China Regulators Complete Final "Drill" In Preparation For Petro-Yuan Futures Trading

Amid all the chatter of Venezuela and Russia potentially creating oil-backed cryptocurrencies, the "huge news" of China"s launch of the Petro-Yuan has fallen off the front page... until now.

This week saw the Shanghai Futures Exchange complete its fifth yuan-back oil futures contract trading drill successfully...

As Bloomberg reports, 149 members of Shanghai International Energy Exchange traded 647,930 lots in the drill with total value of 268.2b yuan, according to a statement from the exchange, which added that the system basically met the listing requirements of crude futures after the drill.

While this was a success, it"s not all plain-saling...

As Bloomberg notes, as the world’s largest energy consumer and an increasing source of investment capital for oil-producing nations, China has an interest in using its own currency rather than that of a geopolitical competitor.

One hurdle for setting up a rival to Brent or West Texas Intermediate: Overseas oil producers and traders would need to swallow China’s capital controls and penchant for occasional market interventions.

Similar hurdles have kept foreign investors as bit players in China’s giant mainland stock and bond markets, and the share of payments in Yuan in the Global SWIFT system has fallen...

"This contract has the potential to greatly help China’s push for yuan internationalization," said Yao Wei, chief China economist at Societe Generale SA in Paris.

 

"But its success will hinge critically on the degree of freedom allowed for the capital flows related to the contract," she said.

 

"It is not unreasonable to envision a world in which the overwhelming share of commodity contracts, especially for oil, are no longer denominated just in dollars," said Eswar Prasad, a former China division chief at the IMF.

 

But "the yuan’s role in global finance will ultimately be determined by the degree of commitment of Xi Jinping’s government to economic and financial market reforms."

But, as we detailed previously, the writing is on the wall for dollar hegemony, and we suspect teh decline in global yuan trade volumes is another reason for China to push ahead sooner.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin said almost two months ago during the BRICs summit in Xiamen,

“Russia shares the BRICS countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture, which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies. We are ready to work together with our partners to promote international financial regulation reforms and to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies.”

As Pepe Escobar recently noted, "to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies" is the politest way of stating what the BRICS have been discussing for years now; how to bypass the US dollar, as well as the petrodollar.

Beijing is ready to step up the game. Soon China will launch a crude oil futures contract priced in yuan. This means that Russia – as well as Iran, the other key node of Eurasia integration – may bypass US sanctions by trading energy in their own currencies, or in yuan. Inbuilt in the move is a true Chinese win-win; the yuan - according to some - will be fully convertible into gold on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges.

The new triad of oil, yuan and gold is actually a win-win-win. No problem at all if energy providers prefer to be paid in physical gold instead of yuan. The key message is the US dollar being bypassed.

China"s plans for oil futures trading go back more than two decades, with the government introducing a domestic crude contract in 1993 and stopping a year later amid an overhaul of its energy industry. But in 2013, we first hinted at the birth of the petroyuan was looming...

In doing so China is effectively lobbing the first shot across the bow of the Petrodollar system, and more importantly, the key support of the USD in the international arena... setting the scene for the petroyuan.

*  *  *

And now it just became one step closer to reality, as Bloomberg reports, China’s government State Council has officially approved the listing of a crude futures contract in Shanghai, according to people familiar with the matter.

While the date of launch will be determined by China Securities Regulatory Commission and Shanghai Futures Exchange, it would appear we are within weeks of it becoming a reality as China prepares to roll out a yuan-denominated oil contract...

"Approval of the trading rules by the securities regulator marks the clearance of a major hurdle toward launch of the contract," Li Zhoulei, an analyst with Everbright Futures, said by phone.

 

"The latest rules raised entry threshold for investors from the draft rules, which shows the government wants to avoid volatility when it first starts trading."

Which, according to Adam Levinson, of hedge fund manager Graticule Asset Management Asia, will be a “wake up call” for investors who haven’t paid attention to the plans.

De-Dollarization Continues: China, Iran To Eliminate Greenback From Bilateral Trade

The more Washington lashes out in anger at those who will not bow to the unipolar world order, the more the rest of the world fights back. As the launch of its Yuan/Gold-settled oil futures looms, China is escalating its de-dollarization scheme further by seeking a bilateral rial-yuan agreement with Iran.

As a reminder, nothing lasts forever...

The World Bank"s former chief economist wants to replace the US dollar with a single global super-currency, saying it will create a more stable global financial system.

"The dominance of the greenback is the root cause of global financial and economic crises," Justin Yifu Lin told Bruegel, a Brussels-based policy-research think tank.

 

"The solution to this is to replace the national currency with a global currency."

The writing is on the wall for dollar hegemony. As Russian President Vladimir Putin said almost two months ago during the BRICs summit in Xiamen,

“Russia shares the BRICS countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture, which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies. We are ready to work together with our partners to promote international financial regulation reforms and to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies.”

As Pepe Escobar recently noted, "to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies" is the politest way of stating what the BRICS have been discussing for years now; how to bypass the US dollar, as well as the petrodollar.

Beijing is ready to step up the game. Soon China will launch a crude oil futures contract priced in yuan, and now, as RT reports, Tehran and Beijing are determined to find ways to avoid using the US dollar as a settlement currency in trade, according to a report by Iranian economic daily Financial Tribune.

The topic of de-dollarization was raised at a meeting between leading Chinese government political adviser Chen Yuan and Iranian central bank officials in Tehran.

“Rial-yuan’s bilateral monetary agreement can have a significant role in increasing the volume of trade between the two countries and in this regard, we have conducted a series of negotiations with the central bank of the Republic of China’s president,”  said the Central Bank of Iran’s Governor Valiollah Seif.

Tehran has been pursuing the goal of eliminating the dollar in its trade, and has been trying to sign currency swap agreements with a few target countries.

Chen said that Iran and China should develop their banking links and also underlined the unfairness of the existing financial system, dominated by a few developed countries. He added, other nations would do better if the unfair system is eliminated.

“We could use the experiences of European countries in establishing the euro as a common currency between many countries, which is not exclusively controlled by a single country. But until then, we need to utilize the maximum available capacities to expand our banking relations,” he was quoted as saying by the Iranian daily.

As Federico Pieraccini previously noted, until a few decades ago, any idea of straying away from the petrodollar was seen as a direct threat to American global hegemony, requiring of a military response. In 2017, given the decline in US credibility as a result of triggering wars against smaller countries (leaving aside countries like Russia, China, and Iran that have military capabilities the likes of which the US has not faced for more than seventy years), a general recession from the dollar-based system is taking place in many countries.

In recent years, it has become clear to many nations opposing Washington that the only way to adequately contain the fallout from the collapsing US empire is to progressively abandon the dollar. This serves to limit Washington’s capacity for military spending by creating the necessary alternative tools in the financial and economic realms that will eliminate Washington"s dominance. This is essential in the Russo-Sino-Iranian strategy to unite Eurasia and thereby render the US irrelevant.

