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Fed Sees No 2019 Hike, Plans September End to Asset Drawdown

This article by Jeanna Smialek for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

“This was definitely a dovish outcome and even a bit of a surprise,” said Ben Emons, managing director of global macro strategy at Medley Global Advisors in New York. “The Fed took out the entire rate hike scenario for this year.”

Reaction in markets confirmed the dovish interpretation. Stocks pared losses, the dollar turned lower and Treasuries rallied. Traders lifted the odds of the Fed cutting rates. In a separate statement Wednesday, the Fed said it would start slowing the shrinking of its balance sheet in May -- dropping the cap on monthly redemptions of Treasury securities from the current $30 billion to $15 billion -- and halt the drawdown altogether at the end of September. After that, the Fed will likely hold the size of the portfolio “roughly constant for a time,” which will allow reserve balances to gradually decline.

Beginning in October, the Fed will roll its maturing holdings of mortgage-backed securities into Treasuries, using a cap of $20 billion per month. The initial investment in new Treasury maturities will “roughly match the maturity composition of Treasury securities outstanding,” the Fed said. The central bank is still deliberating the longer-run composition of its portfolio and said “limited sales of agency MBS might be warranted in the longer run.”



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Under "Basel III" Rules, Gold Becomes Money!

Thanks to a subscriber for this article from Zero Hedge which may be of interest. Here is a section:

If banks own and possess gold bullion, they can use that asset as equity and thus this will enable them to print more money. It may be no coincidence that as March 29th has been approaching banks around the world have been buying huge amounts of physical gold and taking delivery. For the first time in 50 years, central banks bought over 640 tons of gold bars last year, almost twice as much as in 2017 and the highest level raised since 1971, when President Nixon closed the gold window and forced the world onto a floating rate 

And

The only way governments can manage the levels of debt that threaten the financial survival of the Western world is to inflate (debase) their currencies. The ability to count gold as a reserve from which banks can create monetary inflation is not only to allow gold to become a reserve on the balance sheet of banks but to have a much, much higher, gold price to build up equity in line with the massive debt in the system.



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China Wants Its Stock, Bond Markets to Step Up Funding Role

This article from Bloomberg News may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

“We need to create a strong capital market,” Guo Shuqing, the country’s chief financial regulator, said at the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislative session which wrapped up last week. “We could do more work especially in the capital market -- stock market, bond market -- for direct financing.”

China is trying to transform how it funds its economy after decades of relying on state-run banks that benefit from the implicit backing of the nation’s treasury -- but tend to direct most loans to other government-owned companies. The difficulty that small and private firms have in securing funding was one reason for an explosion of shadow-banking, and the rapid increase in debt and risk that came with it.

Spurred to act by a record $34 trillion debt pile, authorities in recent years have cracked down on risky loans, squeezing businesses that relied on such funding. While leaders including Guo have called on the banks to do more to finance private companies, lenders are grappling with their own concerns about loan quality and default rates. Even so, outstanding banks loans in China have increased by about 27 percent since 2016, while capital-market funding rose by around 15 percent.

“We shouldn’t put all the pressure on banks,” Xu Kuijun, an NPC delegate and vice president at Bank of China Ltd. In Shanghai said in an interview at the sidelines of the gathering. “We have to rely more on direct financing, and capital markets should do more.”



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China makes major U.S. pork purchase despite steep import tariffs, as hog virus takes toll

This article by Tom Polansek for Reuters may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Buyers in the world’s biggest hog producer and pork consumer struck deals for the meat despite import tariffs of 62 percent imposed by China on U.S. pork as a consequence of the trade war between the two countries.

The duties had slashed China’s imports of U.S. pork from companies such as WH Group Ltd’s Smithfield Foods since last summer.

The sale of 23,846 tonnes of U.S pork in the week ended March 7 comes after a months-long outbreak of African swine fever in China that has spread to 111 confirmed cases in 28 provinces and regions across the country since August 2018.



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Investors Are Still Waiting for a Gold-Mining Merger Wave

This article by Alistair MacDonald and Ben Dummett for the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Miners and bankers give a variety of reasons for why the gold mining merger wave hasn’t come. The poor performance of gold miners’ shares means that sellers want to hold out for better valuations and buyers are reluctant to use shares they believe are undervalued for acquisitions.

The S&P TSX Global Gold Index is down 51% since its 2011. The S&P 500 has doubled in value in that time.

The industry as whole has a poor record in M&A. Miners overspent during the decadelong bubble that ended in 2011. That put off investors and made some executives wary of doing deals.

In 2016, PwC calculated that big miners had written off $200 billion of the value in acquisitions and projects over the previous five years.

Executives may be reluctant for another reason, investors say. They don’t want to put themselves out of a well-paid job by merging or selling their mines.



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Wheat Futures Climb Most Since August as Texas Ratings Decline

This note by Michael Hirtzer for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers.

May wheat futures up as much as 4.4% to $4.47 1/2 a bushel in Chicago.
Intraday advance is biggest since Aug. 2
Prices are rebounding from May contract record low reached Monday
NOTE: Winter-wheat conditions in Texas drop, USDA data showed Monday
Texas good/excellent rating lowered to 28% from 36%
Futures also climb amid short covering, Terry Reilly, senior commodity analyst for grain and oilseeds for Futures International in Chicago, says by telephone



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Rand Bears in Ascendance as Risks Rise From Moody's to Poll

This article by Colleen Goko for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Short Positions
Investors in the futures market are becoming more pessimistic, with non-commercial short-rand contracts outweighing longs, CFTC data show. That’s a turnaround from February, when traders were net long-rand for a brief period.

Selling Out
Foreign investors are getting out of South African bonds and stocks. Non-residents have been net sellers of government bonds at an average rate of 115 million rand ($8 million) a day over the past month -- not a huge number, but a turnaround from mid-February, when inflows averaged 434 million rand a day. And offshore investors have been net sellers of South African equities for the past 14 days, the longest streak since October 2017.



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Nickel Rallies as Steel Markets, EVs Lure Investors

This article by Mark Burton and Caleb Mutua for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here it is in full:

Nickel climbed to a fresh six-month high in London as rallying steel markets, falling inventories and rising electric-vehicle sales bolster the outlook for the metal. Industrial commodities increased as markets were soothed by China’s announcement of a major tax cut and optimism that a resolution with the U.S. over trade is in reach. Prices advanced even as the world’s biggest consumer trimmed its growth target for the year. Steel futures are up this year and the outlook appears brighter as China plans to trim the value-added tax rate that covers the manufacturing sector and as the usage of electric-vehicle batteries gains momentum.

China policymakers seek to pull off a gradual deceleration while grappling with a debt legacy Nickel inventories in LME warehouses hit the lowest since 2013Copper inventories fall to 118,600 tons, the lowest since May 2008.


“We’ve seen that metals like nickel, zinc and tin, which feed into the ferrous sector, have all been on a bit of a tear recently,” Robin Bhar, an analyst at Societe Generale, says by phone from London “Nickel could still be the darling of the complex, given the uplift that you have from batteries”“ Chinese stimulus measures are aimed at goosing consumption and helping manufacturing, so the best-positioned metal is probably copper,” Tai Wong, head of base and precious metals derivatives trading at BMO Capital Markets, says by email “I think nickel is a spec play and if the rolling ball of money is back, it can definitely drive it a long way”



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Does anyone still ask about silver?

Thanks to a subscriber for this report from UBS. Here is a section:



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PGM Market Report

Thanks to a subscriber for this report from Johnson Matthey which may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:



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