Before I correct a comment from another daily metals report, I wanted to mention the housing starts number. Housing starts for May were reported today to be down 4.8% from April: LINK Don't be fooled by the headline "spin" about housing permit applications spiking higher. A certificate to build does not mean that a home will be sold, as evidenced by downward trend in mortgage purchase applications.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I'm not sure how trustworthy the housing start numbers reported by the Government are, and certainly the trend reported by the Government recently of rising starts is quite inconsistent with the persisten decline in mortgage purchase applications tracked by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Furthermore, May is part of what should be a seasonal peak in the entire housing industry. But despite the Government/Fed's best attempts to heavily subsidize mortgages, the housing market is turning back down. Given that personal income after netting out Government entitlement/transfer payements is declining, I'm not really sure who is buying the new homes being built other than the people who now qualify for the new FHA no down payment, taxpayer subsidized interest rate programs.
One last point about the housing market, which I contend continues to bounce around a "bottom" that has been temporarily put in place by the Government, Fannie Mae is out with a report that suggests the housing market will now bottom in 2013: LINK Fannie Mae has been remarkably unreliable in its housing market forecasts over the past several years. And for as egregious as Fannie Mae's soothsayers have been, Wall Street and the National Association Of Realtors' Einstein economists have been downright dismal. For anyone looking to buy a house thinking that an elusive bottom is somewhere nearby, all I can say is "caveat emptor" - buyer beware...
Regarding my other issue, Ed Steer's Daily Gold and Silver - which is always worth at least skimming - cited commentary by Ted Butler in which Ted - who has been a staunch defender of the legitimacy of SLV and GLD - references a website that now posts a frequently updated list of the silver bars in, added to and removed from the SLV Trust: LINK Ed comments that this website, by virtue of its existence, proves that SLV is completely legitimate.
Hmmm...I guess because JP Morgan files its quarterly financial reports with the SEC, according to SEC and FASB GAAP accounting standards, that JP Morgan's financial reporting is therefore legitimate. Anyone buy into that? If not, then why would anyone buy into the legitimacy of a website that purports to accurately report the silver bars sitting in SLV's Trust. Let me preface my comments by saying that I have utmost respect for the work Ted Butler does on the COT report and Comex silver market. But he completely misses the boat - either because of blind naivete or tragic stubborn optimism - with regard to the CFTC and the legitimacy of GLD/SLV.
To begin with, I can't find any information about the "about.ag" website. Who owns it, controls it, publishes the information, etc. I see they have a lot of ads on their site so they clearly have some kind of profit-motive. But you'll note at the bottom that the data compiled by about.ag actually comes from SLV. If you don't trust SLV, why would you trust the data provided by SLV on the about.ag website? If you want to know why I don't trust SLV, please read this report on GLD I wrote in 2009: LINK Just by virtue of the fact that about.ag makes money from publishing the SLV-provided data calls into question a conflict of interest as to about.ag's independence from SLV. In other words, about.ag has no motivation to ensure that data provided by SLV is bona fide.
Regarding the bar list website for SLV: Just because SLV lists the bars it has taken into custody does not mean that the bars are not leased out or hypothecated/rehypothecated. In a lease transaction, the lessor does not move the bars unless the lessee is called on to deliver the silver the lessee has sold in the marketplace. It's typically just a paper transfer of ownership. And most of the time the bars remain in the vault of the lessor but are theoretically moved into a "segregated account" area of the vault. Whether or not this movement actually occurs is open to debate, since an independent audit is not offered. As for hypothecation of assets, see MF Global. Coincidentally, or not coincidentally, JP Morgan is the silver bar custodian for SLV. Recall that JP Morgan is at the center of the MF Global customer hypothecation fraud.
When an asset custodian hypothecates an asset, the asset is still reported in the account of the rightful owner, in this case the SLV Trust. So just because SLV has an inventory list that it sends to about.ag, that does not prove that SLV has not hypothecated or leased out the silver bars. Please refer to my GLD report linked above to see how these ETF prospectuses are structured to enable leasing and fraudulent reporting. And all of this does not relieve SLV of the short interest issue. For those unaware, the short interest in SLV stock certs typically runs around 10%. When SLV certs are borrowed (hypothecated) and short-sold, the Trust does not take in money from this transaction in order buy silver to back those shares with silver. This means that 10% of the SLV shares sitting in owner accounts are not backed by any silver.
