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Venezuela Begins Publishing Oil Basket Price In Yuan

Venezuela Begins Publishing Oil Basket Price In Yuan

Two days after the WSJ confirmed Maduro’s earlier threat that he would stop accepting US Dollars as payment for crude oil imports, Venezuela has done just that.

As a reminder, and as we reported previously, in an effort to circumvent U.S. sanctions, Venezuela told oil traders that it will no longer receive or send payments in dollars. As a result, oil traders who export Venezuelan crude or import oil products into the country have begun converting their invoices to euros.

Furthermore, Venezuela’s state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA (whose bankruptcy is fast approaching), told its private joint venture partners to open accounts in euros and to convert existing cash holdings into Europe’s main currency, said one project partner. The new payment policy hasn’t been publicly announced, but Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who has been blacklisted by the U.S., said Friday, “To fight against the economic blockade there will be a basket of currencies to liberate us from the dollar.”

Fast forward to today, when according to a statement on the Venezuela oil ministry, the country’s weekly crude oil and petroleum basket “will be published in Chinese Yuan” – oddly, not in Euros as the WSJ hinted – going forward. We can only assume that Venezuela avoided the European currency on concerns that Brussels may follow in D.C.’s footsteps and impose financial sanctions on the Maduro regime next. Which meant that the only “safe” currency to transact in, was that of the country’s two big sources of vendor (and commodity) financing: China and Russia. For now Venezuela has picked the former.

The ministry also unveiled a price of 306.26 Yuan per barrel for the week of Sept. 11-15, up 1.8% from the 300.91 in the previous week, saying “the more favorable outlook on world oil demand and reports of lower global production contributed to the strengthening of crude oil prices this week.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China Battles “Impossible Trinity”

China Battles “Impossible Trinity”

Just because something is inevitable does not mean it cannot be postponed.

The popular name for this is “kicking the can down the road,” which is a perfectly good description.

I prefer more technical terms such as dynamic systems in “subcritical” and “supercritical” state space, but it amounts to the same thing.

A financial crisis can be a long time in the making, but it will definitely erupt. When it does, there will be huge losses for those who ignored the warning signs.

China is in a pre-crisis situation today.

It is confronting the harsh logic of the “Impossible Trinity.”

The Impossible Trinity theory was advanced in the early 1960s by Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Mundell. It says that no country can have an open capital account, a fixed exchange rate and an independent monetary policy at the same time.

You can have one or two out of three, but not all three. If you try, you will fail — markets will make sure of that.

Those failures (which do happen) represent some of the best profit-making opportunities of all. Understanding the Impossible Trinity is how George Soros broke the Bank of England on Sept. 16, 1992 (still referred to as “Black Wednesday” in British banking circles. Soros also made over $1 billion that day).

The reason is that if more attractive total returns are available abroad, money will flee a home country at a fixed exchange rate to seek the higher return. This will cause a foreign exchange crisis and a policy response that abandons one of the three policies.

But just because the trinity is impossible in the long run does not mean it cannot be pursued in the short run. China is trying to peg the yuan to the U.S. dollar while maintaining a partially open capital account and semi-independent monetary policy. It’s a nice finesse, but isn’t sustainable.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China Readies Yuan-Priced Crude Oil Benchmark Backed By Gold

China Readies Yuan-Priced Crude Oil Benchmark Backed By Gold

Beijing

The world’s top oil importer, China, is preparing to launch a crude oil futures contract denominated in Chinese yuan and convertible into gold, potentially creating the most important Asian oil benchmark and allowing oil exporters to bypass U.S.-dollar denominated benchmarks by trading in yuan, Nikkei Asian Review reports.

The crude oil futures will be the first commodity contract in China open to foreign investment funds, trading houses, and oil firms. The circumvention of U.S. dollar trade could allow oil exporters such as Russia and Iran, for example, to bypass U.S. sanctions by trading in yuan, according to Nikkei Asian Review. To make the yuan-denominated contract more attractive, China plans the yuan to be fully convertible in gold on the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges.

Last month, the Shanghai Futures Exchange and its subsidiary Shanghai International Energy Exchange, INE, successfully completed four tests in production environment for the crude oil futures, and the exchange continues with preparatory works for the listing of crude oil futures, aiming for the launch by the end of this year. ?

“The rules of the global oil game may begin to change enormously,” Luke Gromen, founder of U.S.-based macroeconomic research company FFTT, told Nikkei Asia Review.

The yuan-denominated futures contract has been in the works for years, and after several delays, it looks like it may be launched this year. Some potential foreign traders have been worried that the contract would be priced in yuan.