De-dollarization for Beijing, Moscow and Tehran has become a strategic priority. Eliminating the unlimited spending capacity of the Fed and the American economy means limiting US imperialist expansion and diminishing global destabilization. Without the usual US military power to strengthen and impose the use of US dollars, China, Russia and Iran have paved the way for important shifts in the global order.

The US shot itself in the foot by accelerating this process through their removal of Iran from the SWIFT system (paving the way for the Chinese alternative, known as CIPS) and imposing sanctions on countries like Russia, Iran and Venezuela. This also accelerated China and Russia’s mining and acquisition of physical gold, which is in direct contrast to the situation in the US, with rumors of the FED no longer possessing any more gold. It is no secret that Beijing and Moscow are aiming for a gold-backed currency if and when the dollar should collapse. This has pushed unyielding countries to start operating in a non-dollar environment and through alternative financial systems.

For China, Iran and Russia, as well as other countries, de-dollarization has become a pressing issue.

How "Ghost Collateral" And "Yin-Yang" Property Deals Will Collapse China"s Credit Bubble

One lesson from the 2007-08 crisis was that the vast majority of financial market participants, never mind the general public, were unfamiliar with subprime mortgages until the crisis was underway. Even now, we doubt many have much understanding of repo, the divergence between LIBOR and Fed Funds from 9 August 2007 and Eurodollar liquidity. In a similar way, when China’s bubble bursts, we doubt the majority will be that familiar with “ghost collateral” and “yin-yang” property contracts either.
 
A second lesson from the 2007-08 crisis was that as the value of the collateral underpinning the vast amount of leverage declined, the surge in margin calls led to cascading waves of selling in a downward spiral.

A third lesson was that the practice of re-hypothecating the same subprime mortgage bonds more than once, meant collateral supporting the most vulnerable part of the credit bubble was non-existent. It only became apparent with the falling prices and margin calls. Few people realised the bull market was built on such flimsy foundations, as long as prices kept rising.

A fourth lesson was that in order for the bubble to reach truly epic proportions, key financial institutions, especially banks, needed to conduct themselves in a negligent fashion and totally ignore increasing risks.

Each of these warning signs from the 2007-08 crisis exists in China’s property market now – and other parts of its financial system - bar one…falling prices leading to cascading waves of selling. However, as we’ll explain, we think it’s only a matter of months away now.

We should note that our thesis that China’s bubble would eventually be undermined by a “black hole” of insufficient collateral is one that we have been developing for several years. What we came to realise is that insufficient collateral is nothing more than normal business practice in the Chinese economy. It doesn’t matter whether it’s related to commodity-backed loans, property speculation or managing redemptions in the Wealth Management Products (WMPs) sector.

The first sign of this practice to received worldwide attention came to light in 2014 with the collateral fraud at China’s third largest port, Qingdao, which spreading to another port, Penglai, before it suddenly got covered up stopped. Numerous borrowers were found to have pledged the same copper and steel inventory as collateral to obtain funding from various banks, including state-owned Citic Resources, as well as Citi, Standard Chartered and others.

Not long after the scandal emerged, media attention began to wane, as commentators either assumed it was fixed or were distracted by other issues. However, it wasn’t fixed and we had a shocking reminder last month with the first major publicly announced loss. ED&F Man took an $80m hit after acting as a broker between Australia’s ANZ Bank and two Hong Kong-based trading companies in a sale-and-repurchase financing deal. The trade was backed by storage receipts for about $300 million of nickel stored in Glencore-owned warehouses in Asia. The problem was that the warehouse receipts were forged. As we said.

What is surprising is that it has taken over three years for the first serious hit from China"s "ghost collateral" to emerge. Or perhaps not: in a time of generally rising prices, few if any traders actually bother to check if their pledged collateral ever exists. The problem emerges when prices decline, which courtesy of China"s bubble machine, has so far not been an issue.

In June 2017, we discussed an article, “Ghost collateral’ haunts loans across China’s debt-laden banking system”, by our favourite Reuters reporter and forensic investigator of China’s collateral black hole, Engen Tham. Here are a few soundbites from Tham’s impressive piece.

One lawyer said he discovered that the same pile of steel was used to secure loans from 10 different lenders.

Most of the bankers said that kickbacks were prevalent, with loan officers turning a blind eye to the quality of collateral and knowingly accepting dubious and even fraudulent documents. Two of the bankers said they themselves had taken bribes to smooth the approval of loans.

Overall, 23 of the 30 bankers described the existence of ghost collateral as a serious problem and expected more instances to emerge as the Chinese economy slows. The bankers interviewed come from 13 banks in China, including some of the nation’s biggest lenders.

…fraudulent collateral is “a huge issue,” said Violet Ho, senior managing director and co-head of Greater China Investigations and Disputes Practice at Kroll, which conducts corporate investigations on the mainland. “Often you also see that the paperwork around collateral may be dodgy, and the bank loan officer knows, the intermediary knows, and the goods owner knows – so it’s essentially a Ponzi scheme.”

More than six months later and Egen Tham is back with a “special report” on loan fraud and missing collateral in China’s property market, “Hidden peril awaits China"s banks as property binge fuels mortgage fraud frenzy”. We strongly recommend the article as Tham goes into forensic detail as he examines specific legal disputes which act as a window on the broader Chinese property market.

Here is our summary.

Reuters discovered an epidemic of mortgage fraud in China’s property market from extensive research and interviews with buyers, sellers, real estate agents, loan agents (see below), bankers and lawyers from three major Chinese cities and four smaller ones.

Buyers habitually overvalue the cost of the house or property they are buying so they can borrow more funds which are typically channelled into the property market, e.g. buyers who have insufficient down payment or income. A mortgage banker at Shanghai Pudong Development Bank estimated that 20-30% of his clients borrowed the down payment from a third party.

Small banks and loan companies do not have the resources to monitor if money is borrowed to finance down payments on property deals. Reuters notes that short-term household loans increased by 243% to 1.6 trillion yuan in the first ten months of 2017.

There are up to three contacts for an individual property transaction – the legitimate one, one for the bank providing the loan which overstates the property’s value and one for the tax authorities. These are widely known as “yin-yang” contracts in which real and fake agreements operate side-by-side.

In these re-packaged loan arrangements, all parties, including the bank and the seller, can be complicit in the fraud. Tham provides detailed examples. Since “everybody is doing it”, the crimes go unpunished, even when the guilty admit them in court documents regarding related claims.

Reuters reports that it interviewed twelve estate agents who admitted to helping clients commit mortgage fraud. One salesperson at the E-House China agency said that about 50% of his clients engaged in mortgage fraud. Another real estate agent estimated that about 60% of Shanghai property deals involve “some kind of re-packaging”.

A separate industry of loan agents has evolved which help property buyers to fraudulently secure mortgage loans. Real estate agents, and the banks themselves, introduce borrowers to the loan agents which keeps the criminal activity at “arm’s length”. 

