Options Risk, Manipulation, And The May Silver $40 Calls: An FMX Connect Special - Parts 1 And 2

Francis Soyer: 04/20/11
This is a short but very good article posted on Zero Hedge explaining the market mechanics of options and their impact on underlying securities. In this example they are using silver as the underlying security. In principal the mechanics discussed apply to all securities that have derivatives like stocks and bonds. Definately worth a read over twice for the concepts to gel.

From Vince Lanci of FMX Connect




Options Risk, Manipulation, and the May Silver $40 Calls



The purpose of this series is to help the reader better understand the risks and pitfalls of trading options and having a position at expiration. We will try to describe exactly what happens at expiration. The concepts here apply to all options markets, but we chose to focus on Silver because an interesting expiration is setting up presently. The upcoming expiry gives us an opportunity to discuss all the pieces of the option puzzle: the Greeks, market manipulation, Pin risk, and other factors.



Lesson #1



In futures markets where major participants are absent, options players dictate market movement for short periods of time. During this time the market may flat line, or it may have large, impulsive moves in either direction. What happens is determined by the strong-handed player, and sometimes his inclination to “game” the market.

The Easter Egg



Observe if you will, the 6 days prior to expiration of Comex May Silver options.



April 21st, Holy Thursday: day before a holiday



April 22nd: Good Friday: CME Closed



April 23rd,Easter Saturday: Markets Closed



April 24th,Easter Sunday: Markets Closed


April 26th, Tuesday: May Options Expiration CME



One may ask, what does the above imply? The above implies that normal liquidity will not be present for the last 5 days before expiration. Sunday Evening US time is usually quite liquid during London hours, but will not be this week. Monday will also be a liquidity ghost town, as LME players will be out. It is doubtful that many US futures liquidity providers will be in the day after Easter either. This is a market ripe for an event.


Throughout this week and next, we will attempt to break down the factors influencing the outcome of this expiration as a proxy for understanding commodity options risk in general. It will include:


· The players and their biases


· Option Greeks demystified


How to spot when a market is ripe for “management”, like above.


Part 2: A Zero-Sum Game


In any single trade, the option buyer and seller are fundamentally at odds. Both types of player (referred to as options long and options short) make their money in opposite ways, and at the expense of the other. The long players expect to make more money scalping Gamma than they lose in Theta over the option’s life. The Short players bet that the Theta they collect will outweigh the market movement and the negative Gamma they incur, most poetically described as “wishing for death”.


To understand how and why markets sometimes get “managed” at expiration it would make sense to first understand the Option Greeks. This combined with who the players actually are, and understanding the regulatory inconsistencies will tell the full tale on why markets are ripe for manipulation near options expiration.


Keeping Score


Managing Options risk is a complex task. We are going to focus here on only three of the “Greeks” used to quantify and manage risk, Delta, Gamma, and Theta. These are the most important ones affecting an option trader’s behavior as expiration approaches and the market is hovering near a strike. We’ll attempt to explain them plainly and simply through examples. For these explanations we must assume that all other Greek parameters: like volatility, rho, etc remain static to better isolate the effects of delta, gamma, and theta on risk.


Delta


In physics Delta means rate of change. In calculus Delta is the tangent of the trajectory. But Delta actually has 3 definitions in the practical trading world. These definitions largely overlap but are not necessarily the same for the whole life of the option.


1. Correlation with the underlying: a Call has a 20 delta. The model generating that delta assumes the Call’s value will change by 20% of what the underlying changes. E.g. Crude Oil goes up by $1.00. The Call will go up by $0.20 assuming other Greeks remain the same.


2. Hedge Ratio: The long 20 delta call would be directionally neutralized if it had a hedge of short 0.20 futures per long options contract. E.g. I am long 100 Crude Oil calls with a 20 delta. I will sell 20 futures to hedge myself directionally. Therefore I will (theoretically) neither make nor lose money in either direction due to underlying movement. I am directionally “flat”


3. Probability of Expiring in-the-money: according to the model, said 20 delta call has a 20% chance of expiring in-the-money. e.g. an option with 30 days to expiry at this volatility has an implied probability of a 20% chance of expiring in-the-money.[1]

Gamma:


Gamma is the second derivative of the option. In physics, it is the rate-of-change of the rate-of-change. In calc it is the tangent of the velocity. For our purposes it is simply how much a delta itself will change (Correlation, Hedge ratio, or Probability), given a change in the underlying price.


Using our Crude Oil 20 delta call option again: Crude rallies from $90.00 to $91.00. In our example, the option has a 20 delta and its correlation/hedge ratio/probability all point to a change in the option’s value of $0.20. But that cannot be entirely correct if one measures the option’s value at the end of the $1.00 move in crude.


Because the market has moved higher, the option has an increased probability of going in the money. Therefore its Correlation, Hedge Ratio and In-The-Money Expiration Probability must increase. In our example, we use our model to re-calculate the delta of the call and find that its delta has gone from 20 to 25. This difference of 5 deltas over a $1.00 move is its Gamma.


Therefore we now have the ability to sell 5 more futures against our 100 calls if we wish to rebalance our directional risk. We get to “Sell High”. And if the market drops back down to $90.00, the option’s delta will once again become 20. We will get to “Buy Low”. Such is the virtue of being long Gamma. The ability to sell when something goes up, and buy it back when it comes down. Provided of course your model is right, and as we’ve said multiple times other Greeks don’t change. Gamma however comes with a cost called Theta.


Theta


The rate at which an out-of-the-money option loses its value over time is Theta. In short, it is the rate at which your long lottery ticket wastes away. As time goes to zero, your out-of-the-money option’s chances of expiring in the money go to zero as well. It is not unlike having tickets to an event that you wish to sell. If interest is tepid in the event (Jethro Tull : Bore ‘em at the Forum) and you can’t get face value for them from someone, you are said to be out-of-the-money. You will lower your price as we get closer to the event itself in the hopes of unloading them. That is an imperfect example of Theta.


Using our 20 delta call again: if it has a Theta of .05. That means it will lose 5 cents of value per day from the march of time, again assuming all those other Greeks we are not talking about remain the same. So as a holder of that Crude Oil call with a 20 delta, you are in a race against time. If you cannot make more than 5 cents per day from delta readjustments (aka Gamma) after the underlying moves, you will be a net loser of money. Put another way, you must “scalp your Gamma” to profit by 5 cents daily just to break even on your option investment. More than 5 cents and you profit, less than that and you lose.


Options Yin and Yang


Gamma and Theta are opposite sides of the same coin. These risks and how they are managed by opposing counterparties, combined with the asymmetric setup in the system are the key to the reasons for why so many option expirations get “pinned” at a strike with large open interest. And also why rarely but more sensationally, markets blow through strikes with big open interest.