But according to analysts who spoke to Nikkei Asian Review, backing the yuan-priced futures with gold would be appealing to oil exporters, especially to those that would rather avoid U.S. dollars in trade.

“It is a mechanism which is likely to appeal to oil producers that prefer to avoid using dollars, and are not ready to accept that being paid in yuan for oil sales to China is a good idea either,” Alasdair Macleod, head of research at Goldmoney, told Nikkei.

China is going to hit a wall

Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder and research director at J Capital, warns that the monster bubble in the Chinese housing market is ripe to pop and that the Chinese currency will crash.

It’s been exactly two years now since turmoil in China’s currency markets threw investors around the globe into panic. After the shock in late August of 2015, another tantrum followed in early 2016. Since then concerns about China have diminished. The consensus seems to be that Beijing once again has regained control. Nonetheless, Anne Stevenson-Yang remains skeptical. The co-founder of the influential research firm J Capital warns that the speculation in the Chinese real estate market is getting evermore excessive. “There is little comfort that the economy can go on for much longer without some catastrophic adjustment”, says the American who’s one of the most distinguished experts on China. She expects that China’s currency will devalue significantly and explains why the Chinese government is cracking down on HNA and other Chinese companies that have been on an overseas buying spree.

Ms. Stevenson-Yang, many investors don’t seem to care much about China anymore. How is the situation inside the Middle Kingdom two years after the currency shock of August 2015?

Everyone in China – from the government at every level to the people who work in banks, construction companies and real estate companies – is one hundred percent focused on how to push growth with more investment. That’s all people think about. Everybody is maniacally focused on the questions if investments will continue and if investments can continue to drive growth.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Yuan Tumbles As Moody’s Cuts China’s Credit Rating To A1, Warns “Financial Strength Will Worsen”

Yuan Tumbles As Moody’s Cuts China’s Credit Rating To A1, Warns “Financial Strength Will Worsen”

Offshore Yuan tumbled as Moody’s cut China’s credit rating to A1 from Aa3, saying that the outlook for the country’s financial strength will worsen, with debt rising and economic growth slowing. This leaves the world’s hoped-for reflation engine rated below Estonia, Qatar, and South Korea and on par with Slovakia and Japan.
 “While ongoing progress on reforms is likely to transform the economy and financial system over time, it is not likely to prevent a further material rise in economy-wide debt, and the consequent increase in contingent liabilities for the government,” the ratings company said in a statement Wednesday.

And the most obvious reaction was Yuan selling…

Full Statement: Moody’s Investors Service has today downgraded China’s long-term local currency and foreign currency issuer ratings to A1 from Aa3 and changed the outlook to stable from negative.

The downgrade reflects Moody’s expectation that China’s financial strength will erode somewhat over the coming years, with economy-wide debt continuing to rise as potential growth slows. While ongoing progress on reforms is likely to transform the economy and financial system over time, it is not likely to prevent a further material rise in economy-wide debt, and the consequent increase in contingent liabilities for the government.

The stable outlook reflects our assessment that, at the A1 rating level, risks are balanced. The erosion in China’s credit profile will be gradual and, we expect, eventually contained as reforms deepen. The strengths of its credit profile will allow the sovereign to remain resilient to negative shocks, with GDP growth likely to stay strong compared to other sovereigns, still considerable scope for policy to adapt to support the economy, and a largely closed capital account.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China Losing Control? PBOC Imposes New Yuan Outflow Limits For First Time In Two Decades

China Losing Control? PBOC Imposes New Yuan Outflow Limits For First Time In Two Decades

Late last week, we reported that in its latest push to limit and/or halt capital outflows, China unveiled new capital controls meant to stem further capital flight disguised as outbound M&A by clamping down with tighter controls on Chinese companies seeking to invest overseas, intensifying efforts to slow a surge in capital fleeing offshore amid tepid growth and an uncertain economic outlook. Beijing was said to focus on “extra-large” foreign acquisitions valued at $10 billion or more per deal, property investments by state-owned firms above $1 billion and investments of $1 billion or more by any Chinese company in an overseas entity unrelated to the investor’s core business. The new controls would apply to deals yet to receive approval from China’s top economic planning agency.

It did not end there.

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One month after we noted a Bloomberg report that China was preparing to impose curbs on Bitcoin – which has in the recent past become a widely accepted mechanism to bypass capital controls – including policies restricting domestic bitcoin exchanges from moving the cryptocurrency to platforms outside the nation and imposing quotas on the amount of bitcoins that can be sent abroad, overnight we learned that China was taking a page out of the Indian demonetization playbook, and was curbing gold imports in another attempt to clamp down on capital leaving the country.

As the FT reported, some banks with licences have recently had difficulty obtaining approval to import gold, they said — a move tied to China’s attempts to stop a weakening renminbi by tightening outflows of dollars, the banks added.

To summarize, in just the past month, China has unveiled at least three distinct sets of “controls” aimed at curbing capital flight out of China, at a time when as Goldman calculated recently, the true extent of capital outflows if far greater than what is reported by the central bank.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China Moves Forward with Its De-Dollarization Strategy

China Moves Forward with Its De-Dollarization Strategy 

The world monetary order is changing. Slowly but steadily, global trade and currency markets are becoming less dollar-centric. Formerly marginal currencies such as the Chinese yuan now stand to become serious competitors to U.S. dollar dominance.

Could gold also begin to emerge as a leading currency in world trade? Over time, it certainly could. But the more immediate implications for gold’s monetary role center on its increasing accumulation by central banks such as China’s.

As of October 1st, the Chinese yuan has entered the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Right (SDR) basket of top-tier currencies. It now shares SDR status with the U.S. dollar, euro, British pound, and Japanese yen.

Before the yuan officially becomes an SDR currency, the World Bank intends to sell $2.8 billion in SDR bonds in Chinese markets. The rollout of SDR bonds in China began August 31st. According to Reuters, China’s promotion of SDR bonds “is part of a wider push in China to… boost demand for Chinese yuan and diminish reliance on the U.S. dollar in global reserves.”

King Dollar won’t be dethroned overnight. But the place of prominence the U.S. dollar enjoys as the world’s reserve currency will indeed diminish over time.

Yuan’s Inclusion in the SDR Currency Basket: Merely a Part of China’s De-Dollarization Strategy

China and Russia have mutual geostrategic interests in helping to promote de-dollarization. Toward that end, the two powers are engaging in bilateral trade deals that bypass the dollar. Annual bilateral trade between China and Russia has surged from $16 billion in 2003 to nearly $100 billion today. When China hosted the G20 summit in September, it will make Russian President Vladimir Putin its premier guest of honor.

U.S. officials are none too pleased. They fear Putin aims to expand his global reach by forging stronger ties with China.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China Relies On Property Bubbles To Prop Up GDP


Carl Mydans Sharecropper’s family in Mississippi County, Missouri 1936
Lots of China again today. Most of it based on warnings, coming from the BIS, about the country’s financial shenanigans. I’m getting the feeling we have gotten so used to huge and often unprecedented numbers, viewed against the backdrop of an economy that still seems to remain standing, that many don’t know what to make of this anymore.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard ties the BIS report to Hyman Minsky’s work, which is kind of funny, because our good friend and Minsky adept Steve Keen is the economist who most emphasizes the need to differentiate between public and private debt, in particular because public debt is not a big risk whereas private debt certainly is.

And that happens to be the main topic where people seem to get confused about China. To quote Ambrose: “..Outstanding loans have reached $28 trillion, as much as the commercial banking systems of the US and Japan combined. The scale is enough to threaten a worldwide shock if China ever loses control. Corporate debt alone has reached 171pc of GDP..”

The big Kahuna question then becomes: should Chinese outstanding loans and corporate debt be seen as public debt or private debt, given that the dividing line between state and corporations is as opaque and shifting as it is? Even the BIS looks confused. I’ll address that below. First, here’s Ambrose:

BIS Flashes Red Alert For a Banking Crisis in China

The Bank for International Settlements warned in its quarterly report that China’s “credit to GDP gap” has reached 30.1%, the highest to date and in a different league altogether from any other major country tracked by the institution. It is also significantly higher than the scores in East Asia’s speculative boom on 1997 or in the US subprime bubble before the Lehman crisis.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oilmageddon, Central Banks And Liquidity: The 3 “Feedback Loops” Keeping Citi Up At Night

Oilmageddon, Central Banks And Liquidity: The 3 “Feedback Loops” Keeping Citi Up At Night

In recent months we have seen a dramatic spike in visualizations by sellside analysts, who appear to have finally grasped the reflexive nature of markets first noted so many years ago by none other than George Soros, which – with the Fed involved in all of them – show just why Janet Yellen is trapped.

First, it was Bank of America who in early may sketched the not-so-merry-go-round framing the relationship between the Fed and the market as follows (for our commentary read here):

Then just a few weeks later, when Goldman soured on China and the Yuan, the vampire squid revealed the Fed-China “doom loop” showing the Catch 22 relationship between the USD and the Yuan and how the S&P500 works as an intermediate buffer between the two.

