Category: Financial System

Financial System

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EES: FX Liquidity 3.3 released

Elite E Services

Elite E Services has released Liquidity version 3.3 – in this version, we’ve included an optional trailing stop on all orders.  See Liquidity on the MQL Marketplace

Checkout the parameters:

  • BuyOrSell = B (default) or S – Buy or Sell. This parameter defines if the system is in buy mode, or sell mode. If set to “B” the system will only Buy. If set to “S” the system will only sell. To use liquidity in grid fashion – load the EA on 2 charts – set one to “B” and the other to “S”
  • GridLevel = Ladder – This is the level, in pips, the system will place a buy or sell order. Default is set to 5.
  • Lots = Lots – Number of lots for each order. (static value)
  • TakeProfit = Take Profit – Take profit for each order. (static value)
  • UseTrailing = Use Trailing? Yes or No. Default is No. This means a trailing stop will be placed on each individual trade.
  • TrailingStop = Trailing Stop (10) Default is 10. Only applicable if UT is set to Yes. If UT is Yes, place a TP and Trailing stop on all new orders.
  • UseGPoint = Use G? Yes or No. Default is Yes. If No, do not utilize the below parameter, and subsequent functions.
  • G = Point at which system reset and reverse. Default is 0 – meaning whatever price the system is loaded at, will always be the price where system reverse. In the chart example, once the price reach the original price, the system will go into buy again mode. If G value is 10 (in pips), then add 10 pips to the price when system will reverse from buy mode to sell mode. (number of legs before reverse)
  • F = Pips to go into the reverse trade. Default is 5, should be same default as ladder. (To count the number of legs to wait to enter, multiply by the ladder value, i.e. 2 legs, if ladder is 5, this value should be 10.)
  • P = Account protection, in % equity from peak. Default is 10 (which is 10% peak to valley, for this EA only NOT the entire account). This means if the peak to valley draw-down is 10%, close all positions, and display the message “Account Protection Hit – Restart to resume trading”
  • CloseAll = Close All – Default is “No” – If set to Yes, EA will close All trades for this EA only, and stop trading.


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“An Unusual Number Of Known Unknowns” – These Are The Key Event Risks In June