Ed Steer mentioned that he was not aware of a similar website for GLD's gold. He said this in a manner in which he implied about.ag lends further credibility to SLV. If this is so, then I guess Jerry Sandusky's self-witness testimony lends credibility to his defense. Again, I need to correct misinformation here. First, the about.ag website gets its data from SLV. It does not audit the SLV Trust nor will it ever be allowed to audit the Trust. GLD publishes a list of its gold bars on its website. So why would GLD need to give that information to someone else to make money off of? Furthermore, GLD supposedly has it's bars randomly audited by some shady outfit in London. You can find the link on GLD's website. I shredded that audit report a few years ago on my blog. The Bob Pisani/CNBC incident in the GLD vault confirmed my thesis presented back then.
Butler has been wrong about the CFTC eventually cracking down on Comex manipulation since at least 2001, that I know of, and he's wrong about SLV and GLD being legitimate. It took him at least 10 years to admit he was wrong about the CFTC - how long will it take him to admit he's wrong about SLV and GLD? I guess if Butler wants to believe that the same JP Morgan that is the primary illegal manipulator of the silver market, is at the center of the MF GLobal fraud, among many other frauds being committed by JP Morgan, and yet is a fully accountable, legitimate custodian of SLV silver trust, that's his business. But on that basis, I would love invite Butler to big poker game at my house.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
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Dave,
ReplyDeleteHope that if TB accepts, your house rules are: 'No credit, no personal checks, no fiat currency. Only gold and silver accepted.'
That would keep the riff-raff out.
Dave in SF
LOL. 1 oz silver eagles and 1/20 oz. gold eagles only.
DeleteI was think the same thing when I saw Steer's comments this AM. There is an email on the main page About.Ag@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteThe FASB 157 I believe changed accounting for troubled assets on books of financial firms to mark to model with plenty of wiggle room for valuation, so the ability to rely on anything from almost any company is well into the suspect range. There are all other sorts of accounting shams such as inventory valuation and of course reserve accounting.
ReplyDeleteWhen FDIC reports banks closed on Friday nights, the real asset value (viz a viz FDIC cost) usually is well below the audited recent value for some surprising reason.
On SLV and GLD-both are likely to be on the wrong end of "extreme". As it is, if you do not have metals in your grubby hands its not perfected. For example, CEF and GTU are believed to be better than GLD and SLV and PHYS and PSLV are believed to be better than CEF GTU (subject to personal opinion). Goldmoney and say something at Delaware Depository for example is better than PHYS and PSLV.
But they all have flaws of some sort and so does Physical Silver and Gold held by yourself and that's the personal risk (house fire/theft).
But you can only do what you can do. But you need to do as much as possible IMHO.
Trust is going to be a tough issue is this gets as bad as many fear it will.
FYI: about.ag is domain registered as follows:
ReplyDeleteDomain ID:D1572970-LRCC
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Dear Dave:
ReplyDeleteIt's transparent that the Fed is the government's proxy in central-
ized planning--controlling money supply, interest rates, banking, em-
ployment, and the equities and commodities markets.
Since last August the Fed has, through it's proxy, JPMorgan, shown that it can severely police and minutely control the pricing of PMs. As long as the JPMs can use imaginary (paper) PM and super-computer dominance, what hope is there that PMs will ever be free of government price-setting?
Yet, PM "experts" keep saying that PM prices will soar beginning later
this year or at some time in the future. It seems to me that the govern-
ment has the PM market right where it wants it, so why would the government and the Fed ever want to give up that control? Why should investors stock up on PMs if we can't be sure that PM prices will ever be determined by a free market again? What would it take to pry the fingers of the Treasury, the Fed, and JPM from the PM market?
The more you think about it Dave, the more it becomes clear that we live in a derivative world, using derivative money, in a derivative economy, with derivative statistics, fighting derivative currency wars.
ReplyDeleteThe governments don't think the people can handle reality, so they and the banks have hypothecated a "better" reality for us all, complete with a derivative recovery.
The most obvious evidence begins with the outrageously leveraged fractional paper gold market. If they can keep whacking it back to below $1650 (in dollar terms) just by issuing more derivative gold, then the derivative world holds sway over the real world.
