Goldman Sachs warning

 Goldman Sachs Issues Rare Sunday Warning; Markets Will Collapse if Squeeze Continues (Banks too)

Hal Turner,

1 February, 2021

Financial behemoth Goldman Sachs issued a rare Sunday Warning, informing its clients that ". . . if the short squeeze continues the entire market will collapse."

They are apparently talking about the ongoing pressure being felt by investment brokerages involved in the GameStop (GME) short squeeze which is still taking place.

But the people who spearheaded the GME squeeze have already begun a SECOND and far more massive "squeeze" in the physical Silver Bullion market.

Since Friday, the folks who follow WallStreetBets, announced they intended to engage in another squeeze, involving physical silver bullion.  They began telling each other to "buy bullion and take delivery" knowing full well there isn't nearly enough physical silver in the markets to cover a sudden increase for bullion to be physically delivered.

Folks hesitated but some went "all-in" and started buying physical silver.  By Sunday evening, almost  E V E R Y bullion dealer in the world had notices on their web sites DECLINING to make further sales of Silver Bullion!

One of the more prominent sellers of Bullion is KITCO and they initially had a notice declining further sales, then changed their web site to reflect the simple facts:  SOLD OUT.  

Yes, you read that right.  KITCO is SOLD OUT of all its silver bullion.   ALL OF IT.   There's nothing left.

Dealer after dealer worldwide is seeing intense demand as small investors pull money OUT of stocks because the GME Squeeze demonstrated that the stock markets are rigged and not trustworthy.

Those millions of small investors then started plowing their money into physical silver, and in less than 48 hours (and on a Weekend) ALL the silver is gone.

When the Commodities futures market opened at 6:00 PM eastern US Time on Sunday night, Silver jumped right out of the starting gate, rising about 1.80 an ounce at the time of this article at 6:35 PM.  That's about a 6.8% rise in a half hour.

The "squeeze" being done on Silver Bullion is designed to specifically target one particular group: Banks.

The world knows that Bankers have been artificially manipulating the silver market for DECADES.  They have routinely been fined by governments for such conduct, but still the conduct persists.

Here's a quick chart for the average person to see how the Silver Market has been manipulated by Banks:

 

So clearly the market for Silver has been grossly manipulated.   But why?

Well, Banks use silver to make money for themselves.  They BORROW an ounce of silver from someone with the promise of paying it back by a fixed date.   Then they SELL the ounce they borrowed, figuring the price will go down (because they manipulate markets.   When the price goes down, they BUY IT BACK, cheaper than they sold it, give back the ounce they borrowed, and pocket the profit.

The little-guy Investors have seen this and known about it for years.  But only now that the rigged stock market became so grossly evident, have little-guy investors started teaming-up to "squeeze" things like this.

What the little guys are doing is focusing individual investors on a specific target stock, or in this case, bullion, because they know so many OTHER investors are going "short" . . .  betting the stock/bullion will DECREASE in value.

So when a slew of little guy investors start buying up that particular stock or bullion, the price goes UP.   This harms the investors like banks, who want the price to go down, because if the price goes UP, then it will cost the bank more to buy the stock back than it cost them to buy it.  Not only won't they MAKE money, they'll LOSE MONEY.

Sometimes, wealthy Investors (like Hedge Funds and Banks) who are LOSING money on their short options, start having to BUY the exact stock they went short on, so they have stocks to pay back the ones they borrowed.  This has the effect of causing the stock price to go even higher!

In the end, Investors who went "short" can lose all their money . . . . to the little guys who bought up all the stocks.  

It is a form of forced wealth re-distribution from the rich investor class, to the common, average, little guy class.  And the big guys don't like it.  At all.

That's why, when the GameStop GME "squeeze" took off last week, the big guys did everything they could to stop it. 

They shut down the chat server being used to coordinate little guy investors.  They had their "pals" at Brokerage Houses put a STOP to any more little-guy purchases of GME stock.  They even had those Brokerage Houses start SELLING-OFF the stocks bought by little guy investors WITHOUT PERMISSION from the little guy!

Well, that roiled people but good. To understand why people are so motivated to go after the banks, read this one posting in the Reddit /WallStreetBets sub-group which explained why this little guy was going after them:

 

So the little guys are motivated not by greed, but rather by the desire for REVENGE.   Revenge for the past banking debacles that wrecked whole industries.  Revenge for liberal bankers and left-winger Hedge Funds giving hundreds of millions to help Biden STEAL the election.  Now, the Little Guys have gotten together to "go for the jugular"  . . . the banks. 

The way they knew it could be done: Silver Bullion.  Silver is "shorted" to the extreme by Banks.  If Silver rises in price, it will WIPE OUT the Banks.

Now, these Little Guys have actually begun squeezing Silver bullion.   And the biggest of the big guys, firms like Goldman Sachs, are now openly warning this could "collapse the entire system."

One Banker, believed to be from JP Morgan Chase, warned on one of the "Chan" Boards that people didn't have a clue what they were doing, and they would end up smashing the entire banking system if they didn't stop.

That just caused the little guys to buy more silver bullion.

The average person has "had it"  with the system.  A system that is rigged for the wealthy to protect the wealthy, and do so by screwing the little guy.   

Now the little guys are banding together and sticking the wealthy right in the heart.  

To quote one little guy "I'd rather burn the whole system to the ground just to spite them."

When THAT is the mindset of people doing financial battle, things are going to get ugly, fast.

Have spare food.  Have spare cash.  

This will play out over the next week or two before the SHTF.  But the S will HTF  if this continues.   

The suits are scared, boys.   They should be.

Another common guy posting on GAB, put it this way:

https://gab.com/TheRedCoatsAreComing/posts/105653962402902969

The global elites want the great reset- take our money and make universal basic income. We will give them the great reset, and collapse their Ponzi scheme that is the federal reserve (world banks)

When all is in ashes we will then re-establish our currency- locally based and back by Gold or something else that can’t be multiplied endlessly. Time to get back to sound money and trade. Universal basic work.
You don’t eat unless you work.

Message to the bankers- you better buy gold and silver, those dollars will be used to keep the fire going in the winter when this is over.
You shouldn’t have rigged the election, you shouldn’t have rigged the financial system, you shouldn’t have ignored the constitution, and most of all- You Shouldn’t Have Turned Your Back On The HOLY BIBLE.

Oil prices surge

Oil prices are on their march upwards as Gail Tverberg and others predicted. Couldn’t be anything to do with Peak Oil or the world economy, could it? Lol.

The media seem to have latched onto problems in Nigeria (with a six-month delay). Miraculously, disruptions to Canadian tar sands caused by the fires seem to have had no influence on prices.

But then I’m no expert.

Oil prices surge as Goldman reports supply deficit

RT,

16 May, 2016

Global crude benchmarks are trading at six-month highs after Goldman Sachs analysts said the market is now in supply shortage.

Brent crude prices grew to $49 per barrel during Monday's trading. West Texas Intermediate soared to over $47 per barrel, their highest level since November.

"The oil market has gone from nearing storage saturation to being in deficit much earlier than we expected," Goldman said.

“The market likely shifted into deficit in May, driven by both sustained strong demand as well as sharply declining production,” the bank added.

That prompted the bank to raise its US crude price forecast to $50 a barrel for the second half of 2016 from a $45-estimate in March.

The biggest contributor to Goldman-reported supply shortage was wildfires in Canada's Alberta Province. Among other significant shortfalls are in Nigeria, where militant attacks on oil facilities have squeezed crude exports.

In the US, oil production has contracted to 8.8 million barrels per day (pbd), 8.4 percent down from 2015 peaks, as the country’s crude sector is suffering from low prices.

Supply shortfalls around the world have totaled 3.75 million bpd, wiping the glut that slashed oil prices from $114 per barrel in 2014 to $28 this January, according to Goldman.

The bank has warned the 258-403 million bpd surplus could return in the first half of 2017.

At the same time, OPEC countries continue their struggle for market share, having pumped 32.44 million bpd in April, a 188,000-bpd increase from March.

Global oil reserves are also preventing a full price recovery, according to analysts.

"The inventory buffer may be preventing full price recovery and the market is rightly nervous about the sustainability of outages," said Morgan Stanley, as quoted by Reuters.

Here Are The Oil Market Disruptions That Are Sending Oil Soaring

Zero Hedge,

16 May, 2016

The reason why oil has resumed its ascendant ways today is due to yet another focus, this time from the sellside, on the various disruptions in the oil market, following notes from Goldman, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley according to which the millions in barrels of oil taken offline as a result of the Canada wildfire and persistent Nigerian supply problems will push the market into equilibrium much faster than originally expected.

To be sure, this is nothing new: the mainstream media has been pointing this out for weeks with Reuters highlighting the supply loss in a handy table just last Friday.

Still, now that the sellside is pushing for an even flatter oil strip - recall that Goldman's full note said that while the market may get into balance faster than expected, a surge in low-cost production by OPEC members will result in lower prices in 2017 - the market has no choice but to follow.

So for those who missed it, here is the visual representation of the current oil supply disruptions courtesy of Goldman.

Large supply disruptions have pushed production sharply lower since mid-March
Key planned and unplanned outages since mid-February (kb/d)

This is what Goldman said:

The recent roll-over in production is the result of somewhat offsetting cross currents. (1) Production has rolled over faster than we had expected in China, India and non-OPEC Africa more than offset upside surprises in the US and the North Sea. (2) Transient but recurring disruptions have more than offset larger than expected Iran and Iraq production.And while some of the disruptions will stop such as maintenance, fires and strikes, some are likely systemic, for example in Nigeria, and we now expect production there will remain curtailed for the remainder of the year. Net, this leaves us expecting a sharp decline in 2Q output.

So with the Canadian disruption now contained, the fate of the "oil disruption rally" is now in the hands of Nigerian militants who are responsible for "systemic disruptions" taking about half a million barrels per day offline.

Finally, it is worth reminding what Goldman also said in its note last night, because while the press has focused on the near-term upside catalysts it appears to have forgotten the other side of what Goldman noted, namely the return of chronis oversupply at a time of all time high crude oil inventories.

The inflection phase of the oil market continues to deliver its share of surprises, with low prices driving disruptions in Nigeria, higher output in Iran and better demand. With each of these shifts significant in magnitude, the oil market has gone from nearing storage saturation to being in deficit much earlier than we expected and we are pulling forward our price forecast, with 2Q/2H16 WTI now $45/bbl and $50/bbl.

However, we expect that the return of some of these outages as well as higher Iran and Iraq production will more than offset lingering issues in Nigeria and our higher demand forecast. As a result, we now forecast a more gradual decline in inventories in 2H than previously and a return into surplus in 1Q17, with low-cost production continuing to grow in the New Oil Order. This leads us to lower our 2017 forecast with prices in 1Q17 at $45/bbl and only reaching $60/bbl by 4Q17.

We expect continued growth in low-cost producer output
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Iraq, Iran (crude) and Russia (oil) production (kb/d)

For now, the market only cares about the impact on spot, and as of this moment, WTI is up over 3% back to levels last seen in November of 2015.

Forget the Saudis, Nigeria's the Big Oil Worry

By Julian Lee

Bloomberg,

16 May, 2016

Drag your attention away from the Middle East for a moment. While policymakers have been focused on Saudi Arabia's oil market machinations, what really matters right now is happening 3,000 miles away in the Niger River delta.

The country that was, until recently, Africa's biggest crude producer is slipping back into chaos. A wave of attacks and accidents have hit infrastructure, taking Nigeria's output down to 20-year lows.

Nigeria's Output Woes

Oil prices are responding, rising to their highest in more than six months. Part of this is explained by the International Energy Agency lifting demand estimates this week. But taking both things together, it's easy to doubt whether current oil surpluses are sustainable.With no solution in sight to the problems that beset the delta's creeks and mangrove swamps, production from onshore and shallow-water oil fields looks vulnerable. 

If the latest group of freedom fighters seeks to outdo its predecessors, then deepwater facilities may be at risk too.The Niger Delta Avengers have certainly been busy, forcing Shell's Forcados terminal to shut in about 250,000 barrels of daily exports; and breaching an offshore Chevron facility in the 160,000 barrels per day Escravos system. 

In April, ENI had to declare force majeure -- letting it stop shipments without breaching contracts -- on exports of its Brass River grade after a pipeline fire.

It's hard to see any long-term let-up given Nigeria's record on fixing this problem. The previous wave of discontent, which hit a peak in 2009, only came to an end when President Yar'Adua offered amnesty, training programs and monthly cash payments to nearly 30,000 militants, at a yearly cost of about $500 million. Some leaders of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the militant group, got lucrative security contracts.

But the failure to properly address local grievances means it was only a matter of time before another wave of angry young men took up the fight for a better deal for southern Nigeria. The crisis has been hastened by new president Muhammadu Buhari's termination of the ex-militants' security contracts and his seeking the arrest of former MEND leaders.

The Avengers now say they want independence for the Niger River delta.And it's not as if Nigeria's oil woes are limited to the militants. 

Exxon had to declare force majeure on Qua Iboe exports after a drilling platform ran aground and ruptured a pipeline, while Shell did similar with Bonny Light exports after a leak from a pipeline feeding the terminal.

Nigeria's Export Streams

Four of the five largest streams are partly or totally suspended

Source: Bloomberg

Volumes based on 1Q16 loading programs. Excludes condensate streams.

In its latest report, the IEA assessed the world's need for OPEC crude this quarter at 31.9 million barrels a day, with Nigeria contributing 1.62 million to the group's 32.76 million output in April.

Petromatrix, an oil research group, believes Nigerian production may now be little more than 1 million barrels per day. It won't take much more disruption to tip the global oil balance from surplus to deficit

Read the latest from Gail Tverberg

What Experts Miss When Discussing Peak Oil

For a long time, a common assumption has been that the world will eventually “run out” of oil and other non-renewable resources. Instead, we seem to be running into surpluses and low prices. What is going on that was missed by M. King Hubbert, Harold Hotelling, and by the popular understanding of supply and demand?

 

The Artist taxi driver - Goldman Sachs and the Royal Mail

This is what we need at the moment! WARNING: Colourful language

**Who rules our world** BBC Sucks O Cocks News

And this, apparently, is what this is about...

Goldman Sachs and UBS to lead privatisation of Royal Mail

Government announces selection of Goldman Sachs and UBS to advise on Royal Mail's sale and collect majority of fees

the Guardian,

29 May, 2013

Goldman Sachs and UBS will lead a syndicate of banks collecting about £30m from the £3bn privatisation of Royal Mail.

The government announced that it had selected Goldman Sachs, which has been accused of treating its clients like "muppets", and UBS, which was fined £940m for its role in the Libor rate rigging scandal, as global co-ordinators and bookrunners of the largest privatisation in two decades.

As the lead banks advising on Royal Mail's sale the pair will collect the majority of the fees, understood to be set at about 1% of the target £2-3bn flotation value. Barclays and Bank of America Merrill Lynch will also collect millions in fees from more junior roles in the sale.

The department for business, innovation and skills (BIS), which is in charge of the sale, refused to state how much the banks will collect in fees but said it had "negotiated very hard to get the best value for taxpayers". Banks can collect up to 2.5% for running flotations.

A BIS spokesman said the banks had been selected because of their past experience advising the government on Royal Mail and declined to comment on the banks' roles in recent scandals.

Goldman Sachs hit the headlines last year when one of its British-based bankers resigned in a letter in which he accused his former employer of being "morally bankrupt" and routinely ripping off its "muppet" clients in order to increase its profits

Michael Fallon, the business minister, said the banks' appointments "build momentum" for the sale, which he hopes to complete within a year. Fallon said a float in London, in which staff would be granted shares worth 10% of the company, was still the government's "preferred option" but insisted no final decisions had been made and other sale options "remain on the table".

He has warned the Communication Workers Union (CWU) that the world's oldest postal service could be sold to sovereign wealth funds or other foreign buyers if the CWU continues to fight a flotation.

Moya Greene, chief executive of Royal Mail, has taken the company on an investor roadshow in Canada and the US and said it would be "foolhardy" not consider the sale of the company to foreign buyers.

If the flotation is successful it will be the biggest privatisation since the sell-off of the railways in the 1990s and Royal Mail will enter the FTSE 100 list of Britain's biggest companies.

Royal Mail last week reported a 60% increase in pre-tax annual profits to £324m. Sales, which were boosted by a 30% rise in the price of first class stamps to 60p, increased by more than £500m to £9.3bn.

Global poverty and the banks

Goldman Sachs Made 400 Million Betting On Food Prices In 2012 While Hundreds Of Millions Starved

Michael Snyder

Axis of Logic,

8 March, 2013

Why does it seem like wherever there is human suffering, some giant bank is making money off it?  According to a new report from the World Development Movement, Goldman Sachs made about 400 million dollars betting on food prices last year.  Overall, 2012 was quite a banner year for Goldman Sachs.  As I reported in a previous article, revenues for Goldman increased by about 30 percent in 2012 and the price of Goldman stock has risen by more than 40 percent over the past 12 months.  It is estimated that the average banker at Goldman brought in a pay and bonus package of approximately $396,500 for 2012.  So without a doubt, Goldman Sachs is swimming in money right now.  But what is the price for all of this "success"?  Many claim that the rampant speculation on food prices by the big banks has dramatically increased the global price of food and has caused the suffering of hundreds of millions of poor families around the planet to become much worse.  At this point, global food prices are more than twice as high as they were back in 2003.  Approximately 2 billion people on the planet spend at least half of their incomes on food, and close to a billion people regularly do not have enough food to eat.  Is it moral for Goldman Sachs and other big banks such as Barclays and Morgan Stanley to make hundreds of millions of dollars betting on the price of food if that is going to drive up global food prices and make it harder for poor families all over the world to feed themselves? This is another reason why the derivatives bubble is so bad for the world economy.  Goldman Sachs and other big banks are treating the global food supply as if it was some kind of a casino game.  This kind of reckless activity was greatly condemned by the World Development Movement report... "Goldman Sachs is the global leader in a trade that is driving food prices up while nearly a billion people are hungry. The bank lobbied for the financial deregulation that made it possible to pour billions into the commodity derivative markets, created the necessary financial instruments, and is now raking in the profits. Speculation is fuelling volatility and food price spikes, hurting people who struggle to afford food across the world." So shouldn't there be a law against this kind of a thing? Well, in the United States there actually is, but the law has been blocked by the big Wall Street banks and their very highly paid lawyers.  The following is another excerpt from the report... "The US has passed legislation to limit speculation, but the controls have not been implemented due to a legal challenge from Wall Street spearheaded by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, of which Goldman Sachs is a leading member. Similar legislation is on the table at the EU, but the UK government has so far opposed effective controls. Goldman Sachs has lobbied against controls in both the US and the EU." Posted below is a chart that shows what this kind of activity has done to commodity prices over the past couple of decades.  You will notice that commodity prices were fairly stable in the 1990s, but since the year 2000 they have been extremely volatile... Commodity PricesThe reason for all of this volatility was explained in an excellent article by Frederick Kaufman... The money tells the story. Since the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000, there has been a 50-fold increase in dollars invested in commodity index funds. To put the phenomenon in real terms: In 2003, the commodities futures market still totaled a sleepy $13 billion. But when the global financial crisis sent investors running scared in early 2008, and as dollars, pounds, and euros evaded investor confidence, commodities -- including food -- seemed like the last, best place for hedge, pension, and sovereign wealth funds to park their cash. "You had people who had no clue what commodities were all about suddenly buying commodities," an analyst from the United States Department of Agriculture told me. In the first 55 days of 2008, speculators poured $55 billion into commodity markets, and by July, $318 billion was roiling the markets. Food inflation has remained steady since. The money flowed, and the bankers were ready with a sparkling new casino of food derivatives. Spearheaded by oil and gas prices (the dominant commodities of the index funds) the new investment products ignited the markets of all the other indexed commodities, which led to a problem familiar to those versed in the history of tulips, dot-coms, and cheap real estate: a food bubble. Hard red spring wheat, which usually trades in the $4 to $6 dollar range per 60-pound bushel, broke all previous records as the futures contract climbed into the teens and kept on going until it topped $25. And so, from 2005 to 2008, the worldwide price of food rose 80 percent --and has kept rising. Are you angry yet? You should be. Poor families all over the planet are suffering so that Wall Street bankers can make bigger profits. It's disgusting. Many big financial institutions just seem to love to make money on the backs of the poor.  