Has China Become The New Risk-Free Rate?

Authored by Charles de Quinsonas via BondVigilantes.com,

On 5th November China issued $4 billion worth of US dollar (USD)-denominated bonds split across two equal tranches.

The orderbook was $161 billion at one point, but ended near $118 billion when final pricing was announced. The 3-year $2 billion tranche priced at US Treasury + 0bp (aka flat to UST) and the 5-year $2 billion tranche priced at US Treasury +2bp.

The following morning, bonds traded up significantly and were quoted more than 30bp inside UST (specifically: China 28s -33.5bp  | China 30s -37.5bp).

This is unusual.

Looking at other high-credit quality sovereign issuers in US Dollar, South Korea 30s (AA-rated) trade at T+5bp, Abu Dhabi 30s (AA-rated) trade at T+10bp, or Qatar 30s (AA-rated) trade T+18bp. China is A+ rated so, on paper, its creditworthiness is assessed as weaker than South Korea or Qatar, and in this case AA-rated USA.

So, what’s so special about China?

“Has it become the new risk-free rate” asked one of my colleagues?

A natural tendency would be to think that China’s stability has become a new safe haven considering the year-to-date deterioration of the US institutions and creditworthiness.

The new US administration, the weaker US dollar, the threat to Fed independence, the ongoing government shut-down and the constant tariff noise may be an easy cocktail of answers as to why China trades inside the US.

However, the argument does not stand.

In November 2024, China issued $750 million of 5-year USD denominated bonds at T+3bp and they have been trading 30bp or more inside the Treasuries since then. Therefore, the perceived weakening US exceptionalism is hardly an explanation because mid-November last year very few investors would have anticipated the events that unfolded since the US Presidential election.

Source: Bloomberg (10 November 2025).

As often with bond trading, when the fundamental picture is failing to explain bond trends or moves, the technical picture may bring some colour.

Firstly, China has little external debt in USD so there is scarcity of bonds on offer.

In contrast, Chinese banks are flush with US dollar deposits, so there is demand for USD assets.

The alternatives to USD-denominated Chinese government bonds are not attractive because state-owned enterprise US dollar debt in China is rather expensive, and credit spreads in other IG names are close to their all-time tights.

Secondly, there’s a (complex) tax rebate system that some onshore bank clients benefit from on bond income.

The orderbook statistics showed that Asia accounted for 53% of last week’s book by geography type and banks for 33% by investor type.

The supply/demand imbalance, coupled with the tax rebate means you get strong technicals for the newly issued dollar bonds.

In addition, central banks, sovereign wealth funds and institutions – which tend to closely hold bonds – accounted for 26% of the orderbook.

This should have helped secondary market trading.

All of which led to robust performance and trading well inside the UST curve.

China recently unveiled plans to sell up to €4 billion of euro-denominated bonds later this month, but the above technical picture does not seem to apply to China’s Euro-denominated curve. China euro 5-year bonds, using CHINA 0 ¼ 11/25/30, have been trading between +20 and +40bps over the equivalent German Bund. China has not made it yet to the new risk-free rate.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/11/2025 - 06:30

India Races To Replace Russian Oil With US, Iraqi, & UAE Crude

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

Two Indian refiners bought a total of 5 million barrels of crude oil from the United States, Iraq, and the UAE on the spot market as they seek alternatives to Russian crude.

Reuters reported, citing unnamed industry sources, that Hindustan Petroleum Corp. had bought 2 million barrels of West Texas Intermediate and 2 million barrels of Murban crude for delivery in January.

The other refiner, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals, bought 1 million barrels of Basra Medium, also to be delivered in January, the Reuters sources said.

The search for alternative oil supplies follows the Trump administration’s decision last month to sanction Rosneft and Lukoil, which together account for half of Russia’s oil exports and a significant portion of Indian imports from the country.

The sanctions ignited a rush to secure supplies ahead of the entry into effect of the sanctions, on November 21, while oil buyers look for loopholes to keep their access to discounted Russian crude.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported an unusual move by two tankers, both sanctioned by the European Union and the UK, which performed a ship-to-ship transfer off the Indian coast last week.

One of the tankers, the Ailana, had been idling for a couple of weeks prior to the transfer, Bloomberg wrote, noting that after the transfer, the receiving tanker, Fortis, continued to the Indian port of Kochi, while the Ailana set off for Russia.