They abandoned 100 to 1 long ago; even J.S. Kim's 200:1 is well behind us. The narcotic effect of the derivative world overwhelms all innate caution to abandon reality. Too much power. Always ends badly.
Anyway, that's what I just wrote a song about, sort of, on the crapper with strong coffee. Caffeine and a bowel movement. Now that's an inspiring reality. As for the 30 dollar seesaw day in and day out at Kitco .... yawn
Wake me up when it drops $300 in an hour so I can mobilize the cash stack to the coin store. -W
Hi Dave, I don't think the existence of the about.ag website necessarily proves the legitimacy of the SLV inventory, but it does a much better job of analysing the data than the zero hedge guys did back in 2009.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth I've corresponded with Joshua several times and found him to be an awesome guy, he helped me with my own analysis and provided me with some historical files. I think he's involved with some kind of community credit union. His technique is the same as mine - download the SLV PDF on a regular basis and process it with software to get the numbers out. His routine does it weekly, although mine also captures the changes during the week. If you email him I'm sure he'll tell you anything you want to know. But if you're looking for conspiracy, you won't find it there.
I currently have the largest file repository of historical GLD bar serial data - as far as I know I'm the only person in the world who has been bothered to construct such a repository, same download technique, the motivation is straight forward - "rookie investor interested in establishing a case for or against the legitimacy of the inventory by looking at the data". So far there are no big anomalies.
Re: Bob Pisani's ZJ6752 bar, not sure if you knew but we found it and discussed it last year (nine months before silverdoctors announced their recent scoop) http://screwtapefiles.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/zero-hedge-zj6752.html.
Regards,
The whole point of my commentary is that who cares about repoorted lists of bars. Let's see an independent audit of the vault(s) and then see if all the bars correspond to what SLV is reporting. Then let's have a physical audit of all of SLV's files and computer systems to see to what extent the bars have leased/hypothecated.
DeleteAny reports generated by SLV/GLD are only as good as the paper they are recorded on. It's why I used the JPM example. JPM's accounting is fraudulent, starting with the prices they use to market their level 2/3 assets.
I'm sure Joshua is a nice guy. I'd be nice too if I had a layup source of making money like he does.
"Any reports generated by SLV/GLD are only as good as the paper they are recorded on".
DeleteAgreed. But these files do contain massive amounts of data, they are publicly available and can be readily scrutinized for internal and external consistency (for anyone who has the time, skill and inclination).
Alleging fraud against a hobbiest/enthusiast website (about.ag) doesn't help either. He can speak for himself but I don't think he makes any money from running the website. Anyway, I'll contact him and ask for his comment.
I agree that they ought to make the audit process more transparent. I don't know enough to say whether or not the accounting is fraudulent, but most modern finance is fraudulant in principle so where does one start? Finding a good definition of fraud appears to me just as important as combating it.
Regards,
So I get the sense here that the SLV inventory might be 'marked to model' in the most optimistic form possible? It always made me wonder why Barclays wanted to get out of the SLV business in the first place - after all they seem to own a piece of just about every large financial institution so the connections they had would seem to me to be superior - was it then a matter of needing to find a fall guy and Blackrock just happened to fit the bill?
DeleteThat part of this saga always struck me as odd.
Hi Dave,
DeleteI originally started the SLV bar list analysis when there were allegations of bars listed twice. The goals of the page are [1] to help find fraud if any does exist, and [2] keep JPM et al on their toes if they decide to play around with the numbers. Of course, the information I provide cannot prove that there is no fraud (but could potentially prove that there is).
With the data, for example, you can see that 50MOz of silver has been moved from the JPM London A vault to the Brinks London vault over the past 6 months or so; without this analysis, it would be nearly impossible to see that. It is adding transparency. And people are welcome to spot-check the data (e.g. if I say bar X was added, if it was not on last week's list and is on this week's list, I'm right; otherwise, I'm wrong).
Yes, it has ads on the index page (as the rest of the site does); the ads on the entire site don't even come close to covering the costs of the site (but yes, could be seen as a conflict of interest; I've at least removed the ads from the SLV index page).
I have also added a paragraph in the description about the possibility of encumbered bars, how the list comes from iShares, and the short sales.
