EES: Half of Corporate America losing BILLIONS in Forex for no reason

Here's the big irony for the markets.  As we explain in Splitting Pennies book, Forex is the largest market in the world and the least understood.  Corporate America certainly doesn't understand Forex.  Well, according to this report, about 50% do:

Forty-eight percent of nonfinancial companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges remained exposed to volatility in foreign exchange rates, commodity prices and interest rates in 2012 because they did not hedge them, according to a new study by Chatham Financial.  The interest-rate and currency risk adviser studied a sample of 1,075 companies ranging from $500 million to $20 billion in revenue. The nearly half that did not use financial instruments to hedge their exposures demurred despite the threat the risks posed to both the balance sheets and reported earnings (see chart at bottom). “That was surprising, knowing the pressure senior management teams and treasury feel around identifying ways to reduce risk to factors within their control so business can focus on other areas,”Amol Dhargalkar, managing director for corporate advisory at Chatham, says.

Many analysts have pointed to the fact that the new excuse of "Currency Headwinds" (accountant code word for "Don't Understand Forex") to define earnings in 2016:

Companies that do business outside of the USA have substantial forex exposure. This exposure can be an asset, if properly managed - but often it is a liability. Recently, the trend in corporate accounting has been to blame "currency headwinds" which can be a good excuse for up to $10 billion in losses. Did these executives ever hear about hedging?

So what does this data mean?  It means that half of Corporate America is speculating BIG in Forex.  Not hedging, when you have FX positions, is speculating.  For example, imagine you're a big US multinational like McDonalds (MCD).  McDonalds (MCD) is a great example because they are one of the companies that lives off their FX hedges.  Without FX hedging, it's questionable if MCD could survive, because more than 60% of their revenue comes from non-US Dollar (USD).  That means their revenue, without FX hedging, would be nearly an exact function of the FX markets (which is the case for these companies that don't hedge).  Companies that lose billions of dollars due to 'currency headwinds' - they are losing huge in Forex.  

Here's the irony.  Pension Funds and many institutions are reluctant to invest in Forex strategies because they are 'risky'.  But they invest in the stock of companies that lose billions in Forex!  And that's OK.  Well, everyone is losing, so why not us too.  Heck, I don't want to be singled out as the one state pension fund that's actually MAKING money for our retirees, that might cause me to get promoted, or lose my job.  

Why don't these companies hedge you ask?  Isn't it their fiduciary duty to their shareholders?  Here's one perspective from PWC:

When a publicly held company engaged in a multi-billion dollar investment in an overseas location
recently, the firm considered using a hedge — or swap — contract to reduce the risk that a big currency
swing would impact costs and financial results. The plan was sound financially. Yet, management had
concerns about the reaction of investors to this approach and decided to drop the hedging plan, says
Chris Rhodes, accounting advisory services partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).  Why? Because the CFO determined that,
although the hedge would protect all the cash
spent in the foreign jurisdiction against currency
exposure, the cost of capital — in this case
borrowing in external markets — “would be
negatively impacted by the inability of some
analysts to understand the reporting issues
involved,” Rhodes explains. “The concern is that,
although many analysts would immediately grasp
the sophisticated currency-hedging procedures
that were key to the plan, others might not.”

So you see, according to this perspective, CFOs understand Forex, but they understand that others such as analysts don't understand, and think that there's a negative perception problem, to closing a big gaping hole in their FX exposure.

One year in the 90's, Intel Corporation made more money on their FX positions than they did selling processors.  Not all of Corporate America is completely stupid.  There are some savvy FX managers out there, that do a great job.  But for the other half, one has to wonder if FX volatility will finally drive these unhedged companies out of business.

Here's what you see on every street corner in Russia:

At least, some humans are prepared for potential financial catastrophe, even if it's as simple as FX volatility.

To learn more about Forex Hedging, checkout Splitting Pennies - your pocket guide designed to make you an instant Forex Genius!  Or checkout Fortress Capital Forex Hedging.

