The Last To Go

I’ve had this title queued up for some time; but after yesterday’s egregious “trading,” it finally “ripened” enough for publication. To wit, if ever a day screamed “last ditch effort,” it was yesterday. Frankly, I believe the Cartel aimed to orchestrate a far bigger PM smash than actually occurred – if you will, a “named storm” storm attack like the “Sunday Night Silver Price Massacre“, “Leap Day Violation,” or “Alternative Currencies Destruction.” However, due to raging global physical demand, they decidedly failed. The fact is, in just six months’ time, TPTB have lost control of nearly all global economies and financial markets – with nary a handful of “perception manipulation tools” left at their disposal. I have never doubted that “the last to go” would be the world’s most PPT-supported stock averages – like the “Dow Jones Propaganda Average,” the German DAX, and the Japanese Nikkei; and of course, the paper gold and silver markets, priced in U.S. dollars. And whilst the former could just as easily hyper-inflate as crash, the latter can, and must,rocket higher in real terms. The only questions remaining are when and how; and frankly, I find it hard to believe the when can be stretched past year-end.

Think about it. Since this Fall – and particularly, the December 17^th FOMC meeting – the “world as we have known it” has dramatically degraded. Essentially, it’s been one set of “historically momentous” negative events after the other; each of which, in freely-traded markets, would likely have precipitated equity crashes and PM explosions. To wit, in yesterday’s Audioblog, “FOMC lunacy opens the gates of hell,” I listed the horrifying global developments since said meeting; including commodity, crude, and interest rate implosion; dollar explosion; the Franc/Euro de-pegging; ECB QE; Greek elections; Ukrainian escalation; and all-out collapse of global economic data, to name a few.

Heck, despite yesterday’s desperate, comically transparent attempt to reverse these ugly trends via market manipulation, crude oil and copper remain below $45/bbl and $2.50/lb, respectively, as I write early Friday morning; whilst the U.S. 30-year Treasury yield is at an all-time low of 2.29%; the CRB commodity index is just 4% above its 2008 low; and after plunging 5% yesterday alone, the Baltic Dry Index is at its all-time low of 632, 95% below its 2007 high (no, that’s not a typo).

Yesterday, Germany became the last European nation to succumb to the ECB’s “sum of all fears” – i.e., “death by deflation” – in printing a -0.5% CPI reading; as clearly, my “direst prediction of all” is playing out exactly as “Economic Mother Nature” planned. This is why Precious Metals – notwithstanding yesterday’s blatant raids – have been the market’s best performing assets over the past month; particularly in non-dollar currencies, given nuclear escalation of the “final currency war.” I mean geez, even the Russian Central bank cut rates this morning – and this, with the Ruble trading at an all-time low!

In other words, yesterday’s blatant Cartel raid was particularly ridiculous. I mean, yesterday wasn’t even a particularly “bad news day” and yet, we saw headlines of the French and German Finance Ministers rejecting Greece’s debt write-down request; the Danish Central bank – in Swiss National Bank fashion – cutting rates deeper into negative territory for the third time in two weeks; Germany reporting the aforementioned 0.5% CPI decline; the Baltic Dry Index plunging 5%; the U.S. pending existing home sales index plummeting 4%; Wall Street’s newest scam, Ali Baba, plunging 10% following a horrific initial earnings report; and of course, a litany of new, ugly developments in the oil industry – from Conoco Phillips announcing a $2 billion capex reduction, to exploding jobless claims in “shale states” like Texas, North Dakota, and Colorado. Frankly, the fact that the BLS had the “chutzpah” to, despite the aforementioned surge in energy-related layoffs, report the lowest weekly jobless claims since April 2000, will only heighten global mistrust of economic data – as well as governments, Central banks, and essentially all “official” pronouncements. I mean, when I wrote of “island of lies” about economic reports like NFP employment and various, easily corruptible “diffusion indices” last year, even I was not prepared for the government to publish such over-the-top fabrications – such as the highest consumer confidence since the peak of the 2007 bull market, and lowest jobless claims since the peak of the global economy 15 years ago!

