15-Jun (Financial Times) — The European Central Bank is on standby to keep banks flush with liquidity if Greece creates fresh financial market turmoil, its president has indicated, joining a global chorus of central bankers pledging support ahead of Sunday’s elections.

Mario Draghi’s comments on Friday followed the announcement by the UK’s central bank of plans to pump £100bn into the ailing British economy, hinting at a co-ordinated strategy by the world’s top central bankers.

“The ECB has the crucial role of providing liquidity to sound bank counterparties in return for adequate collateral. This is what we have done throughout the crisis … and this is what we will continue to do,” Mr Draghi said.

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PG View: Draghi echos talk that a coordinated central bank plan is in place to counteract any market turmoil resulting from the weekend elections in Greece and France.

14-Jun (USAGOLD) — Gold jumped in early NY trading to a new high for the week at 1627.90, as higher than expected initial jobless claims and a 0.3% drop in CPI nudged QE3 expectations higher. Initial jobless claims rose by 6000 last week to 386,000 on expectations of 375,000, versus an upward revised 380,000 in the previous week. Meanwhile, May CPI saw the biggest month on month drop in more than 3-years, led by a 6.8% drop in retail gasoline prices. This was perceived as adding to the impetus for the Fed to react, while simultaneously acknowledging they had the room to do so without increasing price risks.

Continued uncertainty surrounding this weekend’s Greek elections continue to underpin gold as well. Additionally, Spain was downgraded late yesterday by both Egan-Jones and Moodys, to CCC+ and Baa3 respectively. Not surprisingly, this accelerated the recent rise in Spanish borrowing costs to new euro-era highs, near the critical 7% level on 10-year money, which has prompted other periphery countries to seek bailouts. It’s actually quite amazing how rapidly the situation in Spain has deteriorated, having reached a deal to bail out its banks to the tune of €100 bln just last weekend.

• US initial jobless claims +6k to 386k for the week ended 09-Jun, above expectations of 375k, vs upward revised 380k in previous week.
• US CPI -0.3% in May, below expectations of -0.2%, vs UNCH in Apr; 1.7% y/y, down from 2.3% in Apr. Core +0.2% in May, +2.3% y/y.
• Eurozone CPI -0.1% m/m in May, +2.4% y/y; Core +1.6% y/y.
• Greece unemployment rate 22.6% in Mar, vs 20.7% in Feb.
• Japan industrial production (sa) – Revised -0.2% in Apr, vs +0.2% previously.
• BoJ began 2-day meeting.

14-Jun (The Telegraph) — A leading bullion dealer said that demand for gold has risen 50pc since last year and that it now holds more than 30 tonnes of gold worth more than £1bn on behalf of private investors. It is the first time it has broken the £1bn barrier it said.

Adrian Ash, head of research at BullionVault, said: “While gold may slip out of view for some when prices ease back, as they have done since last summer’s record highs, private investors are using this lull to build their gold holdings.

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PG View: Like we always say, the time to build your gold holdings is during the times when it has seemingly fallen out of favor.

13-Jun (Financial Times) — The easy money drug has been administered several times now and the markets are yet again hoping for more.

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"Gold-investment demand in China may gain more than 10 percent this year as buyers seek a haven from Europe’s debt crisis and the prospect of weakening currencies, according to the country’s largest bullion bank."

MK Comment: When it comes to the gold market, China remains the dragon in the room.

Link

13-Jun (Der Spiegel) — The EU is signalling that it may be willing to renegotiate the austerity measures it imposed in return for aid to Greece, a German daily reported on Wednesday. The move is aimed at keeping Greece in the euro by boosting support for pro-austerity parties in the June 17 election.

The European Union is planning to discuss softening the terms of its international bailout for Greece, regardless of the outcome of the June 17 election, German business daily Financial Times Deutschland reported on Wednesday.

The paper cited unnamed EU sources saying that there was no way around a renegotiation if Greece was to remain in the euro zone. It is unclear how many concessions the EU is prepared to make. “We will do our utmost to keep Greece in the euro zone while it is respecting its commitments,” European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said on Tuesday.

