Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts – Come As You Are

Jon

“But now, in this century of ideologies, the Gods and Destiny have been given new life. ‘Miracles in the world are many,’ Sophocles wrote in the fifth century BC. ‘There is no greater miracle than man.’
Suddenly, at the end of the twentieth century, we discover that no, after all, it isn’t true. Historical inevitability is a greater miracle than man. As is the dialectic. As is the superiority of various groups according to blood type. As is the genius of an abstract mechanism called the market. As is the leadership of inanimate objects – called technology – which worker bees create and then, inevitably, are led by.
These inevitabilities are great leaps backward into the arms of the Gods and Destiny.”
John Ralston Saul
It’s funny but I remember translating that line above from Sophocles as an undergraduate in college. ‘Many are the wonders, but nothing more filled with wonders than man.’
We are much worse than ancient cultures with their superstitions. We are granted enormous amounts of data, with more knowledge of the workings of the universe and nature than any other generations, and we cannot see ‘the big picture’ as well as they might, substituting our own myths and legends of ourselves and our marvelous exceptionalism, while ignoring the greatest forces of God and Nature.
We dissipate, relentless in our doom, to glare at photons, gaping in the light.
Non-Farm Payrolls report tomorrow.

This post was published at Jesses Crossroads Cafe on 04 DECEMBER 2014.

OK, I Get it, the Japanese Government Bond Market Is Dead. And the Yen?

Jon

‘Japan Government Bonds Rise as Market Shrugs Off Downgrade,’ the Wall Street Journal headline said with some astonishment after Moody’s had dared to downgrade Japan’s credit rating to A1 – fifth notch from the top. But there was a big assumption in the headline: that there’s still a market for Japanese Government Bonds.
The last time Moody’s had downgraded Japan was in August, 2011. At the time, JGBs yielded 1.02%; the market was, as the media put it with its usual astonishment, ‘unfazed’ by the downgrade. Since then, every metric of the country’s fiscal health has sharply deteriorated, leading to an ever larger mountain of government debt. Yet the government’s cost of borrowing has dropped to near zero.
This time, Moody’s reasons for the downgrade include the ‘heightened uncertainty over the achievability of fiscal deficit reduction goals,’ along with the swoon of the economy, which raises doubts about the ‘timing and effectiveness of growth enhancing policy measures.’
Presumably, when sovereign bonds get downgraded, their value should fall and their yields should rise as investors suddenly see the additional risks and the overall crappiness of the paper.
Yet the opposite happened. JGBs rose and yields edged down. The 10-year yield wobbled to a ludicrously low 0.41% by Wednesday before edging up again to 0.43% today. The five-year yield hit a new all-time low of 0.07% by Wednesday before ticking up a smidgen to 0.08% today. At these rates, the government can borrow for essentially free. And if inflation is considered – 2.9% overall and 4% on goods – it’s actually making money by borrowing money.
But why the heck would market participants accept a guaranteed loss after inflation on these risky bonds?

This post was published at Wolf Street on December 4, 2014.

‘Near Perfect’ Indicator That Precedes Almost Every Stock Market Correction Is Flashing A Warning Signal

Jon

Are we about to see U. S. stocks take a significant tumble? If you are looking for a ‘canary in the coal mine’ for the U. S. stock market, just look at high yield bonds. In recent years, almost every single time junk bonds have declined substantially there has been a notable stock market correction as well. And right now high yield bonds are steadily moving lower. The biggest reason for this is falling oil prices. As I wrote about the other day, energy companies now account for about 20 percent of the high yield bond market. As the price of oil falls, investors are understandably becoming concerned about the future prospects of those companies and are dumping their bonds. What is happening cannot be described as a ‘crash’ just yet, but there has been a pretty sizable decline for junk bonds over the past month. And as I noted above, junk bonds and stocks usually move in tandem. In fact, junk bonds usually start falling before stocks do. So does the decline in high yield bonds that we are witnessing at the moment indicate that we are on the verge of a significant stock market correction?
That is a question that CNBC asked in a recent article entitled ‘Near perfect sell signal says stocks should drop’…
The S&P 500 and the iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF are a mirror image since the start of the year, but since the end of October, high yield has diverged to the lower right, and yet the S&P 500 has continued to record highs. Since separating in October, the S&P 500 is up 3 percent, while the high-yield ETF is down 4 percent.
On 10 occasions since 2007, the high-yield ETF dropped 5 percent in 30 trading days. During nine of those instances, the S&P 500 fell as well, with an average return of negative 9 percent, according to CNBC analysis using Kensho.

