Smart Russian Money Pulling Out Of Western Banks!

[Scientific Playa]

Smart Russian Money Pulling Out Of Western Banks!
Friday, March 14, 2014 17:40


Two gigantic, partly-state owned Russian banks as well as several large Russian industrial companies are now pulling billions out of western banks as smart Russian money doesn’t want anything to do with western banks with what may soon be going down. With everything now unfolding in the world, this is surely a sign of things to come and another warning to get our own money out of large western banks increasingly seen as susceptible to bank runs and confiscations, soon . This story from Financial Times is an eye-opener for anyone with eyes to see what’s going on behind the scenes. Fabian4Liberty looks into Russia’s financial attack against America in the newly released video report below.

1. Russian companies withdraw billions from west, say Moscow bankers
   Financial Times ‎- 6 hours ago
   Russian companies are pulling billions out of western banks, fearful that ... crisis could lead to an asset freeze, according to bankers in Moscow.

Russian companies are pulling billions out of western banks, fearful that any US sanctions over the Crimean crisis could lead to an asset freeze, according to bankers in Moscow.


Sberbank and VTB, Russia’s giant partly state-owned banks, as well as industrial companies, such as energy group Lukoil, are among those repatriating cash from western lenders with operations in the US. VTB has also cancelled a planned US investor summit next month, according to bankers.


The flight comes as last-ditch diplomatic talks between Russia’s foreign minister and the US secretary of state to resolve the tensions in Ukraine ended without an agreement.

Russia Fires Economic Attack, Dumps U.S. Debt



Gerald Celente gave his take on the unfolding situation in Ukraine to RT in the newly released video below.

 

[Scientific Playa]

Did Russia Just Move Its Treasury Holdings Offshore?

An exterior view of the Bank of Russia building in Moscow.
European Pressphoto Agency
Foreign central banks’ Treasury bond holdings parked at the Federal Reserve dropped by the most on record in the latest week. Some analysts think the crisis in Ukraine is sparking the move.

Their theory: Russia is shifting its Treasury bond holdings out of the Fed and into offshore accounts. That way, Russia would be able to buy or sell its portfolio if the U.S. and its European allies impose economic sanctions amid growing geopolitical tensions in Ukraine.

Treasury securities held in custody for foreign official and international accounts tumbled by $105 billion in the week that ended Wednesday, according to weekly data released late Thursday. That shrank Treasury bond holdings by foreign central banks to a 15-month low of $2.855 trillion, though still near a record high of $3.02 trillion set in December.


Relations between the West and Russia have deteriorated sharply in recent days as Crimea prepares to hold a referendum Sunday on whether to split from Ukraine and join Russia. Ukraine, the European Union and the U.S. view that vote as illegal. The U.S. and Germany warned that Russia could face economic sanctions if the crisis worsens.

“The upcoming referendum in Crimea and multiple threats of sanctions could have triggered a significant reallocation of Treasurys to non-US custodians,” said Shyam Rajan, interest rate strategist at Bank of AmericaBAC -2.10% Merrill Lynch in New York.

Russian entities held $138.6 billion of Treasury debt as of December 31 which includes both official and private holdings, according to the Treasury Department’s website.

“This is only speculation on our part, but it seems likely that the Russian authorities had more than $100 billion of Treasury debt in custody at the Fed, and it doesn’t seem implausible that they moved it to a jurisdiction where it would be less vulnerable to a U.S. asset freeze,” said Lou Crandall at Wrightson ICAP LLC.

Foreign central banks can park their Treasury bond holdings at the Fed or other banks that offer custody services. Putting Treasury holdings at the Fed makes it easy to buy or sell dollar-denominated assets, similar to the NY Fed housing gold of many foreign central banks, analysts said.

“It’s likely cheaper for the central banks than having other, commercial custodian banks hold the positions on their behalf,” said Anthony Cronin, a Treasury bond trader at Société Générale SA. “If they did transfer these assets out of the Fed, they could have gone to Russian banks or any other offshore bank that provides custodian services.”

Some analysts said central banks other than Russia’s could be selling Treasurys to prop up their local currencies. Many emerging-market currencies fell sharply in January as concerns grew about the health of developing economies.

Despite the selling by central banks, Treasury bond prices have strengthened for each trading session this week as investors sought protection from the haven market over worries about Ukraine’s geopolitical tensions and China’s slowing economy.

The benchmark 10-year note’s yield was recently at 2.633% Friday, down over 0.1 percentage points for the week. It has fallen from a six-week peak above 2.8% made after last Friday’s better-than-expected U.S. jobs report. When bond prices rise, their yields fall.

Some traders took the bond market’s strength as a sign foreign central banks merely transferred their bonds to different accounts, rather than selling them.

“If central banks were selling that much Treasurys, the market would have noticed and would not have traded as well as it has this week,” Mr. Cronin said.

A spokesman from the New York Fed declined to comment Friday.

