Credit deflation and the reflation cycle to come (part 3)

[Sugarlips]

1 hour ago, sancho panza said:

Wicao @Sugarlips posted an excellent chart the otehr day of IR rises on mortgage fixes.

to either of you

Are you starting to see an uptick in savings rates down there? are aussies starting to notice the rate rises?has the mood music changed yet or are msot people still to catch on?

 

I do wonder about that takeover of kensington(dog poo sandwich of a mortgage book) getting taken over by Barclays.Made no sense.

Cheers, we are currently living in Watford so cant provide much news except we caught up with friends from Perth this week who have outgrown their current home, they were actively looking last year but unprompted they said they have binned the idea in the hope others are going to catch a cold and need to offload a family home cheaply in due course..I think the worm has turned.

 

Edit to add I did not expect to see the US 10Year yield move so far so fast (3.6 to 2.8 in little more than 2 weeks), pivot incoming..?

[geordie_lurch]

Sri Lanka's death spiral seems to be accelerating

 

[Sidd]

Has anyone sold gold to Hatton Garden Metals in London or equivalent? I have a big bar about (116grams) i might want to sell at some point however, i dont have any certificate of purchase as it was a gift from family to my son some years back. Do they require proof of purchase etc and how do they verify the carats etc?

 

Also any risk they confiscate the gold for money laundering or anything, or is the amount too small for such a thing? Never sold so much gold before, so wondering how this works?

[Joncrete Cungle]

21 minutes ago, jamanda said:

If you really think about it, how many people do you know who have simple basic common sense?

We have 3 normal winters worth of firewood ready to burn, or two bad winters worth. Will add another ton to the pile this month.

[Joncrete Cungle]

1 minute ago, Sidd said:

Has anyone sold gold to Hatton Garden Metals in London or equivalent? I have a big bar about (116grams) i might want to sell at some point however i dont have any certificate of purchase as it was a gift from family to my son some years back. Do they require proof of purchase etc and how do they verify the carats etc?

 

Also any risk they confiscate the gold for money laundering or anything or is the amount to small for such a thing? Never sold so much gold before so wondering how this works?

I sold some gold and silver to them to buy our house. At the time they didn't ask for any receipt / proof of purchase etc. I imagine they test everything they received and pay accordingly.

[Axeman123]

32 minutes ago, feed said:

Hands up anyone that wants to run this shitshow.  
Starting from here.  

I would need dictatorial powers and carte Blanche to throw a few thousand people out of helicopters etc to even consider it. This country could be turned around, but you would need to re-enact Tianemen square such would be the protests.

Where is a leader like Pinochet going to come from, in Westminster?

[TNS]

9 minutes ago, Sidd said:

Has anyone sold gold to Hatton Garden Metals in London or equivalent? I have a big bar about (116grams) i might want to sell at some point however, i dont have any certificate of purchase as it was a gift from family to my son some years back. Do they require proof of purchase etc and how do they verify the carats etc?

 

Also any risk they confiscate the gold for money laundering or anything, or is the amount too small for such a thing? Never sold so much gold before, so wondering how this works?

Sold a couple of gold chains a few years back, no info needed and cash was deposited quickly!

[Axeman123]

10 minutes ago, Sidd said:

Has anyone sold gold to Hatton Garden Metals in London or equivalent? I have a big bar about (116grams) i might want to sell at some point however i dont have any certificate of purchase as it was a gift from family to my son some years back. Do they require proof of purchase etc and how do they verify the carats etc?

 

Also any risk they confiscate the gold for money laundering or anything or is the amount to small for such a thing? Never sold so much gold before so wondering how this works?

Only time I did it I produced grant of probate, as I was acting as an executor.

It seemed like they just wanted a reason for the book.

[Lightly Toasted]

1 hour ago, Cattle Prod said:

Was it three years ago we kicked off our wood stove and firewood discussions here? Seriously, if a group of random ordinary people can see what's coming, how stupid are our policymakers (and the people who elect them) What is wrong with people? I genuinely can't figure it out, we're not 'stable geniuses' or anything special really. Apart from DBs roadmap that is, that is something that most people have no clue about in fairness as he says himself.

I bet the average IQ on DOSBODS is higher than the average IQ across the House of Commons, on a typical Select Committee & quite possibly the Cabinet too.

Also there's an unusually large number of contrarians here, which means we're more likely to disagree with the majority position ("Britain is rich," "Deficits are no problem", "We must/are able to do something about a climate emergency").

The last one shows that (by and large) we're not specifically apocalyptic, just not automatically accepting of mainstream views.

[Democorruptcy]

4 hours ago, DurhamBorn said:

I think the key to them is the India stake and how much they get for it.They will use it for share buybacks i expect.I think they over paid for II,but i can understand their logic.Platforms like them are only really them and HL.AJ Bell a distant third.The key to the sector are mergers.HL need more wealth managing/advice,Abrdn have both now.M+G or Legal and General might also decide to go for them.Lots of value in the sector IMO,but when it turns is hard to judge and why i simply use ladders to buy,remove the emotion and sit and wait for however long it takes.

Take the Local Government Pension scheme.That alone will see big increases in amounts going in just through wages increasing.Reflection point will be when that gets bigger than falls in AUM.

The sector is hated right now thats for sure.

Re the pension schemes there's a piece in the FT today suggesting liquidity strains and forced selling of assets, yes rates up, which should be good but it also means bond prices down.
 

Quote

 

Soaring inflation and rising interest rates are placing unprecedented liquidity strains on some of the UK biggest pension schemes, according to industry experts.

A growing number of schemes have found themselves forced to sell liquid assets, such as equities and investment grade corporate bonds, to raise cash to replenish collateral — money offered as security — needed to ensure their long-term plans remain on track.

Final salary pension schemes over the past 20 years have increasingly turned to leveraged gilt investments and derivatives contracts linked to long-term interest rates and inflation to reduce the risk they might be unable to pay the retirement incomes promised to members.

This approach, known as liability driven investment (LDI), has become a core investment strategy for many final salary or defined benefit (DB) pension schemes.

Liabilities held by DB schemes — the estimated value of future retirement benefit promises — stood at just under £1.7tn at the end of March 2021, according to the Pension Protection Fund.

Between £1tn and £1.5tn of the liabilities held by DB pension funds are covered by LDI strategies. These now face their biggest test since the market was created in 2001 in a deal between Boots, the high street chemist, and Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM).

Akin to remortgaging a house to buy a second property, many pension schemes enter repurchase agreements on their existing gilt holdings in exchange for cash to buy more gilts to cover future liabilities.

But sharp declines this year in bond prices have resulted in more schemes being pushed into selling liquid growth assets to satisfy demands for additional cash as collateral for LDI strategies, which are run by third party managers. These growth assets, such as equities and credit, have themselves also fallen in value, exacerbating the problem.

The three largest players in the LDI market — BlackRock, LGIM and Insight Investment — have all issued collateral calls to UK pension clients so far this year.

Mercer, an investment consultant, has sent out a “call to action” to its UK pension scheme clients, urging them to prepare for additional collateral calls to safeguard their LDI strategies.

More...

 

 

 

[M S E Refugee]

1 hour ago, Sidd said:

Has anyone sold gold to Hatton Garden Metals in London or equivalent? I have a big bar about (116grams) i might want to sell at some point however, i dont have any certificate of purchase as it was a gift from family to my son some years back. Do they require proof of purchase etc and how do they verify the carats etc?

 

Also any risk they confiscate the gold for money laundering or anything, or is the amount too small for such a thing? Never sold so much gold before, so wondering how this works?

I have just sold some Gold coins to Atkinson's, they were paying more than HGM.

Gerrards in Hatton Garden usually pay more than HGM.

[feed]

1 hour ago, Axeman123 said:

Where is a leader like Pinochet going to come from, in Westminster?

indeed, anyone smart enough to do the job, is smart enough not to take the job. So we get the likes of Boris, intellectually lazy populists, with delusions of grandeur and a Churchill complex.   

What's that about populations getting the leader they deserve.

[Axeman123]

[feed]

This from Alf as well.

 

[GoneDark]

2 hours ago, Sidd said:

Has anyone sold gold to Hatton Garden Metals in London or equivalent? I have a big bar about (116grams) i might want to sell at some point however, i dont have any certificate of purchase as it was a gift from family to my son some years back. Do they require proof of purchase etc and how do they verify the carats etc?

 

Also any risk they confiscate the gold for money laundering or anything, or is the amount too small for such a thing? Never sold so much gold before, so wondering how this works?

I have sold in person in their Covent garden branch. They have a main counter and a private counter for larger stuff. Think I sold about £4-5ks worth of Emirates gold as i wanted to hold less and didn't want to be exposed to CGT if gold ever mooned. Mine was still in its packets, I think I brought the receipts but didn't show them.

The guy told me how much they'd give me, I agreed, then he opened the packets and weighed the bars. Got my bank details and said that the money would be there in a few hours, gave me a receipt and I was off on my way. Very professional in all. I asked was there a limit on what I could sell and was told, no limit.

Felt a bit of a baller as there was old fella in there at the main counter with a mangled bunch of chains asking how much he'd get, I think £30 was the answer.. that was prior to me going into the private booth.

I'd use them again, they know what they're doing. 

[Bobthebuilder]

23 minutes ago, GoneDark said:

I have sold in person in their Covent garden branch. They have a main counter and a private counter for larger stuff. Think I sold about £4-5ks worth of Emirates gold as i wanted to hold less and didn't want to be exposed to CGT if gold ever mooned. Mine was still in its packets, I think I brought the receipts but didn't show them.

The guy told me how much they'd give me, I agreed, then he opened the packets and weighed the bars. Got my bank details and said that the money would be there in a few hours, gave me a receipt and I was off on my way. Very professional in all. I asked was there a limit on what I could sell and was told, no limit.

Felt a bit of a baller as there was old fella in there at the main counter with a mangled bunch of chains asking how much he'd get, I think £30 was the answer.. that was prior to me going into the private booth.

I'd use them again, they know what they're doing. 

I used to know an old Jewish fella in London, he was an antiques dealer type, he told me in the old days he would take gold jewelry to Hatton Garden. This was decades back, he said they would cut the gold to see if it was solid, but the cutters were designed so a very small amount would drop on to the carpet. I don't think it was the cleaner who hoovered the room everyday.

[Chewing Grass]

5 minutes ago, Bobthebuilder said:

I used to know an old Jewish fella in London, he was an antiques dealer type, he told me in the old days he would take gold jewelry to Hatton Garden. This was decades back, he said they would cut the gold to see if it was solid, but the cutters were designed so a very small amount would drop on to the carpet. I don't think it was the cleaner who hoovered the room everyday.

You've obviously not seen that video of the guy who hoovers the cracks in the pavement in the New York jewellery quarter.

[Pip321]

Interesting dynamic to the Abdn and HL discussion. Reading today in the FT site that the Lloyds restructure is looking to move them away from mortgages reliant on interest rates and more towards areas such as wealth management and insurance.

This isn’t a Lloyds recommendation (bring a landlord muddies the waters, it’s a big business and some poor PR for Halifax today re wokey genders on name badges🤦🏻‍♂️)….but rather just wanted to highlight an interesting shift that perhaps reiterates the benefits of being in ‘asset management’ in the future.

[Errol]

Dollar trade won't return.

 

[sancho panza]

9 hours ago, Cattle Prod said:

Was it three years ago we kicked off our wood stove and firewood discussions here? Seriously, if a group of random ordinary people can see what's coming, how stupid are our policymakers (and the people who elect them) What is wrong with people? I genuinely can't figure it out, we're not 'stable geniuses' or anything special really. Apart from DBs roadmap that is, that is something that most people have no clue about in fairness as he says himself.

I bought our wood stove recently.New rental has n inset,but I want a good one for down the line.

FIrm selling the stoves seemed a bit taken aback that someone who rented wanted a stove.Had one installer stop returning my calls when he found out we rented.

FInally took delivery after some delays and I took my old 11 plate Saab to pick it up.You could see the fella loading it was thinking the stove was worth more than my car.

It's sat in the garage along with a stack of wood.

It really beggar belief that a lot of this was much more predictable than our politcal class would have you believe.

I think they're very much in their 'let them eat cake' phase .I think when the electoral shock gets delivered in the mid 20's it will hit them out of the blue.

4 hours ago, Errol said:

Dollar trade won't return.