Elite E Services
One of the recurring concerns voiced by Bank of America’s Michael Hartnett is that with May now in the rearview mirror, we are entering “the event risk month” of June (incidentally,over the weekend, the credit strategist presented several ideas how to trade said event risk, either bullish or bearish). Now it is UBS’ turn to reiterate the warning that June may see a spike in volatility due to “an unusual number of known unknowns.”
According to UBS, in June there will be “an unusual number of known unknowns from several sources. June 2016 is a month in which the number of event risks is particularly high. In our baseline scenarios we do not see market upsets, but the potential is there: Japanese fiscal policy; meetings of the ECB, Fed and BoJ; new ECB policy implementation; a German Constitutional Court ruling; the UK referendum; elections in Spain; and a decision on the FTT are all thrown into the mix.”
Here is the full breakdown, first in table format.
And then the chronological narrative:
1 June: Closing day of the Japanese Diet – new fiscal action?
We expect Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to announce new fiscal policy on 1 June – the closing day of the current session of the Japanese Diet. We think that the scheduled rise in the consumption tax will be delayed and a supplementary budget of ¥5-10tn could be announced. It is also possible that the Lower House is dissolved and new elections called.
2 June-16 June: Central bank meetings
On balance, we do not expect any change in monetary policy to be announced by the ECB, the Federal Reserve or the BoJ in June, but statements and guidance will be watched closely.
First up is the ECB on 2 June. The ECB will present its new staff forecasts at the press conference. We think the key challenge for Mr Draghi will be to not appear too hawkish amid rising oil prices and robust Eurozone Q1 GDP growth, and we believe it too early for the ECB to send strong signals about the duration of QE beyond March of next year. But much will be discussed.
After that, the FOMC will meet on 15 June. We think that it will wait until September before it next raises rates (in part because of upcoming event risk). However, the minutes of the April meeting and recent Fed rhetoric has kept this meeting “live” and expectations higher than they might otherwise have been.
We don’t think that the BoJ will announce a further easing on 16 June, but it will be a close call. We see a 40% chance that it does, and a 60% chance that this takes place by July. If conducted in combination with a fiscal expansion (see above), Japan would in effect be conducting a policy of ‘helicopter money’ and we would expect the polemic to increase in global markets on this subject
6-10 June / 24 June: TLTROs, and other ECB policy implementation
While we do not expect new ECB policy to be announced at the June meeting (see above), June is the month in which some already-announced policies are implemented for the first time. The first auction of the new Targeted Long-Term Refinancing Operations (TLTRO II) will take place on 23 June, with the publication of the results on 24 June. Market focus has been on the ability of banks to borrow 4-year money at an interest rate (to be set by ex-post calculations) as low as the current deposit rate of -0.40%.
However, we think that more important will be the first voluntary repayment of TLTRO I to be announced at 11.00am London time / 12.00pm CET on 10 June. (The repayment itself will take place on 29 June, coinciding with the first settlement date of TLTRO I). It is likely that the bank repayment of  LTRO I will be larger than the take-up of TLTRO II – and result in the first significant reduction of the ECB’s balance sheet since QE began in March of last year. In turn, this might appear as an involuntary tightening of monetary policy.
The reason this might happen is that one of the effects of QE has been a largescale creation of deposits in euro area banks. But TLTRO I took place before QE was announced and banks have been unable to repay it until now. Many of them – particularly in core countries – have been burdened with large excess liquidity as a result. In turn, this has meant a drag on Net Interest Margins (NIM) for these banks as risk free rates have been negative while they are (by and large) paying 0% to depositors.
Also in June, we expect the Eurosystem to begin its purchases of corporate bonds in its Corporate Sector Purchase Programme (CSPP). It is likely that this will begin in the days shortly after the ECB’s press conference on 2 June. The corporate bond market will be watching the implementation of purchases on a daily basis. We believe that once the CSPP settles in, the Eurosystem will be buying around €12bn a month in corporate bonds. Last Wednesday Reuters reported that – citing “several bank sources” – these will amount to €5-10bn per month initially.
21 June: German Constitutional Court ruling on OMTs
On 21 June, the German Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe will give its final ruling on the acceptability of the ECB’s Outright Monetary Transactions (OMTs) programme in the field of German law. In our view, this represents less of an immediate market risk than a contingent one. In a scenario where the Court ruled against OMTs, uncertainty might increase over the ability of the ECB to respond to another period of extreme volatility in European sovereign markets
Some appear to think that a ruling against OMTs might impede the purchase of peripheral bonds in the ECB’s current QE programme. We believe this to be unlikely. Bundesbank opposition to QE as a monetary policy tool in principle (even if not in timing) seems slight.
It is widely accepted that the announcement of OMTs in the summer of 2012 was the beginning of the end of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. But in October 2014, the German Constitutional Court found that the policy was “incompatible with primary law”. At the same time, the judges in Karlsruhe passed it on to the European Court of Justice for review, which last year came to the opposite conclusion (though in the context of European law).
24 June: Result of the UK referendum on EU membership
The recent rally in sterling and the tightening of peripheral sovereign spreads have been widely attributed in the media to an increase in confidence that the UK referendum will result in a vote to remain. If correct, this would mean that there would be potential for sterling to fall and peripheral spreads to widen once more in a scenario where there is either a vote to leave or if opinion polls showed increased support for that outcome.
Figure 3: Average Italy and Spain 10-year spread to Germany and EURGBP; past 6 months
26 June: Elections in Spain
Spain will hold another general election on 26 June, after its 21 December 2015 election resulted in no government being formed. In general, we think that Spanish yield spreads to Germany should tighten over the coming months as the relatively strong growth heals the economy and improves debt dynamics.
However, Spain missed on its deficit targets in 2015 by a wide margin and is likely to miss again this year, according to the European Commission. In part, this can be attributed to the dominance of elections in the public calendar. But there is a risk to sovereign spreads if a government is formed after the elections which might take an anti-austerity stance and widen the public deficit even more.
30 June: A decision on the European Financial Transaction Tax
A group of European governments have been proposing a European Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) for several years. In the most recent statement, the proponent governments indicated that “taxation should be based on the principle of the widest possible base and low rates and it should not impact the cost of sovereign borrowing”.
The statement also directs governments to decide on further details – including, importantly, the levels of the tax – by the end of June: “in order to prepare the next step, experts in close coordination with the commission should elaborate adequate tax rates for the different variants. A decision on these open issues should be made until the end of June 2016.”
It should be noted, however, that aside from the 10 countries currently promoting the tax there is opposition among other EU member states, most notably the UK. Under the “Enhanced Cooperation” framework, the countries will pursue the policy only if 9 or more member states support it. In December, Estonia withdrew its support for the project.
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WSJ: A First Look at America’s Supergun