I have previously reported on how JP Morgan makes billions of dollars issuing food stamp cards in the United States.  When the number of Americans on food stamps goes up, so does the amount of money that JP Morgan makes.  You can read much more about all of this right here: "Making Money On Poverty: JP Morgan Makes Bigger Profits When The Number Of Americans On Food Stamps Goes Up". Sadly, the global food supply is getting tighter with each passing day, and things are looking rather ominous for the years ahead. According to the United Nations, global food reserves have reached their lowest level in nearly 40 years.  Global food reserves have not been this low since 1974, but the population of the world has greatly increased since then.  If 2013 is another year of drought and bad harvests, things could spiral out of control rather quickly... World grain reserves are so dangerously low that severe weather in the United States or other food-exporting countries could trigger a major hunger crisis next year, the United Nations has warned. Failing harvests in the US, Ukraine and other countries this year have eroded reserves to their lowest level since 1974. The US, which has experienced record heatwaves and droughts in 2012, now holds in reserve a historically low 6.5% of the maize that it expects to consume in the next year, says the UN. "We've not been producing as much as we are consuming. That is why stocks are being run down. Supplies are now very tight across the world and reserves are at a very low level, leaving no room for unexpected events next year," said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The world has barely been able to feed itself for some time now.  In fact, we have consumed more food than we have produced for 6 of the last 11 years... Evan Fraser, author of Empires of Food and a geography lecturer at Guelph University in Ontario, Canada, says: "For six of the last 11 years the world has consumed more food than it has grown. We do not have any buffer and are running down reserves. Our stocks are very low and if we have a dry winter and a poor rice harvest we could see a major food crisis across the board." "Even if things do not boil over this year, by next summer we'll have used up this buffer and consumers in the poorer parts of the world will once again be exposed to the effects of anything that hurts production." We desperately need a good growing season next summer, and all eyes are on the United States.  The U.S. exports more food than anyone else does, and last summer the United States experienced the worst drought that it had seen in about 50 years.  That drought left deep scars all over the country.  The following is from a recent Rolling Stone article... In 2012, more than 9 million acres went up in flames in this country. Only dredging and some eleventh-hour rain kept the mighty Mississippi River from being shut down to navigation due to low water levels; continuing drought conditions make "long-term stabilization" of river levels unlikely in the near future. Several of the Great Lakes are soon expected to hit their lowest levels in history. In Nebraska last summer, a 100-mile stretch of the Platte River simply dried up. Drought led the USDA to declare federal disaster areas in 2,245 counties in 39 states last year, and the federal government will likely have to pay tens of billions for crop insurance and lost crops. As ranchers became increasingly desperate to feed their livestock, "hay rustling" and other agricultural crimes rose. Ranchers were hit particularly hard.  Because they couldn't feed their herds, many ranchers slaughtered a tremendous number of animals.  As a result, the U.S. cattle herd is now sitting at a 60 year low. What do you think that is going to do to meat prices over the next few years? Meanwhile, the drought continues.  According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, this is one of the worst winter droughts the U.S. has ever seen.  At this point, more than 60 percent of the entire nation is currently experiencing drought. If things don't turn around dramatically, 2013 could be an absolutely nightmarish year for crops in the United States.  If 2013 does turn out to be another bad year, food prices would soar both in the U.S. and on the global level.  The following is from a recent CNBC article... The severe drought that swept through much of the U.S. last year is continuing into 2013, threatening to cripple economic growth while forcing consumers to pay higher food prices. "The drought will have a significant impact on prices, especially beef, pork and chicken," said Ernie Gross, an economic professor at Creighton University and who studies farming issues. So let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare for the worst. It looks like higher food prices are on the way, and millions of poor families all over the planet will be hard-pressed to feed their families. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs will be laughing all the way to the bank.