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An Exposed and Dying Scheme
by Bill Murphy, Chairman
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee
October 7, 2004
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October 7 - Gold $417.50 down 20 cents - Silver $7.18 down 3 cents "People
hate those who make them feel their own inferiority." How sickening! There was every reason for gold to blow through $420 this morning. Close But No Cigar, as The Gold Cartel blatantly stopped all attempts in their tracks. The nearest we got was $419.60 bid. This morning both the stock market and dollar were weak. However, the reason for the gold price to explode early on was in the auxiliary commodity news: New York Crude Oil Soars to Record $53 on Winter Supply Concern Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil in New York rose to a record $53 a barrel after rising 14 of the last 16 sessions on concern that U.S. supplies will be inadequate to meet winter demand. Hurricane Ivan has reduced production at platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, source of a quarter of U.S. output. U.S. inventories rose less than expected last week, and unions in Nigeria may strike, threatening shipments from the fifth biggest source of U.S. oil imports. ``The persistent shut-ins in the Gulf have been more severe and longer lasting than we thought at the time of the hurricane,'' said Jim Steel, director of commodity research at Refco Inc. in New York. ``The geopolitical concerns in Nigeria and elsewhere are just adding to the concern about supplies and the rise in prices.'' Commodities Index Rises to 23-Year High, Led by Oil and Metals Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Commodity prices measured by the Reuters CRB index rose to a 23-year high as oil and metal producers struggle to keep pace with increasing world demand for raw materials. ``We're seeing a restrained approach to adding new supply to the market by the companies, and demand is picking up significantly,'' Evy Hambro, who helps manage Merrill Lynch & Co.'s $6.3 billion World Mining Trust, said in an interview in London. Supply ``deficits are growing, and that's obviously very supportive for commodity prices.'' The Commodity Research Bureau index of 17 futures contracts rose as much as 0.46 to 286.22, the highest since May 1981. Crude oil rose to a record $53 a barrel in New York after U.S. inventories increased less than expected. Copper and aluminum reached nine-year highs in London on concern manufacturers will deplete shrinking metal inventories. The world economy may expand by 5 percent this year, the fastest pace in three decades, according to the International Monetary Fund. The Group of Seven countries, which represents about two-thirds of the world's economic output, on Oct. 3 called for oil producers to pump more to curb the rally in prices, which may hurt growth. Do I need to write a MIDAS these days with many of you knowing what I will comment on ahead of time? For instance, Houston's Dan Norcini this morning: Hey
buddy. Crude at $53.00/bbl, the dollar down, the stock market down, the CRB moving up and gold ONCE AGAIN getting sat on by the plunderers and rapists at the gold cartel every time it dares poke its head above $420. You can really see the battle taking place by watching the intraday price action. The jobs report is due out tomorrow morning and my guess is that the number will be a decent one judging from the recent ISM's. Besides, it is the last one before the election and I am certain that the pencil pushers have had their marching orders to deliver the goods. No doubt they have been told that they can issue the "CORRECTION" next month when they revise DOWNWARD the number. That will give the goons the opportunity to try to give the dollar a pop and of course, flush some specs out of the gold market. They have pulled this same stunt every time we have had a decent jobs number for the last year. I would not expect anything different this time around. Only thing is that if the jobs number comes in at less that 140,000 or so for some reason, there is going to be a fly in their ointment. Not only that, as more and more people get wise to their schemes, the gold market is going to continue to find buyers on these orchestrated bear raids and subsequent price setbacks. The support line keeps moving up in gold. We know that the ONLY major selling taking place is being done by the same bullion banks and of course, the local yokels who hitch a ride on their coattails (that would be the floor traders) who are going to get steamrolled one of these days very soon when someone looks across at them in the pit and calmly says, "Do you have any more you want to sell me?" That will be fun! Dan The gold open interest rose again, this time up 1549 contracts to 298,149. Spoke to my STALKER source. First time in a week as I have been away, as you know. He has some goodies for us from his London silver dealer contact:
The silver open interest rose 2361 contracts to 101,879. The Comex silver warehouse stocks were unchanged at 106,945,810. That is a new low since my last report to you on them. On another note, our STALKER source says he recently went to a meeting of money manager types in Canada who are also involved in the gold arena in some way. The talk was of fierce inflation in the US for the next 18 months. After that, who knows, could get worse? The
John Brimelow Report Indian ex-duty premiums: AM $6.23, PM $7.69, with world gold at $418.95 and $417.85. Adequate, and lavish for legal imports. India seems willing to tolerate gold in the high teens. Bad news for Bears. Indian markets were cheered late in the day by news of the success of the country's second biggest IPO, involving the privatization of National Thermal Power Corporation, and the rupee firmed. India looks poised to buy a lot of gold. Superficially, TOCOM was not very convinced, with the active contract closing down 3 yen, and aggregate volume falling 21% to equal 23,105 Comex lots. But in fact world gold made another approach to $420, closing according to Reuters at $419.25, $1.25 above NY, open interest rose the equivalent of 845 Comex lots, while according to Mitsubishi's estimates, the "Member's Proprietary position" jumped 8.8 tonnes to a short of 16 tonnes. This implies the public has started to rebuild its long. If true, this could be very important. As recently as early August, this was in the order of 80 tonnes; over 100 tonnes was normal earlier in the year. Levels of recent days, close to flat were the lowest since the post Washington Accord price spike in October '99. Comex yesterday traded 52,741 contracts, with open interest rising another 1,559 contracts to 298,151. (Much concern is heard about this being little less than the all-time high in April. In fact the run down of the Japanese spec position has appreciably offset the enthusiasm in NY.) Estimated volume today was 31,000. Early this morning, TheBullionDesk.com commented: "Despite strength in the white metals, gold meeting very stiff resistance at $420 - sellers said to be a Fund liquidation - a successful breach of $420 may give rise to $433 in next few days..." Even the normally bearish Barclays commentary observes "...should the dollar weaken tomorrow afternoon ...a strong move higher in gold looks extremely likely" Today, of course, the widely-noted defense of $420 has been successful. The noted gold bear displays remarkable confidence that tomorrow's employment number will be a big upside surprise, and that a commodity and gold rout will follow. It may be he knows something. However, given the behavior of the key physical markets, one doubts that the vulnerability of gold can very great. JB CARTEL
CAPITULATION WATCH US economic news: 08:30
Jobless claims for w/e 10/2 reported 335K vs. consensus 355K 09:32
Nigerian labor union says strike at midnight Sunday is unavoidable
unless gov't willing to hold talks -- Bloomberg 14:26
Fed Gov. Bernanke says if economic data indicate a slower economy,
the Fed will "pause" -- Bloomberg AT&T to Cut 7,400 New Jobs, Take $11.4 Bln Writedown Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- AT&T Corp. will cut at least 7,400 new jobs this year and will write down $11.4 billion in assets as it exits the residential-phone business it once monopolized. The workforce reductions will result in a charge of $1.1 billion in the third quarter, Bedminster, New Jersey-based AT&T, the largest U.S. long-distance telephone company, said in a statement. The writedown will be recorded in the same quarter, AT&T said. AT&T, which had 61,600 employees at the end of last year, had already eliminated 8 percent of its workforce this year.... - END- Crude oil closed at $52.62 per barrel, another all-time high. Murphy's Law has struck the oil market. Besides the problems in Nigeria, there are reports of leaks in the Mexican pipeline. The CRB sold off later with the meats, grains, OJ, and sugar closing lower. It finished at 285.54, down only .22. Meanwhile, from Bloomberg: "Copper futures for December delivery climbed 0.45 cent, or 0.3 percent, to $1.4275 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange after reaching $1.4385, the highest since April 1989." The dollar fell .14 to 285.54 and the euro rose .18 to 122.89. All of that and gold closes lower. What a farce! What's ahead for the US economy: CEOs Expect Growth of Less Than 2% in '05 From