Elite E Services
DAHLGREN, Va.—A warning siren bellowed through the concrete bunker of a top-secret Naval facility where U.S. military engineers prepared to demonstrate a weapon for which there is little defense.
Officials huddled at a video screen for a first look at a deadly new supergun that can fire a 25-pound projectile through seven steel plates and leave a 5-inch hole.
The weapon is called a railgun and requires neither gunpowder nor explosive. It is powered by electromagnetic rails that accelerate a hardened projectile to staggering velocity—a battlefield meteorite with the power to one day transform military strategy, say supporters, and keep the U.S. ahead of advancing Russian and Chinese weaponry.
In conventional guns, a bullet loses velocity from the moment the gunpowder ignites and sends it flying. The railgun projectile instead gains speed as it travels the length of a 32-foot barrel, exiting the muzzle at 4,500 miles an hour, or more than a mile a second.
“This is going to change the way we fight,” said U.S. Navy Adm. Mat Winter, the head of the Office of Naval Research.
Watch the Video: Pentagon officials believe the high-tech railgun could pave the way for a military advantage defending assets on sea and on land. Photo: U.S. Department of Defense
The Navy developed the railgun as a potent offensive weapon to blow holes in enemy ships, destroy tanks and level terrorist camps. The weapon system has the attention of top Pentagon officials also interested in its potential to knock enemy missiles out of the sky more inexpensively and in greater numbers than current missile-defense systems—perhaps within a decade.
The future challenge for the U.S. military, in broad terms, is maintaining a global reach with declining numbers of Navy ships and land forces. Growing expenses and fixed budgets make it more difficult to maintain large forces in the right places to deter aggression.
“I can’t conceive of a future where we would replicate Cold War forces in Europe,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work, one of the weapon’s chief boosters. “But I could conceive of a set of railguns that would be inexpensive but would have enormous deterrent value. They would have value against airplanes, missiles, tanks, almost anything.”
Inside the test bunker at Dahlgren, military officials turned to the video monitor showing the rectangular railgun barrel. Engineer Tom Boucher, program manager for the railgun in the Office of Naval Research, explained: “We are watching the system charge. We are taking power from the grid.”
Wires splay out the back of the railgun, which requires a power plant that generates 25 megawatts—enough electricity to power 18,750 homes.
The siren blared again, and the weapon fired. The video replay was slowed so officials could see aluminum shavings ignite in a fireball and the projectile emerge from its protective shell.
“This,” Mr. Boucher said, “is a thing of beauty going off.”
The railgun faces many technical barriers before it is battle ready. Policy makers also must weigh geopolitical questions. China and Russia see the railgun and other advances in U.S. missile defense as upending the world’s balance of power because it negates their own missile arsenals.
The railgun’s prospective military advantage has made the developing technology a priority of hackers in China and Russia, officials said.
Chinese hackers in particular have tried to penetrate the computer systems of the Pentagon and its defense contractors to probe railgun secrets, U.S. defense officials said. Pentagon officials declined to discuss the matter further.
The Navy began working on the railgun a decade ago and has spent more than half a billion dollars. The Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities office is investing another $800 million—the largest share for any project—to develop the weapon’s defensive ability, as well as to adapt existing guns to fire the railgun’s high-tech projectiles.

