Gold World News Flash |
- Hourly Action In Gold From Trader Dan
- Market Commentary From Monty Guild
- Jim?s Mailbox
- Weekly Charts and COT Commentary From Trader Dan Norcini
- Today’s Most Important Price Points in Gold
- Jay Taylor on Gold and Crocodile Gold
- Junior Gold Exploration
- On The Gold Field: Stay With The Ball!
- Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone Magazine 'Ponzi Schemes in the Precious Metals Markets'
- Digital Silver: Precious Components
- Derivative Overhaul is Powerful for Physical Metals
- Get Prepared For Massive Launch
- Greek Elites Whack Greeks Over Crisis... Bloomberg Blasts Arizonia Over Immigration
- Spain is in Pain - US Dollar & Gold Are Safe Havens
- LGMR: Gold & Silver Near 2010 Highs, "Safe Haven Premium Supported" by Credit Risks
- Update 9:30AM EST
- Todays Most Important Price Points in Gold
- Chapter 4: Silver Equities
- Chapter 5: Alternative Silver Investing
- All that glisters is not gold…
- Weekly Headline News
- Gold Seeker Weekly Wrap-Up: Gold and Silver Gain Over 2% on the Week
- Got Gold Report - COT Flash April 30
- Jay Taylor tells BNN about loss of confidence in fiat currencies
- Gold Makes Another Yearly High!
- The Euro Is Screwed
- The Gold Price Has Broken Out Into a New Rally
- The Welfare State..We Have Reached The Limits
- James Turk: Gold needed now more than ever
- Gene Arensberg: Large commercials get shorter but not aggressively
- Another Rally in The Main Stock Indices and Gold?
- John Williams: A Hyper-Inflationary Great Depression Is Coming
- Is Fed Independence Good?
- smokin hot cup of golden java!!!!!
- The Future For Gold And Mining Stocks
- Why You Should Be VERY CONCERNED About The Financial Crisis In Greece
- China’s Property Market Is Another Risk To Global Growth
- In The News Today
- Today's Most Important Price Points in Gold
- Jim's Mailbox
- COT Gold, Silver and US Dollar Index Report - April 30, 2010
- Stock Market Investing: Why the Majority Must Lose
- Just A Reminder
- Treasury Redeems A Gargantuan $643 Billion In Treasuries In April
- FRIDAY Market Excerpts
- An Extremely Confident Mike Maloney On Silver
- Net Euro Shorts Spike, Regain Record Highs, As Dollar Longs Surge To Highest Since August 2008
- Global Debt Crisis: Navigating Through the Icebergs
- If you're abusive you're not helping GATA
| Hourly Action In Gold From Trader Dan Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT View the original post at jsmineset.com... April 30, 2010 09:47 AM Dear CIGAs, A strong showing in gold today as it was able to regain its footing after yesterday's brief setback and then take out overhead selling resistance by the bullion banks located in and around the $1172 level. Once through there, it touched off upside buy stops which resulted in a quick move higher drawing in additional momentum related buying by the funds. Technically the market looks very strong as all of the major moving averages are trending higher with price firmly above them. The weekly chart is showing a nice gradual move higher devoid of any sharp breakaway gaps which bodes well for continued movement higher. Markets that gap up have a tendency to work back lower to refill the gap before resuming the uptrend. In the case of the weekly gold chart, there are no upside gaps as of yet which is interpreted to mean that there has been no panic buying or panic short covering in gold. Rather the buying has be...
|
| Market Commentary From Monty Guild Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT View the original post at jsmineset.com... April 30, 2010 10:25 AM Dear CIGAs, THE EUROPEAN DEBT CRISIS KEEPS EXPANDING Greek debt has been rated as junk quality. Spanish and Portuguese debt have undergone downgrades and there are rumors circulating of a possible Italian debt downgrade. This reminds us of the so-called Asian Contagion of late 1990's during which bank and government debt contagion sent Asian markets down dramatically and caused the value of several regional currencies to fall. At that time, the U.S. and European markets, which were not part of the crisis, corrected by over 10 percent, then quickly recouped and were followed by market rallies. If the current European debt contagion follows the same pattern as the Asian debt contagion of the late 1990s, which we believe it will, we expect a possible 10-12 percent correction in U.S. and Asian stocks followed by continued rallies in both regions. We do not know when the corrections will take place, but...