Bloomberg News -END- Whatever happened to the announcement about the new Washington Agreement? A thanks to Lars Lindgren in Norway for sending us these charts: Silver: The dollar: EXTRAORDINARY! Pimco's Bill Gross is generally regarded as the most visible and successful person in the US bond world. He is a money manager and firm owner who has earned the highest praise from the establishment. However, now that he has critiqued the interests of Washington and Wall Street, he has been lambasted by some of those who praised him in the past. Café members and GATA supporters know this sort of routine all too well (without the praise of course). Propaganda is King to Wall Street and Washington, not the truth. Good for Bill Gross and good for Bill King who diligently reports on the CPI intrigue: The
King Report CPI fraud is far worse than Bill Gross's hedonic lament. Impugning Mr. Gross for questioning the BLS use of hedonic adjustments is like impugning someone for questioning Al Capone's character because he evaded income taxes. The truth of the matter is the compilation process is extremely flawed but the vested interest of Wall Street, The Fed and US politicians is to understate CPI and attack foes. The BLS's substitution principal abrogates the logic of hedonic adjustments. BLS and permabulls believe it's okay to not reflect higher steak costs in the CPI because people will substitute ground beef. And if grounded beef prices surge, people will substitute KenLRation. Where is the hedonic adjustment to the downside for the reduced pleasure of ingesting the inferior product? Furthermore, where is the negative hedonic adjustment for food that contains pesticides, steroids and preservatives? They impact health and a healthcare cost...Anyone with a modicum of common sense understands the BLS's claim of a 4.4% y/y in healthcare costs is a blatant fraud...Yesterday's WSJ, hidden on its penultimate page (D-13), noted that a John Hopkins study showed 2/3 of nonprofit groups had at least an 11% increase in healthcare costs, while 9% reported unchanged or lower costs. PS -Accounts of double-digit healthcare cost increases appear regularly. Services have gone to hell to save costs for business. What's the hedonics for doctor house calls, gasoline adjusted for 3 guys servicing your car plus lovely parting gifts, crawling under desks and performing service functions under direction from someone in India, waiting on/wading thru automated phone menus, bagging your own groceries? The BLS web site states that they ignore price spikes, and they even admit that consumers pay different prices than what the CPI reports. http://www.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm Housing is the largest (32%) CPI component, yet few people's housing costs change per year and even less change monthly. 70% of the US own homes. Their housing costs change if their mortgage rates change. Those with ARMs will change more often. Rents change once or twice a year, unless there's rent controls ala New York. And BLS uses imputed rents for housing prices. Why the heavy weighting? The more important variable housing costs are maintenance (plumber, electrician and home service rates as well as the hedonic adjustment for the long wait for their appearance) and real estate taxes. Most elementary and secondary tuition costs are actually in real estate taxes, and those are absent in CPI. The CPI scam gained critical mass with the explosive inflation of the late '70s. Carter's chief economist, Al Kahn, devised 'core' CPI to obfuscate the continual price increases in the necessities of life. Few people talk about the dubious BLS practices of substitution, hedonics and seasonal adjusting, but even fewer claim that there sampling and compilation methodology is absurd. BLS methodology to determine IBM's price last month would entail sampling the various markets between the 10th and 14th of September. It tells you little about IBM's actual price for September. There are means to ascertain an accurate IBM price for September, and that methodology can be utilized to determine goods prices in the economy. (We aren't going to detail it here, because it's something we intend to pursue.) The current environment of soaring oil, industrial commodities, freight transportations, tuition and healthcare costs compels an increasingly number of people to realize just how bogus the CPI is. We recently were forwarded a piece from an economist who is on his third decade of deflation warnings. He tried to support his contention that CPI should be lower because the hedonic adjustments aren't large enough by stating people are oversensitive to purchases they made most recently. They forget how much water heaters have improved in price-quality. NO S^%# SHERLOCK! We've bought one new water heater in the past 26 years of home ownership, as well as 3 new washers