The cracks are starting to appear in the 'paper' gold market.
BlackRock's rather shocking decisision to halt ETF creation due to gold demand (i.e. being unable to source enough physical gold to meet mandated requirements given the inflows) follows the largest gold ETF inflows since Feb 2009 (just as The Fed started QE1 and unleashed trillions of freshly digitized exuberance into the markets).
How much louder can the “ban cash” calls get?
Recall it was just last year when we catalogued the growing cacophony of crazies for whom banning physcial currency is the only way to ensure that depositors can’t simply reassert their economic autonomy under a low or zero rate regime..
Put simply, if interest rates get too low, depositors will simply take their money out the bank and put it in the mattress or the safe where, to quote WSJ from last week, “interest rates are always low no matter what central bankers do.
Two weeks ago, we reported that NYSE Short Interest has risen 4.5%, back over 18 billion shares near the historical record highs of July 2008 (and up 7 of the last 9 months).
We said that this dynamic means one of two things:
Back in October, the latest credit impulse in China just rolled over and died.
Ahead of the actual news, MNI said “one source familiar with the data said new loans by the Big Four state-owned commercial banks in October plunged to a level that hasn't been seen for many years."
European Central Bank (ECB) head Mario Draghi is running out of options.
Back in 2012, the EU banking system was on the verge of collapse. At that time, various European banks were lurching towards insolvency as the senior most-asset on their balance sheets (EU member nation sovereign bonds) plunged in value.
As a whole, the EU banking system is leveraged at 26 to 1. At these levels, even a 4% drop in your asset values wipes out ALL equity.