|
| Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT View the original post at jsmineset.com... April 30, 2010 02:07 PM Jim, It seems that the US isn’t going to strengthen the dollar directly thru painful economic policies. Rather, we are going to destroy all the other western currencies by hedge fund/zombie bank attacks on their sovereign debt with credit default swaps. The last man standing ploy. CIGA Shelly W Jim, The jesters revealed the protesters were descending on Wall Street because they need to insure their survival by appearing to be on the right side of the fence when it hits the fan! The American people are waking up to the smoke and mirror games the creatures of Jekyll Island play. The alternative media that sheds true light on the net such as your fine service, is not controlled or silenced by the king makers. CIGA "The Gordon" ...
|
| Weekly Charts and COT Commentary From Trader Dan Norcini Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT View the original post at jsmineset.com... April 30, 2010 05:25 PM Dear Friends, The following chart details the Commitment of Traders report released today (Friday) which covers the market involvement of the players through Tuesday of this week. Note that the heavy blue line, which details the NET position of the Managed Money crowd, has been steadily ramping up their purchases of gold futures. At the risk of being redundant, it is this flow of funds from the managed money side of things which drives markets today. It is therefore a sign of a healthy market that interest continues to build in gold. As long as that buying continues, gold will be propelled higher, bullion bank selling notwithstanding. Looking into the actual numbers, the total number of long side contracts being held by the Managed Money crowd is currently 24,400 off its recent peak in October of last year. The other large reportables, big locals, individual traders and CTA's, are currently 9,000 contracts or so shy...
|
| Today’s Most Important Price Points in Gold Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT Ever since the price high of 1227 in December, gold has been in a trading range. The most recent rally has brought gold to the upper ceiling of that trading range and the question now is whether this move will propel gold higher and above the trading range, whetherwe in for more sideways action or a seasonal correction. To better understand where gold currently stands in this “The 21st Century Gold Bull Market”, a look at the entire bull market to date will give us a good understanding and appreciation for where gold finds itself today. Let’s look at three views. We will begin with a five month perspective of gold. This view demonstratesthat gold has remained strong even during a correction. For five months gold has been going sideways and has yet to establish a downtrend. The three blue dots at the bottom of the chart suggest that gold has potentially formed a strong base from which to attempt a continuation of thecurrent rally. Th...
|
| Jay Taylor on Gold and Crocodile Gold Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT The following is automatically syndicated from Grandich's blog. You can view the original post here April 30, 2010 03:34 PM Watch [url]http://www.grandich.com/[/url] grandich.com...
|
| Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT Scott Wright April 30, 2010 3362 Words Since most countries accurately report mine output, and several agencies catalog this information, we know where in the world gold is being produced. But where in the world are the juniors exploring for gold? Are they spinning their drills proportionate in geography to where the miners are operating? I hear questions like this all the time, but unfortunately there is no collective means of knowing where the juniors are concentrating their efforts. Fortunately Zeal’s latest major research endeavor into the junior gold-stock realm offers insight into these questions. In a quest to find our favorites, which we detail in our acclaimed reports, we scrub the universe of juniors and capture r...
|
| On The Gold Field: Stay With The Ball! Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT Graceland Updates 4am-7am www.gracelandupdates.com Email: [EMAIL="s2p3t4@sympatico.ca"]s2p3t4@sympatico.ca[/EMAIL] Apr 29, 2010 1. Nouriel Roubini is back! So are a boatload of other top economists, all horrified as they watch what they term “the tip of the iceberg”. The Euro crisis has deepened into a catastrophic mess, one that has just started. While it all looks hopeless, I want to remind you that the “banksters” continue to accumulate the euro, holding the other side of the funds’ “all in” euro to zero megatrade. 2. I also want you to picture how gold’s price could respond, upside, if the euro were to “impossibly” start rising. Remember your negativity on the Dow into the Oct 2008 and March 2009 lows. Many shorted it at those lows and were mauled. The Euro looks finished now, as the dow did then. Is it finished? If so, why are the banksters on the euro buy, in size, like there were on th...
|
| Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone Magazine 'Ponzi Schemes in the Precious Metals Markets' Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT Well, I wouldn't read a thing into gold's price action on Thursday, as it spent virtually the entire trading day meandering between $1,165 and $1,170 spot. For the most part, silver didn't do much either... especially in Far East and London trading... and I wasn't expecting much, since yesterday was the last day of trading in the April contract, and the stampede was on to switch into a future month... or stand for delivery. But a funny thing happened after silver's low price of the day [$18.03 spot] shortly before 9:00 a.m. in New York... the price started to rise. By 10:30 a.m. [sharp] it was up 30 cents. From there, the silver price gave back about a dime in the next hour, before beginning a gentle rise that began to go parabolic at the close of Comex trading. At the commencement of electronic trading, either the buyer disappeared, or a not-for-profit seller showed up with a big stick. Silver's high price spike was an astonishing $18.59 spot! Ted Butler co...