Railgun Components

Power
A 25 megawatt power plant and large capacitor bank are required to provide enough pulse power to fire the weapon 10 times a minute.
Electromagnetic railgun
32 feet
Projectile
A non-explosive bullet filled with tungsten pellets; weight: approx. 25 pounds.
Shoe
An aluminum jacket that supports the bullet in the gun barrel; also provides a bridge for the current between the rails.
Approx. 24 inches
Source: Office of Naval Research
Some officials expressed concern the technology has commanded too large a portion of resources and focus. “This better work,” one defense official said.
The age of the gun faded after World War II, hampered by the limited range and accuracy of gunpowder weapons. Missiles and jet fighters dominated the Cold War years, prompting the Navy to retire its big-gun battleships. The railgun—and its newly developed projectiles—could launch a new generation of the vessels.
“Part of the reason we moved away from big guns is the chemistry and the physics of getting the range,” said Jerry DeMuro, the chief executive of BAE Systems, a railgun developer. “The railgun can create the kind of massive effect you want without chemistry.”
The Navy’s current 6-inch guns have a range of 15 miles. The 16-inch guns of mothballed World War II-era battleships could fire a distance of 24 miles and penetrate 30 feet of concrete. In contrast, the railgun has a range of 125 miles, officials said, and five times the impact.
“Anytime you have a projectile screaming in at extremely high speeds—kilometers per second—the sheer kinetic energy of that projectile is awesome,” Mr. Work said. “There are not a lot of things that can stop it.”
Star Wars sequel
Railguns have for years been limited to laboratories and videogames.
Former President Ronald Reagan ’s Strategic Defense Initiative—the so-called Star Wars missile defense—at one time envisioned using the railgun to shoot down nuclear missiles. Those plans were stalled by 1980s technology. One problem was that the gun barrel and electromagnetic rails had to be replaced after a single shot.
The Navy now believes it has a design that soon will be able to fire 10 times a minute through a barrel capable of lasting 1,000 rounds.
Besides speed, the railgun also has a capacity advantage. A typical U.S. Navy destroyer can carry as many as 96 missiles—either offensive cruise missiles or defensive interceptors. A ship armed with a railgun could potentially carry a thousand rounds, allowing the vessel to shoot incoming missiles or attack enemy forces for longer periods and at a faster rate of fire.
Unlike the Reagan-era initiative, the Pentagon doesn’t see the railgun as a shield against intercontinental ballistic missiles but defense against shorter-range conventional missiles.
The U.S. has kept its military dominance over the past quarter-century largely through such precision weaponry as guided missiles and munitions. It also has spent billions of dollars on interceptor-missile based defense systems to shoot down ballistic missiles fired at the U.S. or its allies.
That monopoly is about over. China is perfecting a ship-killing ballistic missile. Russia mostly impressed U.S. military planners with the power and precision of its cruise missiles deployed in Syria, and its improved artillery precision revealed in Ukraine.
“I am very worried about the U.S. conventional advantage. The loss of that advantage is terribly destabilizing,” said Elbridge Colby, a military analyst with the Center of a New American Security.
Defense planners believe the U.S. needs new military advances. Russia, for example, is believed to be developing longer-range surface-to-air missiles and new electronic warfare technology to blunt any forces near its borders.
Prospects for an armed conflict among the great powers still seem remote. But for the first time since the end of the Cold War, the Pentagon is again looking closely at responses to rising tensions with China and Russia.
Military planners say the railgun would be useful if the U.S. had to defend the Baltic states against Russia, or support an ally against China in the South China Sea.
Moscow and Beijing are investing in missile systems aimed at keeping the U.S. out of those respective regions. A railgun-based missile defense could defend naval forces or ground troops, making it easier to move U.S. reinforcements closer to the borders of Russia or China, officials said.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work, right, views the hole made in a steel plate by a railgun projectile during testing last year at a top-secret Naval facility in Dahlgren, Va.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work, right, views the hole made in a steel plate by a railgun projectile during testing last year at a top-secret Naval facility in Dahlgren, Va. PHOTO: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
“You can’t ignore the fact that Russia has great ability to mass conventional munitions and fire them over great range. We have to be able to fight through those salvos,” said Mr. Work, of the Pentagon. “And the railgun potentially will give us the means to do that.”
Russian officials, meanwhile, including Alexander Grushko, Moscow’s envoy to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have said technological advances by the U.S., including missile defense, could undermine the strategic stability currently guaranteed by the relative balance between the Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Faster, smarter
Hitting a missile with a bullet—a technical obstacle that hampered Mr. Reagan’s initiative—remains a challenge. Railgun research leans heavily on commercial advances in supercomputing to aim and on smartphone technology to steer the railgun’s projectile using the Global Positioning System.
“Ten years ago, we wouldn’t have been able to build a projectile like this because the cellphone industry, the smartphone industry, hadn’t perfected the components,” said William Roper, the director of the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office. “It is a really smart bullet.”
Development of the railgun guidance system is about done, officials said, but circuits in the projectile must be hardened to withstand gravitational forces strong enough to turn most miniaturized electronics to scrap.
Missile defense by the railgun is at least a decade away, but Pentagon officials believe the weapon’s projectiles can be used much sooner. They are filled with tungsten pellets harder than many kinds of steel, officials said, and will likely cost between $25,000 and $50,000, a bargain compared with a $10-million interceptor missile.
The electrical energy required to fire a railgun means it is likely to be used first as a ship-mounted weapon. Only one class of Navy ship, the Zumwalt-class destroyer, has such a power plant, officials said. The Navy is building just three of those destroyers, so the Pentagon is working to adapt the projectile to use in existing Naval guns on other vessels, as well as for Army artillery.
While slower than a railgun, a powder-fired railgun projectile still flies at 2,800 miles an hour, which extends the range and power of existing weapons.
At Dalhgren last year, military engineers test-fired 5- and 6-inch Navy guns loaded with a version of the railgun projectile. The range of the Navy’s 6-inch guns was extended to 38 miles from 15 miles.
The Pentagon also tested the railgun projectile in 155mm Army howitzers, successfully extending its range.
“The Navy is on the cusp of having a tactical system, a next generation offensive weapon,” Mr. Roper said. “It could be a game changer.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-first-look-at-americas-supergun-1464359194?mod=WSJ_article_EditorsPicks_0

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Bitcoin Is Soaring On Unprecedented Burst In Chinese Buying

Elite E Services
Last September (when bitcoin was trading at $230) we said that “As China Scrambles To Enforce Capital Controls, This Is Great News For Bitcoin” and that it is only a matter of time before Chinese buyers figure out that in a world in which the freeflow of capital out of China is increasingly more suppressed and where physical gold is actively being stored in China but is next to impossible to get it out of the country, it is only a matter of time before bitcoin explodes as China’s bubble berserk population scrambles to buy.
One month ago, we showed a chart according to which it was almost time for the bitcoin breakout, in “Is Bitcoin About To Soar?” At the time bitcoin was trading in the low $400s.
Then, just yesterday, something snapped, and as we reported “Bitcoin Surges To 2016 Highs On Rising Chinese Demand.”
It is unclear if that something is fears about an imminent round of Chinese devaluation following Friday’s dramatic move higher in the US Dollar, something we also hinted at on Friday afternoon…
… or simply because China’s $30 trillion in deposits had finally found the most efficient way to get their funds out of the country.
Whatever the reason, moments ago – as we expected – bitcoin finally broke out of its long-term range, and was trading at $520 moments ago on Coinbase…
… the highest price it has hit since the summer of 2014.
What is the reason for this dramatic move higher? It appears to be coming out of China, because moments ago Bitcoin traded in CNY on the Huobi exchange soared as high as 3820, or over $580, implying a massive local-demand driven arb to the US price of “only” $520.
It looks like the Chinese have finally awoken to bitcoin, just as we expected them to last September, when the price of bitcoin was over 50% lower.