Guest Post: Getting Off The Globalist Chessboard: An Introduction

By Stewart Rhodes of Oath Keepers and Brandon Smith of the Alternative Market Project
Getting Off The Globalist Chessboard: An Introduction
To put it simply, America is nearing a checkmate scenario. Like the final torrid maneuvers of a rigged chess match, we have been pressed, manipulated, and attacked into the last remaining corner of the “grand global chessboard” left to us; centralized control of all social and economic power into the hands of an unworthy elite. If we continue playing the game by their rules, we will lose. There is no doubt. There have been many solutions presented to us in the past to combat this development, but nearly all of them function within the constraints of Federal politics. Working within the system has earned us no quarter, and frankly, no results. Our only recourse (and, frankly, the best recourse all along) is to STOP relying on the rules of their game, and to walk away from the chess board completely.
Globalization is essentially just another word for centralization, and the key to centralizing any system is to remove all options until the masses are completely and utterly dependent upon a single dominant paradigm. Globalists have deceived many Americans into believing that centralization is a “natural” process - that their game is indeed the only one in town. The widespread acceptance of the fiat monetary system is a perfect example of the average person’s unfortunate lack of economic flexibility. Only recently, in the face of dollar devaluation and complete financial collapse have many finally begun to question the legitimacy of a single brittle and corrupt economic structure. American politics are no different.
The elites have conned us into thinking that the only possible “solution” to where we are is federal elections, which only vote in new puppets for the puppet masters to manipulate in an illusory shell game. We have been tricked into thinking we are free because we come together from time to time to select our rulers.
But of course, this country was not founded as a democracy, but as a Constitutional Republic, and in such a Republic as ours, liberty is not just about “kicking the bums out” every few years only to vote a new set of bums into Congress, as the globalists would have us think. Federal elections are just one small part of it. The Founders intended us to be active, sovereign citizens, in strong communities and strong, sovereign states, and that is about far, far more than merely voting.
But because the globalists – with the aid of complicit domestic counterparts - have been able to capture our education system, our media, our political system, and our legal system, they have succeeded in dumbing us down and duping us into thinking that all other mechanisms for constraining power have been removed from the table. In fact, we have been convinced that all of the other fundamental institutions of our republic– aside from voting - are illegitimate, or even criminal.
The Founders gave us a dual sovereignty republic. That means states are as much sovereign within their sphere as the national government is within its sphere, with a national government of limited, enumerated, and divided powers. As our Tenth Amendment makes clear, “[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
In Federalist 45, James Madison (widely considered the ‘father of the Constitution”) promised the American people that:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
Clearly the design of the Founders’ has been turned on its head. With the aid of complicit judges – which Thomas Jefferson called a “corps of sappers and miners” – who willfully misinterpret the Commerce Clause to grant Congress the power to regulate literally anything, we now have a ruling class who will admit of no restraints on national power with a national government of nearly unlimited de facto powers, grown like a metastasizing cancer far beyond the bounds of anything foreseen by even the most skeptical of Anti-Federalists from the Founding era. All actual, physical and structural powers of any real meaning – legislative, military, legal, law enforcement, and economic – are consolidated in the hands of the federal government. On top of this, they have grafted a hydra-like overlay of international law and international unelected agencies and untouchable international “officials” that are also being imposed up us by means of treaties, executive partnerships (such as the supposedly now defunct Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, now being revitalized by the Obama Administration) and other constitutionally dubious mechanisms.
While we are distracted with elections, they are planning the destruction of the dollar, the collapse of our economy, the final destruction of our sovereignty, and the total absorption of our entire system into the vapid body of an unaccountable global government.
This is why we must stop playing by their “rules,” must get off of their artificial chess board, and instead play by the rules of our Constitution. This means taking power into our own hands as individuals, communities, counties, and states.
To do this, Neithercorp Press, the Alternative Market Project, and Oath Keepers are working together to focus on concrete solutions that can be applied by the average American in their day-to-day lives, in both the private and public spheres. In the limited time we have left, we urge Americans to focus on the following four key strategies (arranged in order of priority of needs):
1. Food and fuel independence and security – and other essential infrastructure (general preparedness) - as individuals, within local veterans organization chapters, neighborhood mutual aid societies, churches, co-ops, farmers markets, and at the town, county and state levels). In the aftermath of an economic collapse, food is the hardest necessity to improvise, and food scarcity is a serious achiles heel, exploited by oppressive regimes throughout history. To get started on food storage and independence, follow the advice on providentliving.org (you don’t need to be LDS to learn from their experience in food storage and preparedness, or to use their canneries). Likewise, we will need fuel, emergency medical, and resilient communication that can function in a grid-down crisis, devoid of internet communication (or with the internet shut down intentionally by means of a kill-switch).
2. Physical security and Independence - again as individuals, neighborhoods, towns, counties and states, to include forming neighborhood watches, mutual aid associations, a volunteer sheriff’s posse (staffed by volunteers under direct command of the sheriff), and county militias established by county ordinances but staffed by self-supplied and self-funded volunteers (as is done in volunteer fire departments all over this nation), and ultimately, a true state militia capable of “repelling invasions” (using the research and model bills of Dr. Edwin Vieira). Americans have plenty of guns, but not enough organization. See operationsleepinggiant.org for details.
3. Economic security and independence - as individuals and communities, including barter networks, use of silver and gold as real money, the development of valuable trade skills, and sound money bills at the county and state levels (as Utah just passed into law). The localization of community commerce is the only sure way to counter globalization. The more independent and insulated cities and states are from the corrupt and dysfunctional mainstream economy, the more safe and secure they will find themselves when that economy implodes. We must have an alternative to the fiat money system in place to preempt such an event. See alt-market.com for details.
4. State sovereignty and nullification of unconstitutional federal laws and actions. Veterans must support only sheriffs, state legislators and governors who have the guts and integrity to keep their oaths. To vote for an oath breaker, is to become an oath breaker. We must defend the powers reserved to the states and to the people by supporting state sovereignty resolutions and nullification of unconstitutional laws. See tenthamendmentcenter.com. And eventually we must kick the bums out, as GOOOH recommends. See goooh.com.
We will soon be publishing an upcoming series of articles that will provide in-depth details on each of the above four key pillars of action. While we should not turn our backs on the tactics of educating the public, supporting constitutional legislation, voting for honest and principled representatives, or nullifying unconstitutional laws (we should certainly make full use of the soap box, the ballot box, and the jury box) it is now time to dedicate ourselves to much more. The very future of our country, our liberties, and the prosperity of the next generation depends upon this.

$1 Billion of Gold Bars Taken Delivery Of By Pension Fund Due to Risk of COMEX Default and Shortages

(Not to beat a dead horse even more but, BUY SOME GOLD and SILVER! YES THIS MEANS YOU WILLY!)

From Gold Core
$1 Billion of Gold Bars Taken Delivery Of By Pension Fund Due to Risk of COMEX Default and Shortages
Concerns that the sovereign debt crisis may be entering a new phase and the risk of contagion has seen peripheral eurozone bonds fall sharply and the euro fall against major currencies and gold today.
Sovereign debt risk, global inflation concerns, geopolitical risk, disappointing European earnings and concerns about Japan's coming reporting season have seen equities weaken and new record nominal highs for gold and silver (all time and 31 year).

Greek bond yields have continued their relentless march higher and have risen above 14.07% (10 year) and Portuguese debt (10 year) has risen to a euro era record over 9.27%.Spanish and Irish debt are also under pressure this morning.
Euro gold has been in a range between €900 and €1,070 for nearly a year (since last May – see chart) and this period of consolidation looks set to come to an end as gold pushes higher. Once the technical resistance at the record high of €1,072/oz (12/28/10) is breached, gold will challenge €1,100/oz .
In the current bull market, euro gold has seen many long periods of correction and consolidation prior to rapid gains and sharp moves upwards. The length of the recent correction (almost a year) suggests that the coming move could be very sharp and see gold rise to €1,200/oz in the coming weeks.

Gold is increasingly being seen as the superior currency in a world of trillion dollar and euro deficits and bailouts. Indeed, the printing and electronic creation of billion and trillions of the major paper currencies is increasingly making gold and silver the currencies of last resort.
Governments and central banks are debasing currencies through bailouts, deficit spending and quantitative easing which is leading to a massive increase in the supply of fiat currencies. Precious metals are rare and finite and this is why major currencies are falling in value versus gold and silver.
One of the largest pension funds in the world, the University of Texas Investment Management Co (which manages the endowment for the Texas teachers pension fund), has realized this and has put 5% of the pension fund into gold bullion (see news).
Unusually, but likely to be seen more frequently in the coming weeks and months, the pension fund has opted to own physical bars worth nearly $1 billion dollars in allocated accounts.
The fund has previously expressed concerns about the counter party risk in ETFs. However, the reason given for opting for taking delivery of 100 oz gold bars in a warehouse was that if the holders of just 5 percent of COMEX futures contracts opted to take delivery of the metal, there wouldn’t be enough to cover the demand leading to a COMEX default.
The risk of a COMEX default increases by the day and appears to be moving from the realms of the “conspiracy theory” to that of “of course we knew it would happen, it stands to reason and was inevitable”.
A COMEX default would have serious ramifications for the dollar and all fiat currencies as it would further erode trust in central banks, fiat currencies and today’s monetary system.
NEWS

(Financial Times) -- Euro slides on sovereign debt fears
Reports that Greece had asked for a debt restructuring – subsequently denied by Athens – have rattled the euro and the continent’s bourses.
Markets were initially proving stoic in adjusting to a tighter monetary environment, with traders betting that the global economy can absorb central banks’ moves to drain excess liquidity.
The People’s Bank of China increased its reserve ratio for the country’s banks by half a point to 20.5 per cent over the weekend – the fourth time this year it has used the tool to tighten liquidity – following a 5.4 per cent rise in March consumer prices.

But shortly after European markets opened, Reuters reported a Greek newspaper as saying that Athens had asked the International Monetary Fund and European Union to restructure its sovereign debt.
The euro was already weaker after an anti-euro party gained ground in the Finnish general election, raising questions about whether the bloc will be able to agree a bail-out for Portugal.
The Greek newsflash saw the single currency shed nearly 1 per cent to $1.43, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index stumbled as investors sold those banks with high sovereign debt exposure.
Factors to Watch
It’s a light week for US macroeconomic data, so the market is likely to be more focused on the ongoing first-quarter earnings season. On Monday, the highlights include Citigroup, Halliburton and Texas Instruments.
An unattributed official denial of the Greek restructuring story helped brake the slide, and the euro is now down 0.6 per cent to $1.4334, with the Eurofirst off 0.4 per cent. The S&P 500 futures contract points to a 0.3 per cent fall when Wall Street opens and Treasury yields are slightly softer as risk aversion rises a touch.
Nevertheless, the FTSE All-World equity index is lower by just 0.3 per cent, helped by a belief that Beijing’s attempts to rein in lending and cool inflationary pressures is not so aggressive that it will derail growth in the world’s second-biggest economy. Shanghai’s Composite index rose 0.2 per cent.
In keeping with this underlying optimism about the global economy, industrial metals are firmer – copper is up 0.4 per cent to $4.27 a pound. This in spite of the dollar bouncing off last week’s 16-month lows with a 0.4 per cent advance, a move that would usually be considered commodity-negative.
Investors are having to come to terms with the end of the ultra-loose monetary era in big developed economies following the European Central Bank’s move to raise interest rates from 1 per cent to 1.25 per cent earlier this month and amid increasing acceptance that the US Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing programme will finish on time in June.
Major stock benchmarks are close to cyclical highs, suggesting traders feel corporate profitability will not be too severely affected by the economic impact of this policy shift.
However, some investors seem to believe that central banks are not doing enough to combat inflationary pressures and they are continuing to snap up precious metals to hedge against price rises. Worries about the eurozone are also boosting gold’s haven cachet.
Gold has hit a record high of $1,489 an ounce and is currently up 0.1 per cent at $1,486, while silver has hit a fresh 31-year record of $4.35 an ounce, and is now up 0.4 per cent at $43.17.
The additional support for bullion comes despite a small pullback in oil prices, a commodity that has carried the most inflationary concern for analysts. Brent crude is down 0.5 per cent to $122.88 a barrel as Saudi Arabia challenges the bulls with its contention that the market is oversupplied and it has consequently cut output by 800,000 barrels a day.
Another currency move of note is the yen, which has recaptured the sub-Y83 level relative to the dollar as the post-earthquake intervention impact wanes. With the Bank of Japan staying relatively looser-for-longer, because of the need for increased largesse as the country recovers from the tremor and tsunami, the yen’s interest rate differentials are likely to deteriorate.
This would normally put pressure on the yen, so the currency’s current strength may revive talk that it reflects the much muted repatriation of funds – a trend that if continued could call into question the resumption of the yen carry trade.
This is turn could affect some higher yielding or riskier assets, favourite destination of yen carry trade funds. There is little sign of this so far on Monday, however. The only clear casualty of the yen’s strength is the Tokyo stock market, which has slipped 0.4 per cent as the firmer currency hurts the country’s exporters.
(Bloomberg) -- Gold Climbs to Record as Investors Fret Over Rising Inflation
Gold advanced to record as investors seek the metal as a hedge against inflation. Gold for immediate delivery gained 0.1 percent to $1,488.35 an ounce, while bullion futures for June delivery rose 0.2 percent to $1,489.40 an ounce.
(Bloomberg) -- World Gold Council Says Position Limits Could Impair Liquidity