This post was published at The Economic Collapse Blog on December 4th, 2014.

Could Gold Surprise Us All?

Jon

Let us be honest here for a second. Almost every Wall Street Strategists has been expecting Gold below $1,100 this year and even below $1,000 next year. Every trade has been positioning for the breakdown below the all important support level of around $1,200 per ounce and gross shorts are currently at very high levels. Every media outlet from Bloomberg to CNBC has been talking about how much of a poor investment Gold has been. Many sentiment surveys, including the Daily Sentiment Index, reached record low levels on the recent decline. Even I have been expecting prices towards a $1,000 physiologically important support level.

This post was published at GoldSilverWorlds on Dec 4, 2014.

You Know It’s A Bubble When…

Jon

Because nothing says rational equity markets like a 16-year-old penny-stock-day-trader who turned $10,000 into $300,000 this year…
Meet Connor Bruggermann – the new normal ‘investor’…

The son of a former vice president at JP Morgan who worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, 16-year-old Connor Bruggermann could well be the poster-child for what the Fed has wrought on the American public.
As The Verge reports, while his dad warned that with penny stocks “you could make money or lose money very, very quickly,” Bruggemann, on the other hand, embraced the chaos. For Bruggemann, as for many others, penny stocks were another outlet for that risky reward seeking. “There is a lot of fraud and manipulation, a lot of them are not legitimate companies,” he says. “It could be someone like you or I sitting here saying we have a $5 million deal with Panasonic, when in reality that’s not true.” According to the SEC, penny stock scams have surged over the last two years.
At home, in a room he shares with his older brother, Bruggemann has two monitors set up as a trading station. But most of the time, he tells me, “I prefer to trade on my phone.”
Risk management…?

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 12/04/2014.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts – We Come In Peace

Jon

“The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology.”
Michael Parenti
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who murders its prophets, and stones those sent to preserve her. How often I have wished to gather your children with me and keep them safe, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. And you were not willing.”
Matt 23:37
If you see us coming, better run and hide.
We make a desert, and call it peace. And those chickenhawks are coming home to roost.

This post was published at Jesses Crossroads Cafe on 04 DECEMBER 2014.

No Rise In Incomes? Just Don’t Tell These Guys

Jon

In the aftermath of the abysmal start to the 2014 holiday selling season, one thing has (or should have) become abundantly clear: America’s middle class, which refuses to lever up to idiotic proportions as the memory of 2007 and the subsequent crash will remain all too vivid for a generation, is dying a painful death, best summarized by the following WSJ chart of spending and income patterns. What should be immediately obvious is that even as spending has picked up fractionally since the start of the depression, incomes have not, which is, in a nutshell, the heart of the US economic problem.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 12/04/2014.

A Comprehensive Breakdown of America’s Economic House of Cards

Jon

I was going over some of my older posts to review what was being discussed at the beginning of this year and what the perspectives were at that time. I found an interesting piece I wrote at the beginning of the year. I had just watched Janet Yellen’s inaugural panel hearing in front of the congressional finance committee members on Cspan. It’s basically a forum to allow the congressional financial committee members to directly pose comments and questions to the world’s most influential banker, namely, the US Fed chairman.
There were a few hardball questions but mostly just buttering up on Ms. Yellen from both sides of the aisle. Picking out a few of the interesting bits that came up in the course of discussion I was certain I saw a glimpse of honesty indicating that problems are on the horizon, from Ms. Yellen. The most notable commentary was her fairly forthright perspective that the CBO forward guidance depicted an imminent problem for America. What caught me a bit off guard was how easily the congressional finance committee members shrugged off the repetitive warnings from the Fed chair regarding this imminent problem. There was no discussion about possible solutions to the problem or even calls for further investigation to the warnings. It was simply dismissed. I found it incredibly ironic the one person in the world who is mandated to continuously increase leverage to the US was the one warning congress to get its fiscal house in order. Yet the congressional committee before her, acted as though they didn’t hear it.
However, subsequent to that initial committee hearing I’ve not heard any additional warnings from the Fed about getting the America’s fiscal house in order. It was a rare moment of honesty from a rookie chair and she apparently received a memo shortly thereafter informing her of the mistake. Now let’s take a look at specifically what Ms. Yellen was warning congress about. The CBO publishes annual long term forward guidance to give the world an idea of where things will be for the US 25 years out given where we are today. Forecasting so far into the future is no exact science and it relies heavily on assumptions. And so let’s take a look at the typical process.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 12/04/2014.