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PG View: I rest my case. So which came first, the alleged plan to renegotiate Greek austerity, or Alexis Tsipras’ FT op-ed vowing to keep Greece in the eurozone?

By Alexis Tsipras
13-Jun (Financial Times) — Lest there be any doubt, my movement – Syriza – is committed to keeping Greece in the eurozone.

President Barack Obama was right when he said last Friday: “Let’s do everything we can to grow now, even as we lock in a long-term plan to stabilise our debt and our deficits, and start bringing them down in a steady, sensible way.” That applies to my country, too. The need for giving Greece a chance for real growth and a new future is now more widely accepted than ever.

I strongly believe we will get a clear democratic mandate from the people of the Hellenic Republic on Sunday.

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PG View: These words boosted the euro back to the 1.2600 area and the softer dollar is helping to keep gold underpinned. But make no mistake, Tsipras will continue to demand concessions from the troika on Greek austerity as a price for keeping Greece in the eurozone.

13-Jun (Reuters) — Kazakhstan’s central bank plans to boost the share of gold in its gold and foreign currency reserves to 20 percent from 14-15 percent, deputy bank chairman Bisengali Tadzhiyakov said on Wednesday.

Tadzhiyakov, who gave no time frame for the move, said last week Kazakhstan planned to buy 22 tonnes of gold from local producers, which at that time he estimated would boost the share of the metal to 15 percent from about 12 percent.

“We will buy from Kazzinc corporation 20 tonnes (of gold) in 2012, and a further 4.5 tonnes from Kazakhmys,” he told journalists on Wednesday, reading out updated figures from his report prepared for presentation in parliament.

“The total volume is 24.5 tonnes.”

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PG View: The 24.5 tonnes to be bought from “local producers” is 24.5 tonnes of supply that will never make it to the global market. This is further confirmation of an already familiar trend…

See The most important gold market event since 1999.

13-Jun (CNBC) — Greeks pulled their cash out of the banks and stocked up with food ahead of a cliffhanger election on Sunday that many fear will result in the country being forced out of the euro.

Bankers said up to 800 million euros ($1 billion) were leaving major banks daily and retailers said some of the money was being used to buy pasta and canned goods, as fears of returning to the drachma were fanned by rumors that a radical leftist leader may win the election.

The last published opinion polls showed the conservative New Democracy party, which backs the 130 billion euro ($160 billion) bailout that is keeping Greece afloat, running neck and neck with the leftist Syriza party, which wants to cancel the rescue deal.

As the election approaches, publishing polls is now legally banned and in the ensuing information vacuum, party officials have been leaking contradictory “secret polls”.

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13-Jun (Reuters) — Many more years of money printing from the world’s big four central banks now looks destined to add to the $6 trillion already created since 2008 and may transform the relationship between the once fiercely-independent banks and governments.

As rich economies sink deeper into a slough of debt after yet another wave of euro financial and banking stress and U.S. hiring hesitancy, everyone is looking back to the U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England and Bank of Japan to stabilize the situation once more.

What’s for sure is that quantitative easing, whereby the “Big Four” central banks have for four years effectively created new money by expanding their balance sheets and buying mostly government bonds from their banks, is back on the agenda for all their upcoming policy meetings.

…Global investors appear convinced more QE is in the pipe.

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PG View: $6 trillion?! Is anyone else scared by that number? If not, you should certainly be afraid of the prediction that more QE is likely on the way. If global investors truly are “convinced more QE is in the pipe” then gold is a bargain at these prices…and absolutely necessary portfolio diversification.

13-Jun (Bloomberg) — Retail sales in the U.S. fell in May for a second month as slower employment and subdued wage gains damped demand, a sign the world’s largest economy is cooling.

The 0.2 percent decrease followed a similar decline in April that was previously reported as a gain, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington.

…Limited gains in payrolls and unemployment exceeding 8 percent signal it’ll be tough for consumer spending, the biggest part of the economy, to accelerate from a first-quarter advance that was the biggest in a year.