In separate but related news, India’s president, Droupadi Murmu, said Indian oil and gas companies were seeking long-term relationships with Angolan energy entities, interested in investing both in energy commodities and in critical minerals.

“Angola's role in India's energy security is very important. India is a major buyer of Angola's oil and gas. Our oil and gas companies are desirous of entering into a long-term purchase contract with Angola,” Murmu said during a state visit to the West African country.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/11/2025 - 05:00

India Races To Replace Russian Oil With US, Iraqi, & UAE Crude

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

Two Indian refiners bought a total of 5 million barrels of crude oil from the United States, Iraq, and the UAE on the spot market as they seek alternatives to Russian crude.

Reuters reported, citing unnamed industry sources, that Hindustan Petroleum Corp. had bought 2 million barrels of West Texas Intermediate and 2 million barrels of Murban crude for delivery in January.

The other refiner, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals, bought 1 million barrels of Basra Medium, also to be delivered in January, the Reuters sources said.

The search for alternative oil supplies follows the Trump administration’s decision last month to sanction Rosneft and Lukoil, which together account for half of Russia’s oil exports and a significant portion of Indian imports from the country.

The sanctions ignited a rush to secure supplies ahead of the entry into effect of the sanctions, on November 21, while oil buyers look for loopholes to keep their access to discounted Russian crude.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported an unusual move by two tankers, both sanctioned by the European Union and the UK, which performed a ship-to-ship transfer off the Indian coast last week.

One of the tankers, the Ailana, had been idling for a couple of weeks prior to the transfer, Bloomberg wrote, noting that after the transfer, the receiving tanker, Fortis, continued to the Indian port of Kochi, while the Ailana set off for Russia.

In separate but related news, India’s president, Droupadi Murmu, said Indian oil and gas companies were seeking long-term relationships with Angolan energy entities, interested in investing both in energy commodities and in critical minerals.

“Angola's role in India's energy security is very important. India is a major buyer of Angola's oil and gas. Our oil and gas companies are desirous of entering into a long-term purchase contract with Angola,” Murmu said during a state visit to the West African country.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/11/2025 - 05:00

"We May Have To Evacuate Tehran": Iranian President's Remarks Stun Amid Water Crisis

Coming off a very 'hot' geopolitical summer which saw Israel and the US attack Tehran and the Islamic Republic's nuclear energy facilities, Iran is now facing yet another immensely threatening crisis amid historic drought: lack of water for the population of 90+ million.

Rainfall has been at record lows, causing reservoirs to be nearly empty, in an already arid Middle East climate. The situation has grown so acute that President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned that if the drought persists for another month, Tehran's water would have to be rationed. But this appears to be happening currently, as no rain is expected for at least the next ten days.

Via Iran News Update

Already Iranians are being urged to conserve water and only use what's available for the most pressing needs. Pezeshkian has actually said something stunning and unprecedented on Monday, though some are describing it as obvious hyperbole: 

"If rationing doesn't work," Pezeshkian said, "we may have to evacuate Tehran."

The alarming statement resulted in an avalanche of criticism in Iranian media, also with former Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi dismissing the idea as "a joke" and saying that "evacuating Tehran makes no sense at all".

Some regional analysts and officials report an over 90% decrease in rainfall compared with last year. The NY Times summarizes of how dire the situation is:

Iran’s officials have begun rationing water in the capital, Tehran, amid a drought so severe that the president has warned the capital may need to be evacuated.

The country is facing the worst drought in six decades, and major dams are at critically low levels. Water authorities this week said the main dams feeding Tehran, on which more than 10 million people depend, were at 5 percent capacity.

On Sunday, the spokesman for Iran’s water industry, Isa Bozorgzadeh, told reporters that water pressure would be lowered from midnight until the morning “so that we can both reduce urban leakage and create an opportunity for city reservoirs to refill.”

People have in some cases taken to TikTok and other social media to show that faucets in their homes have stopped producing water for hours at a time.

The macro problems of mismanagement and over-consumption are why Iran faces a general water crisis, but this current crunch has a very important climate element.