Deutsche Bank Refuses Delivery Of Physical Gold Upon Demand

While the trading world was focused on the latest news involving Deutsche Bank, namely that the troubled German bank had beencontemplating a merger with Germany's other mega-bank, Commerzbank as part of a strategy to sell all or part of a key business to speed up its flagging overhaul, a more troubling report emerged in a German gold analysis website, according to which Deutsche Bank was unable to satisfy a gold delivery request when asked to do so by a client of Germany's Xetra-Gold service.

But first, what is Xetra-Gold?

According to its website, the publicly traded company "provides investors with an efficient instrument to participate in the performance of the gold market. Xetra-Gold’s combination of features – cost-efficient trading and the right for physical delivery of gold - makes it an attractive product."

Among its highlights, Xetra-Gold lists the following:

Cost-efficient trading: No mark-up fee, no transportation or insurance costs such as those incurred when purchasing physical gold. Only the standard transaction fees that are charged for on-exchange securities trading are payable at the time of acquisition. The spreads that apply to purchase and sale correspond to the standard conditions on the global market and are considerably lower than those for traditional gold-based financial products. Furthermore, management or administration fees relating to Xetra-Gold are not incurred. The investor pays the amount of custody fees which he/she has agreed upon with the depository bank.

Physically backed: The issuer uses the proceeds from the issue of Xetra-Gold to purchase gold. The physical gold is held in custody for the issuer in the Frankfurt vaults of Clearstream Banking AG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Börse AG. In order to facilitate the delivery of physical gold, the issuer holds a further limited amount of gold on an unallocated weight account with Umicore AG & Co. KG.

Transparent:  Xetra-Gold tracks the price of gold on a virtually 1:1 basis, and is always up to date.

Tradeable in euros per gram: While in the past, gold was mainly denominated in US dollars per troy ounce, you trade Xetra-Gold in euros per gram.

Stable/Constant holdings: The investor’s right to receive delivery of the certificated amount of gold is not reduced by management costs or other fees, unlike other investments in gold. 1,000 units of Xetra-Gold will still represent a kilogram of gold in 30 years' time.

The company makes the following promise:

Redemption for gold: Investors always have the possibility of demanding delivery of the securitised amount of gold per bearer note against the issuer. If the investor is not able to exercise this right due to legal restrictions effective for him/her, he/she can demand the cashing of Xetra-Gold from the issuer. In this case, a settlement fee of EUR 0.02 per Xetra-Gold bond will be charged.

Delivery of gold: If an investor asserts his/her right to the delivery of the certificated volume of gold from the issuer, the gold will be transported to the respective point of delivery by Umicore AG & Co. KG, which is responsible for all physical delivery processes. The issuer will also have delivery rights of gold from Umicore AG & Co. KG, as the gold leaf debtor. Investors can find information on delivery and the alternative payment claims that are relevant for investment and insurance companies in the PDF document entitled 'Information on the process for exercising Xetra-Gold'.

And yes, Deutsche Bank is involved, as the fund's Designated Sponsor.

In other words, Xetra-Gold is an Exchange-Traded Commodity which differentiates itself by "representing that every gram of gold purchase electronically is backed by the same amount of physical gold" and its principal bank is none other than Deutsche Bank.

And with Germans recently rushing to buy safes or find sound money alternatives in a country where the interest rate is negative, the ETC, it is not surprising that the population has flocked to its offering.

According to recent report by LeapRate, the gold held in custody by Deutsche Borse Commodities for the purpose of physically backing the Xetra-Gold bond has risen to a new record high of 90.67 tons, an increase of more than 50% since the beginning of the year. "For each Xetra-Gold bond, exactly one gram of gold is deposited in the central vaults for German securities in Frankfurt" the report parrots the company's website.

Among all exchange-traded commodities (ETCs) tradable on Xetra, Xetra-Gold is by far the most successful in terms of turnover. During the first seven months of the year, order book turnover on Xetra stood at approximately €1.5 billion. The assets managed by Xetra-Gold currently amount to €3.5 billion.

In September 2015, the German Federal Fiscal Court (Bundesfinanzhof) had ruled that after a minimum holding period, any profits from the sale or redemption of Xetra-Gold are not subject to the capital gains tax. From a fiscal point of view, the purchase, redemption or sale are thus to be treated equal to a direct purchase or sale of physical gold, such as in bullions or coins.