and driers, a couple refrigerators, perhaps 3 dish washers. We pay for the necessities of life monthly and those costs have been increasing much faster than the CPI - energy, food, utilities, tuition, healthcare, real estate taxes, drugs, etc. And in any contest between under and over-stated CPI advocates the final arbiter is the checkbook, which is not hedonically, seasonally or chain-weight adjusted. Reality, what a concept! Fed Gov Poole also felt threatened enough by Gross's modest hind that CPI is not kosher that he had to inveigh against Mr. Gross...Understating CPI (and overstating GDP) has allowed the Fed to perpetuate the productivity fraud and to keep pumping money recklessly. That's all the Fed's can go now. Some reporters are nothing more than conduits - political, financial, etc. And their biggest fear is getting cut out of a loop because they have little or no actual industry experience. Perhaps this accounts for some of the attacks on Mr. Gross. He has the stature to expose official misdeed or malfeasance; and those officials would be held responsible, even culpable. Ergo, they must debunk Gross's claim. -END- Back to gold. What strikes me most these days after my trip to Toronto and reading the responses, or lack thereof, to the release of the Russian central banker's speech is REALLY how clueless the gold investing world is regarding any serious knowledge of the true situation of the gold market. As a result, it reaffirms to me the gold price action ahead of us will be astounding. And, as my colleague Chris Powell is fond of saying, GATA has stumbled into the secret of the investing universe, which is why The Gold Cartel/establishment does all they can to ignore us and keep our findings from being read. There is no doubt in my mind (as evidenced by the presentation by Russian central banker Oleg V. Mozhaiskov in Moscow), the biggest money in the world has studied what GATA has uncovered and knows we are correct. However, most of the gold world refuses to deal with our findings to protect their own agendas and institutional interests. This includes those who comment on all the markets in general. Now, if these people are this clueless, disingenuous, or indifferent, think about the rest of the investing world who still have trouble spelling the word gold and have yet to do any investing in this arena. The implications are staggering when only a fraction of them learn what we already know. The tiny market cap goldshare market will not be able to handle the investor demand. What is key is the central banks don't have the gold they say they have. An extra 13,000+ tonnes have been used to surreptitiously suppress the price to advance the interest of The Gold Cartel. Certain bullion banks, who have lent the gold out, cannot get this gold back (when the market is already in a 1500+ tonne per year deficit) without driving the price hundreds of dollars per ounce higher. Whether a majority of the bullion banks are allowed to pay off the loan in cash is hard to say. However, what counts is the gold is gone, which means gold demand has been far higher than reported by officialdom, and two, not all the bullion banks will have their loans forgiven. The "S" is going to hit the fan some place. That you can count on. The point is the investing/gold world is not taking this into account when assessing the price prospects for gold. Once bullion takes out some key points like $430 and starts to run, it is going to START to create great stress - a stress which most everyone is unprepared for or in denial of. This is why The Gold Cartel is so desperate to keep gold subdued and away from danger territory. The good news for us is it is a war the cabal will lose because of the fundamentals. Their days, weeks and, at most, months are numbered. When they are carried out, gold is likely to act far more violently than the world is prepared for. You will know what is coming and why. Relatively few others will. Fortunes will be made. Only a matter of a shrinking amount of time before our big days arrive. Now this is interesting and proof GATA is making serious progress. Word is spreading about the Russian speech. It's hard to know its eventual impact, yet we know it is getting the GATA word out there. This can only be a VERY bullish development and a nightmare for The Gold Cartel: MARKET INTELLIGENCE REPORT BioTech October 7, 2004 The Institutional Strategist EPORT
5-Lipoxygenase Enzyme