|
| Digital Silver: Precious Components Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT The new electronic age couldn't be better for silver investors. As consumers swap out their cell phones every two years and Apple releases a new product meant to bridge the gap between cell phones and personal computers, silver has plenty of room to prosper. The New Digital Age During the early 2000s, analysts screamed that silver was sure to reach its deathbed, as its use in photographic development dipped to new lows. However, most analysts at the time failed to see what was the future. While we're no longer developing nearly as much film, we're also consuming silver in new ways never once imagined. In the year 2000, to think that every middle class family would have at least one mobile phone (loaded with silver components) was outlandish. Today, kindergarteners sport the newest electronic gizmos on their first day of school. Silver is out for some, but in the future, it is nothing but in. Industrial Revival Although our industrial sector today...
|
| Derivative Overhaul is Powerful for Physical Metals Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT As Congress looks to pass a financial overhaul bill to prevent a second coming of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and another financial crisis, one of the biggest winners are holders of physical precious metals. Language in the bill meant to reduce the volume of the derivatives market could send the price of physical metals soaring. A Case of Supply and Demand Physical precious metals investors around the world know that the gold and silver markets are at best over inflated and at worst manipulated. A reduction in the amount of derivatives bought, sold and issued would reduce the amount of "paper" gold and silver trading in the system. The result? There would be less paper metals and just as much physical metals. Couple the decreased supply with the same amount of demand, and this leads to higher prices for physical metals. A Diluted Market As it stands today, there are literally hundreds of ways that investors from investment banks to individuals ca...
|
| Get Prepared For Massive Launch Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT By Neil Charnock goldoz.com.au We have been looking at global trends and the debt markets very carefully this year so as to remain prudent about our views on the direction of gold and the Australian gold sector. This may seem like a long bow to draw however the thigh bone is connected to the knee bone when it comes to global markets and capital flows. We specialize on coverage of gold and the Aussie gold stocks that make up the Australian gold sector which is one of the important gold share markets due to our high level of gold production and another key reason I will get to shortly. Another important part of our work is on the currencies due to the importance of the AUD to our gold sector and also for our international clients. We have even taken on a leading Fx broker as an advertiser due to the importance of Fx for international capital flows at this point in history. Our thesis for this year has been one that includes continued trends on global markets on t...
|
| Greek Elites Whack Greeks Over Crisis... Bloomberg Blasts Arizonia Over Immigration Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT Greek Elites Whack Greeks Over Crisis Friday, April 30, 2010 – by Staff Report Andreas Loverdos Greek minister says pension reform part of a package of austerity measures to clinch a three-year, multi- billion-euro aid deal, a Greek minister told the FT on Thursday. Andreas Loverdos (left), social affairs minister told the Financial Times the measures included dropping the seasonal bonus for pensioners in a bid to slash Greece's bloated budget deficit. "The timetable for the pension measures is still being debated, but there isn't much room for manoeuvre – this is about saving the country from collapse," Loverdos told the FT. Union officials told Reuters on Thursday the International Monetary Fund had asked Athens to raise sales taxes, scrap bonuses amounting to two extra months of pay in the public sector, and accept a three-year pay freeze. Other measures in the 24 billion euro package include raising the retirement age from an average of 53 to 6...
|
| Spain is in Pain - US Dollar & Gold Are Safe Havens Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT It’s been an interesting week with Spain being downgraded as Europe debt crisis widens. This has investors looking at the US dollar in a new light thinking that maybe it’s not that bad of an investment after all. This sent the US Dollar higher along with the price of gold so far this week. The past 7 days we have seen both the US Dollar and Gold rise together which is not something that happens often. With financial crisis’s popping up around the world I think the US dollar and gold will continue to strengthen (with corrections along the way). I think it will take another 12-24 months before another wave if issues arise in the financial markets and until then we just continue to focus mainly on buying the dips and corrections with the occasional short play in the larger corrections. USD, Gold And SP500 – Daily Performance Chart SP500 – Daily Chart On April 14th we saw an extreme level of selling which sent the broad market sha...
