Surging Precious Metals Demand Expanding Economic Stagnation

History’s most vicious precious metal raids – amidst the most PM-bullish fundamentals in memory have driven me to write essentially every day.  And today is no different, given the incredible confluence of events – including the current, expanding silver shortage – that threaten to shake the global monetary order to its foundations.  Perhaps, much sooner than most can imagine.

Of course, I must start with the recent otherworldly market manipulation; as overt QE or not, it’s extent is unprecedented – as proven by the relentless intervention in stocks, bonds and PMs at exactly 10:00 AM EST when the Fed’s “permanent open market operations” are conducted, and global physical gold and silver trading conclude.  Now that QE is “over,” such operations were purported to have terminated on October 27^th.  However, we have seen the same “dead ringer” algorithms in the “Dow Jones Propaganda Average” every day since; as well as “new Hail Mary trade” support of the 10-year Treasury yield; and of course, the same PM capping and attacking – via prototypical “Cartel Herald” algorithm – as always.

To wit, TPTB’s assault on reality has leaped exponentially higher since the mid-October “liquidity vacuum,” which prompted the Fed to deploy “manipulation, jawboning, and prayer” to reverse markets’ downward trajectory ahead of the elections, the Swiss gold referendum, and countless other potentially “key events.”  Incredibly, amidst some of the most horrific news flow and fundamentals, imaginable, TPTB have managed to goose U.S. stocks to their best 16-day run ever; right ahead of the mid-term elections; which, as it turns out, were a catastrophic failure for the incumbents.

As for precious metals, the Cartel “pushed the envelope” so far, they have created the most massive physical demand surge of the past 15 years; in volume, exceeding even what occurred when they attacked PMs during the 2008 crisis.  We wrote yesterday of how the U.S. Mint sold out of silver Wednesday, after having sold an incredible three million Silver Eagles in the first 2½ days of November; as well as the steepest backwardation – in gold and silver – since 2001; expanding drains of COMEX and GLD inventories; and record setting demand worldwide, as the mining industry sits on the cusp of an historic production collapse.

And by the way, amidst all the hoopla of the Mint sell-out of silver, few have noticed that in the first four days of November a whopping 30,500 gold Eagles were sold as well, and 6,000 gold buffaloes.  At these rates, November sales of gold Eagles and Buffaloes, respectively, project to 153,000 and 30,000 – compared to 446,000 and 160,000 for the first ten months of the year.  Or, to complete the math, the gold Eagle sales pace started November at 3.5x the pace of the year’s first ten months and gold Buffaloes 2.0x.

However, amidst this unprecedented bullish environment, PM suppression has increased exponentially – as proven by the fact that silver prices, after last night’s blatant paper raid, were at their low of $15/oz., nearly 4% below the level where, just 36 hours earlier, the Mint announced it sold out of silver!  In fact, furthering what I wrote earlier this week, we last night saw a paper silver raid of epic proportions in the wee hours, nearly identical to what occurred in this week’s “Sunday Night Sentiment” attack – you know, the 72^nd in the past 73 weeks.

The blatancy of recent silver raids – caused by the fear that this “Achilles Heel of the Financial World” will destroy the Cartel, and by extension the status quo; is mind-boggling, making a mockery of fundamentals and creating volatile conditions that will inevitably yield the biggest short squeeze in history.  And conversely, the largest stock crash ever; certainly in real terms, albeit “up in the air” whether it will nominally hyper-inflate, or crash.  To wit, the “irrefutable PM manipulation statistics” we first wrote of last year, of how silver falls at least 1% intraday essentially every day and 2+% on more than half of all trading days; as opposed to the Dow, which has not been allowed to fall 3% in a day for three years!