With bitcoin now 100% higher than when we first said China would send it soaring,and 15% higher in the past two days, why do we remain in the bullish camp? Simple: China has $30trillion in deposits – which concerns about devaluations will make very “flighty” while the market cap of bitcoin is under $8 billion. If Chinese depositors have finally figured out to use bitcoin to get their funds out of the country, watch out BTC shorts.
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Brexit Will Take Down Euro Along With GBP

Elite E Services

Summary

The Brexit would change the dynamic of the EU.
Brexit is bad for the EU, not just the GBP.
A Brexit will impact all who deal with the pound.
Volatility peaking June 23 is guaranteed for GBP-related assets.
For Americans, a referendum is a vote whereby voters determine a political decision. America is largely a Representative Republic. Only some U.S. states, like California, have direct social democracy in which referendums determine state law.
There’s a referendum in Great Britain that can change the structure of Europe. The question in this case: Should Great Britain stay in the European Union, or leave? (The BBC has complete coverage of Brexit.)
In Britain, polls show the vote would lead to a stay — but it’s very close. From the Financial Times Brexit poll tracking:
Analysts agree a vote to leave the EU would cause major volatility, and the British Pound would decline. From CNBC:
A U.K. vote to leave the European Union on June 23 would cause major currency fluctuations and dent growth in the country, according to Ramin Nakisa, global macro strategist at UBS. He estimated it would have an approximately “2 percent impact on GDP (gross domestic product) in the U.K. over the long term.” However, the “biggest effect would be on FX (foreign exchange), so we’re saying euro/sterling would go to parity if there was an exit,” he told CNBC Friday.
For traders, the ETFs to watch are:
  • The Currency Shares British Pound Sterling Trust ETF (NYSEARCA:FXB)
  • The iPath GBP/USD Exchange Rate fund (NYSEARCA:GBB)
Or in your Forex account, watch all GBP pairs. The vote is June 23, and there is constant polling leading up to this historic vote, to gauge public sentiment.
Because the vote is so close, there’s tail risk to any assets connected to the GBP currency and to a lesser extent, to the EU. This will also affect the Euro (EUO, FXE).
The European Union is an idea. Great Britain is one of the periphery states that joined the EU but still uses its own currency. This leads to confusion: Is Britain in the EU or not? They are. That means they enjoy the privilege of traveling and doing business inside the EU without visas or permits, taxes, and other barriers that would exist were Britain not in the EU.
If they vote to leave, all that can change. It will be a net negative for the EU as well. Not only will the EU lose economically, it will send a message to other breakaway members: If Britain can leave, you can too! The EU is a fragile idea, and there exists in most European countries strong movements against the EU.
A short list of regions that have the potential to ‘breakaway’ and form their own states, outside the EU, from The Washington Post:
Venice (Italy), Catalonia (Spain), Corsica (France), Flanders (Belgium), The Basque Region (Spain), Bavaria (Germany), Wales, Cornwall, Northern Ireland (The United Kingdom), Galicia, Aragon (Spain), Silesia (Poland), Frisia (Netherlands, Germany), Sardinia, Brittany, Occitania, Alsace, Savoy (France), and Aaland (Finland).
A yes vote on Brexit could break the threads holding the EU together. Again, the EU is an idea, an economic business plan, and as such it relies on the consensual participation of its members. As explained in Splitting Pennies, Forex is a derivative, just like the EU, an idea that underpins the euro. Ideas can unravel, and if the euro idea unravels, it could lead to a return of European national currencies like the Italian lira, French franc, Spanish peseta, and so on. A country is a currency. Britain maintained their currency and stayed part of the EU. But now, if they completely leave, it will further destabilize the euro.
The boards of many of Britain’s largest listed companies have made no contingency plans for a possible Brexit amid polls showing rising public support for leaving the European Union. The Financial Times contacted every FTSE 100 company, and only four- Easyjet, Persimmon, GKN andStandard Life – said they were engaged in detailed planning for a Brexit. Asked what measures it was taking to prepare, Vodafone, on the other hand, said “none of note required”.
Europe often will surprise us, and investors would have been wrong betting against the will of the people. Investments in GBP companies can be partially hedged by trading.
On a longer-term view, the GBP is down from its highs, as seen on this chart:
GBB Chart
GBB data by YCharts
A vote to leave the EU could see the pound go down even further. But it’s more likely Britain will stay. If Britain votes to stay, the pound could shoot back up near its highs. Investors should stay tuned to the Brexit channel, because this will be a great straddle trade opportunity, with guaranteed volatility no matter what the outcome of the vote.
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Saudi Officials Crackdown On FX Market As Currency Peg Starts To Strain