|
| LGMR: Gold & Silver Near 2010 Highs, "Safe Haven Premium Supported" by Credit Risks Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT London Gold Market Report from Adrian Ash BullionVault 09:40 ET, Fri 30 April Gold & Silver Near 2010 Highs, "Safe Haven Premium Supported" by Credit Risks & Rising Liquidity THE PRICE OF GOLD rose to a near 5-month high in Dollars in London on Friday, adding 1.4% from last week's finish as the long May Bank Holiday weekend drew near. A rally in Asian stock markets faded in Europe, but the Euro jumping back above $1.33 on rumors of a weekend deal for an Athens bail-out. Gold priced in Euros traded towards a record weekly finish around €28,400 per kilo, some 1.3% below Wednesday's intra-day peak. US investors wanting to buy gold today saw it move towards the second-best weekly finish ever, rising above $1175 an ounce. Silver prices jumped within 20¢ of their 2010 highs, rising 2.0% from last Friday's close to $18.74 an ounce. "Events in Europe have refocused investors' attention on the value of gold as a hedge versus currency debasement," notes th...
|
| Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:57 PM PDT The following is automatically syndicated from Grandich's blog. You can view the original post here April 30, 2010 05:25 AM Here's a brief update on the markets, some model portfolio positions and clients of Grandich Publications. U.S. Stock Market – I continue to look for more and more people to buy into the "Happy Days Are Here Again" belief and for the DJIA to continue working higher into the June/July time frame. The mother of all bear market rallies has some punch left in it but don't get comfortable as we shall be keeping an eye on the exit. Interest Rates – Without the Fed buying trillions of a terminally ill paper, I believe rates would've been much higher. When the house of cards comes apart again, I don't anticipate the Fed being in a position to flood the market with liquidity again. I would avoid any bond or CD maturities longer than two years. Gold – Forgive me for being a little giddy by just wanting to say to the overwhelming number of gold perma-bears, people who c...
|
| Todays Most Important Price Points in Gold Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:40 PM PDT
|
| Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:00 PM PDT
|
| Chapter 5: Alternative Silver Investing Posted: 30 Apr 2010 06:00 PM PDT
|
| All that glisters is not gold… Posted: 30 Apr 2010 05:45 PM PDT
|
| Posted: 30 Apr 2010 05:30 PM PDT Honolulu Foreclosures Soar 123% in Q1 Gold Settles at New High of 2010 Above $1180 Slideshow: Out of Employment Benefits Honda Recalls 167,000 Acrura TSX Cars in US Spain Jobless Rate Surpasses 20% Immigration law cutting into Hispanics Hire Flood Swells Rank of Rhode Island Unemployed Hard Times for Star Architects Research Triangle Park NC has Gapping Vacancies Union Protest Planned Job Cuts At Fulton State Hospital Birmingham Foreclosures up 105% over last year San Jose council members Cut Own Pay 10% Florida Highest Private Student Loan Delin. Rate Greece Nearly Insolvent Bailout Wouldn't Work Houston Mayor tells every department to cut 3% Denver Parks Struggle for Cash Report: Tech Industry Dumps 246,000 Jobs in 2009 Alaska Airlines to Stop Flying to Cancun University of Central Florida + Others Could See Tuition/Fee Hike Gold is the "Only Currency" : Strategist Boycotts of Arizona Immigration Law Add up Mortgage Fraud Incidents Rise 7% Last Year US Cattle Prices Rising Birmingham Home Prices Sink 5% in February Report: Alabama Manufacturing Jobs Down 7% Last Year 
|
| Gold Seeker Weekly Wrap-Up: Gold and Silver Gain Over 2% on the Week Posted: 30 Apr 2010 04:00 PM PDT Gold steadily rose throughout most of trade in Asia, London, and New York and ended near its noontime (EST) high of $1181.60 with a gain of 1.02%. Silver rose to as high as $18.75 by late morning before it fell back off in the last couple of hours of trade, but it still ended with a gain of 0.49%.
|
| Got Gold Report - COT Flash April 30 Posted: 30 Apr 2010 02:00 PM PDT Bottom line: COMEX commercials' increase short bets for both gold and silver, but not aggressively. Gold +2.4% and the gold LCNS +3.2%. Silver +1.9% and the silver LCNS 3.9%. Details just below.