The World Gold Council said in a letter that proposed position limits in the gold market could “reduce or impair liquidity and trade.” The council published the March 28 letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commision on its website today.
(Bloomberg) -- Shortage Threat Drives Texas Schools Hoarding Bullion at HSBC
Dallas hedge-fund manager J. Kyle Bass helped advise the University of Texas Investment Management Co. on taking delivery of 6,643 gold bars, worth $987 million on April 15, now stored in a bank warehouse in New York.
Bass, who made $500 million with 2006 bets on a U.S. subprime-mortgage market collapse, said managers of the endowment, known as UTIMCO, sought board approval to convert its gold investments into bullion this year. A board member, Bass, 41, said he was asked to help with that process.
While Bass, a managing partner at Hayman Capital Management LP, said in an April 16 e-mail that “the decision to purchase and take delivery of the physical gold” was made by endowment staff members, “I helped where I could.” Gold futures touched a record $1,489.10 an ounce April 15 in New York before closing at $1,486.
The Texas fund’s $19.9 billion in assets ranked it behind only Harvard University’s endowment as of August, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Last year, UTIMCO added about $500 million in gold investments to an existing stake, said Bruce Zimmerman, the endowment’s chief executive officer. The fund’s managers sought to take delivery of bullion to protect against demand for the metal overwhelming supply, according to Bass.
Open interest in gold futures and options traded on the Comex typically exceeds supplies held in its warehouses. If the holders of just 5 percent of those contracts opted to take delivery of the metal, there wouldn’t be enough to cover the demand, Bass said.
Printing Money
“If you own a paper contract where they can only deliver you 10 cents on the dollar or less, you should probably convert it to physical,” said Bass, who isn’t related to Fort Worth’s billionaire Bass family. He said holding cash wasn’t a better choice because the rate of inflation exceeds money-market rates by 2.5 percent to 3 percent, eroding the value of cash.
“Central banks are printing more money than they ever have, so what’s the value of money in terms of purchases of goods and services,” Bass said April 15 in a telephone interview. “I look at gold as just another currency that they can’t print any more of.”
Sovereign-debt concerns also boosted demand for the metal on April 15, driving Comex futures to an all-time high. The price has climbed 28 percent in the past year.
Gold’s 10-year rally has attracted billionaire investors such as George Soros and John Paulson, who seek a store of value as record-low interest rates erode returns on currencies.
Wealthy Buyers
Few investors take physical delivery of bullion. As of April 14, 2,860 contracts this month, about 0.5 percent of total open interest, had been converted to metal, exchange data show.
Physical deliveries have slowed as gold topped records this year, said Blake Robben, a senior market strategist who handles deliveries of Comex metals for clients at Chicago-based broker Lind-Waldock.
“It’s usually wealthy individuals with net worths over $1 million who want to take delivery to diversify away from the dollar,” Robben said. “Generally, it’s a big hassle and not worth it to take delivery.”
Investors can own 100 ounces of gold futures with Lind- Waldock by paying a $100 fee and putting up $6,571 in a margin account to purchase one contract. To take delivery of a 100- ounce bar, investors have to pay the full price of the contract.
Bass, a Texas Christian University graduate who was named to the endowment’s board in August, is a former salesman with Bear Stearns Cos. and Legg Mason Inc. He said about 5 percent of his hedge fund is invested in gold.
The endowment, which oversees funds held by the University of Texas System and Texas A&M University, has 664,300 ounces of bullion in a Comex-registered vault in New York owned by HSBC Holdings Plc, the London-based bank, according to a report distributed at a meeting in Austin.
“I simply voted as a board member to approve the storage facility and concurred with their decisions,” Bass said.
(Bloomberg) -- Texas University Endowment Storing About $1 Billion in Gold Bars
The University of Texas Investment Management Co., the second-largest U.S. academic endowment, took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bullion and is storing the bars in a New York vault, according to the fund’s board.
The fund, whose $19.9 billion in assets ranked it behind Harvard University’s endowment as of August, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, added about $500 million in gold investments to an existing stake last year, said Bruce Zimmerman, the endowment’s chief executive officer. The holdings are worth about $987 million, based on yesterday’s closing price of $1,486 an ounce for Comex futures.
The decision to turn the fund’s investment into gold bars was influenced by Kyle Bass, a Dallas hedge fund manager and member of the endowment’s board, Zimmerman said at its annual meeting on April 14. Bass made $500 million on the U.S. subprime-mortgage collapse.
“Central banks are printing more money than they ever have, so what’s the value of money in terms of purchases of goods and services,” Bass said yesterday in a telephone interview. “I look at gold as just another currency that they can’t print any more of.”
Gold reached an all-time high of $1,489.10 an ounce yesterday in New York as sovereign debt concerns boosted demand for the metal as a store of value. Gold has climbed 28 percent in the past year on Comex.
The endowment, which oversees funds held by the University of Texas System and Texas A&M University, has 6,643 bars of bullion, or 664,300 ounces, in a Comex-registered vault in New York owned by HSBC Holdings Plc, the London-based bank, according to a report distributed at the meeting in Austin.

S&P Revises US Outlook To Negative (Thanks for Telling us What Everyone Has Already Known For The Past Three Years)

(These people really are the dumbest guys in the room)

From S&P:
Overview
We have affirmed our 'AAA/A-1+' sovereign credit rating on the United States of America.
•The economy of the U.S. is flexible and highly diversified, the country's effective monetary policies have supported output growth while containing inflationary pressures, and a consistent global preference for the U.S. dollar over all other currencies gives the country unique external liquidity.

•Because the U.S. has, relative to its 'AAA' peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable.

•We believe there is a material risk that U.S. policymakers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium- and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013; if an agreement is not reached and meaningful implementation does not begin by then, this would in our view render the U.S. fiscal profile meaningfully weaker than that of peer 'AAA' sovereigns.
Rating Action
On April 18, 2011, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services affirmed its 'AAA' long-term and 'A-1+' short-term sovereign credit ratings on the United States of America and revised its outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable.
Rationale
Our ratings on the U.S. rest on its high-income, highly diversified, and flexible economy, backed by a strong track record of prudent and credible monetary policy. The ratings also reflect our view of the unique advantages stemming from the dollar's preeminent place among world currencies. Although we believe these strengths currently outweigh what we consider to be the

U.S.'s meaningful economic and fiscal risks and large external debtor position, we now believe that they might not fully offset the credit risks over the next two years at the 'AAA' level.
The U.S. is among the most flexible high-income nations, with both adaptable labor markets and a long track record of openness to capital flows. In addition, its public sector uses a smaller share of national income than those of most 'AAA' rated countries--including its closest peers, the U.K., France, Germany, and Canada (all AAA/Stable/A-1+)--which implies greater

revenue flexibility.
Furthermore, the U.S. dollar is the world's most used currency, which provides the U.S. with unique external flexibility; the vast majority of U.S. trade flows and external liabilities are denominated in its own dollars. Recent depreciation of the currency has not materially affected this position, and we do not expect this to change in the medium term (see "Après Le Déluge, The U.S. Dollar Remains The Key International Currency," March 10, 2010, RatingsDirect).
Despite these exceptional strengths, we note the U.S.'s fiscal profile has deteriorated steadily during the past decade and, in our view, has worsened further as a result of the recent financial crisis and ensuing recession. Moreover, more than two years after the beginning of the recent crisis, U.S. policymakers have still not agreed on a strategy to reverse recent fiscal deterioration or address longer-term fiscal pressures.
In 2003-2008, the U.S.'s general (total) government deficit fluctuated between 2% and 5% of GDP. Already noticeably larger than that of most 'AAA' rated sovereigns, it ballooned to more than 11% in 2009 and has yet to recover.
On April 13, President Barack Obama laid out his Administration's medium-term fiscal consolidation plan, aimed at reducing the cumulative unified federal deficit by US$4 trillion in 12 years or less. A key component of the Administration's strategy is to work with Congressional leaders over the next two months to develop a commonly agreed upon program to reach this target. The President's proposals envision reducing the deficit via both spending cuts and revenue increases, and the adoption of a "debt failsafe" legislative mechanism that would trigger an across-the-board spending reduction if, by 2014, budget projections show that federal debt to GDP has not yet stabilized and is not expected to decline in the second half of the current decade.
The Obama Administration's proposed spending cuts include reducing non-security discretionary spending to levels similar to those proposed by the Fiscal Commission in December 2010, holding growth in base security (excluding war expenditure) spending below inflation, and further cost-control measures related to health care programs. Revenue would be increased via both tax reform and allowing the 2001 and 2003 income and estate tax cuts to expire in 2012 as currently scheduled--though only for high-income households. We note that the President advocated the latter proposal last year before agreeing with Republicans to extend the cuts beyond their previously scheduled 2011 expiration. The compromise agreed upon in December likely provides short-term support for the economic recovery, but we believe it also weakens the U.S.'s fiscal outlook and, in our view, reduces the likelihood that Congress will allow these tax cuts to expire in the near future. We also note that previously enacted legislative mechanisms meant to enforce budgetary discipline on future Congresses have not always succeeded.
Key members in the U.S. House of Representatives have also advocated fiscal tightening of a similar magnitude, US$4.4 trillion, during the coming 10 years, but via different methods. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan seeks to balance the federal budget by 2040, in part by cutting non-defense spending. The plan also includes significantly reducing the scope