 

This covid/Ukraine situation has worked out well for China/Russia/India,liberated from the dollar hegemony.Goona be fun for the US shifting those overpriced UST's to their pensioners in the next five years.

Shame for the US that at the moment they needed their greatest leader they got their msot inept.He's stumbled straight into the traps they've set him..

 

[tank]

 

19 hours ago, Lightly Toasted said:

Given any significant welfare reform, why shouldn't they? Working mothers have to spend their time at some work site or other, what's the difference? The poster's idea was be to decouple the societal cost of being on benefits, from the individual reward of having a life of leisure.

A bigger flaw IMO is that it doesn't (as it stands) do anything about in-work benefits.

And of course the whole idea was tongue in cheek and from > 10 years ago. The welfare system is even more bloated now -- if you're going to enrage everyone by taking away their lives-of-leisure, might as well do it through properly thought-out, root-and-branch reform.

Well, his tounge in cheek plan fails the first hurdle because stereotypical Shaz is not classified as 'unemployed'. She'll be 'working' 16 hours a week and being topped up to the tune of £25K a year if she can get her kids down with ADHD or whatever.

In work benefits and housing benefit make up most of the adult welfare bill, not the dole, so any significant reform would need address this area first. It would hit landlords and the rentier service sector very hard, so it would never happen. 

The dole itself is a pretty meagre existence where you get constantly hassled by the Job Centre. I wouldn't class £75 a week as a 'life of leisure' but others may disagree. 😀😀

[Pip321]

2 hours ago, tank said:

 

Well, his tounge in cheek plan fails the first hurdle because stereotypical Shaz is not classified as 'unemployed'. She'll be 'working' 16 hours a week and being topped up to the tune of £25K a year if she can get her kids down with ADHD or whatever.

In work benefits and housing benefit make up most of the adult welfare bill, not the dole, so any significant reform would need address this area first. It would hit landlords and the rentier service sector very hard, so it would never happen. 

The dole itself is a pretty meagre existence where you get constantly hassled by the Job Centre. I wouldn't class £75 a week as a 'life of leisure' but others may disagree. 😀😀

Technically the state pension is by far and away the biggest element of the welfare bill making up almost half (42%) of the welfare bill. Incapacity and disability 16%. 

Your point is correct though….unemployment benefit is 1% whereas ‘family benefits, income support and tax credits’ are 18% and housing benefit a whopping 10%. 

For completeness the remaining 13% is personal social services and other benefits. 

Anyone under 50 expecting a nice state pension in retirement better not be holding their breath, which is really unfair if you are a young contributing worker. 😞

[ThoughtCriminal]

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1543123451530977280?t=Hk5YvIvNXUkD7WwxBouxGQ&s=19

 

Saudis joining BRICS?

 

If Putin pulls this off then it really is game over for the West. The domino effect with smaller countries joining is coming.

[Pip321]

2 minutes ago, ThoughtCriminal said:

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1543123451530977280?t=Hk5YvIvNXUkD7WwxBouxGQ&s=19

 

Saudis joining BRICS?

 

If Putin pulls this off then it really is game over for the West. The domino effect with smaller countries joining is coming.

Agree…..but with a slightly different take (possibly)

I just wonder if this isn’t game over as such…but part of the game. Ie rather the West (well the US) knew they were already ‘defeated’ and without Ukraine/Sanctions etc creating a world divide then the US and the dollar was only a decade away from ending.

So with a proper split the US can control the new West, get lots of back handers for ‘the chosen few’ from weapons and repatriation of production west. So whilst poorer than they were….they are richer than they would have been if the status quo would have been left as is for another decade or so.

And ‘we’ will welcome the change, the inflation, the new manual jobs due to anti east sentiment fed to us. A no politician gets hung from a lamppost…

[M S E Refugee]

7 minutes ago, ThoughtCriminal said:

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1543123451530977280?t=Hk5YvIvNXUkD7WwxBouxGQ&s=19

 

Saudis joining BRICS?

 

If Putin pulls this off then it really is game over for the West. The domino effect with smaller countries joining is coming.

It's like the Kids in the playground realise that the School bully isn't as tough as they thought so everybody becomes emboldened and starts having a pop at him.