Implicated in Aortic Gold-The Deputy Chairman of the Russian Central Bank, Oleg V. Mozhaiskov, made a speech to the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) in June, in which he reported alluded to gold market manipulation. Numerous organizations (including the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA)) attempted to see a reprint of the speech, but the LBMA refused repeated requests to release a copy. Finally, the Bank of Russia last week released an English translation, the full text of which can be read at http://f17.parsimony.net/forum30434/messag es/294663.htm http://www.gata.org/RCBTakesNote.html In the speech, the senior central banker reinforces our oft espoused belief, that the opinion of gold within the central banking community is quickly changing from one of underperforming asset, to that of "store of wealth." After a harsh condemnation of the U.S.'s reckless lack of fiscal discipline (i.e. "Today the net debt owed by the United States to the outside world...exceeds the total official currency reserves in all the world's countries..."), he argues that gold is mainly a financial asset, not merely a precious metal, and that international financial circumstances are making gold particularly, and hard assets generally, ever more desirable for investment. This would parallel our theory that European central banks will not sell anywhere near as much gold in this second 5-year term of the European Central Bank Gold Agreement (ECBGA2), as they did in the first beginning in 1999. Being very careful with his words, Mr. Mozhaiskov pointed out that there has been an increase in the use of derivatives and central bank leasing of gold which has had a depressing effect on the metal's price in recent years. As evidence, he points out that the derivatives market has become the tail wagging the dog, based on size alone. "Last year turnover with gold derivatives was about 4,000 million ounces (or 129,000 tonnes), but physical metal actually sold totalled 120 million ounces or some 3,860 tonnes." He insinuates that this ratio of 33-to-1 in favor of derivatives (compared to only 5-10x for other raw materials) is a key evidence of market manipulation. We continue to view this disequilibrium as an artificially low entry point. -END- A plugged-in colleague notes: "This is written by Larry Jedeloh, who is widely followed in the institutional investor scene. Not doubt GATA is gaining attention." Now contrast the MARKET INTELLIGENCE REPORT's objective view of the Mozhaiskov speech versus that of the prejudiced Dennis Gartman, who can't bear the notion GATA is correct: Wednesday,
October 6, 2004 Much is being made by the "gold bugs" of a speech given by Mr. Oleg Mozhaiskov, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Central Bank regarding gold. The "chat lines" have been humming, suggesting that Mozhaiskov's speech vindicated GATA on its conspiracy theories. We secured a copy of his speech and read it thoroughly.... twice. Mozhiaskov does indeed mention GATA and "an anti-gold conspiracy," but he hardly supports their thesis. Rather, Mr. Mozhaiskov methodically comments upon various forces that can from time to time drive gold prices and notes for the record that as
in nuclear physics, some factors briefly Thus, when one hears today that GATA's position has been supported by Mr. Mozhaiskov, the reality is that that simply isn't true. Mozhaiskov is gold bullish; he is a supporter of gold as a final monetary instrument. He does suggest that there will be a strong propensity on the part of some monetary authorities to eschew US dollar holdings for gold for some part of their reserves; but is he a "conspiratorialist?" Hardly; he's a pragmatist... as we hope we are. -END- Did Gartman read the same speech as Larry Jedeloh of the MARKET INTELLIGENCE REPORT? You would think someone like Gartman, who has an international following, would have developed some degree of "savoir faire." His lack of understanding of what happened here is more than astonishing. Why:
I could go on and on. No sense in that so as not to overly repeat myself, but I think it is important to point out that the work of the GATA camp finds so much resistance because it ruins the multi-decade work of so many as far as dealing with the gold market is concerned. Or, as in Gartman's case, it attacks the interests of his own clients and his blind, "reasoned" ways. Some examples of what I am referring to:
Even the esteemed Richard Russell can't deal with gold price manipulation issue, even though he has been pounded with info from GATA supporters. His gold analysis last night almost leaves one speechless, as he accounts for the open interest increase in good part due to increasing selling by the hedgers. How wrong can you get? Every time gold runs up to these levels, the open interest has increased dramatically. However, ALL the reports show the hedgers reducing their positions over the past couple of years. It's not the hedgers stopping the gold advance. It is THE GOLD CARTEL. How much more obvious can it get with oil going berserk? The RR man last evening: OK, so much for the stocks. Now let's turn to gold, which appears to be following oil to higher levels. Below I show a weekly chart of gold, and you can see that gold has now rallied above both its 10-week and 40-week moving averages. RSI at the top of the chart is not in the (70) overbought zone, and at the bottom of the chart we see that the blue histograms are moving bullishly higher. Now gold is facing an always-difficult situation -- a "double-top," the first top being the January 6, 2004 close of 428.10. The second top was the April 1 top when gold closed at 431.20. These tops mark the level that has stopped gold twice before. So the task for gold is to climb another 10 dollars and attack the 431 area. Can gold do it? I think it can, but it may take time (it usually does). How about the Commercials. These are the gold banks, gold mines and actual gold users such as large jewelers. The Commercials are out to make money (who isn't), and they will take the opposite side of any item following a rally or a declines. The Commercials think it term of "regression to the mean," or that when an item moves too far it will reverse back to an average price. The Commercial seem always to be on the short side of gold and silver, possibly because a lot of the Commercials are mines. But in general, the Commercials will tend to take the "other" side of the market. And remember, the Commercials are powerful, they have the money and the credit-backing, and it's very seldom that they get beaten. I note that the Commercials in gold have raised their short position to its highest level in 23 weeks. Thus, we can expect resistance to gold rising for a while. If gold does rise, the Commercials will simply put out more shorts. -END- RR is right about the Commercials. However, it ain't the jewelers and gold producers keeping the gold price from soaring. He's right too about the Commercials putting out more shorts on a price rise. This is why we MUST get a Commercial Signal Failure for gold to soar towards $500. It won't be the specs covering shorts when gold takes out $430. The bums have to be blown out of the water for that to happen. Gold is getting more ink space: After
the gold rush http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/06/markets/gold/index.htm?cnn=yes -END- What else is new? Four
ex-El Paso traders indicted -END- From Ireland: Hi
Bill, I have posted the story re the "Russian Central Banker Cites GATA, Says Gold Market May Be Less ..." - GATA, 4-10-04 and intend posting all important information discovered by GATA in our news section. I can say for certain that your site and it's excellent contributors was one of the prime motivational factors in setting up the company. To the creation of a legion of Irish Gold Bugs! Keep
fighting the good fight, Mark has done a superb job. A site to check out: "Gold Investments is a precious metals investment company offering a variety of gold, silver and platinum bullion coins and bars at competitive prices to investors in Ireland, the UK, the EU and internationally. We help our clientele to diversify their assets with a comprehensive range of quality, precious metal bullion products and by allocated and unallocated precious metal storage facilities. We are market makers in gold, silver and platinum bullion products and take payment in the major currencies. On our website www.goldinvestments.org , we educate first-time investors about precious metals and their importance in portfolio diversification. We maintain a considerable library of market prices and charts, financial and economic statistics, information, history, essays, commentary and news in order to continually inform our clientele." www.goldinvestments.org Just in from the Netherlands' Eric Hommelberg, right up our alley: Hi
Bill, The article is titled : Kamer : Stock market in danger after election day Rienk Kamer sounds like Midas and he'll speak on November 12 for about 2500 people in the Hague. This is a yearly event and by far the biggest financial event in the entire region. This year's theme will be the perfect storm in economic and financial markets. The title of this event is called : 'The Perfect Storm' Although I like Mr. Kamer a lot, I think it should be fair to give some more credit to his sources. But anyhow, let us be pleased that the message is getting out, that's all what counts! Here some highlights of the article: Kamer : Stock market in danger after election day