of Medicare and Medicaid, while bringing top individual and corporate tax rates lower than those under the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.
We view President Obama's and Congressman Ryan's proposals as the starting point of a process aimed at broader engagement, which could result in substantial and lasting U.S. government fiscal consolidation. That said, we see the path to agreement as challenging because the gap between the parties remains wide. We believe there is a significant risk that Congressional negotiations could result in no agreement on a medium-term fiscal strategy until after the fall 2012 Congressional and Presidential elections. If so, the first budget proposal that could include related measures would be Budget 2014 (for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2013), and we believe a delay beyond that time is possible.

Standard & Poor's takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures the Congress and the Administration might conclude are appropriate. But for any plan to be credible, we believe that it would need to secure support from a cross-section of leaders in both political parties.
If U.S. policymakers do agree on a fiscal consolidation strategy, we believe the experience of other countries highlights that implementation could take time. It could also generate significant political controversy, not just within Congress or between Congress and the Administration, but throughout the country. We therefore think that, assuming an agreement between Congress and the President, there is a reasonable chance that it would still take a number of years before the government reaches a fiscal position that stabilizes its debt burden. In addition, even if such measures are eventually put in place, the initiating policymakers or subsequently elected ones could decide to at least partially reverse fiscal consolidation.
In our baseline macroeconomic scenario of near 3% annual real growth, we expect the general government deficit to decline gradually but remain slightly higher than 6% of GDP in 2013. As a result, net general government debt would reach 84% of GDP by 2013. In our macroeconomic forecast's optimistic scenario (assuming near 4% annual real growth), the fiscal deficit would fall to 4.6% of GDP by 2013, but the U.S.'s net general government debt would still rise to almost 80% of GDP by 2013. In our pessimistic scenario (a mild, one-year double-dip recession in 2012), the deficit would be 9.1%, while net debt would surpass 90% by 2013. Even in our optimistic scenario, we believe the U.S.'s fiscal profile would be less robust than those of other 'AAA' rated sovereigns by 2013. (For all of the assumptions underpinning our three forecast scenarios, see "U.S. Risks To The Forecast: Oil We Have to Fear Is…," March 15, 2011, RatingsDirect.
Additional fiscal risks we see for the U.S. include the potential for further extraordinary official assistance to large players in the U.S. financial or other sectors, along with outlays related to various federal credit programs. We estimate that it could cost the U.S. government as much as 3.5% of GDP to appropriately capitalize and relaunch Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two financial institutions now under federal control, in addition to the 1% of GDP already invested (see "U.S. Government Cost To Resolve And Relaunch Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac Could Approach $700 Billion," Nov. 4, 2010, RatingsDirect). The potential for losses on federal direct and guaranteed loans (such as student loans) is another material fiscal risk, in our view. Most importantly, we believe the risks from the U.S. financial sector are higher than we considered them to be before 2008, as our downward revisions of our Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment (BICRA) on the U.S. to Group 3 from Group 2 in December 2009 and to Group 2 from Group 1 in December 2008 reflect (see "Banking Industry Country Risk Assessments," March 8, 2011, and "Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment: United States of America," Feb. 1, 2010, both on RatingsDirect). In line with these views, we now estimate the maximum aggregate, up-front fiscal cost to the U.S. government of resolving potential financial sector asset impairment in a stress scenario at 34% of GDP compared with our estimate of 26% in 2007.
Beyond the short- and medium-term fiscal challenges, we view the U.S.'s unfunded entitlement programs (such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) to be the main source of long-term fiscal pressure. These entitlements already account for almost half of federal spending (an estimated 42% in fiscal-year 2011), and we project that percentage to continue increasing as long as these entitlement programs remain as they currently exist (see "Global Aging 2010: In The U.S., Going Gray Will Cost A Lot More Green," Oct. 25, 2010, RatingsDirect). In addition, the U.S.'s net external debt level (as we narrowly define it), approaching 300% of current account receipts in 2011, demonstrates a high reliance on foreign financing. The U.S.'s external indebtedness by this measure is one of the highest of all the sovereigns we rate.
While thus far U.S. policymakers have been unable to agree on a fiscal consolidation strategy, the U.S.'s closest 'AAA' rated peers have already begun implementing theirs. The U.K., for example, suffered a recession almost twice as severe as that in the U.S. (U.K. GDP declined 4.9% in real terms in 2009, while the U.S.'s dropped 2.6%). In addition, the U.K.'s net general government indebtedness has risen in tandem with that of the U.S. since 2007. In June 2010, the U.K. began to implement a fiscal consolidation plan that we believe credibly sets the country's general government deficit on a medium-term downward path, retreating below 5% of GDP by 2013.
We also expect that by 2013, France's austerity program, which it is already implementing, will reduce that country's deficit, which never rose to the levels of the U.S. or U.K. during the recent recession, to slightly below the U.K. deficit. Germany, which suffered a recession of similar magnitude to that in the U.K. (but has enjoyed a much stronger recovery), enacted a constitutional limit on fiscal deficits in 2009 and we believe its general government deficit was already at 3% of GDP last year and will likely decrease further. Meanwhile, Canada, the only sovereign of the peer group to suffer no major financial institution failures requiring direct government assistance during the crisis, enjoys by far the lowest net general government debt of the five peers (we estimate it at 34% of GDP this year), largely because of an unbroken string of balanced-or-better general government budgetary outturns from 1997 through 2008. Canada's general government deficit never exceeded 4% of GDP during the recent recession, and we believe it will likely return to less than 0.5% of GDP by 2013.
Outlook
The negative outlook on our rating on the U.S. sovereign signals that we believe there is at least a one-in-three likelihood that we could lower our long-term rating on the U.S. within two years. The outlook reflects our view of the increased risk that the political negotiations over when and how to address both the medium- and long-term fiscal challenges will persist until at least after national elections in 2012.
Some compromise that achieves agreement on a comprehensive budgetary consolidation program--containing deficit reduction measures in amounts near those recently proposed, and combined with meaningful steps toward implementation by 2013--is our baseline assumption and could lead us to revise the outlook back to stable. Alternatively, the lack of such an agreement or a significant further fiscal deterioration for any reason could lead us to lower the rating.
Standard & Poor's will hold a global teleconference call and Web cast today--April 18, 2011--at 11:30 a.m. New York time (4:30 p.m. London time). For dial-in and streaming audio details, please go to www.standardandpoors.com/cmlive.

And now for some more Humor Probably one of the Better Jokes of ALL TIME

Obama: 'American people will feel that I deserve a second term'


President Obama said Friday that he's convinced that voters will come to see him as the candidate best prepared to serve as president by next fall's elections.
The president said he thinks that he can make the case for a second term, though he acknowledged that the state of the economy could be his biggest hurdle to clear in winning reelection.
"I think the economy's going to continue to improve, and I think I'm going to be able to make an effective case that ... I am the person who is best prepared to finish the job so that we are on track to succeed in the 21st century," Obama said in a video interview this morning with The Associated Press.
"I think I can make that case, and I think that, in the debates that take place over the next 18 months, the American people will feel that I deserve a second term," Obama added.
The president launched his campaign earlier this month by filing paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to formally indicate he would seek a second term. Obama advanced that effort with a trio of fundraisers last night in his adoptive hometown of Chicago, the city where his reelection effort will be headquartered.
Obama enjoys an early advantage over most of the Republicans vying for the nomination to challenge him in 2012, but polls suggest that the president doesn't enjoy broad support on the issue he says is most important: the economy. In a poll released on Friday, Gallup found Obama's approval rating stood at 41 percent, an all time low. Gallup said the figure was fueled by economic dissatisfaction.
"I think that my biggest concern, when it comes to reelection, is my biggest concern as president of the United States, which is our economy moving fast enough to give people the kind of relief that they need," Obama said.
As for the biggest strength Obama believes he has heading into 2012? He said it was his "confidence in the American people."

The Latest Un edited E-Trade Commercial

Gold And Silver Reach New Record Nominal Highs – Little Coverage, Bearish And Superficial Analysis

From GoldCore
Gold and Silver Reach New Record Nominal Highs – Little Coverage, Bearish and Superficial Analysis
Gold and silver have reached new all time and 31 year record highs in trading in London this morning.
Silver is particularly strong and the euro particularly week on sovereign debt contagion concerns.
Inflation and sovereign debt fears are leading to continued safe haven demand. It is import as ever to note that the record highs are nominal highs and inflation adjusted gold and silver remain a long way from their respective highs of $2,400/oz and $140/oz in 1980. These inflation adjusted highs remain viable long term price targets.