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/03/14/did-russia-just-dump-its-treasury-holdings/

 

[Scientific Playa]

Plunge in Treasury holdings at Fed triggers speculation of Russia switch
By Michael Mackenzie in New York

©Reuters
A record weekly drop in US Treasury debt held at the US Federal Reserve by foreign institutions has triggered speculation Russia has switched the bulk of its holding to a third-party custodian, in case its assets are frozen as the crisis over Ukraine escalates.

The Fed reported that its weekly custody holdings of Treasuries held by foreign entities plunged a record $105bn for the week ending March 12 to a 15-month low of $2.855tn from $2.960tn. The previous weekly record drop was $32bn in mid-2013.
The scale of the decline in custody holdings shocked bond traders on Friday, given that Treasury debt has attracted robust demand from buyers over the past week due to fears over slowing growth in China and the tension between Russia and the West over Ukraine.

The benchmark 10-year yield, which moves inversely to price, dropped to 2.61 per cent on Friday, down sharply from last week’s peak of 2.82 per cent in the wake of better than forecast US jobs growth for February.

“This is a transfer of holdings and not a sale,” said Ian Lyngen, strategist at CRT Capital. “A $105bn sale of Treasuries would have shocked the market and pushed 10-year yields higher by at least 30 basis points.”

The threat of economic sanctions against Russia or a freeze on its dollar holdings by western governments was seen by traders as being behind the large drop in custody holdings at the Fed. Placing dollar assets outside of the US is seen preventing the freezing of dollar-based assets.

Russia warned on Friday that it was prepared to intervene in eastern Ukraine, as US secretary of state John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov began crisis talks in London.

At the end of 2013, Russia held $138bn of Treasuries, according to official data.

“The timing of the drop in custody holdings makes Russia a more likely suspect,” said Marc Chandler, strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. “The intervention by emerging market central banks, including Russia, seems far too small to account for $100bn-plus move in a week.”

Lou Crandall, economist at Wrightson Icap, said: “If Russia was one of the many foreign nations that left its Treasury securities at the New York Fed, the escalating talk of sanctions over the Ukraine conflict would give it every reason to move those holdings to an offshore custodian.”

A third-party custodian could be either one of the two large US banks, JPMorgan or Bank of New York Mellon, or – more likely – a non-US player such as UBS, said Mr Lyngen.

Mr Chandler said there was a precedent for such a move given how in 1957 after the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, the Russia-based Narodny Bank shifted dollars from the US and deposited them in its branch in London. That led to the birth of the Eurodollar market, or dollars held outside of the US.

“We can only speculate about who might have decided to move their securities out of the Fed and into a third-party custodian, but one obvious candidate is Russia,” said Mr Crandall.

The Fed declined to comment on custody holdings.

 

[Leasy]

Our government is a puppet and the powers that be don't wont to lose power. I am telling you there will be war.

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

Take em back to Russia then, they're already hitting forint status.

 

[ORDER_66]

All this bullshyt over ukraine though? is that piece of shyt little patch of land worth going to war for???

 

[Cuban Pete]

All this bullshyt over ukraine though? is that piece of shyt little patch of land worth going to war for???

they doing what we would do if texas became an independent country again and then decided to start a military alliance with china

 

[ORDER_66]

they doing what we would do if texas became an independent country again and then decided to start a military alliance with china

idk man its a far stretch... the US for once in its life should just stay outta it.

 

[NERO]

they doing what we would do if texas became an independent country again and then decided to start a military alliance with china

Can't and won't happen. We ran this already 150 years ago. The North won. If there was even a hint of a breakaway all branches of the armed forces would be so far up Texas' ass that Texans would start talking with a lisp.

 

[Kritic]

this chess game yo...


i thought it was just gonna be like bang bang shoot em up.


imagine what the next generations of war games will be like...

 

[Cuban Pete]

Can't and won't happen. We ran this already 150 years ago. The North won. If there was even a hint of a breakaway all branches of the armed forces would be so far up Texas' ass that Texans would start talking with a lisp.

u right but I was just making an analogy, ukraine is basically that to russia, but even more important.... texas got mad military bases, large population, armed citizens and land area tho it would be a couple months before the usa would subdue them, much more of a fight then iraq was

i do believe we should stay out of this beef tho somethings really aint worth it.... if g.w. dumb ass hadnt spent all this money on pointless wars the russians and chinese wouldnt be tryna pull our hoe card in east europe/south asia

 

[FaTaL]

All this bullshyt over ukraine though? is that piece of shyt little patch of land worth going to war for???

it holds religious significance for russians

 

[无名的]

Russia will be back to bread lines soon. They bankrupted the Soviet Union and they're on track to bankrupt democratic Russia.

 

[Domingo Halliburton]

op is some russian plant...he's like a less obvious @thekingsmen


this is old but i don't follow rap anymore....

 

[ORDER_66]

it holds religious significance for russians

.... I mean as in war for us. the US as a country. this situation has nothing to do with us on the whole.