But what is most notable, is that, as noted above, Xetra-Gold investors are entitled to the delivery of the certified amount of physical gold at any time, and adds that "since the introduction of Xetra-Gold in 2007, investors have exercised this right 900 times, with a total of 4.5 tons of gold delivered."

However, something appears to have changed.

As Oliver Baron reports, those who ask for gold delivery at this moment, "could encounter difficulties." The reason is that according to Baron, a reader of GodmodeTrader "sought physical delivery of his holdings of Xetra-Gold. For this he approached, as instructed by the German Borse document, his principal bank, Deutsche Bank."

At that point then he encountered a big surprise: the Deutsche Bank account executive informed the investor that "the service", is no longer offered, namely exercising physical delivery at Xetra-Gold, for "reasons of business policy" and therefore the order form provided by Clearstream Banking AG for exercising Xetra-gold is no longer available.

Baron writes that since Deutsche Bank is no longer serving the physical exercising of delivery request of Xetra-Gold is remarkable, as Deutsche Bank is the "designated sponsor" as well as fiscal, principal and redemption agent of Xetra-Goldaccording to its prospectus, and as the explainer of how to exercise physical delivery also reveals. Even if one is a customer of another bank, Xetra-Gold should - at least on paper- guarantee delivery by way of Deutsche Bank, as the Deutsche Borse Commodities GmbH explains in its "process description for exercising units"

Step-by-step description of exercise

Together with a representative of his principal bank, the investor creates the transaction and sends it to the principal bank's custodian with the relevant process data described above. The custodian in turn instructs its custodian, stipulating all process-relevant data, until a bank which is a customer of Clearstream Banking is authorised.

The customer may use the attached exercise form to instruct the designated sponsor (here Deutsche Bank AG, Frankfurt) to deliver a specified number of gold bars to the point of delivery. The process is similar to that for the delivery of physical certificates.

The customer should send the original exercise form to the following address:

Deutsche Bank AG
"Ausübung Xetra-Gold" CIB-Global Banking
Trust & Securities Services 
Grosse Gallusstrasse 10 – 14 
60311 Frankfurt am Main 
Germany

To transfer the required amount of Xetra-Gold units to the blocked account of Deutsche Börse Commodities, the customer should also place an FoP instruction via CASCADE or File Transfer/SWIFT.

Delivery will be initiated if Deutsche Bank receives the securities and the application form by 10:00 CET. As a rule it takes one to two weeks to deliver retail gold bars and four days for London Good Delivery gold bars from date of ordering. As soon as the delivered gold arrives at the point of delivery, the Xetra-Gold® units are removed and recovered from the "Ausübungskonto DBCo" (DBCo exercise account).

Due to the provisions of the Money Laundering Act (Geldwäschegesetz) only the branch of a bank may be used as point of delivery. Investors expecting a large delivery of gold should contact their principal bank to discuss the transfer of the gold to the point of delivery.

The article goes on to note that it was not clear whether the exercise and physical delivery at other banks is actually still possible. Baron said that Deutsche Borse Commodities advised to transfer the Xetra-Gold shares in a cooperative/Raiffeisenbank since physical delivery is allegedly still possible here. The Deutsche Borse also announced that it is currently working on the "possibility of delivery regardless of bank branch." However, since this process was not described in the prospectus of Xetra-Gold, it would have to be legally tested, which could take considerable time.

The article's conclusion: anyone who wants to easily convert their Xetra-Gold holdings into physical gold - at least for clients of Deutsche Bank - can do so only by selling their shares, and then buying gold coins or bars directly elsewhere. Which leads the author to the logical question: what is the worth of the Xetra-Gold service, which certifies the right to redeem physical gold, if said delivery is no longer possible?

In other words, what was supposedly an ETC which promised physical delivery upon demand, is nothing more than yet another "paper only" play.