That said, amongst the yesterday’s slew of “horrible headlines,” the two that rang out as the most terrifying – i.e., hyper-inflationary – were ECB governor Benoit Coeure claiming QE will work “because it is big”; and across the pond, Obama proposing to repeal 2011′s “Budget Control Act” – you know, the “sequester” spending cuts agreed upon for 2013-2021, in exchange for effectively eliminating the U.S. debt ceiling. And by the way, since said “Budget Control” was instituted in August 2011 – in response to the U.S.’s triple-A credit rating being stripped, no less – the national debt has risen by $4 trillion, or 29%. So there you have it, the backdrop for yesterday’s desperate market manipulations.

Yes, in prototypical fashion, the Cartel went hog wild naked shorting paper gold and silver; as always, principally at the time-honored “key attack time #1″ of 10:00 AM EST, when global physical markets close. In fact, they all but “signaled” it when the tried-and-true “8:00 PM algo” was rolled out the night before, in the thinnest-possible market conditions – which I have put in quotes, given how often I have observed it.

By day’s end, the PPT had executed a perfect “dead ringer” bounce in the Dow Jones Propaganda Average, whilst crushing gold by 2% and silver nearly 6% – all this, whilst the same ugly trends that have boosted PM prices for the past month continued unabated. Regarding silver, just how many times do I have to post charts like this to demonstrate just how terrified TPTB are of the inevitable explosion of the “financial world’s Achilles Heel.”

That said, shame on me! Amidst the horrific plunge in global economic activity, exploding financial market turmoil, expanding Central bank insanity, and surging geopolitical tensions, I forgot that today (Friday) is COMEX options expiration day. Moreover, as Bill Holter wrote Tuesday, we are again facing a situation where far more long contracts remain outstanding than COMEX gold and silver inventory exists. The Cartel has attacked paper prices ahead of such events nearly every month for the past decade; and given the recent – global - explosion of PM prices, why would we expect this month to be any different? Not to mention, the obvious “inside information” utilized to brutally smash silver during the COMEX trading day; as just after it closed, silver margins were “coincidentally” raised by 11%. Not that such an event should be negative for silver; after all, given its recent surge, it’s silver shorts that should be driven out of positions by increased margin requirements. However, not so in the rigged Precious Metal arena, where paper attacks like yesterday’s always accompany such announcements; in this case, clearly traded on with prior, illegal knowledge – with the express Cartel intent of driving out “weak longs” that entered the market at the top.

Speaking of at the least unethical, if not blatantly illegal, the “reason” attributed to yesterday’s Dow “rescue” from a 2½ day, 500+ point plunge – aside from the fact that, as always, it commenced at the 10:00 AM EST period when the Fed’s “open market operations” are executed – was Janet Yellen telling Senate Democrats that an “immediate” rate increase wasn’t on the table. Not that that’s big news to economic literates like Miles Franklin Blog readers. However, given that the “reason” the Dow and PMs declined following the FOMC statement was supposed Fed “hawkishness,” such comments completely refute this assertion. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth; but again, in the world of suppressed PM markets, Wall Street and the MSM will always “selectively remember” that which will perpetuate the “party line.”

Back to today’s topic, we could not be more emphatic of how TPTB have either partially – or in many cases, completely – lost control of economies, markets, and sentiment. As noted in recent Audioblogs, even the cheerleading MSM are starting to revolt against the lies – if only to garner better ratings; as at some point, even the most jaded government lackeys will realize this is the only reason stocks are rising, amidst imploding underlying fundamentals. Let alone, that only naked shorting is preventing “dollar-priced gold” from joining the global Precious Metals rally, amidst an explosion of physical demand and implosion of supply; which, by the way, will become dramatically more evident when miners start reporting year-end losses, write-downs, and capital expenditures reductions in the coming weeks.

Consequently, all we can say is thus. If you think the horrible, PM-positive headlines are going to decline any time soon – or that it’s “coincidental” that so many Central bank actions are miserably failing simultaneously – your denial may well cost you, in short order, the ability to protect yourself from the raging financial Ebola destroying everything in its path.

And for those wise enough to take action to protect yourselves. whilst you still can, we hope you’ll give Miles Franklin a call at 800-822-8080, and give us a chance to earn your business.

P.S. As I was about to hit “send,” fourth quarter GDP was just reported well below expectations. Consequently, PMs are surging; oil and copper are plunging; and the 10-year yield just FREE-FELL to a new multi-year low of…drum roll please…1.68%!

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Courtesy of http://blog.milesfranklin.com