|
| Jay Taylor tells BNN about loss of confidence in fiat currencies Posted: 30 Apr 2010 01:10 PM PDT 9:10p ET Friday, April 30, 2010 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: On its "Trading Day" program today, Canada's Business News Network interviewed precious metals newsletter writer Jay Taylor (www.MiningStocks.com) for six minutes about the loss of faith in government currencies and the worldwide monetary system, a perfect environment for gold. While the Western public is largely oblivious to gold, Taylor says, Asians have never forgotten that it is money. You can watch the interview at the BNN Internet site here: http://watch.bnn.ca/#clip296257 CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Coming Friday-Sunday, June 11-13, at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport Marriot: The conference will explore the dangers and opportunities in today's bullion markets and the need for investors to diversify bullion holdings outside of bullion banking and commodities markets. Speakers will include David Morgan of Silver-Investor.com, Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Chairman Bill Murphy, and Duncan Cameron and Philip Judge of Anglo Far-East Bullion Co. The earliest conference attendees on Saturday will be able to schedule one-on-one interviews for personal consultation with Anglo-Far East's experts on Sunday. Watch future GATA Dispatches for registration information. To learn more about the Anglo Far-East Bullion Co., please visit http://www.anglofareast.com/ Support GATA by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: * * * Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT The Silver Saver Program A unique silver savings program has been developed by trusted friends of Silver-Investor.com founder David Morgan, perhaps the world's best-known silver market commentator. In the Silver Saver Program you buy silver in select increments and at competitive prices. You enter the market through dollar cost averaging. The program is easy to start and is automatic but also easily modified if you wish. Your silver can be delivered to your door. If the program no longer meets your needs, you can stop at any time. "This program," Morgan says, "not only receives my full endorsement but also adheres to the tenets I set forth in 'The 10 Rules of Silver Investing' -- dollar cost averaging and putting real silver into your savings plan. "As an introductory promotion, if you decide participate in the Silver Saver Program, I will send you a free copy of 'Silver in the Next Decade,' one of the most important Morgan Reports I have written. And you will have the opportunity to read the Morgan Report free for 30 days. "Now more than ever it is important to accumulate physical silver and to stay informed on major economic developments. My reports cover money, metals, and mining, but I have always stressed the need to have physical metal. The Silver Saver Program will help you achieve a solid position in silver." For more information, please visit www.Silver123.net. If you would like to talk to someone about the Silver Saver Program, telephone our team at 785-727-2277.
|
| Gold Makes Another Yearly High! Posted: 30 Apr 2010 01:00 PM PDT
Gold had another up day, week, and month as little by little it is going mainstream. This was a week where the market spent most of the time moving higher. The low happened on Tuesday morning. Rrom that point on gold rose in a steady stair step fashion right up into the close on Friday for a gain of $21 dollars for the week.-The news of the week was that the gold stocks came alive and actually outperformed the metal for a change. The chart below shows GDX (Gold Miners) versus GLD (Gold trust Shares). After underperforming the metal since last September the gold stocks took off on Great Earnings from the big boys like Newmont Mining and a continued rise in gold and commodities in general.The best performance for the gold stocks versus the metal last year was from the third week in April to the first week of June. (See chart below). We are entering that same timeframe again.
Click on the daily or weekly buttons for the latest updates.The Spring Rally Chart: Below is our spring rally chart. Using the Fractal from 2008 and 2009 as a guide and taking into consideration the seasonal patterns we turned positive the week of March 25th. In our latest weekly update from last Sunday night we had this to say about the expected price resistance for gold." It seems that there is one more bar needed to match up with the 2008-2009 pattern. That pattern would suggest a bar that reaches 1175-1182 during this week and makes a new price high for April. It is at this point where the turn point for gold should be decided." (WEEKLY BUTTON – APRIL 27, 2010) This weeks high, as you can see on the chart below was 1181.60, within 40 cents from the upper projected range.
The long term weekly chart shows how close to a potential major price resistance area gold is arriving at. Is this the time we bust through ?
We can see the effect of the white upper resistance line in 2006, 2008 and now in 2010. This resistance line has not ended the bull market but it has certainly inspired corrective setbacks in price in the past.Here is another view on the weekly chart below.