While many western websites are blocked by the Chinese authorities, discussions about securing a fraudulent mortgage, the price of fake documents and adverts from loan agents are prevalent on social media.

The motivation for mortgage fraud is the fear of missing out in the great Chinese property bubble. While official data showed that house prices rose 12.4% in 2016 (fastest since 2011), this understates reality. The state-controlled Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimates that prices rose by an average of 42% in 33 major cities.

Reuters noted that property market insiders “see little prospects” of an end to mortgage fraud, even though the Chinese regulators have asked banks to stop over-valuations and “yin-yang” contracts. Even when evidence of fraud is specifically shown to a bank, it is likely to be ignored.  

To add some colour to our prose, here are a handful of soundbites from Tham’s article.

Almost all contracts for the sale of existing property in China have some “yin-yang” element, according to Denny Jiang, a former banker and recent home buyer in Beijing.

A Hong Kong property investor surnamed Fu, who declined to give his full name because he was admitting criminal behavior, told Reuters that 20,000 yuan (about $3,000) in a traditional red gift envelope was enough for a valuation company to inflate the price of the apartment he wanted to buy in Shenzhen by 40 percent. That increased the amount the bank was prepared to lend him by 1.26 million yuan.

While property prices in China continue to rise, mortgage fraud remains largely a hidden danger, much as subprime loans in the United States remained mostly out of sight ahead of the 2008 global financial crisis. The fear is that in a property correction, fraudulent mortgages would unravel, accelerating a collapse of housing prices in the world’s second biggest economy. This, in turn, would imperil China’s debt-laden financial system.

“It seems banks don’t consider the issue a serious one.”

We think the last two comments are particularly poignant, harking back to some of the key themes of the 2007-08 crisis. As we noted above, the one thing missing from China’s bubble is falling prices leading to cascading selling which exposes the “ghost collateral” in the financial system. As this chart from Bloomberg shows, the month-on-month growth in Chinese house prices has slowed dramatically from the heady levels of 2016, as Chinese authorities have increasingly tried to cool the bubble.

“Houses are for living in, not for speculation” as Xi Jinping stated at the recent Party Congress. Even though property sales have been slowing, The Standard reported the state’s CCTV said that the property sector’s three regulators, the PBoC, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Ministry of Land and Resources, remained committed to stepping up financial regulation and cracking down on speculation after a joint meeting in Wuhan last month.

The regulators said China would prevent funds from being illegally channelled into the property market, and ensure capital allocation between real estate and other industries was balanced. The three central government entities also told provinces to stick to their tightening measures and be consistent in policy, warning against lax regulation that could lead to big fluctuations in the market and a build-up in financial risks.

"(We) must not tolerate any thinking that we can sit back and relax," the regulators said, according to CCTV. China will also improve its management of the land market and prevent cases of high land prices pushing up property prices.

In Deutsche Bank’s latest China macro presentation, “Risks to watch in next six months, part IV”, the bank explained why property prices will cool further and could be declining on a year-on-year basis by the middle of next year (the month-on-month decline would likely be apparent in early 2018). DB’s rationale is as follows. Leverage in the financial sector is slowing rapidly.

Financial deleveraging is a key factor behind rising interest rates…

…which will deflate China’s property bubble during 2018.

DB believes that unless the Chinese authorities rein back their deleveraging policies, H2 2018 could see the market slow rapidly…

…which assumes China’s central planners can fine tune a deflating bubble once it starts. We have our doubts.

Lira Plunges As Mystery Gold Trader Exposes "Secret" Turkish Deal To Evade Washington"s "Economic Jihad"

We detailed below that TRY was selling off on US accusations that the Turkish economic minister of taking bribes.

 

Citi"s FX desk explains why Turkish markets are watching the US trial of a banker so closely.

The basics: The US government has accused Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla of helping Iran evade US sanctions.

 

Turkey’s former economy minister, Zafer Caglayan, and two other banking executives, have been charged in absentia but Atilla is the only one on trial.

 

Why it matters: It"s about the implications this has for US/Turkey diplomatic relations. Bloomberg has a good explainer here: ‘The focus will be on whether [Zarrab] implicates Turkey’s banking system or the highest levels of its government.’ The worst case scenario would hypothetically be where the trial results in diplomatic penalties to Turkey and its banks.

 

An October 30 document submitted to the court by federal prosecutors in New York said that the US “anticipates that the evidence introduced at trial will show that Turkish government and banking officials were integral to the sanctions evasion scheme.” Still, it’s too early to tell, and we watch the wires closely for the latest developments.

*  *  *

As we detailed earlier, while long forgotten for some, in the summer of 2014, we reported in detail on what appeared to be the biggest, most bizarre money-laundering scheme ever, involving Turkey trading "200 tons of secret gold" with Iran...

The topic of Turkey"s Oil-for-Gold "deals" has not been far from our thoughts over the last few years (here, here, and here) but as Bloomberg reports, after accessing a report leaked on March 14 of a network that spanned Turkey, China, Dubai and Iran, the plot reveals "one of the most complex illicit finance schemes [prosecutors] have seen." It included the classic money-laundering techniques of over-invoicing and false invoicing (exactly as in the case of the Chinese commodity financing scandal underway) but the secret government plan to juice Turkey"s exports goes much deeper; and if you think that the exposure of this scheme is slowing Turkey"s manipulation, think again. Turkey’s trade balance continues to fluctuate unpredictably as gold stocks flow out of the country in bursts.  “Turkey’s going to continue it,” the Turkish economy minister said. “If those casting aspersions on the gold trade are searching for immorality, they should take a look in the mirror.”

 

We first started noticing major "odd" exports of gold from Turkey to Iran in May 2012. But in 2013, with a plunging currency, surging inflation, slowing growth, and specter of rapid QE-driven hot money outflows leaving his nation desperate; Zafer Caglayan, the minister in charge of Turkey"s $800 billion economy decided that the only way to ensure success in the looming election... was to cheat...

 

Read more here...

A farcical domestic investigation was undertaken and while the judges and officials who probed the money laundering scheme were either fired or reassigned, the findings in their report were leaked.

The leaked document that Erodgan tried so hard to hide, prepared by the Turkish National Police, shows that investigators probed the activities of a cast of characters that was both powerful and dependent upon each other for favors. There have been some arrests (but no politicians).

The first was Sarraf, the Iranian businessman, who changed his name from Reza Zarrab after he took Turkish citizenship in 2007.

 

He and Erdogan were photographed on stage together at one public function, and met at a wedding in Ankara.

 

After Sarraf was arrested in December, Erdogan told reporters that his gold-dealing had “contributed to the country.”

Then, three years later, Bloomberg reports that Zarrab - the gold trader accused of helping Iran evade sanctions - invoked the name of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as part of a scheme that U.S. prosecutors say was supported by Turkey’s government, according to court documents.

U.S. prosecutors in New York have gathered taped conversations and other records that suggest the trader may have sought support from Erdogan.