Silver Update 4/14/11

Submitted by: Francis Soyer

Good morning, it appears that we owe a thank you to Goldman (the sack) for giving us another chance to leg into silver after they put out their bearish call on silver (and Oil) a few days ago. As you will see in the chart below with MACD measurement on the decline, volume on the incline and a new up trend forming. This is just a small window Goldman provided for itself by telling their clients to sell so that the sacks proprietary trading desk could get long.

Remember whenever you hear a recomendation from a large bank, or large media or research company CNBC, MSN, Wall St. Journal, Financial Times. After reading what they have to say stop and take note of what the article makes you want to do. If the article makes you think you should Sell, then you should buy. If the article makes you think you should buy, then you should sell. Thats it folks, do that and you will not need to work a normal job any more.

Jim Grant - US Will Resolve Debt by Returning to Gold Standard

With so much turmoil going on around the globe, King World News interviewed one of the legends in the business, Jim Grant, Founder of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer. When asked about the Fed’s arrogance Grant responded, “I think there’s an intellectual cock-sureness that has no grounding. When you listen to Ben Bernanke as he held forth on Sixty Minutes at the end of last year assuring the journalist doing the interview that he, Bernanke, was 100% sure, 100% certain of what he could do, you cringe because nobody is 100% sure of anything in this world.”


April 14, 2011
Jim Grant continues:
“Nobody who’s been around the block once or twice is sure of anything except perhaps the date of the week and even that, some days one wonders is it really Wednesday? So Bernanke he has I think the professional economist’s self confidence that somehow these people imbibe in graduate school. I think the pseudo scientific nature of quantitative economics empowers them in a way that other mortals could never fully appreciate. But whatever it is they think they know, I know one thing, and that is they know less.”
When asked about the Great Recession and how it has left its mark Grant replied, “It is notable. Not so many months passed from the depths of our sorrows in 2008 and 2009 before people seemed to be reverting to much the same kind of financial conduct that was much in evidence in 2005, 2006, 2007. The cycles are getting shorter. Then again the government is now in the business of, so it declares, of restoring financial prosperity through main force.
So after the Great Depression there was nothing like the policy that Ben Bernanke and company have been implementing now. I don’t think that human beings are much different than they were way back when, but certainly the government’s response to crises is vastly different.”
When asked about gold specifically Grant stated, “To me the gold price takes the form of a very uncomplicated formula, and all you have to do is divide one by ‘n.’ And ‘n’, I’m glad you ask, ‘n’ is the world’s trust in the institution of paper money and in the capacity of people like Ben Bernanke to manage it. So the smaller ‘n’, the bigger the price. One divided by a receding number is the definition of a bull market.
You’ll notice that this had nothing to do with security analysis. This is conceptualizing, brainstorming, nothing to do with price/earnings ratios, other valuation methods like cash flows. It is a proposition or a hypothesis on what is driving the gold market. So the gold market is necessarily a speculative piece of business. It’s not to be confused with the kind of investment that Ben Graham wrote about. Anyway, I happen to be bullish on it, but not for reasons that I can readily defend before a member of the fraternity of chartered financial analysts.”

When asked how the United States will resolve its debt and deficit problems, Grant remarked, “Well, in my mind it will resolve them necessarily by undertaking the step of restoring the dollar to convertibility into gold.”
Jim Grant has become legendary for having one of the top financial publications in the world. This comment from the Financial Times points out one of the many reasons for Grant’s success, “If Grant could see what was happening this clearly,” wrote John Authors of the staff of the FT, “and warn of it in a well-circulated publication, how did the world’s financial regulators fail to avert the crisis before it became deadly, and how did the rest of us continue to make the irrational investing decisions that make Mr. Market behave the way he does?”

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 14/04/11

Destroy the World Economy & Get A Christmas Bonus!

Why Congress Should Vote No On Raising Debt Ceiling by: Chris Whalen

By Christopher Whalen


The opinions expressed are his own.
“A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.”
–Karl Marx – Friedrich Engels

The Communist Manifesto
There is a specter haunting the industrial nations, too — the specter of debt default and deflation. All of the powers of the post-WWII regime of neo-Keynesian economic management have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter: Fed Chairman Bernanke, European Central Bank Head Jean-Claude Trichet, Democrats in the American Congress and the German centrist tendency under Angela Merkel.
All of these champions of the status quo ante are, ironically enough, serving as agents for the bond holders of the largest US and EU banks, the clients of PIMCO, Black Rock and even my friend David Kotok at Cumberland Advisors. These agents of the global creditor class are betting on the likes of Bernanke, Trichet and Merkel to collect their debts for them like so many China gunboats — and thereby plunge hundreds of millions of people into penury for decades to come.
It is no small irony that the interests of the banks and bond holders in the US are being protected by a Democrat from Chicago named Barack Obama. Far from being a leftist, Obama is a global technocrat who turned out to be the most perfectly compliant stooge for the interests of the large banks and institutional investors. With Timothy Geithner at Treasury and former JPMorgan banker William Daley at the White House, the only decision Obama needs to make every day is what shirt to wear.
On Capitol Hill, however, the long slumbering Republicans are starting to discover the political power of fiscal sobriety. In the negotiations with the White House over the budget for fiscal 2011, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) managed to win some significant concessions from the White House on spending issues — even if entitlements and military spending were off the table this time around. The next and more important fight comes over the question of raising the US debt ceiling. Once again, President Obama is not even in the game.
Secretary Geithner and his boss, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jaime Dimon, have made clear their distaste for a fight over extending the debt ceiling, in part because a debt default by the US would end the pretense of “too big to fail.” If Washington is willing to contemplate a default by the US Treasury, who cares about the fortress balance sheet of JP Morgan and other US zombie banks? But for a number of reasons, democratically elected governments from Lisbon to Dublin to Washington need to begin the process of financial restructuring whether the banks like it or not. And all of the political servants of the banksters are doing their best to avoid debt write downs.
In Ireland, for example, the new government of Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny is in a struggle with Trichet and his vile contemporaries at the ECB. The Euro central bank is essentially trying to keep together an under-funded bailout of the continent’s corporate and bank debts at the expense of public taxpayers. So muted is the political discourse in Western Europe that people are barely protesting — at least not yet. But offering Ireland the choice of default or decades of deflation and unemployment to repay its foreign obligations at par is untenable and risks comparisons with the German war reparations after WWI.
The Kenny government should reject the self-serving advice of the German-dominated ECB as well as the technocrats inside Ireland’s finance ministry, and tell Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy to try harder. Specifically, if the ECB and the core nations of the EU are not willing to offer Ireland more generous terms to bail out the private debts of EU banks, then the Kenny government should take the example of the people of Iceland and tell the technocrats in Brussels an emphatic “no” to bailing in the Irish bank debt at public expense.
Frankly, if you weigh the trade off between the immediate cash flow benefit to Ireland of walking away from its foreign debt and being cut off from the global capital markets, as Trichet has threatened to Kenny, a default seems the obvious choice. And with Portugal and other “peripheral” states of the EU tottering, the Kenny government has more leverage than it knows. Putting a gun to the head of Trichet right about now and daring him to blink might prove a very satisfying experience for any Irish officials with the guts to play the hand God has dealt to them.
In Washington as well, some Republicans are starting to appreciate that saying no to more debt and devaluation a la the Paul Krugman school of economic mismanagement is good politics. It is wrong to call Krugman and his ilk “Keynesians.” Lord Keynes was neither an apologist for debt or inflation, nor was he a free trader. He valued strong national industry and financial markets that were only supplemented by global capital and trade flows. What would Keynes tell Ireland today?
For the same reasons that the Kenny government needs to impose haircuts on Ireland’s creditors, the US Congress needs to vote no on the debt ceiling increase as part of a larger shift in thinking on debt and spending in Congress. Just as the people of Iceland have done the right thing by saying no to repaying corporate debts of UK and Dutch banks (all of which are now nationalized naturally), Americans need to take a page from the history books and begin the actual process of default on all manner of debt and entitlements obligations.
The only way we can force our citizens and also our trading partners to talk about the economic issues that are driving America’s growing mountain of debt is to stop adding to the pile. The role of the dollar as the primary means of exchange for global commerce and finance are the twin evils at the heart of the US fiscal disease. The role of the dollar as the world’s “reserve currency” is likewise a terrible millstone around the necks of American workers.
Saying “no” on raising the debt ceiling is the way for deficit hawks in Congress in both parties to seize the fiscal agenda and start a long overdue conversation about America’s place in the world. As I wrote in my book, Inflated: How Money and Debt Built the American Dream, this discussion must include an end to the dollar as the primary global means of exchange. When the dollar ceases to be the global currency, then the Fed can no longer monetize deficits with impunity as today.
One way of forcing this adjustment process is to start imposing losses on holders of dollar debt. Painful as it will be, helping the world to readjust the level of debt in the industrial nations back to realistic levels and rebalance the global currency markets into a peer-to-peer framework is a necessary process if America is ever to achieve a sustainable economic model. The only question is when and where will emerge the political leadership to do the right thing and begin to actively restructure debts.
Barack Obama has already failed that test of leadership by studiously avoiding any response to the US real estate meltdown, but new leaders in many heavily indebted nations will face the same issues — chronic levels of debt that will only grow heavier as and when global interest rates rise. If the ECB manages to bully Prime Minister Kenny in Ireland, do they really expect a more malleable regime after the next election?
The looming threat of debt is why we should expect to see a majority of Republicans and perhaps more than a few Democrats in Congress seek to block any increase in the US debt ceiling unless the measure includes a balanced budget amendment to the US Constitution.
My view is that Congress should vote down any debt ceiling measure unless President Obama agrees to sign the balanced budget amendment. Even if Secretary Geithner has to run the US government on cash, like the good people of Iceland and Ireland today, it will be a good thing for America’s political debate to default — at least for a few weeks. Then people will know that the once unthinkable is very possible.

Research Summary 4/13/11

Submitted by: Francis Soyer 4/13/11

News:
•Obama Said to Call for Entitlement Cuts, Higher Taxes (Bloomberg) Change we can believe in yeahhh!!!! What a clown...


•Banks Face Sovereign Debt Scrutiny in EU Stress Tests (Bloomberg)
•ECB: Ireland’s Taxpayers Must Share the Pain (FT)
•BRICS Push Resource-Hungry China to Buy Finished Goods (Bloomberg)
•China’s Nuclear Freeze to Last Until 2012 (FT)
•TEPCO still working on plan to end Japan nuclear crisis (Reuters)
•Schneider Says Currently No Talks With Tyco About Alliance (Bloomberg)
•Portugal's Leaders Bicker Over Bailout (WSJ)
•Chinese Companies Go on Global Bond Spree (FT)

Overnight Markets:
France CAC 40 4,011 +33.99 (+0.85%)

Germany DAX 100 7,180 +76.86 (+1.08%)
Hong Kong* Hang Seng 24,135 +158.66 (+0.66%)
Japan* Nikkei 225 9,641 +85.92 (+0.90%)
U.K. FTSE 100 6,021 +56.47 (+0.95%)

GFMS 2011 Gold Survey Released, Sees Gold Price Surpassing $1,600 Before Year End

Reuters) - Demand for gold bars grew strongly last year, helping lift overall physical investment despite weaker inflows into exchange-traded funds, metals consultancy GFMS said in its annual Gold Report on Wednesday.


Fed POMO Day today

Van Hoisington Eviscerates QE2: Full Q1 Review And Outlook

Van Hoisington shares a good analysis at the reverse psychology that the prevailing crowd grasped, and yet was completely lost on the Ivy League educated Academics at the Marriner Eccles building.


If the objectives of Quantitative Easing 2 (QE2) were to: a) raise interest rates; b) slow economic growth; c) encourage speculation, and d) eviscerate the standard of living of the average American family, then it has been enormously successful. Clearly, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight these results represent the Federal Reserve’s impact on the U.S. economy, regardless of their claims to the contrary.


For example, the Fed promoted the idea that implementation of QE1 and QE2 would lower interest rates. Apparently this fantasy was based on the assumption that the flow of their purchases would heavily offset (and in the case of QE2 almost fully offset) the flow of new debt being issued by the U.S. Treasury. This flow analysis appears irrefutable in concept, but actually interest rates rose across the yield curve in both cases. Why? Concentrating on the flow of Treasury debt, apparently the Fed failed to take into account that the existing stock of outstanding Treasury debt totaled nearly $8 trillion. The holders included individuals, mutual funds, pension plans, insurance companies, state and local governments and foreigners. Their actions indicate that they perceived Federal Reserve activity to be inflationary, and therefore harmful to their position. Their response was to reduce their relative holdings of Treasuries and purchase riskier assets. Interest rates rose. One large investor famously sold all his Treasuries—a rational choice in the shorter end of the Treasury market as some day QE2 will have to be reversed.
Why the Fed would believe the economy could benefit from the addition of $600 billion (the QE2 target) in reserves to a banking system that already had over $1.1 trillion in unused, idle, but potentially inflationary reserves on hand nearly defies understanding. The action, however, was not lost on holders of the $8 trillion Treasury securities outstanding.
This increase in the level of interest rates occurred, not only during QE2, but in QE1 as well. Thus the Federal Reserve engineered a rate increase, and the injection of excess reserves had several other deleterious ramifications for the U.S. economy.

According to Van Hoisignton this is what needs to happen:
Presently the Fed is odd man out among the world’s leading central banks. A major divergence in opinion has risen between the Fed on one side, and the European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank of England, and the PBOC on the other side. These major foreign central banks, unlike the Fed, believe that extreme monetary intervention has contributed to higher inflation. For that reason the ECB has taken rates higher to stop inflation tendencies and the BOE is preparing to take initial steps to remove extreme monetary accommodation. Such actions are likely to produce lower inflation and better results than Fed policy. While terminating QE2 will not result in a restoration of the Fed’s balance to a reasonable size, this is an essential first step. Such a move will serve to reinforce actions by the ECB, BOE and PBOC. As such, the global upturn in inflation will reverse, thereby placing the global economy on a more stable footing. risk adverse investments. This will release funds for the mortgage market and credit worthy state and local governments. Upward pressure on commodity prices will abate. This will begin to mitigate the downward pressure on real wage income and consumer confidence. The lower commodity prices will also serve to unwind the corporate margin squeeze that resulted from the higher commodity costs.
While the economy will slow initially, the drop in inflation over time should lift real income and serve to stabilize the economy. The dollar should firm, encouraging foreign investors to place additional funds in U.S. markets. Taken together, these factors should give the economy the opportunity to stand on its own, rather than rely on massive governmental interventions whose potentially negative and unintended consequences are unknown.
The evidence of the past three years seems clear in that monetary and fiscal policy have been unable to improve the average American’s standard of living. Time will be required to reestablish balance sheets to more normal levels, and in the interim disinflationary/deflationary tendencies will be ascendant. This environment is favorable for holders of long dated Treasuries. Positioning for an inflation boom will prove to be disappointing.
We agree. Which is why this outlook will never be realized. The Fed will simply never accept the risk of another bout of deflation. Period.

And now something different and FUN

Submitted by: Francis Soyer 4/12/11

Tentative Outright Treasury Operation Schedule

The Desk's tentative outright Treasury operation schedules for the purchases associated with the $600 billion purchase program announced by the FOMC on November 3, 2010 and for the purchases associated with the reinvestment of principal payments from agency debt and agency MBS announced by the FOMC on August 10, 2010.
Across all operations in the schedule listed below, the Desk plans to purchase approximately $97 billion. This represents $80 billion in purchases of the announced $600 billion purchase program and $17 billion in purchases associated with principal payments from agency debt and agency MBS expected to be received between mid-April and mid-May.
Range Expected Purchase Size

April 13, 2011 April 14, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 10/15/2012-09/30/2013 $4 - $6 billion

April 14, 2011 April 15, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 05/15/2018-02/15/2021 $6 - $8 billion

April 15, 2011 April 18, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 04/30/2015-09/30/2016 $5 - $7 billion

April 18, 2011 April 19, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 08/15/2028-02/15/2041 $1.5 - $2.5 billion

April 19, 2011 April 20, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 10/31/2013-03/31/2015 $5 - $7 billion

April 20, 2011 April 21, 2011 Outright TIPS Purchase 04/15/2013-02/15/2041 $1 - $2 billion

April 25, 2011 April 26, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 10/31/2016-03/31/2018 $6 - $8 billion

April 26, 2011 April 27, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 05/15/2021-11/15/2027 $1.5 - $2.5 billion

April 28, 2011 April 29, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 04/30/2015-09/30/2016 $5 - $7 billion

April 29, 2011 May 2, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 10/31/2013-03/31/2015 $5 - $7 billion

May 2, 2011 May 3, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 05/15/2018-02/15/2021 $6 - $8 billion

May 3, 2011 May 4, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 11/15/2016-05/02/2018 $6 - $8 billion

May 4, 2011 May 5, 2011 Outright TIPS Purchase 04/15/2013-02/15/2041 $1 - $2 billion

May 5, 2011 May 6, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 08/15/2028-02/15/2041 $1.5 - $2.5 billion

May 6, 2011 May 9, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 11/15/2013-04/30/2015 $5 - $7 billion

May 9, 2011 May 10, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 05/15/2018-02/15/2021 $6 - $8 billion

May 10, 2011 May 11, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 05/15/2015-10/31/2016 $5 - $7 billion

May 11, 2011 May 12, 2011 Outright Treasury Coupon Purchase 11/15/2016-05/02/2018 $6 - $8 billion
The next release of the approximate purchase amount and tentative outright Treasury operation schedule will be at 2 p.m. on May 11, 2011. At that time, the Desk will also publish information on prices paid for securities included in the operations listed above.

"I Give Up - Pay Anything"

Daily Show: I Give Up - Pay Anything...


As greedy public workers bankrupt states, America makes it harder for honest corporate citizens to create jobs.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-28-2011/i-give-up---pay-anything---
 

Trade Alert buying 1/4 Position COW $31.45 or better

Submitted by: Francis Soyer 4/12/11

Buying COW etf 1/4 position meaning Franics is ready to commit 3/4 more nominal position size (position size never to exceed) 5% of portfolio value at 31.45 o/b (or better)

Stop and buy more (Next 1/4 leg in) $29.50
Next 1/4 $29.00
Final 1/4 28.50
Time Frame 3-4 Months
Upside Target sell all at $38.10

SENATE TRAITORS WHO VOTED TO EXTEND THE PATRIOT ACT!.