Elite E Services
As we warned previously, the devaluation, or breaking of the Saudi Riyal peg to the dollar, could be the black swan event for crude oil and the recent weakness in SAR forwards – while not as violent as Nigeria’s Naira – certainly signals a renewed market fear that breaking the peg is imminent. It appears Saudi officials are none too pleased with the free markets speculating on this devaluation and as Bloomberg reports, banks in Saudi Arabia are coming under fresh pressure over products that allow speculators to bet against the kingdom’s currency peg, according to people with knowledge of the matter, which were supposedly banned in January.
  • *SAUDI ARABIA SAID TO SEEK DETAILS ON BANKS’ FORWARD CONTRACTS
  • *SAUDI ARABIA SAID TO PROBE BANK CURRENCY TRADES AS PEG STRAINS
  • *SAUDI ARABIAN MONETARY AGENCY SAID TO WARN BANKS ON PRODUCTS
SAR Forwards signal a renewed interest in betting on a devaluation…
As Bloomberg reports, The Saudi Arabia Monetary Agency has asked lenders to explain why they are offering dollar-riyal forward structured products to customers less than four months after the regulator banned options contracts that let speculators place wagers on a currency devaluation, the people said. The authority, known as SAMA, didn’t reply to requests for comment.
There has been renewed speculation that the world’s biggest oil exporter won’t be able to maintain the riyal’s peg to the dollar as revenue plunges and the kingdom weighs paying government contractors with IOUs. Riyal forwards for the next 12 months rose to 590 points, the highest since Feb. 19, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, signifying increased speculation of a devaluation.
SAMA is asking banks to explain the rationale and relevance of the structured products for the economy and explain why they’ve entered into the products without informing the central bank, according to the people. It also wants transaction details of the derivatives since Jan. 18.
It’s also seeking to understand the impact of the products on Saudi banks’ U.S. dollar buy positions from the central bank as well as the risks to customers and banks, they said. The central bank warned any future structured derivative product should be submitted to SAMA for review and approval before they’re launched.
As The Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard recently wrote, Saudi Arabia faces a vicious liquidity squeeze as capital continues to leak out the country, with a sharp contraction of the money supply and mounting stress in the banking system.
Three-month interbank offered rates in Riyadh have suddenly begun to spiral upwards, reaching the highest since the Lehman crisis in 2008.
Reports that the Saudi government is to pay contractors with tradable IOUs show how acute the situation is becoming. The debt-crippled bin Laden group is laying off 50,000 construction workers as austerity bites in earnest.
Societe Generale’s currency team has advised clients to short the Saudi riyal, betting that the country will be forced to ditch its long-standing dollar peg, a move that could set off a cut-throat battle for global share in the oil markets.
Francisco Blanch, from Bank of America, said a rupture of the peg is this year’s number one “black swan event” and would cause oil prices to collapse to $25 a barrel. Saudi Arabia’s foreign reserves are still falling by $10bn (£6.9bn) a month, despite a switch to bond sales and syndicated loans to help plug the huge budget deficit.
The country’s remaining reserves of $582bn are in theory ample – if they are really liquid – but that is not the immediate issue. The problem for the Saudi central bank (SAMA) is that reserve  depletion automatically tightens  monetary policy.
Bank deposits are contracting. So is the M2 money supply. Domestic bond sales do not help because they crowd out Saudi Arabia’s wafer-thin capital markets and squeeze liquidity. Riyadh now plans a global bond issue.
…
Eventually the next cyclical oil spike will come to the rescue. The question is whether the Saudis can batten down the hatches and make it through the financial storm in a very leaky ship.
As for what happens if (or perhaps “when” is now the more appropriate term) the peg does fall, we close with the following bit from BofAML, who calls the breaking of the riyal peg the “number one black swan event for the global oil market in 2016”: 
 
 
For oil, however, the most crucial point is what happens to Middle East currencies and in particular to the Saudi Riyal. In fact, Saudi Arabia’s FX reserves are still high and point to an ample buffer for now, but they have been falling at a relatively fast rate (Chart 21). However, should China allow for significantly faster FX depreciation than is currently priced in by markets, we believe oil prices could fall further. Naturally, the FX reserve drain on Saudi could accelerate to $18bn per month if Brent crude oil prices average $30/bbl (Chart 22), sharply reducing the Kingdom’s ability to retain its currency peg. 
However, if Saudi cannot resist the gravitational forces created by a persistently strong USD and depegs the SAR to follow Russia or Brazil, oil prices could collapse to $25/bbl. Weaker commodity prices would in turn add more downward pressure on EMs (Chart 26). Thus, even if micro supply and demand dynamics are improving, the path for oil prices in 2016 will heavily depend on how the USD moves against the CNY and the SAR. Or on a Saudi supply cut.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-26/saudi-officials-crackdown-fx-market-currency-peg-starts-strain 

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Rising prices of raisins – The real effect of rampant inflation and FX