To be crystal clear, I am just looking at the lists that iShares makes public; I have no special connection with them (I would LOVE a tour of their vaults if I did!). I'm quite sure the bars are there in the vaults (I've even seen evidence of the annual-or-so accounting, as bar numbers change due to typos, but the weights never change, as expected). Are they encumbered? I have no idea. Are shares sold short? Yes.
If anyone has evidence suggesting that the bars are not physically present, I would love to hear about it (if they aren't physically there, I wouldn't mind being the one to prove it).
JG
I have no doubt the lists are what they are. My original thesis was that using lists provided by SLV itself are not valid proof that the bars 1) are in the vaults and in an SLV segregated account and 2) are not unencumbered. The prospectuses of all these bullion ETF's are specifically designed to avoid that kind of accountability.
DeleteHave you read the accountant's letter in the annual report? Their accounting report is based on using the financial reporting statements provided to them by SLV's management. They would not know if there are lease obligations or hypothecated bars because those off-balance-sheet, meaning that the SLV Trust, for financial reporting purposes, is still the "accounting" owner of the bars.
The "audit" is of the internal systems used to compile the reports. It's not an independent audit of the underlying assets represented by the financial statements. Moreover, all PW's job to do is to establish that SLV's internal systems and the financial reports generated comply with GAAP. It's all a paper game, period.
Show me the bars and show me that they are not encumbered. Bob Pisani's gig in the GLD vault - a completely random event - proved that these trusts fail true accountability.
If you trust the accounting of firm's like JP Morgan and Blackrock, and trust the accounting standards and legitimacy of Price Waterhouse, then good luck. But I can provide hundreds of examples where these accounting "systems" have failed - the most most recent of which was MF Global.
The only way to make sure these bullion ETF's are legitimate is to have a completely indepenedent bar by bar audit. The prospectuses are written to avoid this requirement.
My thesis was to refute Ed Steer's statement that your website proves that SLV is legitimate. That's all. If people want to accept without limitation data that is provided by SLV and consider that to be adequate, that's fine. But it's not.
I think we mostly agree: Analyzing the SLV bar list does not prove SLV is legitimate (e.g. it cannot detect encumbered bars), but has a shot at detecting fraudulent physical activity (e.g. no silver in the vaults, or the bar list increasing without bars added).
DeleteFor accounting, there are two separate pieces. PW does the traditional audit (that goes over the paperwork, which is probably all in New York). A company called inspectorate does an inspection of the vaults (all in London), verifying the total bar count, and spot-checking (about 1 in 30) that physical bar serial numbers match the bar list (the "certificates" can be found at http://us.ishares.com/library/kits/slv_vault_inspection_certificates.htm). They also seal about 20% of the bars and verify that they are still sealed (although I don't see the benefit of that, unless 100% are sealed). And of course, that inspection does nothing to prove that the bars are unencumbered.
The whole point of this exercise with the bar lists is because many people do not trust the accounting. From what I have seen, I'm quite confident that the bars exist (faking it without being detected would be quite challenging), and know that there is a chance they could be encumbered (but doing so would very likely be fraudulent, if that counts at all).
Yes the bars do exist. The serial numbers are not faked. Again, it comes down to what is leased/hypothecated and what isn't. Also, how can you be confident that the bars are all sitting in a JPM vault? Have you visually seen all of the bars. The prospectus enables the custodian to move bars around to sub-custodians and the sub-custodians can use sub-custodians. JPM has not legal recourse if something happens to the bars. Where exactly are the bars? I don't WANT to know where the list says the bars are. I want to know where they physically sit right now.
DeleteAs I mentioned in my blog post, I shredded Inspectorate in a post a few years ago. It's the same outfit that "spot" audits GLD's bars. That is only an audit of phsyical condition of the bars. As you mention, it's a spot check - 1 in 30. Again, they only look at the bars in the main vault.
Please, read my GLD report. James Turk was the original source which shredded GLD. The same analysis applies to SLV. I also notice that no one has challenged my statement that JPM is not to be trusted under any circumstances.