 

The Turkish president hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing, and it’s possible that the trader falsely invoked Erdogan’s name to influence others.

 

The people charged in the case are captured in the recorded conversations, which were introduced in a filing in federal court in Manhattan.

 

The documents introduced in the sanctions and money-laundering case against the Turkish-Iranian gold trader, Reza Zarrab, could further complicate the relationship between the U.S. and Turkey, a majority-Muslim country long considered a crucial ally in the region.

And now, the day that Turkish President Erdogan has been most fearful of has arrived, despite his best efforts to block it. Erdogan tried to pressure U.S. officials during the Barack Obama and Donald Trump administrations to drop the prosecution of the trader and has complained in public comments that prosecutors were trying to extract a confession from Zarrab and turn him into an informant. He also claimed President Trump apologized for the prosecution in a phone call.

“Erdogan clearly has a strong personal interest in Zarrab’s case, as he has raised it at the highest levels of both the Obama and Trump administrations,” said Amanda Sloat, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and former State Department official overseeing U.S.-Turkey relations.

 

“U.S. judicial proceedings could also hurt the Turkish economy. Since much of Erdogan’s popularity resulted from his successful economic reforms, his domestic political support would be undermined by a downturn.”

AP reports that a U.S. prosecutor says Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab has pleaded guilty to charges and will reveal at a New York trial how he helped Iran evade U.S. sanctions in an "economic jihad."

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Denton said Tuesday that Zarrab will be a key witness against Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla.

 

The prosecutor said the scheme to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran since 2011 enabled billions of dollars to be moved and threatened U.S. security.

 

Defense attorney Victor Rocco attacked Zarrab"s credibility in his opening statement, saying the case was really about Zarrab"s crimes.

 

He said Zarrab made a deal to get out of jail free, possibly joining the U.S. witness protection program so he and his family can live in the United States.

This sparked a plunge near record lows for the Lira (and sent bond yields spiking to record highs)...

Turkish officials remain furious, claiming that the U.S. trial is a "play" staged with the help of a U.S.-based cleric.

Mahir Unal, a deputy chairman of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan"s ruling party, on Tuesday also described the case as a "political" one lacking legal basis.

 

Unal renewed a Turkish government claim that U.S. judicial officials were cooperating with cleric Fethullah Gulen"s network against Turkey.

 

He said: "We know who staged this play and what its aim is."

Ultimately, the case is a test of U.S.-Turkish relations, already at one of the lowest points in the countries’ longstanding alliance, with analysts questioning how close the charges might get to Erdogan himself... and by the look of today"s opening statements, and the responses from Turkey, they are worried!

Bloomberg answers: What are the implications for the Turkey-U.S. relationship?

The U.S. “anticipates that the evidence introduced at trial will show that Turkish government and banking officials were integral to the sanctions evasion scheme,” according to an Oct. 30 document submitted to the court by federal prosecutors in New York. Embarrassing revelations of corruption or criminal activity are sure to further stress ties, already at their worst in recent history. Turkey blames Fethullah Gulen, an elderly Muslim cleric who’s been based in the U.S. since 1999, for the 2016 coup attempt against Erdogan. President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, is said to be under investigation for allegedly plotting to seize Gulen and deliver him to Turkish officials. Further complicating the situation, Turkey hired two close allies Trump -- former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey -- to try to broker a resolution of the case that’s reaching trial.

The Cardinal Sin Of International Finance

Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

As Doug Casey has correctly noted, the prime directive of any organism - whether it’s an amoeba or a person or a corporation or a government - is to survive.

That’s why the US government protects the petrodollar so zealously. It needs the system to survive.

Why Everyone Uses the US Dollar… for Now

In the 1970s, the US government struck a series of deals with Saudi Arabia, creating the petrodollar system. The US promised to coddle and protect the Saudi kingdom. And, in exchange, Saudi Arabia would use its dominant position in OPEC to ensure that all oil transactions happened in US dollars.

 

Until recently, virtually anyone who wanted to import oil from any country needed US dollars to pay for it.

 

The dollar is just a middleman here. But countries and businesses use it in countless transactions amounting to trillions of dollars that have nothing to do with US products or services.

 

Plus, if foreign countries are already using dollars for oil, it’s just easier to use the dollar for other international trade. That’s why, in addition to oil sales, the US dollar is used for about 80% of all international transactions.

World leaders who have challenged the petrodollar recently have ended up dead…

Take Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, for example. Each led a large oil-producing country—Iraq and Libya, respectively. And both tried to sell their oil for something other than US dollars, before US military interventions led to their deaths.

In October 2000, Saddam had started to sell Iraqi oil for euros only. Iraq said it would no longer accept dollars for oil because it did not want to deal “in the currency of the enemy.”

A little over two years later, the US invaded. Immediately after Baghdad fell to US forces, all Iraqi oil sales were switched back to dollars.

Thanks to WikiLeaks’ release of Hillary Clinton’s emails, we know that protecting the petrodollar—not humanitarian concerns—was a primary reason for overthrowing Libya’s Gaddafi.

According to her leaked emails, the US (and France) feared that Gaddafi would use Libya’s vast gold reserves to back a pan-African currency. This gold-backed currency would have been used to buy and sell oil in global markets. Also, it would have likely displaced a version of the French franc that’s used in Central and Western Africa.

The US and France backed a rebellion, both militarily and financially, that overthrew Gaddafi in 2011.

After Gaddafi’s death, plans for the gold-backed currency—along with Libya’s 4.6 million ounces of gold—vanished.

Of course there were other reasons the US toppled Saddam and Gaddafi. But protecting the petrodollar was a serious consideration, at the very least.

Putin Is a Tougher Adversary

The dollar’s special status gives Uncle Sam tremendous leverage. So it’s no surprise that Russia wants to undermine the petrodollar system.

Russian President Vladimir Putin summed it up this way:

Russia shares the BRICS countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture, which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies. We are ready to work together with our partners to promote international financial regulation reforms and to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies.

Essentially, Putin is saying they all want to ditch the dollar.

That’s largely because the US uses the dollar as a political weapon. For example, the US tried to sanction Russia for its actions in Crimea and Ukraine. These sanctions made it harder for Russia to access the US dollar–based financial system. So of course Russia is going to push for an alternative.

Shortly after the sanctions, Russia struck a massive deal to sell oil and gas to China for yuan. The deal totally bypassed the US financial system… and any sanctions.

China’s Permanent Bypass Around the US Dollar

Russia is the world’s largest energy producer. China is the world’s largest energy importer. Normally, they would trade with each other exclusively in US dollars.

But, as I’ve told you in recent weeks, China is now introducing a more permanent way around that.

I call it China’s “Golden Alternative” to the petrodollar. It’s a streamlined way for Russia and everyone else to sell oil to China for yuan—or effectively gold.

China’s “Golden Alternative” to the Petrodollar

China is launching a practical and attractive alternative to the petrodollar system. It will allow anyone in the world to trade oil for gold. It will also totally bypass the US dollar.