We, on the other hand, have a more focused question: is the inability to deliver physical gold an incipient issue with Xetra-Gold, or with the company's "designated sponor" Deutsche Bank, and if the latter is suddenly unable to satisfy even the smallest of delivery requests by retail clients, just how unprecedented is the global physical gold shortage?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-31/deutsche-bank-refuses-delivery-physical-gold-upon-demand

$55 Million in Cocaine Was Just Discovered at a Coca-Cola Plant

(ANTIMEDIA) Hundreds of kilos of cocaine were found in a Coca-Cola plant in France last Friday, making the seizure of the drug one of the largest ever on French soil.

French officials say the cocaine was discovered in backpacks among a shipment of orange juice concentrate that originated in Costa Rica. The 370 kg of literal coke uncovered at the factory is reported to have a street value of €50 million Euros ($55m) and was referred to as a “very bad surprise” by a local prosecutor.

Authorities are currently unaware of who was behind the cocaine, but an investigation is now underway in Signes, a village in the south of France. Employees of the plant have already been ruled out as suspects.

“The first elements of the investigation have shown that employees are in no way involved,” according to Jean-Denis Malgras, the regional president of Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola was originally called Pemberton’s French Wine Coca and contained a mixture of Peruvian coca leaves, kola nut, damiana, and cocaethylene (cocaine mixed with alcohol). Druggist John Stith Pemberton invented his French Wine Coca in Atlanta, Georgia, and it became very popular across the southeastern United States.

The Coca-Cola recipe was a closely guarded secret, but in 1891, an Atlanta newspaper reported what many had already suspected: Coca-Cola contained cocaine. Coke was forced to change its marketing strategy and began referring to their product as “refreshing,” rather than promoting any medicinal benefits. Coca-Cola began taking cocaine out of its soft drink in 1903 because of racially-promoted fears among white society.

According to the New York Times:

“Anyone with a nickel, black or white, could now drink the cocaine-infused beverage. Middle-class whites worried that soft drinks were contributing to what they saw as exploding cocaine use among African-Americans. Southern newspapers reported that ‘negro cocaine fiends’ were raping white women, the police powerless to stop them.”

Cocaine was eventually made illegal in the United States in 1914, but it wasn’t until 1929 that Coca-Cola perfected its formula. Before that year, the psychoactive components of the coca leaf could still be found in the soda in small amounts.

The Coca-Cola soft drink became completely cocaine-free in 1929, but coca leaf extract is still used to this day as an active ingredient in the internationally popular soda. The ecgonine alkaloid, which gives cocaine its accelerating effect on the brain, is extracted from the coca leaf before processing.

The Stepan Corporation, a New Jersey-based chemical processing company, performs the extraction on the coca leaves for Coca-Cola. Stepan has an arrangement with the DEA and is the only group allowed to import the coca leaf into the United States. One hundred and seventy-five thousand kilograms of coca leaves are imported into the United States each year by Stepan. That is a street value equivalent to roughly $21 billion of cocaine,according to the United Nations.

So what happens to the actual cocaine processed by Stepan? It is hauled away from the facility in armored trucks and then sold to Mallinckrodt, a pharmaceutical company whose United States headquarters are based in St. Louis, Missouri.

The coca leaf extract is referred to as Merchandise No. 5.

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Global Supply Chains Paralyzed After World's 7th Largest Container Shipper Files Bankruptcy, Assets Frozen

After years of relentless decline in the Baltic Dry index...

... today the largest casualty finally emerged on Wednesday when South Korea's Hanjin Shipping, the country's largest shipping firm and the world's seventh-biggest container carrier, filed for court receivership after losing the support of its banks, leaving its assets frozen as ports from China to Spain denied access to its vessels.

For those unfamiliar with the company, here is a brief overview from its website:

Hanjin Shipping is Korea's largest and one of the world’s top ten container carriers that operates some 70 liner and tramper services around the globe transporting over 100 million tons of cargo annually. Its fleet consists of some 150 containerships and bulk carriers.

With 4 regional headquarters in the U.S., Europe, Asia and South East & West Asia, approximately 5,000 global staffs as well as container terminals in world’s major ports contribute to Hanjin Shipping’s world-class logistics network around the world.

As Reuters reports, banks led by state-run Korea Development Bank withdrew backing for the world's seventh-largest container carrier on Tuesday, saying a funding plan by its parent group was inadequate to tackle debt that stood at 5.6 trillion won ($5 billion) at the end of 2015.