There has been basically no rainfall in the central Iranian plateau for six months. https://t.co/kBWTojpZ7P pic.twitter.com/WMq3GqNkS4

— Gregory Brew (@gbrew24) November 6, 2025

Iranian officials are mulling extreme measures and outside-the-box approaches:

This fall, the Ministry of Energy announced the practice of “cloud seeding,” a weather modification technique that involves dispersing particles like silver iodide into existing clouds to encourage rainfall. However, for it to work, clouds need to contain at least 50 percent moisture, which experts say is not currently the case in Iran.

BBC writes of one vital reservoir, "The manager of the Latian Dam, one of Tehran's main water sources, says it now holds less than 10% of its capacity. The nearby Karaj Dam — which supplies water to both Tehran and Alborz provinces — is in a similarly dire condition."

"I have never seen this dam so empty since I was born," one area resident told Iranian state TV.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/11/2025 - 04:15

"We May Have To Evacuate Tehran": Iranian President's Remarks Stun Amid Water Crisis

Coming off a very 'hot' geopolitical summer which saw Israel and the US attack Tehran and the Islamic Republic's nuclear energy facilities, Iran is now facing yet another immensely threatening crisis amid historic drought: lack of water for the population of 90+ million.

Rainfall has been at record lows, causing reservoirs to be nearly empty, in an already arid Middle East climate. The situation has grown so acute that President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned that if the drought persists for another month, Tehran's water would have to be rationed. But this appears to be happening currently, as no rain is expected for at least the next ten days.

Via Iran News Update

Already Iranians are being urged to conserve water and only use what's available for the most pressing needs. Pezeshkian has actually said something stunning and unprecedented on Monday, though some are describing it as obvious hyperbole: 

"If rationing doesn't work," Pezeshkian said, "we may have to evacuate Tehran."

The alarming statement resulted in an avalanche of criticism in Iranian media, also with former Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi dismissing the idea as "a joke" and saying that "evacuating Tehran makes no sense at all".

Some regional analysts and officials report an over 90% decrease in rainfall compared with last year. The NY Times summarizes of how dire the situation is:

Iran’s officials have begun rationing water in the capital, Tehran, amid a drought so severe that the president has warned the capital may need to be evacuated.

The country is facing the worst drought in six decades, and major dams are at critically low levels. Water authorities this week said the main dams feeding Tehran, on which more than 10 million people depend, were at 5 percent capacity.

On Sunday, the spokesman for Iran’s water industry, Isa Bozorgzadeh, told reporters that water pressure would be lowered from midnight until the morning “so that we can both reduce urban leakage and create an opportunity for city reservoirs to refill.”

People have in some cases taken to TikTok and other social media to show that faucets in their homes have stopped producing water for hours at a time.

The macro problems of mismanagement and over-consumption are why Iran faces a general water crisis, but this current crunch has a very important climate element.

There has been basically no rainfall in the central Iranian plateau for six months. https://t.co/kBWTojpZ7P pic.twitter.com/WMq3GqNkS4

— Gregory Brew (@gbrew24) November 6, 2025

Iranian officials are mulling extreme measures and outside-the-box approaches:

This fall, the Ministry of Energy announced the practice of “cloud seeding,” a weather modification technique that involves dispersing particles like silver iodide into existing clouds to encourage rainfall. However, for it to work, clouds need to contain at least 50 percent moisture, which experts say is not currently the case in Iran.

BBC writes of one vital reservoir, "The manager of the Latian Dam, one of Tehran's main water sources, says it now holds less than 10% of its capacity. The nearby Karaj Dam — which supplies water to both Tehran and Alborz provinces — is in a similarly dire condition."

"I have never seen this dam so empty since I was born," one area resident told Iranian state TV.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/11/2025 - 04:15

Epoch Of Change

Authored by T.L.Davis via Substack,

I hope people are recognizing that they live in a very volatile world.

Growing up in the 60s-70s it was pretty tame. There was the Vietnam war and war protesters, there was the free-love movement, feminism and other cultural changes taking place, but the whole world was not aflame as it is now. This could only be brought about by a worldwide effort to throw it into chaos.

Chaos is the enemy of the capitalist and friend of the communist. It’s during chaos that communism can provide answers to the problems they’ve caused. But back in the 70s and 80s a lot could go on without notice. A person just working their job might not know it was happening. Today, every shiver and shrug of culture is noted, recorded and broadcast over the internet. To be ignorant of the issues today takes an intentional willingness, a refusal to be shoved out of their bliss. There is something to be said for that, even.