Let's ask ourselves this: Until about a year ago, JPM was not even big bullion vault custodian. HSBC and Deutsch Bank have bigger operations. HSBC is the logical custodian for GLD. Scotia and HSBC are much bigger silver custodians than JPM on the Comex. Why not use Scotia? Does anyone really think it's just coincidental that JP Morgan - which has BY FAR the largest short position in paper silver - is also the custodian of SLV? Is that NOT the fox guarding the hen house?
Not only would I NOT safekeep even a used condom in the Comex depositories, I wouldn't sell SLV to my mother-in-law.
One more point, I do not trust any paper accounting - especially any involving JP Morgan - and I have plenty of precedence on my side to back up my view, starting with Enron. Oh guess what? JP Morgan was one of Enron's biggest bankers/advisors. Wow. Fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame me - fool me thrice, I'm retarded. Anyone who owns SLV in lieu of owning physical silver is a retard. Please note: SLV is okay, for now, for indexing the price of silver. It is unequivocally not a physical silver surrogate and it quite likely has a high degree fraud embedded in it.
DeleteThe bars are in 5 different vaults in London; 2 run by JPM, as well as 2 by Brinks as 1 by Johnson Matthey as subcustodians. Inspectorate checks bars in all 5 vaults (there is no one "main" vault). On their 3 inspections, the bars were in the vaults SLV claimed (unless, of course, there is fraud and Inspectorate is cooperating).
DeleteIf JPM were to lease the bars, either they are removed and replaced with new bars, or the bars are never removed. If the bars are never removed, what is the point of the lease (and how could SLV investors be harmed)? The problem is if bars are removed. But if they are removed, they are going to be used/sold, and replaced with different bars (in which case the bar list will show these changes, barring massive fraud involving both JPM and Inspectorate). Seeing even a single bar in the list change weight would be a red flag, seeing something like 1Moz of silver bars change refiners and weights would be a HUGE red flag.
And if JPM did lease out the silver, and it never came back (which could be undetectable via bar lists, but the audit would detect it), JPM is pretty much stuck either replacing the silver (making SLV investors whole), going bankrupt (causing problems far beyond SLV), or losing all their credibility (and gaining lawsuits). Maybe they could pay SLV back with all the silver they are hedging with their giant short position .
For anyone willing and able to take physical possession of silver, I certainly recommend that over paper (even paper with plenty of claims of physical behind it like SLV). If Atlantic Bullion & Co can run a ponzi scheme with $90M of silver, and Morgan Stanley can lead people to believe they have silver in an allocated account (that is really unallocated), you have to be very careful. If you cannot see your silver, you cannot know it is yours.
Dude, again: There are legal loopholes a mile wide in the prospectus for foul play to occur. Please spend some time reading it and read it in conjunction with my GLD report and/or James Turk's report. If you've read it - re-read it. I read the GLD prospectus about 10 times at least before I wrote my report. Turk reviewed my work before I published it. David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital read it, did his own work on GLD and announced in July of 2009 that he had dumped all of his GLD and swapped into physical gold that he would safekeep privately. You can google the news release - Bloomberg reported it originally.
DeleteSecond, you have to have access to JPM/Blackrock's files in order to know if the bars have been leased. Have they given you access to their files and records? Again, there's a lot of room for "slippage" on the physical bars.
SLV knows that at any given time, maybe at most 30-40% of its shareholder base is capable exchanging shares for physical. They only have to maintain about that much bona fide coverage. I would run the business the same way if I were them.
Please search my blog and read my shredding of Inspectorate's process. I don't have time to find it myself but it should be posted in 2009 - you can use the "search" box at the top of this blog - and I don't have time for this discussion anymore.
It's the same dynamic as reading a 10-k and deciding if you trust what is reported and signed off on by an accountant. I took an advanced forensics accounting course at the University of Chicago so I know how fraudulent accounting can get. Same principles apply to bullion ETF's (except for PSLV and PHYS).
Do you trust JPM or do you not? Not many do anymore. There is plenty of precedence to not trust them: Enron, Global Crossing, AIG, Jefferson County, Alabama, State of Colorado, MF Global, the list is endless.
Enough said.
Warren, before you make assertions like that, why don't take time to read either the GLD or SLV prospectus, like those of us who DO know what we're talking about have already done. I've read many of the "bullion" ETF prospectuses and they all contain the same legal loopholes for lack of accountability.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, instead of explaining why you are wrong, either read my GLD report or go read the SLV prospectus, thoroughly. Maybe then you will understand why you don't know what you are talking about.
Furthermore, about.ag has ads the website. He gets paid per click. I purposely do NOT have any ads on my blog in order to maintain the credibility of complete independence.
Go read the SLV prospectus and learn some things about accounting and accountability. Right now you sound like someone who would willingly accept JPM's or Facebook's numbers prima facie and you believe Jerry Sandusky's statements of self-defense.
Srott's prospectus is the only one that has legitimate accountability built into the legal structure.
DeleteUh, I don't think I've said anything incorrect. You can't refute the fact that a lot of detailed information about the ETF inventory, is publically available - it's a fact. All I'm saying is that I'm in the process of analysing the data ... like about.ag has done, only in more detail. We're investigators, trying an angle that no one else has tried. Whether the data is legitimate or not, is something we're trying to prove.
DeleteIt's my general understanding that ad revenue rarely covers hosting costs and time put in; I think you overestimate the traffic the website gets, bar data is a really dry niche topic.
For what its worth, I had agreed with your point that the existence of about.ag did not alone prove the legitimacy of SLV. I just disagree with your suspicion of the website itself, there is nothing spurious there. Data organisation, interpretation and analysis is my area of expertise. I've read a lot of your stuff in the past as part of my metals research. I've looked at the SLV prospectus and found nothing I would not expect in terms of a typical McDonalds 'warning this beverage is hot' style of legalise.
Anyway, I don't have a dog in this fight, it's just your post covered some items of interest to me.
The data is useless if the bars are leased out, hypothecated or don't exist in the vault. Yes, we have public data on SLV but it's data provided by the custodian and trustee of SLV. Don't you get it? Do you trust JPM to honestly report its financial information? Do you trust Blackrock to honestly report ITS financial information?
DeleteI have several blog posts outlining in detail where JPM commits fraud - and other big banks - in their 10-q/k's. That's publicly available information. The SEC is full of public information that is USELESS because its fraudulently reported.
AGAIN, read the SLV prospectus AND read my GLD report. I go over in painstaking detail where the legal loopholes are. Those are the easy ones to spot. There are many others that are complicated. James Turk reviewed my work.
I have credibilty - JP Morgan does not. It is completely useless discussing the publicly reported bar lists fed to the public by JP Morgan and SLV trustee. 100% useless. I don't care what their "lists" report if the underlying assets are not unemcumbered by leases, hypothecation, etc.
Here's a project for you and I'm not posting any more comments on this until you come back with an answer: Call Blackrock and ask them if you can go compare the list they provide to about.ag with the actual physical bars in the JPM custodial vault. THEN tell them once you've done that, you would like to inspect ALL records at Blackrock and JP Morgan with respect to all legal documentation which shows that SLV has legal entitlement to every bar on the list and that every bar is sitting in JP Morgan's vault IN a segregated section that is exclusive to SLV.
GLD FAILED that test miserably in front of the whole public when Bob Pisani picked up a gold bar that was supposed to belong to GLD and it fucking belonged to another vault customer. ROFLMAO.
You know full well that Blackrock would never agree to that, regardless of whether they are guilty or not - that's an empty, useless challenge.
DeleteThe bar lists are not useless - with my data I can provide a website which allows investors with leased bars to check their serial numbers to show the history and current location of the bars in question. My database also can show the exact page and line number of where it appears in the list. This kind of transparency can potentially undo the custodian since all we need is just ONE detected instance of a leased bar also existing in the iShares holding, for someone to successfully prosecute, but right now it's buried under lots and lots of data.
FWIW, I know full well that GLD is unsegregated allocated. I used my data to show that Bob Pisani's bar was from the MSL Securities list, and wrote about it.
The entire financial industry is wracked with fraud, I'm doing my best to help people uncover exactly where the fraud is.
Lists are irrelevant unless there's complete and accurate validation of the underlying assets which the lists represent. It's just like JPM's level 3 assets marked at par when in fact they are worth 20 cents on the dollar.
DeleteUntil these Trusts provide the legal means to enforce 100% accountability, they leave the door wide open for fraud. JPM has shown ad nauseum that it commits fraud as part of its business model.
That's the bottom line.