Dear CIGAs,
The sunset this evening in Connecticut is also a sunset on any cogent bear argument on gold, even from our guys.
$1700 to $2111 is the range for now. The IMF calling on the ECB to expand its balance sheet means QE. What do you think the IMF is about to do?
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
This is a tad premature. First his boss has to be re-elected.
NBC Politics – Geithner says he doesn’t expect to serve second term
By Michael O’Brien, msnbc.com
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner suggested Wednesday that he’s highly unlikely to stay in the Obama administration for a possible second term.
Geithner said that he would not expect President Obama to ask him to stay on for a second, four-year stint should Obama win re-election. And even if he were to ask, Geithner said he had planned on pursuing "something else."
"He’s not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident," Geithner said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. "I’m confident he’ll be president, but I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury."
Geithner has been one of the few figures of continuity among Obama’s economic team, having served since the beginning of the administration. He had mulled resigning last summer, after the bulk of the new Wall Street reform law had been implemented, but announced his decision to stay in the administration through the re-election at the request of Obama.
Geithner’s overseen one of the rockiest periods for the American economy during his few years in office. In addition to helping spearhead the financial regulatory reform law, Geithner helped pilot the latter phases of the 2008 Wall Street bailout, and the 2009 rescue of General Motors and Chrysler.
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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Another suit that has to be settled on the courthouse door.
None of the OTC derivative suits can stand the light of day.
Citigroup sued for fraud over $1 billion of CDOs
By Karen Freifeld
Tue Jan 24, 2012 11:36pm GMT
(Reuters) – Citigroup Inc (C.N) was sued for fraud by Loreley Financing over nearly $1 billion worth of collateralized debt obligations purchased in 2006 and 2007.
Citigroup is accused of defrauding Loreley into purchasing "fraudulent investments that are now worthless," Loreley said in a complaint filed Tuesday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan.
Citi used the CDOs to offload the risks of toxic mortgage-backed securities on its books and to help preferred clients "short" the housing market, the lawsuit claims.
Danielle Romero-Apsilos, a spokeswoman for Citigroup, said in an email, "We believe the suit is without merit."
Loreley Financing is a group of special-purpose entities formed to invest in CD0s. The entities are organized under the laws of Jersey in the Channel Islands.
The entities, whose claims include fraud and unjust enrichment, are seeking at least $965 million paid for the notes and buybacks.
The case is Loreley Financing v. Citigroup Global Markets, 650212/2012, New York State Supreme Court.
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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Which rating? Certainly not the present one when this debt was being sold as an excellent rating.
Illinois AG sues S&P over ratings fraud
By William Spain
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan on Wednesday sued Standard & Poor’s for what she alleges is its "fraudulent role" in giving high ratings to the mortgage-backed investments that ultimately contributed to the financial crash. The suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, charges that S&P "compromised its independence as a ratings agency by doling out high ratings to unworthy, risky investments as a corporate strategy to increase its revenue and market share." It also holds that the firm, a unit of McGraw-Hill , ignored the risks posed and instead gave out ratings to please investment-bank clients and boost its own profits. "Publically, S&P took every opportunity to proclaim their analyses and ratings as independent, objective and free from its desire for revenue," Madigan said. "Yet privately, S&P abandoned its principles and instead used every trick possible to give deals high ratings in order to retain clients and generate revenue."
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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
This statement, when considered with the present position of the TIC, is the Federal Reserve turning the light on "QE to Infinity" both globally and nationally.
Fed sets long-term inflation goal of 2%, sees interest rates reaching 4.5%
01/25/2012 02:02:13 PM
By Steve Goldstein
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The Federal Open Market Committee said Wednesday that the long-term inflation goal is 2%, as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption expenditures. That’s the most explicit the Fed has been in terms of setting an inflation target. Eleven of the 17 Federal Open Market Committee participants believe a rate hike would not be appropriate before 2014, according to the first-ever rate forecasts published Wednesday. Three members want the first hike by this year, three want them in 2013, five want them in 2014, four more in 2015, and two in 2016. The Fed also forecasts GDP growth between 2.2% and 2.7% this year, an unemployment rate between 8.2% and 8.5% and PCE inflation between 1.4% and 1.8%; the growth forecast is down from November levels, as are the jobless and inflation views. The Fed sees longer-term rates reaching between 4% and 4.5%.
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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
If a full default is declared in Greece the following will occur big time, and yes, bonuses as well.
Five will be US and the rest from Euroland
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Brinkmanship takes the economic form.
Chinese supertankers hired for Iran oil
Tue Jan 24, 2012 1:46PM GMT
Despite fresh EU sanctions against Iran’s oil exports, China has shown interest in Iran’s oil with hiring at least two supertankers to ship oil from the country.
Clarkson Research Services Ltd., a unit of the world’s largest shipbroker, announced the two supertankers were booked to carry about 2 million barrels of crude from Iran’s Khark Island to China.
Qi Lian San, a large crude carrier anchored near Singapore, was booked to load 270,000 tons of crude at Khark Island from Feb. 3 to Feb. 5 and carry the cargo to China, Clarkson said.
The Chinese oil trader, Zhuhai Zhenrong Co., also booked an unidentified ship owned by the National Iranian Tanker Co. to load 265,000 tons of crude in Khark Island on Jan. 29 and sail to the Chinese port city of Ningbo.
Two other ships, Davar and Hoda, which called at an Iranian oil terminal, are heading for China, Bloomberg reported.
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