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PG View: Gold has been spurred to new highs for the week on renewed hopes for QE3 in the wake of weak retail sales and the perception of diminished inflation risks reflected in the m/m decline in PPI.

13-Jun (Reuters) – Gold perched above $1,600 an ounce on Wednesday, retaining most of its gains from the previous session as prices were supported by persistent worries over Spain’s surging borrowing costs.

Gold has attracted occasional safe-haven flow in the past few weeks, after moving in tandem with riskier assets since late last year as the euro zone debt crisis squeezed liquidity and rattled financial markets.

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Plunge in Median Family Net Worth During Recession Suggestive of Misallocated Portfolios

12-Jun (USAGOLD) — Gold has surged back above $1600 amid ever-rising eurozone worries. Despite the weekend announcement of a €100 bln Spanish bank bailout, yields on Spanish government bonds pushed ahead to new euro-era highs above 6.8%. The 7% threshold is widely viewed as a critical tipping point, and with the ECB seemingly adverse to further periphery bond purchases since Mario Draghi took the reigns, Spain itself may just need a bailout right along with the banks.

Data from the Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances shows that the Great Recession wiped out nearly 39% of the typical American family’s net worth.

Data from the 2007 and 2010 SCF show that median income fell substantially and that
mean income fell somewhat faster, an indication that income losses, at least in terms of levels,
were larger for families in the uppermost part of the distribution. Overall, both median
and mean net worth also fell dramatically over this period—38.8 percent and 14.7 percent,
respectively. Changes in housing wealth and business equity were key drivers in those
wealth changes. The preceding three years had seen only small changes in median and mean
income and in median net worth, but a sizable gain in mean net worth.

Median family net worth plunged from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300, a level last seen in 1992. A Washington Post article summed it up thusly: “Over a span of three years, Americans watched progress that took almost a generation to accumulate evaporate.”

The median, as the Los Angeles Times points out is “the point smack in the middle of those richer and poorer.” The middle class bore — and continues to bear — the brunt of the great recession, largely because the vast majority of middle class wealth was wrapped up in the family home and the stock market. Sadly, that remains the case.

What these headlines said to me was that the portfolios of US families — and particularly those of middle class families — were improperly allocated. From the beginning of 2007 until the end of 2010, the price of gold rose 122%. Even a relatively small allocation to physical gold (we recommend 10% to 30% of net assets) could have significantly mitigated the devastating impact of the great recession on the family balance sheet. Yet, physical gold remains a grossly under-owned asset.

Egon von Greyerz, the managing director of Matterhorn Asset Management AG in Zurich says “Less than 1% of investors own gold.” The most recent Erste Group study puts a finer point on it:

The global equity markets are currently valued at USD 56 trillion according to
Bloomberg, while the fixed income segment amounts to USD 91 trillion according to
BIS. If we assume that only 20% of the gold reserves are investable (i.e. come in the form of
bullions, ETFs, or coins), this would translate into a value of USD 1.4 trillion (at USD
1,500/ounce) and into an allocation of close to 1%. In comparison with bonds, gold holdings
are small: bond holdings worldwide amount to almost USD 14,000 per capita, whereas gold
reserves per capita are less than USD 1,180.

Europe remains on the verge of meltdown and conceivably a disintegration of the EU, the United States, Japan and the UK move ever nearer their fiscal cliffs and fears of a hard-landing in China are mounting. With the storm clouds building on the horizon once again, individual investors in all of the income quartiles would be well served to reevaluate their investment allocations.

11-Jun (Reuters) — European finance officials have discussed limiting the size of withdrawals from ATM machines, imposing border checks and introducing euro zone capital controls as a worst-case scenario should Athens decide to leave the euro.

EU officials have told Reuters the ideas are part of a range of contingency plans. They emphasized that the discussions were merely about being prepared for any eventuality rather than planning for something they expect to happen – no one Reuters has spoken to expects Greece to leave the single currency area.

But with increased political uncertainty in Greece following the inconclusive election on May 6 and ahead of a second election on June 17, there is now an increased need to have contingencies in place, the EU sources said.

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