Suk Tai-soo, president and chief executive officer of Hanjin Shipping Co, arrives
at a court in Seoul, South Korea, August 31, 2016.

South Korea's biggest shipping firm, announced the filing for receivership and a request to the court to freeze its assets, which the Seoul Central District Court planned to grant, a judge told Reuters.

As part of the company's insolvency process, the court will now decide whether Hanjin Shipping should remain as a going concern or be dissolved, a process that usually takes one or two months but is expected to be accelerated in Hanjin's case, the judge said.A bankruptcy for Hanjin Shipping would be the largest ever for a container shipper in terms of capacity, according to consultancy Alphaliner, exceeding the 1986 collapse of United States Lines.

Coming as no surprise to anyone who has followed the persistent decline in worldside trade, global shipping firms have been swamped by overcapacity and sluggish demand, with Hanjin booking a net loss of 473 billion won in the first half of the year. 

South Korea's ailing shipbuilders and shipping firms, which for decades were engines of its export-driven economy, are in the midst of a wrenching restructuring. According to Reuters, KDB's decision to stop backing Hanjin Shipping shows the government is taking a tougher stance with troubled corporate groups.

The fallout from the country's unprecedented bankruptcy invoked a statement from South Korea's Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho, who said that "the government will swiftly push forth corporate restructuring following the rule that companies must figure out how to survive and find competitiveness on their own while taking responsibility."

To be sure, this decision is a fresh breath of air in a world in which mega-corprations across the globe have become "too big to fail" by default, and in many cases anticipate a government bail-out.

According to South Korea's Financial Services Commission, Hyundai Merchant Marine, the country's second-largest shipping line, will look to acquire its rival's healthy assets, including profit-making vessels, overseas business networks and key personnel,  A Hyundai Merchant Marine spokesman told Reuters nothing had been decided about the potential acquisition of Hanjin assets and that the firm will hold talks with KDB. Hyundai Merchant Marine is also in the process of a voluntary debt restructuring.

The question now is whether as a result of the bankruptcy process there will be an unexpected failure in the global supply-chain:South Korea's oceans ministry estimates a two- to three-month delay in the shipping of some Korean goods that were to be transported by Hanjin Shipping, and plans to announce in September cargo-handling measures which could include Hyundai Merchant Marine taking over some routes, a ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.

Making matters worse, Reuters adds that KDB's move to pull the plug was already having an impact on Hanjin's operations, with the company's various shipping assets already frozen. Ports including those in Shanghai and Xiamen in China, Valencia, Spain, and Savannah in the U.S. state of Georgia had blocked access to Hanjin ships on concerns they would not be able to pay fees, a company spokeswoman told Reuters.

Another vessel, the Hanjin Rome, was seized in Singapore late on Monday by a creditor, according to court information. "Now Hanjin must do everything it can to protect its clients' cargoes and make sure they are not delayed to their destination, by filing injunctions to block seizures in all the countries where its ships are located," said Bongiee Joh, managing director of the Korea Shipowners' Association.

Finally, while jarring Hanjin's bankrtupcy was inevitable: shipping industry economics have deteriorated. Charter rates for medium-sized container ships have dropped from around $26,000 a day in 2010 to $13,000 per day now.  Container rates from Shanghai to the U.S west coast have more than halved since then, from around $2,000 per 40-foot container in January 2010 to $596 per 40-foot box last week, data from the Shanghai Shipping Exchange shows.

Shares in Hanjin Shipping have been suspended after plunging 24% on Tuesday.

The global implications from the bankruptcy are unknown: if, as expected, the company's ships remain "frozen" and inaccessible for weeks if not months, the impact on global supply chains will be devastating, potentially resulting in a cascading waterfall effect, whose impact on global economies could be severe as a result of the worldwide logistics chaos. The good news is that both economists and corporations around the globe, both those impacted and others, will now have yet another excuse on which to blame the "unexpected" slowdown in both profits and economic growth in the third quarter.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-31/global-supply-chains-paralyzed-after-worlds-7th-largest-container-shipper-files-bank