Whilst such maniacal control over “controllable” markets like stocks and paper PMs is occurring, the “three death trends” we wrote of earlier this week are literally exploding – with yesterday providing a perfect example, as oil prices plunged and the dollar surge against all global currencies accelerated – in some cases, at unprecedented rates, with the Russian Ruble falling an astonishing 4.3%, and the Brazilian Real 2.7%.  And oh yeah, did I forget the Japanese Yen, which has plunged nearly 7% this week, as the “real Yen bomb” detonates?  And regarding the ongoing, potentially cataclysmic plunge in oil prices – which we wrote of in last month’s “crashing oil prices portend unspeakable horrors,” how much more prescient could we have been – as the aforementioned three death trends, of collapsing oil prices and currencies, and expanding currency wars – are exactly what has transpired, per this article regarding the implosion of oil exporters’ currencies, and this one regarding Saudi Arabia’s commencement of an oil “price war” by cutting its North American export price – focused principally at the soon-to-collapse U.S. shale oil industry; and ultimately, the “petrodollar” itself.

As for today’s “jobs” report, for the third straight month I nailed it right on the head.  Yesterday, I predicted it would be “worse than expected” for both political purposes – to start the “new Republican Era” poorly – and because the Fed is terrified of the recent “massive” increase in the 10-year Treasury yield from 2.20% to 2.38%.  Yes, I know they fear falling rates as much as rising rates; but on a day-to-day basis, their focus changes – as they desperately manipulate markets with the calmness of a chicken with its head cut off.  Yes, they are that chaotic, as exemplified by the aforementioned “jawboning” by six Fed governors during last month’s stock plunge.

In the October NFP report, 214,000 “jobs” were created, compared to the 230,000 estimate and significantly higher “whisper numbers.”  And as always, the report’s internals were horrifying, as exemplified by this morning’s Yahoo! Finance “top story” – that “solid U.S. hiring is likely, but Americana are anxious.”  Yes, they’re anxious, as depicted by CNN’s Election Day exit polls, in which 78% of responders said they are worried about the economy – despite October’s “unemployment rate” decline to a multi-year low of 5.8%.  This morning’s comments from General Mills, the maker of Cheerios, says it all, of both the U.S. and international economic outlook – in significantly reducing its earnings forecast due to “continued” weak food industry trends in the U.S., and slowing growth in key emerging markets.”

By the way, how can the “unemployment rate” decline – from 5.9% in September to the aforementioned 5.8% in October – if the Labor Participation Rate ticked up 0.1%, and job creation was less than expected?  Yep, via the same U.S. government accounting that yields a $500 billion deficit when the national debt increases by $1.1 trillion!  And as for the perpetually ugly internals; as usual, the only new jobs created – aside from 137,000 phantom “birth/death” positions – were in the 55+ age category, as senior citizens take minimum wage jobs because they can’t afford retirement; and “waiters and bartenders,” which rocketed to a new all-time high – as the pace of higher-paying “professional business service” hiring plunged to the year’s lows, with manufacturing job creation non-existent.  Better yet, the household report included a ridiculous 528,000 “seasonally-adjusted” job additions in the 16-24 age category.  Yes, we’re to believe more than a half million high school and college-age Americans got “jobs” in September….as SCHOOL was starting!

And how did “markets” react?  To start, the PPT has been actively attempting to “dead ringer” stocks higher – thus far, as usual, preventing significant losses.  However, ominously for the global economy, the dollar remains near its highs.  Moreover, the aforementioned “new Hail Mary” algorithm decidedly failed, as the 10-year Treasury yield is plunging anew – on the verge of breaking below 2.3%, en route to 1% and below before hyper-inflation inevitably arrives.  As for PM’s, their initial surge was of course stopped by a prototypical “Cartel Herald” algorithm – and if you can believe the irony, the COMEX actually halted silver trading when it briefly went up by, get this, a “whopping” $0.35/oz.!  And this, after countless times – several this week alone – where silver fell by $0.50-$0.80 in minutes without any trading “halts.”

Anyhow, it’s now 11:10 AM EST, and TPTB must be horrified, as gold and silver have taken off anew.  Remember, we are in a period of extreme industry tightness – particularly in silver, but gold as well.  Thus, any sustained demand increase – as we are seeing at Miles Franklin – could cause prices and premiums to explode higher; and do so, by the way, ahead of the potentially Cartel-destroying Swiss gold referendum on November 30^th.  Or, for that matter, Sunday’s “non-binding” Catalonian secession vote.

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