Best, The gold shares sold off late with the XAU losing .86 to 102.13 and the HUI sinking 1.87 to 231.5. All eyes are on the US jobs report tomorrow. If it is weak (they couldn't even massage the numbers, the economy is so tepid), The Gold Cartel will probably be forced to sound retreat at $420. If they are strong (jiggled, or not), the attack by this corrupt crew will be vicious. With the spec open interest this high, gold is vulnerable to a substantial sell-off. At the same time, the fundamentals keep improving and are a "10+++++." With the game plan of the bad guys so obvious and the cash market so firm, you have to wonder if the really big buyers might not be lying in the weeds for The Gold Cartel and their exposed and dying scheme? GATA BE IN IT TO WIN IT! MIDAS
Appendix Fed's
Poole calls for end to rate hints By
Gregory
Robb, CBS Marketwatch.com WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- The Federal Open Market Committee should end its practice of hinting at the likely course of future policy actions, said William Poole, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. "Given ... the danger of misleading the market when indicating a probable future course for policy, I have generally been opposed to announcing, or hinting, future policy adjustments," Poole said Wednesday in a speech prepared for delivery to a business group in Springfield, Mo. A copy of his remarks was released in Washington. Poole said that markets might misinterpret the statement as "a firm commitment" when it is only meant to give the public some idea of how policy might proceed. Poole raised the possibility that he may even dissent from the statements, if such hints continue to be added. He said that, in some cases, a statement on the probable future course of monetary policy could be more important than the setting of the current intended Fed funds rate. "The public will have to understand that dissents may be in order over the wording of the policy statement, a possibility that has not been widely discussed," Poole said. The FOMC started the practice of discussing the likely future course of policy last year. At its last meeting, in September, the FOMC said that "policy accommodation can be removed at a measured pace," language that financial markets interpret as indicating continued steady quarter-point increases in the Fed funds rate. "What actually happens will depend on economic events that are subject to wide forecasting errors," Poole said. He said that at some point new information will cause the FOMC to change the pace of its WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- The Federal Open Market Committee should end its practice of hinting at the likely course of future policy actions, said William Poole, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. "Given ... the danger of misleading the market when indicating a probable future course for policy, I have generally been opposed to announcing, or hinting, future policy adjustments," Poole said Wednesday in a speech prepared for delivery to a business group in Springfield, Mo. A copy of his remarks was released in Washington. Poole said that markets might misinterpret the statement as "a firm commitment" when it is only meant to give the public some idea of how policy might proceed. Poole raised the possibility that he may even dissent from the statements, if such hints continue to be added. He said that, in some cases, a statement on the probable future course of monetary policy could be more important than the setting of the current intended Fed funds rate. "The public will have to understand that dissents may be in order over the wording of the policy statement, a possibility that has not been widely discussed," Poole said. The FOMC started the practice of discussing the likely future course of policy last year. At its last meeting, in September, the FOMC said that "policy accommodation can be removed at a measured pace," language that financial markets interpret as indicating continued steady quarter-point increases in the Fed funds rate "What actually happens will depend on economic events that are subject to wide forecasting errors," Poole said He said that at some point new information will cause the FOMC to change the pace of its removed at a measured pace," language that financial markets interpret as indicating continued steady quarter-point increases in the Fed funds rate. "What actually happens will depend on economic events that are subject to wide forecasting errors," Poole said. He said that at some point new information will cause the FOMC to change the pace of its policy adjustments. "The pace could be faster or slower, depending on how the economy evolves," he said. In order to capture the uncertainty, the FOMC has added that it would "respond to changes in economic prospects as needed to fulfill its obligation to maintain price stability." He said the statement does not provide detail on whether the policy direction was an easy call for Fed officials or subject to dispute.
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