 

Here’s how it will work…

 

The Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) is introducing a crude oil futures contract denominated in Chinese yuan. It will allow oil producers to sell their oil for yuan.

 

Of course, China knows most oil producers don’t want a large reserve of yuan. So producers will be able to efficiently convert it into physical gold through gold exchanges in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Bottom line, two of the biggest players in the global energy market are totally bypassing the petrodollar system.

Informed observers say Russia is already converting a large portion of its yuan earnings to gold.

Of course, other countries are interested in sidestepping the US financial system and US sanctions, too. China’s Golden Alternative will give anyone the option to do just that.

This will make the US dollar a much less effective political weapon.

Other countries on Washington’s naughty list are enthusiastically signing up. Iran, another major oil producer, is accepting yuan as payment. So is Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves.

I think others will soon follow. From the perspective of an oil producer, it’s a no-brainer.

With China’s Golden Alternative, an oil producer can participate in the world’s largest market and try to capture more market share. It can also easily convert and repatriate its proceeds into gold, an international form of money with no political risk.

But this doesn’t apply to one critical holdout… Saudi Arabia.

Twisting the Saudis’ Arm

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter. A lot of that oil goes to China, the world’s largest importer.

Beijing still reluctantly pays for Saudi crude in US dollars. The Saudis won’t have it any other way, at least for now.

This bothers China. It can only import Saudi crude by obtaining and then using US dollars. And that, of course, means it has to stay in Washington’s good graces.

Trump’s Treasury secretary really drove this point home recently. He threatened to kick China out of the US dollar system if it didn’t crack down on North Korea.

China would rather not depend on an adversary like this. This is one of the main reasons it’s launching the Golden Alternative.

Saudi Arabia, however, refuses to participate. It won’t sell its oil in anything but US dollars because that would break its longstanding petrodollar agreement with the US.

When China, Russia, and others trade oil for yuan, it’s a significant blow to the petrodollar. But if Saudi Arabia switched to yuan, it would take out the petrodollar… and cause an immediate financial panic in the US.

The truth is selling oil for yuan would cost Saudi Arabia a whole lot.

It would immediately lose American diplomatic and military protection. Then the media and think tanks would quickly start pounding the table for the US military to force democracy on Riyadh.

Last year Trump said, “If Saudi Arabia was without the cloak of American protection, I don’t think it would be around.”

He’s absolutely correct.

Of course, the Saudis know all of this. So they’ve been on a short leash… until recently.

In a surprise move, Saudi King Salman recently became the first sitting Saudi monarch to ever visit Russia.

Until recently, the visit would have been unthinkable. Saudi Arabia has been one of the US’ closest allies since the petrodollar system started in the 1970s.

Meanwhile, Russia and Saudi Arabia have been enemies for decades. Most recently, the Saudis and Russians have been on opposite sides of the Syrian Civil War.

That’s why King Salman’s historic visit to Moscow is so remarkable. The Saudis are clearly hedging their bets against the US and the petrodollar system.

Saudi Arabia is now drifting closer to Russia.

The Saudis have committed to invest up to $10 billion in various Russian sectors. But, even more significantly, they’ve agreed to buy the S-400 missile system, Russia’s top line air defense system, as part of a $3 billion weapons purchase.

This deal signals a geopolitical earthquake. The Saudis have never bought Russian military equipment before.

Ever since the birth of the petrodollar, the Saudis have depended on American military protection. After all, it’s what they get in return for pricing their oil in dollars.

The S-400 system deal suggests the Saudis are hedging their bets. First, they’re not buying an American system. Second, they’re buying a Russian system that’s capable of deterring an American attack.

Saudi Arabia is making significant moves to give itself alternatives to American protection.

At the same time, China is cutting back on Saudi crude.

A few years ago, Saudi oil made up over 25% of Chinese oil imports. They were Beijing’s No. 1 supplier. Today, the Saudis’ market share has dropped below 15%.

In other words, the Saudis are losing massive market share and getting pushed out of the biggest oil market in the world. This is mainly because they refuse to sell oil to China in yuan.

China has made itself clear. It’s willing to expand business with anyone who will accept yuan as payment.

Today, Russia has overtaken Saudi Arabia as China’s top supplier. Its share of the lucrative Chinese market has grown from 5% to over 15%.

Russia’s enthusiastic acceptance of yuan as payment is the main reason for this shift.

In the meantime, Angola, an African oil producer, has also come on board. The country now accepts yuan as payment for its oil exports to China. It even made the Chinese yuan its second legal currency in 2015.

Chinese imports from Angola have shot up since. It’s now China’s No. 2 supplier, after Russia.

None of this bodes well for the petrodollar system.

The Saudis have two choices… rip up the petrodollar or get shut out of the world’s most lucrative oil market.

One way or another—and probably soon—the Chinese will find a way to compel the Saudis to accept yuan. The sheer size of the Chinese market makes it impossible for Saudi Arabia to ignore China’s demands indefinitely.

What to Watch For…

China might not convince the Saudis to ditch the petrodollar system tomorrow. But it’s making significant progress.

A few months ago, Saudi Arabia announced it was willing to issue Panda bonds to finance its government spending deficit. (Panda bonds are yuan-denominated bonds from non-Chinese issuers that are sold in China.)

This is remarkable. The Saudis’ currency is pegged to the US dollar. Up until this point, they’ve exclusively used US dollars for all of their major financial initiatives.

Issuing debt in yuan—instead of US dollars—is a significant move. It means Saudi Arabia is drifting closer to China.

Also, the Saudis recently inaugurated the massive Yasref refinery in the Saudi city of Yanbu. The refinery is an $8.5 billion joint venture between Saudi Aramco and China’s Sinopec.

These are noticeable steps. But the Saudis still haven’t given China what it really wants—oil for yuan.

However, it could happen soon…

The Largest IPO in History

In the coming months, the Saudis plan to float a 5% stake in Saudi Aramco, the state oil company.

Saudi Aramco is the most valuable company in the world. It will likely be the biggest equity offering ever. It could triple, or even quadruple, Alibaba’s current record initial public offering (IPO) of $25 billion.

The IPO’s success will depend on Saudi Arabia recruiting big cornerstone investors. But so far, Western investors haven’t shown a lot of enthusiasm.

For China, however, it could be the perfect opportunity to buy political influence in Saudi Arabia.

If China bought a large stake in the Aramco IPO, it would help cement its relationship with Saudi Arabia. It would also put more distance between the Saudis and the Americans.

And critically, it would give the Chinese more leverage to compel the Saudis to accept yuan for oil.

China is in the process of negotiating not just a 5% stake, but potentially a larger one.

Bottom line…the Saudis haven’t made a clean break with the US yet. However, they are drifting toward China financially and Russia militarily.

The Saudis are clearly setting up the option to dump the petrodollar.

If the Saudis sell oil to China in yuan, it would kill the petrodollar overnight. However, short of that, things still look very dire for the petrodollar.