One of the things we advocated in the documentary Deconstruction is taking place right before our eyes. Anti-immigration countries are banding together into a solid block within the EU and the stronger they get, the more will want to join.

It’s a civil war that’s taking place, but not with weapons, with common sense and rational thinking challenging the tyrannical rule of a small group of communist bureaucrats in the EU.

I’m proud of our documentary for raising the important issues at such a crucial time. But this isn’t the end. There are only 4 or 5 of the 27 EU nations signing on to this, so there’s plenty of work to do.

Why is it important to me, or you, that this is taking place a world away? It has to do with national security, cultural restoration and the survival of civilization. The great works of art, of progress and a sense of building something for the future rests on the nations from whence we all came at some time or another.

What’s happening in the EU is the product of the globalists and the stronger they get, the weaker we are as a nation. The US is already suffering from the effects of a declining power. Its ability to produce a functional weapons system has been destroyed by the weapons bureaucracy. One might even think, through the woke military of so many years, even decades, that it’s actually sabotage that’s taken place.

The economy is a whisp of smoke and the arrangement of mirrors, the climbing GDP and such merely an inverted down-stepping chart. During Biden’s years government spending topped the GDP, trillions of printed dollars, suggesting that the GDP was keeping pace with debt, but one was fueling the other.

The point is, the focus of America was lost sometime back in the 1970s, when Nixon took the dollar off of the gold standard. It may not seem connected, but from that point onward, wages have declined while the amount paid in fiat dollars might rise, the standard of living decreases. How it’s connected, at least in my own thoughts, is that once the dollar was taken off of the gold standard, the nation became, especially in the upper echelons, focused on wealth retention rather than wealth building. Crypto is nothing less than a means to achieve that, though its dependence on electricity to make it work bothers me.

Inventions almost literally stopped about the same time and wringing more dollars out of the same technology became the intent of manufacturing. Cell phones are just radios, computers are now smaller and faster, but still work off of the original concept in the 1950s. Aircraft are still aircraft, drones are still aircraft, missiles, even the hypersonic ones, are not new technology. Automobiles, no matter how advanced or cool are no different, not even the self-driving ones. In fact, a lot of the things we find in our cars are not there for any other reason than to track the vehicle and bug it for meanspeak that will be important later after the social credit score kicks in. I prefer my 1996 F-150 to any of them and my 1985 diesel to it.

Is it any wonder that it seems like a reckoning must take place?

That allowing industries and government to control our lives is a bad idea?

That is fascism, by definition, unless they’ve changed the definition to mean anything “right,” which I think they have.

This is an epoch of change, some very drastic changes.

It’s a moment of revolution against the system on a global scale; a system that has taken whole populations and subjected them to cruel and malevolent punishment for being white, or European, or Christian. And that’s where this finally boils down to a civilizational battle.

In a world flooded by Islamists, who naturally reject the host nations and establish islands of Islam in seas of Christianity, it has to come down to a religious battle.

Right now, it’s a battle of driving more troops into Europe, or driving them out of the UK, France and Germany, in Sweden and Denmark. Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic are pushing back against the experiment that has gone awry in Western Europe and attempting to keep the migrants out to start with, not because they hate migrants, but because, unlike Western Europe, they value their culture and religion.

America can draw strength from the Central and Eastern European bloc that has rejected illegal immigration rather than build a complete apparatus to deport those already there. One can understand it either as a religious battle, or a battle against communists, it works either way, because the Islamists are communists in drag. They are the communist shock troops and once the worldwide caliphate is established communism will simply slip away into the darkness of history, morphed into a religious, patriarchal tyranny.

It is the duty, in my mind, to stop it; to stop communism, Islam and anything that threatens the freedoms we’ve had in the past. I thought that would have been done by technology, that the advance of technology would create a world of individualists and it has that power to do so, but it has been coopted to become a weapon against the individual, promising security.

Anything is possible in this world, anything. All it takes is a concerted effort to achieve it. Focusing that intent is the hard part, but the lines are being drawn more definitively every day. This is the time to do it.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/11/2025 - 03:30

Epoch Of Change

Authored by T.L.Davis via Substack,

I hope people are recognizing that they live in a very volatile world.

Growing up in the 60s-70s it was pretty tame. There was the Vietnam war and war protesters, there was the free-love movement, feminism and other cultural changes taking place, but the whole world was not aflame as it is now. This could only be brought about by a worldwide effort to throw it into chaos.

Chaos is the enemy of the capitalist and friend of the communist. It’s during chaos that communism can provide answers to the problems they’ve caused. But back in the 70s and 80s a lot could go on without notice. A person just working their job might not know it was happening. Today, every shiver and shrug of culture is noted, recorded and broadcast over the internet. To be ignorant of the issues today takes an intentional willingness, a refusal to be shoved out of their bliss. There is something to be said for that, even.

One of the things we advocated in the documentary Deconstruction is taking place right before our eyes. Anti-immigration countries are banding together into a solid block within the EU and the stronger they get, the more will want to join.

It’s a civil war that’s taking place, but not with weapons, with common sense and rational thinking challenging the tyrannical rule of a small group of communist bureaucrats in the EU.

I’m proud of our documentary for raising the important issues at such a crucial time. But this isn’t the end. There are only 4 or 5 of the 27 EU nations signing on to this, so there’s plenty of work to do.

Why is it important to me, or you, that this is taking place a world away? It has to do with national security, cultural restoration and the survival of civilization. The great works of art, of progress and a sense of building something for the future rests on the nations from whence we all came at some time or another.

What’s happening in the EU is the product of the globalists and the stronger they get, the weaker we are as a nation. The US is already suffering from the effects of a declining power. Its ability to produce a functional weapons system has been destroyed by the weapons bureaucracy. One might even think, through the woke military of so many years, even decades, that it’s actually sabotage that’s taken place.

The economy is a whisp of smoke and the arrangement of mirrors, the climbing GDP and such merely an inverted down-stepping chart. During Biden’s years government spending topped the GDP, trillions of printed dollars, suggesting that the GDP was keeping pace with debt, but one was fueling the other.

The point is, the focus of America was lost sometime back in the 1970s, when Nixon took the dollar off of the gold standard. It may not seem connected, but from that point onward, wages have declined while the amount paid in fiat dollars might rise, the standard of living decreases. How it’s connected, at least in my own thoughts, is that once the dollar was taken off of the gold standard, the nation became, especially in the upper echelons, focused on wealth retention rather than wealth building. Crypto is nothing less than a means to achieve that, though its dependence on electricity to make it work bothers me.

Inventions almost literally stopped about the same time and wringing more dollars out of the same technology became the intent of manufacturing. Cell phones are just radios, computers are now smaller and faster, but still work off of the original concept in the 1950s. Aircraft are still aircraft, drones are still aircraft, missiles, even the hypersonic ones, are not new technology. Automobiles, no matter how advanced or cool are no different, not even the self-driving ones. In fact, a lot of the things we find in our cars are not there for any other reason than to track the vehicle and bug it for meanspeak that will be important later after the social credit score kicks in. I prefer my 1996 F-150 to any of them and my 1985 diesel to it.

Is it any wonder that it seems like a reckoning must take place?

That allowing industries and government to control our lives is a bad idea?

That is fascism, by definition, unless they’ve changed the definition to mean anything “right,” which I think they have.

This is an epoch of change, some very drastic changes.

It’s a moment of revolution against the system on a global scale; a system that has taken whole populations and subjected them to cruel and malevolent punishment for being white, or European, or Christian. And that’s where this finally boils down to a civilizational battle.

In a world flooded by Islamists, who naturally reject the host nations and establish islands of Islam in seas of Christianity, it has to come down to a religious battle.

Right now, it’s a battle of driving more troops into Europe, or driving them out of the UK, France and Germany, in Sweden and Denmark. Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic are pushing back against the experiment that has gone awry in Western Europe and attempting to keep the migrants out to start with, not because they hate migrants, but because, unlike Western Europe, they value their culture and religion.

America can draw strength from the Central and Eastern European bloc that has rejected illegal immigration rather than build a complete apparatus to deport those already there. One can understand it either as a religious battle, or a battle against communists, it works either way, because the Islamists are communists in drag. They are the communist shock troops and once the worldwide caliphate is established communism will simply slip away into the darkness of history, morphed into a religious, patriarchal tyranny.

It is the duty, in my mind, to stop it; to stop communism, Islam and anything that threatens the freedoms we’ve had in the past. I thought that would have been done by technology, that the advance of technology would create a world of individualists and it has that power to do so, but it has been coopted to become a weapon against the individual, promising security.

Anything is possible in this world, anything. All it takes is a concerted effort to achieve it. Focusing that intent is the hard part, but the lines are being drawn more definitively every day. This is the time to do it.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/11/2025 - 03:30

Peter Schiff: Printing Money Is Not the Cure for Cononavirus



In his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff talked about coronavirus and the impact that it is having on the markets. Earlier this month, Peter said he thought the virus was just an excuse for stock market woes. At the time he believed the market was poised to fall anyway. But as it turns out, coronavirus has actually helped the US stock market because it has led central banks to pump even more liquidity into the world financial system. All this means more liquidity — central banks easing. In fact, that is exactly what has already happened, except the new easing is taking place, for now, outside the United States, particularly in China.” Although the new money is primarily being created in China, it is flowing into dollars — the dollar index is up — and into US stocks. Last week, US stock markets once again made all-time record highs. In fact, I think but for the coronavirus, the US stock market would still be selling off. But because of the central bank stimulus that has been the result of fears over the coronavirus, that actually benefitted not only the US dollar, but the US stock market.” In the midst of all this, Peter raises a really good question. The primary economic concern is that coronavirus will slow down output and ultimately stunt economic growth. Practically speaking, the world would produce less stuff. If the virus continues to spread, there would be fewer goods and services produced in a market that is hunkered down. Why would the Federal Reserve respond, or why would any central bank respond to that by printing money? How does printing more money solve that problem? It doesn’t. In fact, it actually exacerbates it. But you know, everybody looks at central bankers as if they’ve got the solution to every problem. They don’t. They don’t have the magic wand. They just have a printing press. And all that creates is inflation.” Sometimes the illusion inflation creates can look like a magic wand. Printing money can paper over problems. But none of this is going to fundamentally fix the economy. In fact, if central bankers were really going to do the right thing, the appropriate response would be to drain liquidity from the markets, not supply even more.” Peter explained how the Fed was originally intended to create an “elastic” money supply that would expand or contract along with economic output. Today, the money supply only goes in one direction — that’s up. The economy is strong, print money. The economy is weak, print even more money.” Of course, the asset that’s doing the best right now is gold. The yellow metal pushed above $1,600 yesterday. Gold is up 5.5% on the year in dollar terms and has set record highs in other currencies. Because gold is rising even in an environment where the dollar is strengthening against other fiat currencies, that shows you that there is an underlying weakness in the dollar that is right now not being reflected in the Forex markets, but is being reflected in the gold markets. Because after all, why are people buying gold more aggressively than they’re buying dollars or more aggressively than they’re buying US Treasuries? Because they know that things are not as good for the dollar or the US economy as everybody likes to believe. So, more people are seeking out refuge in a better safe-haven and that is gold.” Peter also talked about the debate between Trump and Obama over who gets credit for the booming economy – which of course, is not booming.

