#Swiss financial media reports Weber & Rohner, @UBS & @CreditSuisse board presidents, sounding out possible merger $UBS $CS #MergerMonday

Sounds like bad news for Switzerland's banking sector to have such a high concentration of power in one institution... 

Weber und Rohner prüfen angeblich UBS-CS-Fusion

According to a media report, the board presidents of the two big banks are sounding out a possible merger.

(AWP) The two major Swiss banks UBS ( UBSG 11.3 1.3% ) and Credit Suisse ( CSGN 10.02 1.89% ) want to merge according to a media report. UBS Board of Directors President Axel Weber is planning a merger with CS President Urs Rohner, writes the finance portal "Inside Paradeplatz" on Monday.

The project is called Signal, according to the report from inside the two big banks. Weber was the driving force behind it and spoke to Finance Minister Ueli Maurer about it, said an informant according to the portal. The financial market regulator Finma is also in the picture about Weber's plans. The merger should be agreed in early 2021, and at the end of 2021 Switzerland would have a new financial giant.

#COMEX’s #Gold & #Silver Trade Data Doesn’t Add Up!

"How did you go bankrupt?"

Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.

     Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises 

Is COMEX Data Rigged?

— We all know the answer to that...

It now seems the mother of all short squeezes may finally be near, as more and more investors take Physical Delivery of Gold, rather than roll over their Futures Contracts... 

"Just like a fear of cash shortages would cause a run on the banking system, fears of physical precious metals shortages could cause a run on whatever is left in the COMEX warehouses."

"While the COMEX claims there is enough gold in registered to satisfy current deliveries, we have started to see some anomalies in the data which potentially paint a different picture."

Interesting piece on how the fudging of the numbers on the COMEX is going to come around and bite them in the …, sooner rather than later, as more and more people are taking delivery of physical metal vs. rolling over their paper contracts...  this has been going on for years, but the potential short squeeze is becoming more glaring as the pumping of liquidity, without any real backing, goes into overdrive. 

"while the COMEX allows as many paper derivative contracts to be placed as bets on the market price, we only have a finite amount of the real metals available on the market at any given time. Those cannot be printed up at the push of a button on a computer like the paper contracts can be. This has two effects on the market.

"First, when the physical deliveries are miscounted, the paper contract derivative trades overstate short term speculative interest in the metals versus those willing to take ownership. Secondly, and probably more importantly, it overstates the amount of physical metals available for delivery on the futures market for those that want to take delivery. It basically amounts to fraud, much as if your bank claimed to have enough cash for your deposit, and then notified you when you showed up to the bank that you would have to wait 2-3 months to get your cash."!!! 

#Gold Needs to "Glow Up" says @Sprott

Clear Outperformance of #Gold since 2000 vs. $SPX, Bonds & $USD

Gold Needs to "Glow Up"

As of August 24, gold bullion¹ has gained 27.13% YTD and 39.74% YOY. Gold mining equities (SGDM)² are up 38.85% YTD and 61.54% YOY. This compares to 7.55% YTD and 11.96% YOY returns for the S&P 500 TR Index.³  Silver has posted outsized gains, climbing 49.03% YTD and 50.00% YOY.

Gold is a Mandatory Portfolio Asset

Now that gold has powered over $2,000, it's an excellent time to take stock of what has been accomplished by the monetary metal and what may lie next. As for my Gen-Z "Glow Up" reference (and more below), conversations with my 16-year-old daughter are a constant reminder that I, too, like the gold market, need some updating and modernization.   

Most importantly, in our view, it has been established as a baseline that a diversified asset portfolio must include an allocation to gold. We believe this statement is justified by the fact that gold is now the only monetary asset that is priced by a liquid-free market and not directly correlated and partially controlled by central bank (i.e., government) policies and market interventions.

Without once again judging the merits of the exceptional monetary debauchery and fiscal stimuli of 2020, and regardless of an investor's views on credit and equity market valuations or prospects for inflation, there is no other liquid asset which accomplishes what gold does in the way of portfolio insurance and purchasing power protection.

#Palantir CEO Makes Some Excellent Points on #SiliconValley in letter to investors

"Software projects with our nation's defense and intelligence agencies, whose missions are to keep us safe, have become controversial, while companies built on advertising dollars are commonplace. For many consumer internet companies, our thoughts and inclinations, behaviors and browsing habits, are the product for sale. The slogans and marketing of many of the Valley's largest technology firms attempt to obscure this simple fact."

The full letter is below:

Palantir CEO rips Silicon Valley in letter to investors

#Wirecard, With McKinsey’s help, hatched plan to buy @DeutscheBank in bid coverup its #Fraud

With McKinsey's help, Wirecard hatched a plan to acquire Deutsche Bank, offering the German FinTech the prospect of a miraculous exit from the massive fraud it had been perpetrating. 

By blending Wirecard's business into Deutsche's vast balance sheet, it hoped it could be possible to "somehow hide the missing cash and explain it away later in post-merger impairment charges."

There was one catch. To even start preparing such a deal in earnest, the company needed to get a clean bill of health from KPMG, which was conducting a special audit of Wirecard's books. 

The approval from KPMG never came.

Six months later the curtain fell on Wirecard. On June 25, the group collapsed into insolvency after it was exposed as one of Germany's biggest postwar accounting frauds. Prosecutors in Munich suspect that €3.2bn in debt raised since 2015 has been "lost". Around €1bn was handed out in unsecured loans to opaque business partners in Asia.

Wirecard: the frantic final months of a fraudulent operation

Executives at the German payments group hatched a plan to buy Deutsche Bank while desperately trying to cover their tracks

Read the article on the FT here: 

https://www.ft.com/content/6a660a5f-4e8c-41d5-b129-ad5bf9782256