Only Yesterday – -How The Federal Debt Went From $1 Trillion To $18 Trillion in 33 Years

Jon

In the great fiscal scheme of things, October 22, 1981 seems like only yesterday. That’s the day the US public debt crossed the $1 trillion mark for the first time. It had taken the nation 74,984 days to get there (205 years). What prompts this reflection is that just a few days ago the national debt breached the $18 trillion mark; and the last trillion was added in hardly 365 days.

I remember October 1981 perhaps better than most because as the nation’s budget director at the time I had some splain’ to do. Ronald Reagan had waged the most stridently anti-deficit campaign since 1932 when, ironically, FDR promised a balanced budget while denouncing Hoover as a ‘spendthrift’. Likewise, Gov. Reagan had denounced Jimmy Carter’s red ink and promised a balanced budget by 1983.
But as 1981 unfolded and the US treasury borrowed large sums each day to fund what we were pleased to call Jimmy Carter’s ‘inherited deficits’, the trillion dollar national debt threshold rushed upon us. And, in truth it came far more rapidly than had been anticipated because by the fall of 1981, the Reagan white house had enacted the largest tax reduction in American history. On top of that, it had also green-lighted a huge defense build-up, yet, as we liked to rationalize at the time, had made little more than a ‘down payment’ on sweeping reforms of domestic spending and entitlements.

This post was published at David Stockmans Contra Corner on December 4, 2014.

Could Falling Oil Prices Spark A Financial Crisis?

Jon

The oil and gas boom in the United States was made possible by the extensive credit afforded to drillers. Not only has financing come from company shareholders and traditional banks, but hundreds of billions of dollars have also come from junk-bond investors looking for high returns.
Junk-bond debt in energy has reached $210 billion, which is about 16 percent of the $1.3 trillion junk-bond market. That is a dramatic rise from just 4 percent that energy debt represented 10 years ago.
As is the nature of the junk-bond market, lots of money flowed to companies with much riskier drilling prospects than, say, the oil majors. Maybe drillers were venturing into an uncertain shale play; maybe they didn’t have a lot of cash on hand or were a small startup. Whatever the case may be, there is a reason that they couldn’t offer ‘investment grade’ bonds. In order to tap the bond market, these companies had to pay a hefty interest rate.
For investors, this offers the opportunity for high yield, which is why hundreds of billions of dollars helped finance companies in disparate parts of the country looking to drill in shale. When oil prices were high and production was relentlessly climbing, energy related junk bonds looked highly profitable.
But junk bonds pay high yields because they are high risk, and with oil prices dipping below $70 per barrel, companies that offered junk bonds may not have the revenue to pay back bond holders, potentially leading to steep losses in the coming weeks and months.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on on 12/04/2014.

The Illusion Of Full Employment And Technology

Jon

“The lesson no one wants to draw from this recovery is that the US economy is both stronger and more resilient than commonly believed.
Do not dismiss the real improvement in the economy since 2009. It is not unimportant that 2014 is likely to be the biggest year for private sector employment…”
Tim is correct, the current run in monthly employment gains is currently one of the longest in history. It has also been suggested by the Federal Reserve that as the economy approaches “full employment” it will need to consider hiking overnight lending rates.
This is truly great news for an economy that is now more than six years into an economic recovery following the “Great Recession of the 21st Century.”
However, what is either missed, or just ignored, is the rather large group of individuals that have disappeared from the fabric of the economy and, while still alive, are simply ignored by current statistical measures. Let’s do some math using data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. [Note: I am only using the population between 16-54 years of age to eliminate the argument that “baby boomers are retiring” in droves, even though more individuals than ever, over the age of 65, remain employed.] Total Working Age Population (16-54 years of age): 248,657,000 Total Nonfarm Employees (16-54 years of age): 114,523,000 Percentage Of Working Age Americans Employed (Full or Part-Time): 46.05% Just for comparative purposes here is the same calculation at the turn of the century (January 1st, 2000):
Total Working Age Population (16-54 years of age): 211,410,000 Total Nonfarm Employees (16-54 years of age): 118,602,000 Percentage Of Working Age Americans Employed (Full or Part-Time): 56.10%

This post was published at StreetTalkLive on 03 December 2014.