The petrodollar system is facing serious erosion, thanks in large part to China’s Golden Alternative. That’s already baked into the cake.

And with that, severe inflation in the US is a certainty.

This will likely be the tipping point…

After the collapse of the petrodollar, the US government will be desperate enough to implement capital controls, people controls, nationalization of retirement savings, and other forms of wealth confiscation.

I urge you to prepare for the economic and sociopolitical fallout while you still can. Expect bigger government, less freedom, shrinking prosperity… and possibly worse.

It’s probably not going to happen tomorrow. But we know where this trend is headed.

It’s possible that one day soon, Americans will wake up to a new reality. Once the petrodollar kicks the bucket and the dollar loses its status as the world’s premier reserve currency, you will have few, if any, options.

The sad truth is, most people have no idea how bad things could get, let alone how to prepare…

Yet there are straightforward steps you can start taking today to protect your savings and yourself from the financial and sociopolitical effects of the collapse of the petrodollar.

We recently released a special Guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse. Click here to download the PDF now.

Biggest Short Squeeze In 11 Months Sends S&P 500 Surging Above 2,600

Equity investors, corporate boards, and momo machines are panic-buying stocks this morning, sending the S&P 500 above 2600 for the first time ever... as the yield curve crashes to decade flats...

VIX down, Stocks Up...

 

While USDJPY momo is helping, stocks are quite decoupled...

 

And so are bonds...

 

But it"s all about the squeeze... the biggest short squeeze since December...

Despite Massive Liquidity Injection, Chinese Stocks, Commodities Head For Worst Week Of Year

The PBOC stepped up cash injections this week, suggesting authorities are trying to shore up financial markets as a selloff in bonds spreads to equities... but it is not working!

As Bloomberg reports, the central bank has already added a net 510 billion yuan ($77 billion) via open-market operations into the financial system this week, matching the third biggest weekly injection this year.

But, it is not enough...

While bonds did stabilize - managing to avoid closing beyind the crucial 4.00% level...

Stocks did not...

As they head of the worst week in 7 months...

And commodities are getting clobbered...

“The increase in cash additions will help soothe market sentiment,” said Qin Han, chief fixed-income analyst at Guotai Junan Securities Co. “But the decline will not be reversed, as the market’s biggest concern is not tight liquidity but tougher financial regulation.”

Death Of The Salesmen - Mifid II Strikes Again

Now they tell us…

The imminent prospect – January 2018 - of Mifid II, with the unbundling of research costs, was bad enough in terms of complexity and lower profitability for both the buy and sell sides...never mind disastrous for the analysts who are likely lose their jobs. Now the regulatory powers that be in London are ensuring that collective hatred of them is about to reach a new all-time high. The definition of “research” is to be expanded from the tsunami of analyst reports to the even bigger tsunami of email and Bloomberg messages swapped between sellside salesmen and sales traders and buyside portfolio managers and dealers. According to the FT.

The UK financial watchdog has alarmed some City brokers by saying new rules on payment for investment research could extend to wider sales and trading roles. From January - under European legislation known as Mifid II - asset managers will have to pay financial institutions directly for research instead of combining the cost with trading commissions. To date, the debate has focused on price negotiations for research between banks and asset managers, with the former offering packages that include written reports and direct access to analysts. But some brokers have been caught off guard after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said that content produced by sales traders who take orders on trades and typically advise clients by highlighting trends and “market colour” — would also count as research.

 

“Whilst this is logically consistent with everything the FCA has said on (research) unbundling, it will still come as a bombshell,” said Richard Balarkas, director of Quendon Consulting and former chief executive of Instinet, an agency broker.

 

“Most firms will have hoped to sidestep the question of how to charge for all those client-facing employees whose role is neither research nor pure trading.”

With most firms acknowledging that they are less than fully prepared for Mifid II, it’s likely that the FCA’s latest “gem” has led to a widespread muttering of expletives in scores of offices, including in “execution only” firms who thought they had no explicit research relationship with their clients. However, presumably wise to regulatory incompetence, some firms had already assumed the widest possible assumption of “research”, where the key term is “substantive”. The FT continues.

An FCA official told an industry conference this month that if a sales trader provided an idea with “substantive” analysis or insight, that would need to be paid for by an asset manager to avoid being classed as an inducement, according to multiple sources who attended the event.

 

“Research departments give a structured output that you can price, but this will be extremely hard to monitor and police,” said the chief executive of one City broking house, who did not wish to be named.

 

The rules could make it more difficult for a broker to interact with an institution with which it traded but had no research deal, he added. Nevertheless, some larger banks and brokers said they had already interpreted the rules in this way and were taking precautions to ensure staff would not breach them. One said that in drawing up Mifid II agreements with asset managers, it was pricing “research and sales” as a combined package.

Some firms are pursuing an alternative solution…if saying something “substantive” is going to attract more regulatory scrutiny, don’t say anything “substantive”. What this means the FT doesn’t explain. Our suspicion is that saying nothing substantive means not giving a recommendation in terms of Buy, Sell or Hold. Having said that there is a hundred ways of getting across your view on a security without specifically characterising it in terms of a recommendation. However, the FCA is already trying to head this off.

By contrast, another bulge bracket bank said that it was reviewing its sales communication policies and had given training to traders to ensure they would not write or say anything that could be deemed “substantive”. Neil Robson, a regulatory law partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman in London, said the FCA had likely spoken out as a warning to any investment banks who planned to blanket label certain content as “non-substantive” or “not research material’ — where it might not always be the case.

 

“Simply because it’s coming out of the front office doesn’t mean it’s immediately out of scope,” he said. “Asset managers will have to look at everything in context, on a case-by-case basis, to determine if something is research covered by Mifid II rules or not.”

If the Mifid ii implementation has led to the “discovery” that formal research has, in many cases, little or no value, it’s amusing to speculate on the likely value of much of the gossip, hunches and “guestimates” peddled by salesmen and sales traders when they (frequently) diverge from marketing their firms published research. The FT speculates in catastrophic terms that it could signal the beginning of the end for salesmen and their service.

Others have raised concerns about what the changes might mean for the future of sales traders, whose numbers have already fallen with the move towards automated trading. “It makes the job of the salesman ever more redundant because he’s not allowed to have a view on anything,” said a senior executive at a London stockbroker.

 

Mr Balarkas said: “Brokers will either have to cease supplying some services, or price them on a discrete basis — or ensure that the service has little or no value, which rather defeats the point of supplying it.”

Bullion Banks Once Again Target Gold"s 200-Day Moving Average

Bullion Banks Once Again Target Gold"s 200-Day Moving Average

Written by Craig Hemke, Sprott Money News 

 

 

In the hope of inspiring Comex speculator liquidation, The Banks are once again targeting gold"s 200-day moving average.

 

Twice previously this year, The Banks have managed to maneuver the gold price down and through the 200-day moving average. On these prior occasions, the speculator selling that followed allowed The Banks to buy back and cover large amounts of their perennial short contracts.