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Inflation is out of control.  Now, we mostly agree that the Fed’s official inflation numbers are just – ridiculous.  But the real inflation, is even harder to quantify, and more subtle – as we explain in Splitting Pennies – Understanding Forex.  What drives inflation is NOT Adam Smith’s “Supply and Demand” – an interesting idea but completely static, and completely irrelevant for practical applications – and certainly not useful for business, or economic forcasting.  Inflation is a simple function of monetary policy, multiplied by FX.  That means, in today’s world, inflation must be counted including the FX markets because – no matter how much USD the Fed prints, it’s constantly being exchanged for Euros and Yen on the open FX markets.  FX is a limited, finite system.  But the USD itself – is not.  It’s defined by other currencies, and the market value of the USD vs. others.
Other less quantitative signs of inflation:
  • Reduction of quality
  • Less quantity, but for the same price (less chips in the bag, every year)
  • Intentional, engineered ‘appearance’ of more (there are less chips, and bag is bigger too)
  • Accompanying marketing ‘feel good’ slogans 
The best signs of real inflation, not the academic mumbo jumbo Fedspeak produced by The Fed and Federal Economic Departments (like BEA), is FX – and consumer goods.  Because we need energy, we need food.  Without food and energy, society can’t function.  We can live without iphones, we can live without Tesla, we can live without many ‘industries’ – but we can’t live without food, at least based on our modern consumption system used by most human beings on this small planet Earth.  And speaking of iphones, they all rely on energy – Apple (AAPL) investors should hedge their bets with energy stocks.  We can expect that high-tech products have inflation, but take a look at the real inflation, the rising prices of raisins:
You wouldn’t think this is unusual, based on data from the raisin growers:
So what gives?  Here’s the deal.  Recently I learned my wife is pregnant and so we’ve changed our diet (in addition to our whole lives – that’s another topic).  Having a dash of chemicals here and there for an adult is one thing, but for a developing newborn and pregnant mother, it’s out of the question.  We have in the south Earthfare, which is notably much more picky and choosy than WholeFoods, their customers more fussy and thus everything is much more expensive.  But the point here is that these raisins, are like the raisins we used to get really cheaply, 20 or 30 years ago.  Now you have to go to a place like Earthfare to get real food, by real I mean not artificial, loaded with chemicals, fillers, and other things that make for a good science experiment.  Health is another topic, but economically speaking – this is an excellent example of what inflation is.  Inflation isn’t necessarily when prices go up, although $6.99 a pound for raisins is alot.  It’s about deteriorating quality.  When the Fed picks a basket of goods to calculate CPI, what ‘goods’ do they choose?  Certainly, NOT products from Earthfare or Wholefoods.  Quality is qualitative, so it’s hard to overlay a deterioration of quality line against the CPI or do statistical analysis.  There are methods though, to evaluate quality and its deterioration.  
The problem is that – in order to prove the status quo establishment method –  quality is deteriorating, by using methods by establishment institutions, and from data by establishment institutions, is a paradox.  In other words, we have to think outside of the box, and use our intuition.  For example if we look to the CDC for a correlation, we’ll get nothing:
But, this is the same CDC that tells us to wash our hands to fight disease, the same CDC that exposed its own worker to Ebola.
You must see for yourself.  The raisins you eat – are they like when you were a child?  How do you remember, the taste of tomato, apple, grape, melon, and veggies?  The organic movement itself is riddled with misleading information and corruption.  But at the end of the day, if a consumer wants a ‘real’ raisin, not frankenfoods sold by major grocers, you have to pay the price, and buy Organic, or grow your own.
How does FX enter the raisin market?  If the Currency markets were fixed, something could be said about supply and demand.  Raisin growers now compete with farms from around the world.  The world’s flat, and payment is instantaneous.  Farmers don’t only compete domestically, they compete internationally.  Farmers outside the USD world maybe aren’t subsidized like those in the US, but they sure are subsidized (indirectly) by their central banks, who like to make their currencies worthless, thus making the prices of these inferior raisins much cheaper, and more attractive.  Farmers at least can hedge this risk by opening a forex account and trading, but the end result of the current capitalistic system we have in the world is one thing:  garbage.  Our brains are deteriorating, health, quality of life, society, relationships, all the way down the maslow pyramid to what Americans used to love: food.  In major chains there’s not much difference between pork and beef.  Not that many could notice the difference.
At least, there are methods to fight this disease we call inflation, as we explain in our book – Splitting Pennies.  We’ve released a slightly longer paperback edition which is really popular – get a copy for only $14.98.  The book is only the beginning.  It’s only a key – you must use it to unlock the door to your new life.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-25/rising-prices-raisins-real-effect-rampant-inflation-and-fx

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2nd Circuit in Libor case v. banks: Rigging rates is price-fixing collusion