Now it is Citi’s turn to unveil its own charting artistry with the following chart summarizing what it sees as the 3 big feedback loop risks as the world enters the “volatile” phase of the centrally-planned market and global economy. Presented without commentary.

Deflation Is Blowing In On An Eastern Trade Wind


Jack Delano “Lower Manhattan seen from the S.S. Coamo leaving New York.” 1941

Brexit is nowhere near the biggest challenge to western economies. And not just because it has devolved into a two-bit theater piece. Though we should not forget the value of that development: it lays bare the real Albion and the power hunger of its supposed leaders. From xenophobia and racism on the streets, to back-stabbing in dimly lit smoky backrooms, there’s not a states(wo)man in sight, and none will be forthcoming. Only sell-outs need apply.

The only person with an ounce of integrity left is Jeremy Corbyn, but his Labour party is dead, which is why he must fight off an entire horde of zombies. Unless Corbyn leaves labour and starts Podemos UK, he’s gone too. The current infighting on both the left and right means there is a unique window for something new, but Brits love what they think are their traditions, plus Corbyn has been Labour all his life, and he just won’t see it.

The main threat inside the EU isn’t Brexit either. It’s Italy. Whose banks sit on over 30% of all eurozone non-performing loans, while its GDP is about 10% of EU GDP. How they would defend it I don’t know, they’re probably counting on not having to, but Juncker and Tusk’s European Commission has apparently approved a scheme worth €150 billion that will allow these banks to issue quasi-sovereign bonds when they come under attack. An attack that is now even more guaranteed to occcur than before.

Still, none of Europe’s internal affairs have anything on what’s coming in from the east. Reading between the lines of Japan’s Tankan survey numbers there is only one possible conclusion: the ongoing and ever more costly utter failure of Abenomics continues unabated.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China’s Rolling Boom-Bust Cycle

There is a mysterious figure making regular appearances in China’s government mouthpiece “People’s Daily”, which simply goes by the name “authoritative person” (AP). This unnamed entity always tends to show up with bad news for assorted speculators, by suggesting that various scenarios associated with monetary and/ or fiscal stimulus are actually not in China’s immediate future (the details of AP’s latest pronouncements can be found here and here).

people's dailyThe People’s Daily. “Authoritative Person” may be hiding somewhere in the picture to the left.

Some observers seem to believe that this represents a “renewed shift in policy” – Bloomberg e.g. quotes an economist with Mizuho Securities as follows:

“It is very significant and may signal a shift in China’s policies,” said Shen Jianguang, chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. in Hong Kong. “Each time they publish this, it is normally a warning.” 

Others are more careful – after all, this seems to be a case of “we’re saying one thing and doing another”, given a credit expansion of 4.6 trillion yuan in just the first quarter, which has sent narrow money supply growth soaring to more than 22% annualized.

The more measured argument is that it could be a sign that the debate about future economic policy is ongoing, resp. has been revived. No-one really knows – it is basically the Chinese version of Kremlinology.

1-China - M1,M2 growthAt the end of March, China’s narrow money supply measure M1 was growing at more than 22% y/y – click to enlarge.

Although the extension of new yuan loans has slowed significantly in April from January’s heady pace (555 bn. vs. 2.5 trn.), there has still been enough pumping in the system to push M1 up again in March-April from a brief dip in February – in other words, if there is indeed a change in policy, it is not really visible yet.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

While America Debates the $20 Bill, China Moves Closer to Gold

While America Debates the $20 Bill, China Moves Closer to Gold

On Wednesday, Jack Lew announced that the US Treasury was following Ben Bernanke’s advice and keeping Alexander Hamilton on the $10, instead deciding to bring Harriett Tubman to the $20. While Lew’s news left America distracted in debate over whose portrait should grace the Federal Reserve’s most popular bank note, Zerohedge was highlighting how China was taking important steps to distance themselves from the dollar.

Earlier this week, Reuters reported China taking the bold step of launching a yuan-denominated gold price. Reuters noted:

As the world’s top producer, importer and consumer of gold, China has baulked at having to depend on a dollar price in international transactions, and believes its market weight should entitle it to set the price of gold.

The new benchmark may not be an immediate threat to London, but industry players say over time China could set the price of the metal, especially if the yuan become fully convertible.