 

On Friday, April 28 of this year, total Comex gold open interest was at 470,787 contracts and price was clinging to support at the 200-day. The next market day of Monday, May 1 saw Comex gold smashed for $15. By the time the selling subsided on Tuesday, May 9, price had fallen nearly $60 and total Comex gold open interest had contracted by over 37,000 contracts.

 

What had occurred? When price fell and closed below the 200-day on May 1, tremendous amounts of speculator long liquidation ensued. It was this selling that drove price down. Taking the other side of these trades were The Banks, which used the Spec selling to buy back and cover existing short positions.

 

Evidence of this is seen in the Commitment of Traders report from the survey week that ended on Tuesday, May 9. That report saw the Large Specs in gold decrease their NET long position by 40,200 contracts while the Commercials (Banks) decreased their NET short position by 39,500 contracts.

 

Price then rallied from $1225 on May 9 to $1305 on June 6 before beginning another pullback.

 

On Friday, June 23, total Comex gold open interest was at 449,164 contracts and price was once again clinging to support at the 200-day. The next market day of June 26 saw another one of those infamous "flash crashes" that led to a temporary breach of the 200-day but this line wasn"t completely breached on a closing basis until Friday, June 30. Price then fell nearly $40 in five days before bottoming at $1215 on Monday, July 10.

 

From June 23 through July 10, price fell over $50 and the 200-day moving average yet, this time, total interest actually rose by over 30,000 contracts. Again, what had occurred?

 

This selloff not only saw Spec long liquidation, it also saw a significant amount of new Spec shorting! Evidence of this is again found in the CoT reports of the combined two weeks of June 28 through July 11. Those reports showed the Large Specs in gold decrease their NET long position by 71,000 contracts while the Commercials decreased their NET short position by 76,000 contracts.

 

All of this is summarized on the chart below:

 

 

So now here we are again. Just as in April and June, price has fallen back and is finding support above the 200-day. Also just as in April and June, the Large Speculators have thus far remained steadfast with their NET position mostly unchanged over the last four CoT reports. With history as your guide, what level do you think The Banks will target next?

 

Of course it"s the 200-day moving average, currently found near $1266! There can be little doubt that The Banks hope to soon break this level again. In doing so, they hope to inspire enough Spec liquidation that open interest will fall back under 500,000 contracts from the current 529,000. This 30,000+ long contract liquidation by The Specs would allow The Banks to cover 30,000+ shorts...all of this before the next rally sets in.

 

And how far might price fall if The Banks can pull this off? Well, just as in May and July, not too far really. Note that those two prior riggings only moved price about $35-$45 below the 200-day before it turned and rallied. A similar drop now would target the $1230 area but I don"t think it would make it quite that far. The chart below shows considerable, long-term support in the area near $1240, instead.

 

 

None of this changes, of course, our 2017 forecast made back in January. Back then, we speculated that price would advance through 2017 in a three-steps-forward, two-steps-back sort of pattern with the year"s highest prices coming in the fourth quarter. Let"s just wait now to see if The Banks are able to cover more of their short position before this final leg of the 2017 rally begins.

 

 

Questions or comments about this article? Leave your thoughts HERE.

 

 

 

 

 

Bullion Banks Once Again Target Gold"s 200-Day Moving Average

Written by Craig Hemke, Sprott Money News 

 

Odey Sees "Terrifying" Outcome Between Arrival Of MiFID, End Of QE

There is a dark cloud of tangible desperation over Crispin Odey"s recent monthly letters, and not only because he went "all in" on central bank failure exactly one year ago... and failed. With his fund down 10.6% YTD, and down 31% LTM, he knows he may have 1 Hail Mary left, two tops.  Which explains why as of August 31, the Odey Asset Management founder - who back in May asked rhetorically "why do i remain stubbornly bearish" - has bet it all on red, or inflation, and as his Top 10 position breakdown shows, he had a net 135% short in gilts and JGBs. As for the rest of his book, with just 25% of his top 10 position net long (ex gold), Odey"s view on risk assets remains the same: a crash is coming, the only question is when.

It is here that things get more interesting, because while traditionally Odey has bashed central banks for perverting and manipulating asset prices, this time he appears to have found another variable to help him goalseek his cataclysmic conclusion that it is all about to crash, and in his latest letter, Odey now says Europe"s upcoming research rule overhaul will result in less trading, less price discovery and less efficient markets.

He is referring, of course, to MiFID II, which Odey writes in his latest letter, will cause the cost of capital to rise "as information is going to become harder to come by" leading to investors with different levels of information and resulting in those with less access to analysis trading less. As previously discussed, the revised "Markets in Financial Instruments Directive" starts on Jan. 3. and forces firms to separate the cost of research from trading-related expenses incurred with investment banks.

It"s not just the impact of MiFid however: just as information flow is being curbed among the sellside, the Federal Reserve will be accelerating its balance sheet shrinkage. “For asset prices, a change to QE would be far from a happy solution,” Odey wrote in the August Swan Fund letter. “What is terrifying is that MIFID II is arriving when, thanks to QE and the sight of endless cheap money, companies’ shares are at their most expensive. Hindsight is going to have a field day.”

Maybe. Or maybe in hindsight it will be Odey"s endless war with central banks that will be his undoing.  Or perhaps Odey"s luck - we use the term loosely when it comes to the (former?) billionaire - is finally changing: having posted a miserable series of monthly losses, "In August-17 the EUR class returned +1.9% against the MSCI Daily TR Net Europe (EUR) return of –0.8%."

His full letter is below:

Manager"s Report

Sidney Homer in ‘A History of Interest Rates – 2000 BC to the present’ had to deal with the period before interest rates existed. What was the natural rate of return given by nature? How many eggs from a chicken? Economists started life as alchemists. All governments dreamt of creating gold out of base metals. All kings wanted interest rates to be lower so that growth could be stronger.

Now for 10 years we have enjoyed what they could never achieve. We have enjoyed rates of interest which were below the natural rate thanks to QE. It has allowed economies to grow so that we are now at the point where that growth threatens to be met by an inelastic labour supply.

It has so far proved disappointing for productivity globally which hovers around zero percent. But that reflects that QE has not been helpful for allocating capital. Take tertiary education in the UK. Over 20 years the university student population has grown by 650%. When student fees were increased by 300% to £10,000 p.a. in 2012 the thinking was that this would turn students into consumers. That they would demand value for money and more appropriate courses. But it hasn’t. Why? Because students still see the loans as free money. They have understood QE very well. The misallocation of resources continues but now when the student finds there is no job at the end of his / her degree, the sense of injustice leads them leftwards politically.

QE is no longer the easiest option. But, for asset prices, a change to QE would be far from a happy solution. We are now approaching MIFID II’s implementation and it is apparent that the effect of pricing research is that information is going to become harder to come by. Markets work off free and abundant information and views and multiple pricing points. MIFID II looks designed to ensure that individuals trading in a market will have different levels of information and as always the one with less information will start to trade less.

