According to Jesse, “Proprietor” and longtime market observer at Café Americain, the “tension on the tape” indicates that there will be a big break in stocks and metals within the next week to ten days… and he said that three days ago.

Without defining “tension on the tape” any more than Jesse does, I take his statement to mean that he expects significant downward movement in stocks and significant upward movement in precious metals.

It’s a rare day when I can’t detach myself from the Internet, but after chasing point to point and fact to fact all day, I’ve concluded that something has happened that has spread apprehension throughout the global banking fraternity.

Remember how, just a few weeks ago, there were all the secretive (but not secret) meetings of all the global “money” people in Washington, D.C.?

Remember how not one word of explanation came from any of those meetings…from participants who are usually eager to make statements? And, remember how the media displayed little of the curiosity that reporters are supposed to have, and how everyone seemed content to let the news drop out of sight?

Some of us haven’t forgotten, and haven’t stopped trying to determine what occasioned that flurry of meetings…and what decisions and directions resulted. Here’s where my speculation, and 2 plus 2 logic has taken me. Speculation is often derided, but, when speculation is based on accurate observation, it becomes theory formation, which is the bedrock of scientific method. And, given an environment in which silence reinforces non-transparency, and in which “official statements” may obfuscate or misinform, the simple act of patterning observations can be a valuable tool for revealing the unrevealed.

I believe something had happened or was about to happen to complicate Deutsche Bank’s plight…something so severe that it demanded global conferencing. Remember Deutsche Bank’s confession of collusion in the manipulation of precious metal prices, and how it promissed to tattle on the other major banks involved?

There are several factors that turn Deutsche Bank’s plight into a “Pacific Rim” of volcanic banking activity. First of all, the bank had broken the code of banking silence and secrecy.It has admitted to an unadmitted practice.It has implicated other banks in this collusive practice. The practice invites lawyers into probing to determine how many years those–and possibly other banks AND GOVERNMENTS–have been involved in price and market manipulation. I have read protests claiming that Deutsche Bank’s confession amounts to little or nothing (which I would have someone say if I wanted to downplay the event), but, in all likelihood Deutsche Bank’s confession opened a multifaceted can of worms that threatens banker secrecy, power, control, and credibility.Deutsche Bank’s confession may be the spear speeding toward global banking’s Achilles Heel.