3 Things Worth Thinking About (Vol. 20)

Jon

Earnings Expectations Are Grossly Optimistic As we enter into the end of the year, the vast majority of analysts have already come out with bullish forecasts for the S&P 500 going into 2015. The primary driver behind these optimistic forecasts is simply stronger economic growth will lead to higher corporate earnings which will justify higher asset prices. Fair enough.
The problem is that the expectations of earnings growth in the future is currently at levels that do not generally exist outside of a recessionary recovery. The chart below shows the actual and estimated annual percentage change in earnings for the S&P 500 going back to 2000. (Note: The percentage changes from the financial crisis lows were so great that I had to cap them and label them accordingly.)

There are several important points to consider with respect to this data.
1) Following recessions earnings changes are the greatest as the annual EPS change from lower levels yields significantly higher percentage changes. (i.e., Increasing EPS by $10 yields a 100% growth rate from $10 to $20 versus just 10% when growing from $100 to $110)
2) Earnings growth has been highly supported in recent years by not only massive share buybacks, cost cutting and other accounting mechanization but also from Federal Reserve interventions. That surge in liquidity increased share values significantly which allowed for high levels of stock based M&A that supported earnings growth. Notice that “Operation Twist” EPS growth slowed significantly but exploded once QE-3 was introduced back into the system. Also, the growth rate of EPS has begun to slow once the Federal Reserve began to taper, and how now eliminated, their bond purchasing activities.
3) The current estimates for EPS growth going into 2016 are currently at levels that exceed historical norms.
With deflation and weak economic growth plaguing every single country outside of the U. S., it is highly likely that estimates of stronger economic growth will be disappointed. Eventually, market participants will realize that current valuations far exceed economic realities and a reversion to norms will occur. That is just a function of how markets work as excesses are eliminated. The challenge for investors is not only realizing that this will eventually be the case, but also the capability to manage portfolio risk accordingly.

This post was published at StreetTalkLive on 04 December 2014.

‘$38 Billion Reasons’ 2nd Amendment is Crumbling: Bloomberg Targets 12 More States with Gun Control

Jon

State by state encroachments of the 2nd Amendment are on the move, and they are marching to beat of the drums of billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor and publishing mogul, and his complex of gun control organizations.
As SHTF previously noted, Bloomberg used the magic of billionaire-backed lobby groups to pass gun control in Washington state…
Gun control initiative 594 got a last minute bump from the tragic but conveniently timed school shooting in Marysville on October 24, driving sympathy and headlines to the issue about a week and a half before the election.
But the real push for I594 was from billionaires, including Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, who dropped an overwhelming $10 million to support the gun control initiative, while opponents – including the ‘all-powerful NRA’ – spent only about half a million. Other Microsoft execs pitched in as well.
[…] Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg reportedly spent as much as $50 million from his personal funds just on the 2014 elections, backing theEverytown for Gun Safety movement. Bloomberg has heavily backed Moms Demand Action, formed in response to the Sandy Hook shooting, as well asMayors Against Illegal Guns, which he formed circa 2006.
Flush with tens of millions in commitments from Bloomberg and other wealthy elites, Moms Demand Action promised back in March 2013 to ‘punish’ lawmakers resistant to gun control in 2014 with new money to push for gun legislation – and Washington state is now a prime example of the support for ballot initiatives that money can buy.
However, reports are floating the idea that this is just a test case of future gun control initiatives to come (Nevada may be next for Bloomberg).
… And is now looking to Nevada, Arizona, Maine and several other states beyond:

This post was published at shtfplan on December 4th, 2014.