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Richard Russell - Buy Pullbacks in Gold & Ignore the Top Callers

With gold and silver consolidating recent gains, the Godfather of newsletter writers Richard Russell had some interesting things to say in his latest commentary, “In all my years of investing, I have never seen an asset hit record highs, as gold has done recently, with less fanfare. There were no front page stories in the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times, heralding the new milestones." Fred Hickey, editor of the High-Tech Strategist and a member of Barron's Roundtable.”
After quoting Hickey, Russell continued:
“Gold is another story. The daily chart (above) shows gold breaking out of a head-and-shoulders bottom to the upside. Course of action -- sit with your precious metal position. Buy more on any pull-back toward the line of support (line of support is now at about 1450).
Russell comments on gold and silver -- Because the precious metals are in a massive bull market, many eager amateur analysts are now trying their hand on calling "the top." This is a hopeless and ridiculous endeavor during a powerful bull market. Much of this top-calling is done by an anti-gold element: Those who dislike gold or those who have missed the entire gold bull market. My advice all along has been to "ride the bull" and to ignore the "top callers."
The precious metals will correct when they are ready, and I might add that in ten years of closely following gold and silver, I have never come across anyone who has successfully called tops or who has successfully traded in-and-out of the metals. Advice -- stay invested in the metals until they exhaust themselves in panic buying.
Even then, what would you sell you gold for -- more fiat paper? We'll talk about selling precious metals when the time comes, which may be months or even years in the future.
Last, we turn to the Dollar Index...The Index is perched precariously above the critical 75 level with MACD in the process of turning negative.
A much longer view of the Dollar Index....Major critical support comes in at 70.69. I would think anything below 70 might set off a dollar panic.”
Gold has broken out above the $1,450 area and as Russell says, generally you want to buy on pullbacks toward that level. The public might be too skittish to do that, but the professionals certainly will. If that level holds, it will provide the base for the next leg higher in gold. For the non-professionals, simply accumulate each month on the same day and dollar cost average your purchases over time. This is a huge secular bull market, enjoy the ride. As far as the US dollar goes, God help us when we finally break 70 on that index.

Goldman Advises Clients To Sell Brent Down To $105 (As Goldman "Client Facing" Team Is Better Buyer?)

Yesterday Goldman launched the first salvo in the crude correction trade, telling clients to take premature profits on its CCCP (crude among others) basket as we reported previously. Today, Goldman sell-side energy analyst, once again completely unconflicted and ignorant of what is happening across the Chinese wall where all those former prop traders and now better known as "client facing associates" buy on behalf of Goldman's multi-billion balance sheet, has released his latest hit piece on oil. "We expect the oil market will experience a substantial pullback toward our $105/bbl near-term Brent crude oil price target." And for those wondering, when is the last time Goldman ever dropped their oil price forecast? Well, usually a month or so before the firm hikes it to $150 (see 2008).

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc.

Daily Research Summary 4/12/11

Submitted by: Francis Soyer

Yesterdays sell off in Silver as caused by a $1,000,000 dollar bet by COMEX (Crimex) that SLV would fall to $25.00 an ounce by July is the main suspect for the retreat. However, taking a closer look at this trade that went through something interesting to note. For one thing, half the daily volume were calls, and check out the total Open Interest (People Short This Downside Bet) This says that there are 3.2 million contracts betting against SLV would ever reach $25.00 By July. This is hardly a large bet that SLV will fall as described yesterday in the media. I suspect this may have even been a trade error. Or a larger player is using their weight to spin some headlines to get longer at a discount. The other possibility is that a trader on a desk probably fat fingered the key board when executing an order for July 35 Puts and his/her ass is grass today with the portfolio manager. It does happen unfortunately.

Symbol    OptVolume       Puts          Calls           AvgDailyVol    OpenInt

SLV          698,162            382,221    315,941       228,700          3,270,383

Unfortunately by the time everyone figured out this was a bogus move down SLV this morning is already recovering thus eliminating the chance to leg in further at a discount.
Japan raises nuclear threat to highest level


Ivorian leader promises reconciliation

France: Says NATO not doing enough in Libya

Swaziland protest organizers arrested

Asian indices were in the red with the Nikkei down 1.69%. Major European indices are down and US futures indicate a negative open.
UK retail sales fell 1.9% year-over-year in March, the steepest decline in six years. Non-food retailers took an especially hard hit and the pound slid against the dollar on the news
German investor confidence plummeted in April due to rising oil prices and the ECB rate hike

Drop In Silver Attributed To $1 Million 37% Downside Bet On SLV

With everyone transfixed by the relentless move higher in silver, stories, myths and virtually anything is used a catalyst to explain any move lower in the precious metal. While earlier there already were two rumors that the COMEX would imminently hike gold and silver margins again (so for untrue) what is true, and what many are attributing the move in silver to, is what according to some is an outsized option bet that SLV will drop 37% by July. Bloomberg reports: "A trader’s almost $1 million bet that an exchange-traded fund tracking silver will plunge 37 percent by July was today’s biggest single options trade on U.S. exchanges as futures on the metal reached a 31-year high. The 100,000 options to buy 100 shares each of the iShares Silver Trust (SLV) at $25 by July changed hands at the ask price of about 10 cents and exceeded the open interest of 6,054 outstanding contracts before today, indicating that a buyer of a new bearish position initiated the transaction. The ETF rose to the highest intraday level since trading began five years ago, $40.33, before erasing gains. It fell 0.5 percent to $39.67 at 12:54 p.m. It hasn’t closed below $25 since November."


“It’s definitely a massive downside bet on silver,” said Henry Schwartz, president of Trade Alert LLC, a New York-based provider of options-market data and analytics. “It’s so far out of the money that the buyer is probably just looking for a moderate pullback because a $3 retracement to where it was in March could double the position to $2 million.”
Silver for May delivery in New York climbed as much as 3.4 percent to $41.975 an ounce, the highest level since January 1980, when futures reached a record $50.35. It last traded at $41.33. Silver, where half of global consumption is industrial, has been rising because it benefits from a rebounding global economy as well as demand for a haven, according to UBS AG.
Of course, such a simplistic analysis certainly ignores what are likely numerous other components to a trade that is almost certainly multi-handed. After all let's not forget that it was none other than Morgan Stanley on Friday explaining why there appears to be a sizable short-gamma position in the market, which is substantially higher than just a $1 mm notional exposure, and which if anything, is a far more potent driver in the price of silver. Furthermore, if a $1mm bet is sufficient bet to push the market in either direction, then it is safe to say that there is absolutely no liquidity in the PM market whatsoever.
We are confident much more will emerge in the story of who is betting what and how much on future silver moves before June 30 comes.
Lastly, anybody out there heard of... gasp... hedging?

Exclusive: Bill Gross Is Now Short US Debt, Hikes Cash To $73 Billion, An All Time Record

A month ago, Zero Hedge first reported that Bill Gross had taken the stunning decision to bring his Treasury exposure from 12% to 0%: a move which many interpreted as just business, and not personal: after all Pimco had previously telegraphed its disgust with US paper, and was merely mitigating its exposure. This time, in another Zero Hedge first, we discover that it is no longer business for Bill - it has now become personal (and with an attendant cost of carry). In March, Pimco's flagship Total Return Fund (TRF) has now taken an active short position in US government debt: -3% on a Market Value basis (or $7.1 billion), and a whopping -18% on a Duration Weighted Exposure basis. And confirming just what PIMCO thinks of US-related paper is the fact that the world's largest "bond" fund now has cash, at a stunning $73 billion, or 31% of all assets, as its largest asset class on both a relative and absolute basis. We repeat: cash is more than PIMCO's holdings of Treasurys and Mortgage securities ($66 billion) combined. To paraphrase: in March PIMCO was dumping everything related to US rates (see chart below). This is the first net short position that PIMCO has had in Government-related debt since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, and going positive in February of 2009 only after it became clear that the Fed would commence monetizing US debt one month later. This is the closest that Gross has come to making a political statement and is now without doubt putting his money where his mouth is. The only event that could possibly derail Gross' thinking is a huge market crash forcing a rush to Treasury safety. Alas, as has been made all too clear recently, US debt is no longer the safe haven it once was. Which begs the question: when will the TRF break out a "gold" asset holdings line item.

Ex-PBOC Official Wakes Up From The Acid Trip: "U.S. Treasury Market Is A Giant Ponzi Scheme"

Ex-PBOC Official Wakes Up From The Acid Trip: "U.S. Treasury Market Is A Giant Ponzi Scheme"


Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/11/2011 09:31 -0400

After years of being the primary supplier of funding to the US credit-money shell game, one more ex-PBoC member wakes up from the "great normalization" acid trip, and in a Caixin editorial says what virtually everyone now understands all too well: the Treasury market is one "giant Ponzi scheme." Oh, and it wasn't obvious when China was the biggest holder of debt for years (until the Fed became the biggest monetizer of US Treasuries late in 2010)? Sounds like a rather serious case of buyers remorse is creeping into the buying mindset of America's formerly primary enabler. The $64 trillion question now, as always, is whether China, whose holdings have been flat for a year will follow in Pimco's footsteps and actually commence selling longer-dated paper. If so, and with QE3 now expected to end even if temporarily, the aftermath will not be what Congress wants to see.
From Market Watch:

A former adviser to China's central bank said on Monday that China should have retreated from the U.S. government-bond market and instead allowed the yuan to appreciate more freely, warning that U.S. sovereign debt was akin to a giant Ponzi scheme, according to a newswire report that cited an editorial on Caixin Media Group's website. Yu Yongding, a former member of the People's Bank of China monetary-policy committee and now a member of a state-run policy group, said allowing appreciation of the yuan against the U.S. dollar under a free-floating currency regime would have reduced China's need to acquire U.S. Treasuries. He likened the U.S. Treasury market to a "giant Ponzi scheme," arguing that Federal Reserve buying of Treasuries has artificially kept bond prices high, but that they would eventually fall to levels which reflected fundamentals of the U.S. economy.

