The "Chicago Boyz"...............from Rico

Some of my favorite gangsta's are the Chicago Boyz, a.k.a. the CME Group (Comex).
- Al Capone must be weeping bitter tears to see them accomplish so much criminal activity without even one Tommy gun!

Look at the Precious Metals (PM's) price divergence between physical (coins/ETF's) and paper contracts (COMEX) in the first graph.
- You can easily 'see' last Fall's orchestrated 'failure' of Corzine's MF Global and what effect that had upon the COMEX (lovingly called the CRIMEX by those who understand what's going on; try telling anyone with a straight face that the money you held in trust for them "vaporized" and you don't know where to).

This may also partly explain the second graph, PM's performance vs. the S&P 500. Paper isn't doing very well here, either. Despite equities markets being on financial life-support provided by our favorite Central Bank which is keeping a 'floor' under their mark-to-fantasy values, they haven't really 'gone' anywhere for 12 years.

But back to the CME.
- CME has just quietly withdrawn from any European Derivatives responsibilities. CME Clearing Europe Ltd (CMECEL) and has run with alacrity away from the $50,000,000,000,000 Credit Default Swap (CDS)* market that appears to be imploding behind the scenes due to the Greek default. They have vacated their registration effective 3/13 as a derivatives clearing organization.
- These guys are crooked, but they are NOT stupid. Something lies ahead, and it's NOT good.

The 3/19 ISDA 'auction' should be interesting.
- But no worries mate! Benny of the Fed has just assured us that "it's all good."

[For Democrats (C) and any OWS in a wifi hotspot: A CDS is an insurance policy against bond default issued by unregulated Banks, who also are the members of the ISDA, and thus regulate themselves. In short, heads they win, tails you (retail bond investor) lose. Read: haircut.]



H/T Robopuck