ECB Mutiny Sparks Late-Day Selling Scramble As QE Hopes Fade

Jon

Once again the internals of the market (advancers vs decliners, new highs vs new lows and trends) triggered a Hindenburg Omen as today’s dump-and-pump on the European close and Draghi ‘mis-characterization and clarification’ headlines left stock green with an hour to go. Then came headlines from Die Welt that appeared to show Draghi has no majority and stocks tumbled into the close (with asmall bounce late to get S&P green on the week). For the 2nd day in a row, Treasury yields fell 1-4bps (short to long-end), notably decoupling from stocks after Europe closed. HY Credit also pressed to wider wides after Europe closed even as stocks surged. The USD lost ground as EUR strengthened giving back half the week’s gains (USDJPY broke 120 early but faded). Copper and Silver gained modestly, gold was flat, but oil prices slipped 1% lower back below $67. VIX briefly tested below 12.2 but ended the day barely higher at 12.6.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 12/04/2014.

What Can We Learn from the Failed Swiss Referendum on Gold?

Jon

The rejection vote was clear: 77.3% of the Swiss people voted against the gold initiative. As a reminder, the Swiss Gold Initiative was proposing three constraints: the obligation for the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to own at least 20% of its assets in gold; banning all future gold sales from the bank; and repatriation of its gold stored abroad. A YES vote would have acted like a thunder strike and brought about a complete turnaround of the lax monetary policies of Switzerland, Europe (ECB), the United States and Japan. But, sadly, this won’t be the case. Let’s try to understand why.
First of all, government officials along with the SNB president, most political parties and media have been firmly opposed to it, which made the task more difficult right from the start. But let’s not be too quick to put the whole blame on external factors: let’s examine the nature of the proposal itself. A question divided into three conditions doesn’t make things simple, especially since two of them may be contradictory: owning at least 20% of assets in gold while forbidding any selling means that, should the gold price appreciate substantially, the percentage of gold could jump to 30%, 40% or more of balance sheet assets with no means of lowering that percentage. And, by the way, why 20% and not 15% or 30%? Another important element: in order to reach this 20% the SNB would have had to purchase 70 billion CHF worth of gold (1,500-1,800 tonnes)… and the Swiss do not like to vote to approve expenditures! In a more fundamental way the referendum, without saying so, was rooting for a return to a gold standard, or rather an almost-gold standard, since 20% of reserves in gold wouldn’t cut it. Maybe it should have been worded as such!

This post was published at Gold Broker on Dec 4, 2014.

Roubini Sees “Mother of All Asset Bubbles”, But Claims Bubble Will Not Burst Until 2016

Jon

How big can the current asset bubble get? Stocks, bonds (especially junk bonds), and equities are all in huge bubbles.
I know full well that calling the end is problematic. Economist Nouriel Roubini thinks he knows.
Roubini says we are in the “mother of all asset bubbles” but it’s going to get even bigger, not popping until 2016.
We’re currently in the mid-late stretch of this boom, ‘so next year we’ll see economic growth and easy money. This frothiness that we’ve seen in financial markets is likely to continue from equities to credit to housing,’ says Roubini. He predicts an eventual crash, but not for at least a few years.

This post was published at Global Economic Analysis on December 04, 2014.

Hong Kongers vs. Mainlanders

Jon

Hong Kong has been enjoying a capitalist system since for a long time. Even after 1997, the region has kept this feature, which makes it significantly different from mainland China. However, tension between the people in Hong Kong and the people in mainland China has been increasing over time. Some Hong Kong citizens post on media outlets: ‘We are Hongkongers, not Chinese.’ Mainlanders have a very bad image of Hong Kong people: rich, always want their resources, and cannot behave well. Why does this happen? And are there any remedies?
Many people can provide reasons for this, but mainly people who dislike the mainlanders dislike what they do in Hong Kong. It’s also the capitalist system in Hong Kong which attracts so many mainlanders. The Hong Kong government issues some policy remedies, however, they may go in the wrong direction.

This post was published at Mises Canada on December 4th, 2014.