We are living in crazy times. I have a hard time believing that most of the general public is not awake, but in reality, they are. We've never seen anything like this; I mean not even under Obama during the worst part of the Great Recession." Now the Fed is desperately trying to keep interest rates from rising. The problem is that it's a much bigger debt bubble this time around , and the Fed is going to have to blow a lot more air into it to keep it inflated. The difference is this time it's not going to work." It looks like the Fed did another $104.15 billion of Not Q.E. in a single day. The Fed claims it's only temporary. But that is precisely what Bernanke claimed when the Fed started QE1. Milton Freedman once said, "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." The same applies to Q.E., or whatever the Fed wants to pretend it's doing. Except this is not QE4, according to Powell. Right. Pumping so much money out, and they are accusing China of currency manipulation ? Wow! Seriously! Amazing! Dump the U.S. dollar while you still have a chance. Welcome to The Atlantis Report. And it is even worse than that, In addition to the $104.15 billion of "Not Q.E." this past Thursday; the FED added another $56.65 billion in liquidity to financial markets the next day on Friday. That's $160.8 billion in two days!!!! in just 48 hours. That is more than 2 TIMES the highest amount the FED has ever injected on a monthly basis under a Q.E. program (which was $80 billion per month) Since this isn't QE....it will be really scary on what they are going to call Q.E. Will it twice, three times, four times, five times what this injection per month ! It is going to be explosive since it takes about 60 to 90 days for prices to react to this, January should see significant inflation as prices soak up the excess liquidity. The question is, where will the inflation occur first . The spike in the repo rate might have a technical explanation: a misjudgment was made in the Fed's money market operations. Even so, two conclusions can be drawn: managing the money markets is becoming harder, and from now on, banks will be studying each other's creditworthiness to a greater degree than before. Those people, who struggle with the minutiae of money markets, and that includes most professionals, should focus on the causes and not the symptoms. Financial markets have recovered from each downturn since 1980 because interest rates have been cut to new lows. Post-2008, they were cut to near zero or below zero in all major economies. In response to a new financial crisis, they cannot go any lower. Central banks will look for new ways to replicate or broaden Q.E. (At some point, governments will simply see repression as an easier option). Then there is the problem of 'risk-free' assets becoming risky assets. Financial markets assume that the probability of major governments such as the U.S. or U.K. defaulting is zero. These governments are entering the next downturn with debt roughly twice the levels proportionate to GDP that was seen in 2008. The belief that the policy worked was completely predicated on the fact that it was temporary and that it was reversible, that the Fed was going to be able to normalize interest rates and shrink its balance sheet back down to pre-crisis levels. Well, when the balance sheet is five-trillion, six-trillion, seven-trillion when we're back at zero, when we're back in a recession, nobody is going to believe it is temporary. Nobody is going to believe that the Fed has this under control, that they can reverse this policy. And the dollar is going to crash. And when the dollar crashes, it's going to take the bond market with it, and we're going to have stagflation. We're going to have a deep recession with rising interest rates, and this whole thing is going to come imploding down. everything is temporary with the fed including remaining off the gold standard temporary in the Fed's eyes could mean at least 50 years This liquidity problem is a signal that trading desks are loaded up on inventory and can't get rid of it. Repo is done out of a need for cash. If you own all of your securities (i.e., a long-only, no leverage mutual fund) you have no need to "repo" your securities - you're earning interest every night so why would you want to 'repo' your securities where you are paying interest for that overnight loan (securities lending is another animal). So, it is those that 'lever-up' and need the cash for settlement purposes on securities they've bought with borrowed money that needs to utilize the repo desk. With this in mind, as we continue to see this need to obtain cash (again, needed to settle other securities purchases), it shows these firms don't have the capital to add more inventory to, what appears to be, a bloated inventory. Now comes the fun part: the Treasury is about to auction 3's, 10's, and 30-year bonds. If I am correct (again, I could be wrong), the Fed realizes securities firms don't have the shelf space to take down a good portion of these auctions. If there isn't enough retail/institutional demand, it will lead to not only a crappy sale but major concerns to the street that there is now no backstop, at all, to any sell-off. At which point, everyone will want to be the first one through the door and sell immediately, but to whom? If there isn't enough liquidity in the repo market to finance their positions, the firms would be unable to increase their inventory. We all saw repo shut down on the 2008 crisis. Wall St runs on money. . OVERNIGHT money. They lever up to inventory securities for trading. If they can't get overnight money, they can't purchase securities. And if they can't unload what they have, it means the buy-side isn't taking on more either. Accounts settle overnight. This includes things like payrolls and bill pay settlements. If a bank doesn't have enough cash to payout what its customers need to pay out, it borrows. At least one and probably more than one banks are insolvent. That's what's going on. First, it can't be one or two banks that are short. They'd simply call around until they found someone to lend. But they did that, and even at markedly elevated rates, still, NO ONE would lend them the money. That tells me that it's not a problem of a couple of borrowers, it's a problem of no lenders. And that means that there's no bank in the world left with any real liquidity. They are ALL maxed out. But as bad as that is, and that alone could be catastrophic, what it really signals is even worse. The lending rates are just the flip side of the coin of