Less trading, less price discovery, less efficient markets. The cost of capital should rise. What is terrifying is that MIFID II is arriving when thanks to QE and the sight of endless cheap money, companies’ shares are at their most expensive.

Hindsight is going to have a field day.

Finally, for those wondering, here is Odey"s P&L since inception.

Suddenly, "De-Dollarization" Is A Thing

Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

For what seems like decades, other countries have been tiptoeing away from their dependence on the US dollar.

China, Russia, and India have cut deals in which they agree to accept each others’ currencies for bi-lateral trade while Europe, obviously, designed the euro to be a reserve asset and international medium of exchange.

These were challenges to the dollar’s dominance, but they weren’t mortal threats.

What’s happening lately, however, is a lot more serious.

It even has an ominous-sounding name: de-dollarization. Here’s an excerpt from a much longer article by “strategic risk consultant” F. William Engdahl:

(Global Research) – China, increasingly backed by Russia—the two great Eurasian nations—are taking decisive steps to create a very viable alternative to the tyranny of the US dollar over world trade and finance. Wall Street and Washington are not amused, but they are powerless to stop it.

So long as Washington dirty tricks and Wall Street machinations were able to create a crisis such as they did in the Eurozone in 2010 through Greece, world trading surplus countries like China, Japan and then Russia, had no practical alternative but to buy more US Government debt—Treasury securities—with the bulk of their surplus trade dollars. Washington and Wall Street could print endless volumes of dollars backed by nothing more valuable than F-16s and Abrams tanks. China, Russia and other dollar bond holders in truth financed the US wars that were aimed at them, by buying US debt. Then they had few viable alternative options.

Viable Alternative Emerges

Now, ironically, two of the foreign economies that allowed the dollar an artificial life extension beyond 1989—Russia and China—are carefully unveiling that most feared alternative, a viable, gold-backed international currency and potentially, several similar currencies that can displace the unjust hegemonic role of the dollar today.

For several years both the Russian Federation and the Peoples’ Republic of China have been buying huge volumes of gold, largely to add to their central bank currency reserves which otherwise are typically in dollars or euro currencies. Until recently it was not clear quite why.

For several years it’s been known in gold markets that the largest buyers of physical gold were the central banks of China and of Russia. What was not so clear was how deep a strategy they had beyond simply creating trust in the currencies amid increasing economic sanctions and bellicose words of trade war out of Washington.

Now it’s clear why.

China and Russia, joined most likely by their major trading partner countries in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), as well as by their Eurasian partner countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are about to complete the working architecture of a new monetary alternative to a dollar world.

Currently, in addition to founding members China and Russia, the SCO full members include Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and most recently India and Pakistan. This is a population of well over 3 billion people, some 42% of the entire world population, coming together in a coherent, planned, peaceful economic and political cooperation.

Gold-Backed Silk Road

It’s clear that the economic diplomacy of China, as of Russia and her Eurasian Economic Union group of countries, is very much about realization of advanced high-speed rail, ports, energy infrastructure weaving together a vast new market that, within less than a decade at present pace, will overshadow any economic potentials in the debt-bloated economically stagnant OECD countries of the EU and North America.

What until now was vitally needed, but not clear, was a strategy to get the nations of Eurasia free from the dollar and from their vulnerability to further US Treasury sanctions and financial warfare based on their dollar dependence. This is now about to happen.

At the September 5 annual BRICS Summit in Xiamen, China, Russian President Putin made a simple and very clear statement of the Russian view of the present economic world. He stated, “Russia shares the BRICS countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture, which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies. We are ready to work together with our partners to promote international financial regulation reforms and to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies.”

To my knowledge he has never been so explicit about currencies. Put this in context of the latest financial architecture unveiled by Beijing, and it becomes clear the world is about to enjoy new degrees of economic freedom.

China Yuan Oil Futures

According to a report in the Japan Nikkei Asian Review, China is about to launch a crude oil futures contract denominated in Chinese yuan that will be convertible into gold. This, when coupled with other moves over the past two years by China to become a viable alternative to London and New York to Shanghai, becomes really interesting.

China is the world’s largest importer of oil, the vast majority of it still paid in US dollars. If the new Yuan oil futures contract gains wide acceptance, it could become the most important Asia-based crude oil benchmark, given that China is the world’s biggest oil importer. That would challenge the two Wall Street-dominated oil benchmark contracts in North Sea Brent and West Texas Intermediate oil futures that until now has given Wall Street huge hidden advantages.

That would be one more huge manipulation lever eliminated by China and its oil partners, including very specially Russia. Introduction of an oil futures contract traded in Shanghai in Yuan, which recently gained membership in the select IMF SDR group of currencies, oil futures especially when convertible into gold, could change the geopolitical balance of power dramatically away from the Atlantic world to Eurasia.

In April 2016 China made a major move to become the new center for gold exchange and the world center of gold trade, physical gold. China today is the world’s largest gold producer, far ahead of fellow BRICS member South Africa, with Russia number two.

Now to add the new oil futures contract traded in China in Yuan with the gold backing will lead to a dramatic shift by key OPEC members, even in the Middle East, to prefer gold-backed Yuan for their oil over inflated US dollars that carry a geopolitical risk as Qatar experienced following the Trump visit to Riyadh some months ago. Notably, Russian state oil giant, Rosneft just announced that Chinese state oil company, CEFC China Energy Company Ltd. Just bought a 14% share of Rosneft from Qatar. It’s all beginning to fit together into a very coherent strategy.

Meanwhile, in Latin America:

(Zero Hedge) – Did the doomsday clock on the petrodollar (and implicitly US hegemony) just tick one more minute closer to midnight?

Apparently confirming what President Maduro had warned following the recent US sanctions, The Wall Street Journal reports that Venezuela has officially stopped accepting US Dollars as payment for its crude oil exports.

As we previously noted, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said last Thursday that Venezuela will be looking to “free” itself from the U.S. dollar next week. According to Reuters, "Venezuela is going to implement a new system of international payments and will create a basket of currencies to free us from the dollar,” Maduro said in a multi-hour address to a new legislative “superbody.” He reportedly did not provide details of this new proposal.

Maduro hinted further that the South American country would look to using the yuan instead, among other currencies.

“If they pursue us with the dollar, we’ll use the Russian ruble, the yuan, yen, the Indian rupee, the euro,” Maduro also said.

The state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, known as PdVSA, has told its private joint venture partners to open accounts in euros and to convert existing cash holdings into Europe’s main currency, said one project partner.

This first step towards one or more gold-backed Eurasian currencies certainly looks like a viable and — for a lot of big players out there — welcome addition to the global money stock.

Venezuela, meanwhile illustrates the growing perception of US weakness. It used to be that a small country refusing to take dollars could expect regime change in short order. Now, maybe not so much.

Combine the above with the emergence of bitcoin and its kin as the preferred monetary asset of techies and libertarians, and the monetary world suddenly looks downright multi-polar.