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Common sense has prevailed at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in litigation over an alleged conspiracy among 16 global banks to manipulate the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), a key interest rate benchmark. The appeals court held Monday that price-fixing collusion among competitors is a violation of antitrust law, even if it takes place in the context of an ostensibly cooperative rate-setting process.
The 2nd Circuit’s 61-page opinion, written by Judge Dennis Jacobs for a panel that also included Judges Reena Raggi and Gerard Lynch, vacated a controversial 2013 decision in which U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of Manhattan tossed classwide antitrust claims because the Libor rate-setting process is collaborative, not competitive. The ruling revives the banks’ exposure to potentially billions of dollars in damages from investors who say they were victimized by artificial Libor rates.
Rate and market-rigging class actions against banks have become all the rage among antitrust plaintiffs’ lawyers, who’ve won nearly $2 billion in settlements in consolidated litigation over alleged tampering with the market for credit default swaps and hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements tied to manipulation of foreign exchange benchmarks. The 2nd Circuit’s Libor decision will only make the class action bar more excited about claiming collusion in the rate-setting process.
International regulatory and criminal investigators have levied about $9 billion in fines and penalties against some of the banks involved in the Libor rate-setting process, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank and UBS. Internal documents released in government probes have shown some defendants manipulated the rate-setting process to make themselves appear more stable in the financial crisis and to give particular traders an advantage over counterparties. To derive the Libor rate, banks would submit reports of the rate at which other banks were willing to lend them money; those rates were winnowed and averaged to come up with a daily Libor figure.
Judge Buchwald had said plaintiffs could not show their injury was tied to antitrust violations because banks did not compete with one another in the rate-setting process. The 2nd Circuit, however, said her reasoning was flawed. As sellers of securities that incorporated the Libor rate, the banks are competitors. Investors in Libor-pegged instruments, according to the appeals court, are buyers affected by the conspiracy. Plain and simple.
“Schematically, appellants’ claims are uncomplicated,” the appellate opinion explained. “They allege that the banks, as sellers, colluded to depress LIBOR, and thereby increased the cost to appellants, as buyers, of various LIBORbased financial instruments, a cost increase reflected in reduced rates of return. In short, appellants allege a horizontal pricefixing conspiracy, ‘perhaps the paradigm of an unreasonable restraint of trade.’”
The panel rejected as “immaterial” the banks’ arguments that Libor itself is not a product or a price and that the rules for setting the rate were implemented by the British Bankers’ Association, not by the banks. “The crucial allegation is that the banks circumvented the LIBOR-setting rules, and that joint process thus turned into collusion,” the 2nd Circuit said. Investors “have alleged an anticompetitive tendency: the warping of market factors affecting the prices for LIBORbased financial instruments. No further showing of actual adverse effect in the marketplace is necessary.”
The 2nd Circuit also held there’s no question that investors have raised plausible claims of a conspiracy so their case can’t be dismissed as inadequately pleaded. “Close cases abound on this issue, but this is not one of them,” the opinion said. “These allegations evince a common motive to conspire – increased profits and the projection of financial soundness – as well as a high number of inter-firm communications, including Barclays’ knowledge of other banks’ confidential individual submissions in advance.”
The one sliver of hope for the banks in the appellate opinion is a remand to Judge Buchwald to determine whether investors in Libor-pegged financial instruments are the right plaintiffs to enforce antitrust law. As the panel pointed out, plaintiffs have to meet two requirements to establish antitrust standing: They have to show an antitrust injury and they have to show that they are “efficient enforcers.” Judge Buchwald never reached the second issue in her 2013 decision. Now she will have to decide what the 2nd Circuit called “a closer call” than the question of whether investors properly claimed an antitrust injury.
The banks, taking a cue from the appeals court, will doubtless argue on remand that governments around the world are already punishing them for Libor transgressions. “There are many other enforcement mechanisms at work here,” the appellate opinions said. “This background context bears upon the need for appellants as instruments for vindicating the Sherman Act.”
And even the 2nd Circuit agreed that private litigation may turn out to be a bust if, for instance, “the corrupted LIBOR figure on competition was weak and potentially insignificant, given that the financial transactions at issue are complex, LIBOR was not binding, and the worldwide market for financial instruments – nothing less than the market for money – is vast, and influenced by multiple benchmarks.”
Nevertheless, the 2nd Circuit opinion answers a question about benchmark rates and antitrust claims that has divided trial judges in federal court in Manhattan. At least one of Judge Buchwald’s colleagues followed her reasoning, in a 2014 opinion dismissing a case alleging manipulation of Japanese yen Libor. But, as I’ve written, Judges Lorna Schofield and Jesse Furman squarely rejected Judge Buchwald’s interpretation of antitrust injury in more recent decisions. Schofield and Furman, in cases involving supposed tampering with the foreign exchange and ISDAfix benchmark rates, took care to distinguish the facts the in class actions before them from the Libor allegations. In particular, they emphasized that the forex and ISDAfix rates were determined through actual trades, not just by banks’ voluntary submissions.
They also, however, said Judge Buchwald had misread U.S. Supreme Court precedent to reach her conclusion. In Monday’s opinion, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The important cases to consider, the 2nd Circuit said, are 1940’s U.S. v. Socony Vacuum Oil, the seminal ruling on the per se illegality of horizontal price-fixing schemes; and 1982’s Blue Shield of Virginia v. McCready, which said consumers can sue over supposedly collusive schemes that ended up costing them money.
Investors in the various Libor classes had to go to the U.S. Supreme Court to win the right to bring an interlocutory appeal of Judge Buchwald’s antitrust decision to the 2nd Circuit. Thomas Goldstein of Goldstein & Russell, who won the Supreme Court case, argued for plaintiffs at the appeals court as well. (It took an additional nine pages to list all of the plaintiffs’ firms and amici involved in the 2nd Circuit appeal.) Robert Wise of Davis Polk & Wardwell, who argued at the 2nd Circuit for all of the banks, declined to comment.
For more of my posts, please go to WestlawNext Practitioner Insights
http://blogs.reuters.com/alison-frankel/2016/05/23/2nd-circuit-in-libor-case-v-banks-rigging-rates-is-price-fixing-collusion/
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