Why Singapore is the best place to store your gold

Jon

December 4, 2014 Santiago, Chile
On May 15, 1855 one of the greatest gold robberies in history occurred.
Three British firms had arranged for some of their gold to be sent from London to Paris by ferry and train. The gold was stored in solidly built boxes secured within iron safes with two locks.
When the boxes were opened in Paris most of the gold was missing, having been replaced by lead shot.
A grand total of 200 pounds of gold were stolen, worth 12,000 or about $3.7 million in today’s money.
In the investigations that followed, police in Britain and France made extensive searches and arrested hundreds of suspects for questioning but ultimately were unable to find any clues to lead them to the perpetrators.
The case was eventually solved a year later when one of the thieves turned in his co-conspirators after an inner dispute.
Arrests were made and in the end police were only able to recover 2,000 of the stolen gold.
The days of armed bandits robbing banks and riding off on horses has long passed but there are still threats to your savings that exist today.
Of course the biggest criminal gang you have to worry about is your own government.
When governments go bankrupt they often look for creative ways to raise revenue, and they’re getting more desperate by the minute.

This post was published at Sovereign Man on December 4, 2014.

US Treasury Warns Investors Underestimate “Potential For A Market Reversal”, Take “Low Volatility For Granted”

Jon

It was about a year ago when, in its inaugural annual report, the Treasury’s Office of Financial Research issued its first tentative warning about the lack of market liquidity. To wit: “Impaired trading liquidity – the inability to execute large trades without having a significant impact on market prices – could aggravate some of the threats already discussed… Liquidity has become increasingly concentrated, with large, investment-grade bonds showing the strongest liquidity, while some smaller, high-yield issues have become less liquid… The growth in exchange-traded funds within the corporate bond market increases the potential to weaken market liquidity during periods of market stress.”
Amusingly enough, as the WSJ reminds us, the OFR office came under fire for that report “pointing to vulnerabilities in the asset-management industry, a step that was viewed as a precursor to further regulation of that sector. Other U. S. regulators haven’t taken steps since then that would indicate they are reacting to the report with new regulations, although Tuesday’s report outlined some potential concerns if regulators do decide to act. Among them were derivatives that increase borrowing by asset managers and exchange-traded funds that invest in bank loans.”
In any event, not even the OFR warned that one key market that could be massively impaired by lack of liquidity, is the US Treasury bond market itself, something we cautioned about in 2012 and 2013, and which became a screaming issue on October 15 when the entire US bond market flash crashed for a few seconds for reasons still largely unknown.
So just to make sure the Treasury has fully completed its pre-crash CYA protocol, and is covered when the next Treasury flash crash does take place (it is unclear if it sends prices higher or lower, and at this point in the centrally-planned, broken market it doesn’t matter – all that matters is when the CBs finally lose control in either direction), here is the latest warning from the US Treasury about the biggest unintended consequences of 6 years of central bank QE (one we warned about again and again and again and so on): the complete disappearance of market – any market – liquidity. Oh that, and also this: investors may havetaken low volatility for granted and underestimated the potential for a reversal.”

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 12/04/2014.

Goldman Explains What Draghi Really Said

Jon

Via Goldman Sachs’ Dirk Schumacher,
Bottom line: The ECB left its policy rates unchanged at today’s meeting and made no announcement of further non-conventional measures. The main innovation in today’s press conference was the shift in the language regarding the expansion of the ECB’s balance sheet: an increase towards the size of its balance sheet at the beginning of 2012 is now ‘intended’, rather than simply an ‘expectation’ of the Governing Council (as in the November statement). We read this as implying a higher degree of commitment to balance sheet expansion and thus as a further signal towards additional asset purchases. As made clear by ECB President Draghi, some members of the Governing Council remain sceptical about the introduction of further measures. An assessment of whether further stimulus is needed will be made ‘early next year’. Having emphasised that he does not need to achieve unanimity on the Governing Council to proceed with further easing (including purchases of sovereign debt), we expect Mr Draghi to announce and implement a sovereign debt QE programme during the first half of next year.
ECB to assess need for further measures ‘early next year’ The opening paragraph of the prepared statement included few – but noteworthy – changes. The Governing Council continues to expect the current measures to have a ‘sizeable’ impact on the ECB’s balance sheet. The statement, however, now expresses the ‘intention’ to increase the size of the ECB’s balance sheet back to the level seen at the ‘beginning of 2012′. This implies a higher degree of commitment than the language used in the November statement, which had referred to an ‘expectation’ that the balance sheet would achieve this dimension.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 12/04/2014.