Alert, Euro On Verge of Real Crisis

By: Christopher_Laird

Something big is up, and it’s possible the Euro is going into a real crisis within two months…Is this the next big market surprise ala Lehman? Not exactly like Lehman, but of the scale of that crisis that shook the entire world and almost caused worldwide bank shutdowns in Fall 2008? I am beginning to think so, and have been discussing this looming new worry for subscribers, IE we are right at the cusp of something big for the Euro and the European Union, not only financially but very much so politically. Imagine what a real Euro crisis would do to – everything!

Alert that Euro on verge of real crisis

We are so concerned by recent developments with Greece as a canary in the coal mine for the Euro that we just issued an alert to subscribers that we foresee a big blow up for the Euro in about roughly one month’s time. That is USD bullish and gold bullish, and bearish for about everything else out there. And this has many other implications for US Treasury bonds, the China Yuan revaluation issue and many others. This Euro situation is a huge potential bombshell, possibly outgunning all previous huge crises we faced over the last 2.5 years. That’s right, the Euro situation can outgun all the worst financial chaos we have seen so far, and lead to massive currency instability worldwide. This is a big deal if it happens as we foresee.

If you noticed in the last week or so of trading days, the USD and gold often went up together. Gold and the USD are fundamentally inverse, the USD pricing most commodities, even gold if you will – especially gold. That particular gold / USD inverse is tied to the fact that the USD is still the world’s paper reserve currency still and is not losing that status yet – and gold is the world’s precious metal reserve currency.

When the USD and gold rise together, trouble is near

Now, when both rise together, you can be assured that flight to safety and liquidity/cash is in effect…

The biggest reason for the USD rising at this time is flight to safety due to concerns about the Euro. And money coming out of emerging markets that are peaked out and falling. The Euro makes up over half of the US Dollar index currency basket. So, when the Euro has trouble, the USD is the biggest beneficiary along with gold.

‘This Ain’t happening.’

It became clear last week that the EU bailout with the IMF for Greece was basically hot air. Greek bond spreads rose last week to their highest level versus Germany last week; the bond markets saying the proposed Greek bailout deal was just smoke and mirrors. Since this Greece story has been out for months, it became clear that all the Club med states and the so called PIIGS (I don’t like that term but everyone is using it to refer to those states, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) are even larger versions of the looming Greek tragedy, with even larger debt problems. And their time is running out this year too.

Must have $20 billion within two months

Why is Greece causing such a stir, its economy is small compared to say Spain, who is next in line in this crisis…? Because Greece has to refinance about $50 billion worth of bonds over the next number of months, a big $20 billion chunk due to roll over in two months. Greece is now at the door of insolvency.

The fact that the EU cannot come to terms with a relatively small bailout of $50 billion for Greece shows the internal dissention in the EU over the bailouts of the Club Med guys (PIIGS), with Germany finding it politically impossible to sign a deal. Greece is being left to its own devices. That ain’t good. Not good at all.

IMF solves nothing

Getting the IMF involved is viewed by markets as a last ditch effort, and reflects terribly on the EU monetary union and political union. It is said that using the IMF here merely confirms the political paralysis in the EU over this situation, and reflects terribly on the EU and the Euro. Major political paralysis is not something a major potential reserve currency can tolerate. Calls in Germany and elsewhere to kick out repeat EMU (European monetary union) offenders with huge financial deficits, Greece running something like a 13 pct of GDP deficit yearly. It’s going bankrupt.

Money is fleeing the country. A big surge of money flight to international banks in Switzerland, UK, Cyprus in the last week or so. In short, Greece is rapidly developing a sovereign bond crisis. That is nothing new, but the timing is, in light of the fact they need about $20 billion over the next two months. And money fleeing the country…is particularly worrisome.

There are many facets to this EU situation and they are bleak as hell for the Euro. This appears to be the next looming ‘big one’ crisis. We have kept subscribers well informed of potential outcomes for the Euro, and we also called the USD rally at end of Nov 2009, and a gold bottom in Dec 2008. We have made a lot of great currency calls way ahead (by months) of anyone I know of. We also called the 2008 summer commodity peak in April 08 warning the USD would rally, again months ahead of anyone I know of.

We have some basic defensive strategies to cover these potential events - a market crash and a possible Yuan revaluation. In any case, we have made some incredible calls for the last two years on the overall markets, calling huge swings in the USD, currencies, gold and commodity markets at key times, predicting trends that lasted 6 or more months out from our calls. There is a chart showing several of the major ones we called in the last 2 years on our site. Our newsletter is 44 issues a year with mid week email alerts.

Even though our newsletter is named PrudentSquirrel, it is probably one of the best currency newsletters for big currency calls you will find out there. The name reflects our ultra conservatism.

By Christopher Laird
PrudentSquirrel.com

Copyright © 2010 Christopher Laird

Chris Laird has been an Oracle systems engineer, database administrator, and math teacher. He has a BS in mathematics from UCLA and is a certified Oracle database administrator. He has been an avid follower of financial news since childhood. His father is Jere Laird, former business editor of KNX news AM 1070, Los Angeles (ret). He has grown up immersed in financial news. His Grandmother was Alice Widener, publisher of USA magazine in the 60's to 80's, a newsletter that covered many of the topics you find today at the preeminent gold sites. Chris is the publisher of the Prudent Squirrel newsletter, an economic and gold commentary.

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