Europe

Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

Astute observers of financial markets, especially in the precious metals sector, have long argued that small concentrations of major market players have been manipulating asset prices. Last week those suspicions were confirmed when Deutsche Bank, one of the world’s leading financial institutions, not only admitted to regulators that they have been involved in the racket, but that they were prepared to turn over records implicating many of their cohorts in a global scheme to suppress prices.

After meandering steadily higher for the past week, and completely ignoring the negative newsflow out of the Doha meeting, today oil took an unexpected leg lower to 4-day lows, leaving many stumped: what caused this drop?

The answer, according to Citi, is the realization Saudi Arabia is actually making good on its threat to boost production (recall that just one day ahead of Doha, Saudi deputy crown prince bin Salman said he could add a million barrels immediately) something we noted a month ago in "Why Saudi Arabia Has No Intention To End The Oil Glut."

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

My grandfather was something of a Renaissance Man.

He was a farmer, schoolteacher, fisherman, collector, real estate investor… and one of those guys who always seemed to know how to do everything.

He could take apart an engine, build a house with his bare hands, tame wild horses, treat life-threatening wounds, play the guitar… and he was extremely well respected in his community.

Tensions are rapidly escalating between the US and Russia following last week two fly-bys when first a Russian Su-24 "buzzed" the US missile destroyer USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea, and just days later flew within 50 feet of a US recon plane also flying over the Baltic Sea, which some interpreted as a Russian warning to Poland. The U.S. quickly responded and complained vocally to Russia (even if Obama did not mention the incident during his phone call with Putin immediately following the incident).

In the aftermath of China's gargantuan, record new loan injection in Q1, which saw a whopping $1 trillion in new bank and shadow loans created in the first three months of the year, many were wondering where much of this newly created cash was ending up.

We now know where most of it went: soaring imports of crude oil.

We know this because as the chart below shows, Chinese crude imports via Qingdao port in Shandong province surged to record 9.86 million metric tons last month based on data from General Administration of Customs.