During an interview with Bloomberg TV Hao Hong, managing director and chief China strategist with Bocom International, one of China’s largest banks, put it more bluntly:

By trading physical gold in renminbi, China is slowly chipping away at the dominance of US dollars….The gold reserve on the China balance sheet has almost doubled since 2009. By holding gold, and moving away from a US-dollar centric system, we actually require less US dollars.

Of course the true measure of China’s gold holdings is still a closely guarded secret by the Chinese government. While the country has taken steps to increase transparency in its reserved reporting, which bolstered their successful campaign to have the yuan factored into the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights, James Rickards explains:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“China Yuan Gold Fix Is Part Of A Planned Shift From Dollar”: China’s Bocom

“China Yuan Gold Fix Is Part Of A Planned Shift From Dollar”: China’s Bocom

China’s shift to an official local-currency-based gold fixing is “the culmination of a two-year plan to move away from a US-centric monetary system,” according to Bocom strategist Hao Hong. In an insightfully honest Bloomberg TV interview, Hong admits that “by trading physical gold in renminbi, China is slowly chipping away at the dominance of US dollars.” Gold, silver, and petroleum “are the three USD-based commodites that China wants most control of” according to Hong but “gold in particular is one of the commodities that China is hoarding very hard.”

 

Finally, as Hong explains above, for those who suggest that China will never dump Treasuries or ‘hurt’ the dollar, since they hold so much dollars on their balance sheet, things are chganging rapidly – “The gold reserve on the China balance sheet has almost doubled since 2009. By holding gold, and moving away from a US-dollar centric system, we actually require less US dollars.”

The Trade Wars Begin: China Retaliates To Steel Tariffs With Global Anti-Dumping Duties

The Trade Wars Begin: China Retaliates To Steel Tariffs With Global Anti-Dumping Duties 

When looking back in history, December 23, 2015 may be the date the global trade wars officially began. On that day, as we reported at the time, the U.S. imposed a 256% tariff on Chinese steel imports.

It did so perhaps with good reason: with its local end markets mothballed, China was desperate to dump as much excess capacity as possible offshore with shipments of steel, oil products and aluminum all reaching new highs according to trade data from the General Administration of Customs, and the result was a dramatic drop in US prices.

On the other hand, with Chinese mills, smelters and refiners all producing far more than can be purchased domestically amid slowing domestic demand, as well as the government’s anti-pollution crackdown, China’s decision to ship the excess overseas was also understandable.

As Bloomberg wrote at the time, “the flood of Chinese supplies is roiling manufacturers around the world and exacerbating trade frictions. The steel market is being overwhelmed with metal from China’s government-owned and state-supported producers, a collection of industry associations have said. The nine groups, including Eurofer and the American Iron and Steel Institute, said there is almost 700 million tons of excess capacity around the world, with the Asian nation contributing as much as 425 million tons.”

2016 was expected to get even worse: Colin Hamilton, head of commodities research, said the the price of hot-rolled coil, used in everything from fridges to freight containers, may decline about 13 percent next year. China’s steel exports, which have ballooned to more than 100 million metric tons this year, may stay at those levels for the rest of the decade as infrastructure and construction demand continues to falter.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China Warns Officials: Allow Social Unrest, Lose Your Job

China Warns Officials: Allow Social Unrest, Lose Your Job

To be sure, there are always going to be financial and geopolitical landmines and every once in awhile we – and by “we” we’re referring to the market, or the country, or humanity, or whatever collective you want to choose – are going to step on one on the way to ushering in a black swan event.

But when we look out across markets and across the political landscape it’s difficult to escape the feeling that there are more black swans waiting in the wings – so to speak – than usual. There’s the threat of a dirty bomb being detonated in a crowded Western European urban center for instance. Or the chance that Turkey ends up “accidentally” killing a Russian or Iranian soldier while shelling the Azaz corridor. And how about the possibility that China tries to save its economy by chancing a 30% devaluation of the yuan and inadvertently plunges the world into a crisis far worse than 2008?

The interesting thing to note about the third crisis event listed above is that an economic implosion in China may spawn a black swan far larger than that which would emanate from a crisis in the country’s banking sector and/or a deeper devaluation of the RMB.

As we’ve discussed on multiple occasions of late, China desperately needs to purge its economy of excess capacity. The industrial sector is weighed down by too much debt and too little demand, but an acute overcapacity problem prevents the market from getting anywhere close to clearing. Either Beijing moves quickly to ameliorate this, or else a wave of defaults will ripple through the industrial complex on the way to crippling the country’s banking sector, where NPLs are probably at least five times greater than the official numbers suggest.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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