the value of the assets lent against. If the rates go up, the value goes down. And with rates spiking to 10%, how far does the value fall? Enormously! And if banks had to actually mark down the value of the assets to reflect 10% interest rates, then my god, every bank in the world is insolvent overnight. Everyone's capital ratios are in the toilet, and they'd have to liquidate. We're talking about the simultaneous insolvency of every bank on the planet. Bank runs. No money in ATMs, Branches closed. Safe deposit boxes confiscated. The whole nine yards, It's actually here. The scenario has tended to guide toward for years and years is actually happening RIGHT NOW! And people are still trying to say it's under control. Every bank in the world is currently insolvent. The only thing keeping it going is printing billions of dollars every day. Financial Armageddon isn't some far off future risk. It's here. Prepare accordingly. This fiat system has reached the end of the line, and it's not correct that fiat currencies fail by design. The problem is corruption and manipulation. It is corruption and cheating that erodes trust and faith until the entire system becomes a gigantic fraud. Banks and governments everywhere ARE the problem and simply have to be removed. They have lost all trust and respect, and all they have left is war and mayhem. As long as we continue to have a majority of braindead asleep imbeciles following orders from these psychopaths, nothing will change. Fiat currency is not just thievery. Fiat currency is SLAVERY. Ultimately the most harmful effect of using debt of undefined value as money (i.e., fiat currencies) is the de facto legalization of a caste system based on voluntary slavery. The bankers have a charter, or the legal *right*, to create money out of nothing. You, you don't. Therefore you and the bankers do not have the same standing before the law. The law of the land says that you will go to jail if you do the same thing (creating money out of thin air) that the banker does in full legality. You and the banker are not equal before the law. ALL the countries of the world; Islamic or secular, Jewish or Arab, democracy or dictatorship; all of them place the bankers ABOVE you. And all of you accept that only whining about fiat money going down in exchange value over time (price inflation which is not the same as monetary inflation). Actually, price inflation itself is mainly due to the greed and stupidity of the bankers who could keep fiat money's exchange value reasonably stable, only if they wanted to. Witness the crash of silver and gold prices which the bankers of the world; Russian, American, Chinese, Jewish, Indian, Arab, all of them collaborated to engineer through the suppression and stagnation of precious metals' prices to levels around the metals' production costs, or what it costs to dig gold and silver out of the ground. The bankers of the world could also collaborate to keep nominal prices steady (as they do in the case of the suppression of precious metals prices). After all, the ability to create fiat money and force its usage is a far more excellent source of power and wealth than that which is afforded simply by stealing it through inflation. The bankers' greed and stupidity blind them to this fact. They want it all, and they want it now. In conclusion, The bankers can create money out of nothing and buy your goods and services with this worthless fiat money, effectively for free. You, you can't. You, you have to lead miserable existences for the most of you and WORK in order to obtain that effectively nonexistent, worthless credit money (whose purchasing/exchange value is not even DEFINED thus rendering all contracts based on the null and void!) that the banker effortlessly creates out of thin air with a few strokes of the computer keyboard, and which he doesn't even bother to print on paper anymore, electing to keep it in its pure quantum uncertain form instead, as electrons whizzing about inside computer chips which will become mute and turn silent refusing to tell you how many fiat dollars or euros there are in which account, in the absence of electricity. No electricity, no fiat, nor crypto money. It would appear that trust is deteriorating as it did when Lehman blew up . Something really big happened that set off this chain reaction in the repo markets. Whatever that something is, we aren't be informed. They're trying to cover it up, paper it over with conjured cash injections, play it cool in front of the cameras while sweating profusely under the 5 thousands dollar suits. I'm guessing that the final high-speed plunge into global economic collapse has begun. All we see here is the ripples and whitewater churning the surface, but beneath the surface, there is an enormous beast thrashing desperately in its death throws. Now is probably the time to start tying up loose ends with the long-running prep projects, just saying. In other words, prepare accordingly, and Get your money out of the banks. I don't care if you don't believe me about Bitcoin. Get your money out of the banks. Don't keep any more money in a bank than you need to pay your bills and can afford to lose.











The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers and many more













The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers and many more

The FBI released a summary of its file from the Hillary Clinton email investigation on Friday, showing details of Clinton's explanation of her use of a private email server to handle classified communications. The release comes nearly two months after FBI Director James Comey announced that although Clinton's handling of classified information was "extremely careless," it did not rise to the level of a prosecutable offense. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the next day that she would not pursue charges in the matter. "We are making these materials available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests," the FBI noted in a statement sent to reporters with links to the documents. The documents include notes from Clinton's July 2 interview with agents, as well as a "factual summary of the FBI's investigation into this matter," according to the FBI release. Throughout her interview with agents, Clinton repeatedly said she relied on the career professionals she worked with to handle classified information correctly. The agents asked about a series of specific emails, and in each case Clinton said she wasn't worried about the particular material being discussed on a nonclassified channel.