Liberal Media Refuses To Cover George Soros New World Order

Right now, there are only two groups that have written about George Soros New World Order event in New Hampshire that is taking place today. NTEB and Fox News. This is very odd when you consider that the giants of world politics and finance will be at these meetings, and Nancy Pelosi is the Keynote speaker. Just a tad odd, wouldn’t you say, that none of the main stream media are covering it in any way? So it would appear that there is a conspiracy among the various outlets to allow Soros’ meetings to take place unreported.

The first gathering in Bretton Woods, N.H., is an economic conference Soros once described as “a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order.” In October 2009, Soros committed $50 million to the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET). A week later, the glib lefty investor wrote a column calling for a new Bretton Woods event, to recreate the one that helped design the post-WWII economy. Only he wants this one to knock America down a peg or three.
The announced speakers include a lot of prominent lefties, globalists and economists on the board of the organization he has throwing the event – more than two-thirds of the overall total have ties to Soros. To underscore their connection to history, INET is hosting the conference at the Mount Washington Resort, the very same hotel that held the first gathering.
INET Executive Robert Johnson defended his event in a March 31 interview with Lou Dobbs. Johnson, a former managing director at Soros Fund Management, who is on the Board of Directors for the Soros-funded Economic Policy Institute, avoided saying “Soros” despite Dobbs mentioning Johnson’s boss several times. In his last response, he tried to rationalize the Soros connection, by saying “I have a group of funders including George Soros.” With $50 million, Soros alone makes a pretty big group. Of course, Soros will also be speaking in Bretton Woods about “The Emerging Economic and Political Order.” source – Fox News
TY Mary Jane Moore-Wright

Frontrunning: April 11

Frontrunning: April 11
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/11/2011 07:51 -0400



•Obama Push to Seize Budget Initiative (FT)

•China gives all clear on bond issuance bubble: Government Boosts the Bond Markets (China Daily)

•You mean they can't use 200% debt financing? Nasdaq OMX Needs Shareholders to Embrace Rejected Bid (Bloomberg)

•Complacent Europe Must Realise Spain Will be Next (FT)

•Japan's seismic nerve center (Japan Times)

•Kan’s DPJ Suffers Election Setback One Month After Japan Quake (Bloomberg)

•Edano Says Japan Doesn't Need BOJ to Help Fund Post-Quake Disaster Relief (Bloomberg)

•State Prosecutor Summons Mubarak (FT)

•US Doubts Air Power Can Turn Libyan Tide (FT)

China Lashes Out At US "Hypocrisy", Blasts US Human Rights "Double Standard" In Pursuing "World Hegemony"

In what can only be described as a stunning deterioration in foreign relations between the world's two superpowers, following Friday's release by the US State Department of the annual report on human rights, which expressed sharp criticism of the human rights records of China, North Korea, Cuba and Belarus, among others, China decided it has had enough. Less than 48 hours later, it has lashed back at the US with a report that is making headlines at every government controlled, and otherwise, media in mainland China, which makes a mockery of the US double standard when it comes to human rights, and exposes US "hypocrisy" which China (rightly many would claim) asserts is merely a pretext for continued US attempts at world "hegemony". As Xinhua reports on its front page, "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2010 was released by the Information Office of China's State Council, or cabinet, in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2010 issued by the U.S. Department of State on April. The U.S. reports are "full of distortions and accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China. However, the United States turned a blind eye to its own terrible human rights situation and seldom mentioned it," China's report said." The war of words hits a new all time record: "The United States has taken human rights as "a political instrument to defame other nations' image and seek its own strategic interests," the report said. While illustrating a dismal record of the United States on its own human rights, China's report said the United States could not be justified to pose as the world's "human rights justice." "However, it released the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices year after year to accuse and blame other countries for their human rights practices," the report said. These moves fully expose the United States' hypocrisy by exercising double standards on human rights and its malicious design to pursue hegemony under the pretext of human rights, it said. The report advised the U.S. government to "take concrete actions to improve its own human rights conditions, check and rectify its acts in the human rights field, and stop the hegemonistic deeds of using human rights issues to interfere in other countries' internal affairs." While that last sentence may not be an explicit warning for the US to shut the hell up and focus on its own dirty laundry, or else, it sure does sound like one.


VIOLATION OF CITIZENS' RIGHTS
In the United States, the violation of citizens' civil and political rights by the government is severe, said the report.
Citizen's privacy has been undermined. More than 6,600 travelers had been subject to electronic device searches between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010, nearly half of them American citizens, said the report, citing figures released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in September 2010.
The report said abuse of violence and torturing suspects to get confession is serious in the U.S. law enforcement, and "wrongful conviction occurred quite often."
While advocating Internet freedom, the U.S. in fact imposes fairly strict restriction on cyberspace, said the report.
The United States applies double standards on Internet freedom by requesting unrestricted "Internet freedom" in other countries, which becomes an important diplomatic tool for the U.S. to impose pressure and seek hegemony, and imposing strict restriction within its own territory, the report said.
The U.S. regards itself as "the beacon of democracy." However, its democracy is largely based on money, the report said.
According to media report in 2010, U.S. House and Senate candidates shattered fundraising records for a midterm election, taking in more than 1.5 billion U.S. dollars as of October 24. The midterm election, held in November 2010, finally cost 3.98 billion U.S. dollars, the most expensive in the U.S. history.
HIGHEST INCIDENCE OF VIOLENT CRIMES
One out of every five people is a victim of a crime in the United States every year, said the report.
The United States reports the world' s highest incidence of violent crimes, and its people's lives, properties and personal security are not duly protected, the report said.
In 2009, an estimated 4.3 million violent crimes, 15.6 million property crimes and 133,000 personal thefts were committed against U.S. residents aged 12 or older, and the violent crime rate was 17.1 victimizations per 1,000 persons, said the report, quoting figures from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The United States also ranks first in the world in terms of the number of privately-owned guns and had high incidence of gun-related crimes, said the report, noting that the United States exercised lax control on the already rampant gun ownership.
Some 90 million people own an estimated 200 million guns in the United States, which has a population of about 300 million, the report said citing figures from the public media.
Statistics showed there were 12,000 gun murders a year in the United States, the report said.
The report also said that the frequent campus shootings in colleges in the United States came to the spotlight in recent years.
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION DEEP-SEATED
"Racial discrimination, deep-seated in the United States, has permeated every aspect of social life," said the report.
Minority groups confront discrimination in their employment and occupation. The black people are treated unfairly or excluded in promotion, welfare and employment, the report quoted U.S media reports as saying.
It is reported that one-third of black people confronted discrimination at work, against which only one-sixteenth of the black people would lodge a complaint.
The New York Times reported on September 23, 2010 that by the end of September 30, 2009, Muslim workers had filed a record 803 claims of complaints over employment discrimination, up 20 percent from the previous year.
The report said U.S. minority groups have high unemployment rate, and do not enjoy the same political status as white people.
Poverty proportion for U.S. minorities is high in the United States. The poverty proportion of the black was 25.8 percent in 2009, and those of Hispanic origin and Asian were 25.3 percent and 12.5 percent respectively, much higher than that of the non-Hispanic white at 9.4 percent, said the report, citing U.S. media figures.
The report also said that U.S. minority groups face obvious inequality in education, and the health care for African-American people is worrisome.
Racial discrimination is evident in the law enforcement and judicial systems, racial hate crimes are frequent, and immigrants' rights and interests are not guaranteed, said the report.
RIGHTS OF WOMEN, CHILDREN IS BOTHERING
Gender discrimination against women widely exists in the United States, and women in the country often experience sexual assault and violence.
Statistics showed that some 20 million women are rape victims in the country, some one fifth female students on campus are victims of sexual assault, and nearly 3,000 female soldiers were sexually assaulted in fiscal year 2008, up nine percent from the year before.
Women are also victims of domestic violence in the United States, said the report, as some 1.3 million people fall victim to domestic violence every year, with women accounting for 92 percent.
Many children in the U.S. live in poverty and their physical and mental health is not ensured as nearly one in four children struggles with hunger, according to the report.
The report also pointed out that violence against children is very severe in the country, citing figures from the official website of Love Our Children USA that every year, over three million children are victims of violence reportedly and the actual number is three times greater.
More than 93,000 children are currently incarcerated in the United States, and between 75 and 93 percent of children have experienced at least one traumatic experience, including sexual abuse and neglect, the report said.
According to the report, pornographic content is rampant on the Internet and severely harms American children as seven in 10 children have accidentally accessed pornography on the Internet and one in three has done so intentionally.
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
The United States has a notorious record of international human rights violations, said the report.
The U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have caused huge civilian casualties.
Figures from the WikiLeaks website revealed up to 285,000 war casualties in Iraq from March 2003 through the end of 2009, with 63 percent of the 109,000 people killed in the Iraq war being civilians.
"The U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and other regions have also brought tremendous casualties to local people," said the report.
The report cited the notorious case on a "kill team" formed by five soldiers from the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The team had committed at least three murders, where they randomly targeted and killed Afghan civilians, and dismembered the corpses and hoarded the human bones.
In addition, the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops had caused 535 Afghan civilian deaths and injuries in 2009. Among them 113 civilians were shot and killed, an increase of 43 percent over 2008, the report quoted McClatchy Newspapers as saying.
PRISONER ABUSE SCANDALS
The United States have been holding individuals captured under the pretext of the "war on terror" and abusing detainees with various methods, according to the report.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) established secret detention facilities to interrogate so-called "high-value detainees," said the report, citing a document submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council in May 2010.
According to the document, the CIA had taken custody of 94 detainees, and had employed "enhanced techniques" to varying degrees, including stress positions, extreme temperature changes, sleep deprivation and "waterboarding" in the interrogation of 28 of those detainees.