Gold has arrived at what is most likely its most important turning point of not only this year, but perhaps of its entire bull market. We can see now just how important the 1175-1225 area is for gold bullion. We can infer that gold is at the greatest risk/reward price zone of the entire bull market. The resistance lines meeting our current price point (or just above it) is where every major price high for gold has appeared in the past 10 years.If gold does break out above this major resistance zone, the odds would increase the probability that a projection of 1600-2000, or even higher, could become a reality. |
| Posted: 30 Apr 2010 01:00 PM PDT On April 22, Eurostat, the statistical arm of the European Union, released figures on EU member states' government deficits and debt for 2006-2009. The European Commission requires member states to report certain data every April.
|
| The Gold Price Has Broken Out Into a New Rally Posted: 30 Apr 2010 12:54 PM PDT Gold Price Close Today :1,180.10Gold Price Close 22nd April: 1,142.30Change: 37.80 or 3.3%Silver Price Close Today : 18.611Silver Price Close 22nd of April: 18.006Change 60.50 cents or 3.4%Platinum... This is a summary only. Visit GOLDPRICE.ORG for the full article, gold price charts in ounces grams and kilos in 23 national currencies, and more!
|
| The Welfare State..We Have Reached The Limits Posted: 30 Apr 2010 12:54 PM PDT (snippet) But that looks more like bravado than real self-confidence. So it looks like we'll see how durable the common currency project is. And in the meantime, that ought to mean more U.S. dollar and gold strength. In fact, with so many governments in so many places printing so much money, it shouldn't surprise you to see a whole basket of commodities benefit...for now. However this just pushes out into time and amplifies in size the next phase of the crisis. It's all, at heart, a debt crisis. And before it's over we reckon there will be both collapsing asset values AND hyperinflation. And here's a bonus thought for the day: what if the inevitable collapse of the social welfare state funding model leads people to change their primary loyalty from the State to something more local? For starters, it would mean, we reckon, that the centralising principle of the last 200 years of Western history (in commerce, politics, and living arrangements) may have reached its natural limits. The centralising principle would reach those limits for various reasons. One is the inherent fragility of complex systems and their increasing vulnerability to systemic collapse. Globalisation and the division of labour on a global level creates tremendous complexity AND vulnerability. Politically, the centralising principle, as emotionally successful as it has been in winning market share/votes (let us live at one another's expense) is being exposed as economically fraudulent (as well as morally wrong to coerce other people to your way of thinking through taxation). It's a nice idea, but it may be unaffordable without literally mortgaging the future or destroying our standard of living in the pursuit of a social welfare utopia. Robb defines a primary loyalty as "a connection to a non-state group that is greater than loyalty to a state. These loyalties include those to clan, religion, tribe, neighbourhood gang, etc. These loyalties are reciprocated through the delivery of political goods (by the group that the state cannot or will not deliver)." In a prosperous liberal democratic state where people see justice as fair and view the burden of civilisation (taxes) as equitably shared, where corruption is not rife and opportunities exist for social and economic mobility, having your primary loyalty to an abstraction (the rule of law or the State) is no problem. It is the norm. But when the State expands the promises it makes and then fails to deliver on more basic ones, people begin to question their primary loyalty. This doesn't mean they revolt. No one really wants to do that. You only do that when you have no recourse economically and no better prospects. We reckon a retreat to a more local way of life is in the works. The rising cost of energy and capital will be one factor. And frankly, to use a Marxist term, people might feel less alienated from their labour and life if they felt more connected to their neighbours and their work. And that's more possible in a small, more sustainable resilient community than it is in an artificial mega-city of millions. But now we're just prattling on! More Here.. 
|
| James Turk: Gold needed now more than ever Posted: 30 Apr 2010 12:50 PM PDT 8:45p ET Friday, April 30, 2010 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: In his commentary today at the Free Gold Money Report, GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk reviews a recent study by the Bank for International Settlements about the danger that national debts will be inflated away through monetary devaluation. Sovereign debt instruments, Turk writes, are anything but "risk-free," while only gold carries no counterparty risk. Turk's commentary is headlined "Gold: Needed Now More Than Ever" and you can find it at the Free Gold Money Report here: http://www.fgmr.com/gold-needed-now-more-than-ever.html CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Resource Corp. Appoints Rob McEwen to Advisory Board Prophecy Resource Corp. (TSX.V: PCY, OTC: PCYRF) is pleased to announce the appointment of Rob McEwen to the company's Advisory Board. McEwen is a leading Canadian mining industry entrepreneur. He is the chairman and CEO of U.S. Gold Corp. and Minera Andes Inc. McEwen was the founder and former chairman and CEO of Goldcorp Inc., whose Red Lake Mine in northwestern Ontario, