lot more money could have already found its way into India. And where would have the money gone after entering Indian shores? Maybe in asset classes such as real estate as despite no genuine demand, their prices are just not willing to go down.

[codered]

Thanksgiving Day Massacre: Sears Slaughtered On Collapsing Margins, To Shutter Hundreds Of Stores, Provides Revolver Update


Thanksgiving Day Massacre: Sears Slaughtered On Collapsing Margins, To Shutter Hundreds Of Stores, Provides Revolver Update


That retailer Sears, aka K-Mart, just preannounced what can only be described as catastrophic Q4 results should not be a surprise to anyone: after all we have been warning ever since the "record" thanksgiving holiday that when you literally dump merchandize at stunning losses, losses will, stunningly, follow. Sure enough enter Sears. What we, however, are ourselves stunned by is that as part of its preannouncement, Sears has decided it would be prudent to provide an update on its credit facility status as well as availability. As a reminder to anyone and everyone - there is no more sure way of committing corporate suicide than openly inviting the bear raid which always appears whenever the words "revolving credit facility" and "availability" appear in the same press release. Just recall MF Global. And here, as there, we expect shorting to death to commence in 5...4...3...

From Sears:

Sears Holdings Corporation ("Holdings," "we," "us," "our," or the "Company") (Nasdaq: SHLD - News) today is providing an update on its quarter-to-date performance and planned actions to improve and accelerate the transformation of its business.

Comparable store sales for the eight-week ("QTD") and year-to-date ("YTD") periods ended December 25, 2011 for its Kmart and Sears stores are as follows:

QTD

YTD

Kmart

-4.4%

-1.8%

Sears Domestic

-6.0%

-3.3%

Total

-5.2%

-2.6%

Kmart's quarter-to-date comparable store sales decline reflects decreases in the consumer electronics and apparel categories and lower layaway sales. Sears Domestic's quarter-to-date sales decline was primarily driven by the consumer electronics and home appliance categories, with more than half of the decline in Sears Domestic occurring in consumer electronics. Sears apparel sales were flat and Lands' End in Sears stores was up mid-single digits.

The combination of lower sales and continued margin pressure coupled with expense increases has led to a decline in our Adjusted EBITDA. Accordingly, we expect that our fourth quarter consolidated Adjusted EBITDA will be less than half of last year's amount. For reference, last year we generated $933 million of Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter ( $795 million domestically and $138 million in Canada ).

Due to our performance in 2011 we expect that we will record in the fourth quarter a non-cash charge related to a valuation allowance on certain deferred tax assets of $1.6 to $1.8 billion . Although a valuation adjustment is recognized on these deferred tax assets, no economic loss has occurred as the underlying net operating loss carryforwards and other tax benefits remain available to reduce future taxes to the extent income is generated. Further, we may recognize in the fourth quarter an impairment charge on some goodwill balances for as much as $0.6 billion . These charges would be non-cash and combined are estimated to be between $1.6 and $2.4 billion .

"Given our performance and the difficult economic environment, especially for big-ticket items, we intend to implement a series of actions to reduce on-going expenses, adjust our asset base, and accelerate the transformation of our business model. These actions will better enable us to focus our investments on serving our customers and members through integrated retail – at the store, online and in the home," said Chief Executive Officer Lou D'Ambrosio. Specific actions which we plan to take include:

Close 100 to 120 Kmart and Sears Full-line stores. We expect these store closures to generate $140 to $170 million of cash as the net inventory in these stores is sold and we expect to generate additional cash proceeds from the sale or sublease of the related real estate. Further, we intend to optimize the space allocation based on category performance in certain stores. Final determination of the stores to be closed has not yet been made. The list of stores closing will be posted at www.searsmedia.com when final determination is made.
Excluding the effect of store closures, we currently expect to reduce 2012 peak domestic inventory by $300 million from the 2011 level of $10.2 billion at the end of the third quarter as a result of cost decreases in apparel, tighter buys and a lower inventory position at the beginning of the fiscal year.
Focus on improving gross profit dollars through better inventory management and more targeted pricing and promotion.
Reduce our fixed costs by $100 to $200 million .
In addition to the specific store closures listed above, we will carefully evaluate store performance going forward and act opportunistically to recognize value from poor performing stores as circumstances allow. While our past practice has been to keep marginally performing stores open while we worked to improve their performance, we no longer believe that to be the appropriate action in this environment. We intend to accentuate our focus and resources to our better performing stores with the goal of converting their customer experience into a world-class integrated retail experience.

We currently expect the store closure and inventory reduction actions to reduce peak inventory in 2012 by $500 to $580 million and reduce our peak borrowing need by $300 to $350 million in 2012 from levels that may have resulted in 2012 without such actions.

At December 23rd , we had $483 million of borrowings outstanding on our domestic revolving credit facility leaving us with over $2.9 billion of availability on our revolving credit facilities ( $2.1 billion on our domestic facility and $0.8 billion on our Canadian facility). There were no borrowings outstanding last year at this time.

During the fourth quarter through December 23, 2011 , we have not repurchased any of our common shares under our share repurchase program. As of December 23, 2011 , we had remaining authorization to repurchase $524 million of common shares under the previously approved programs.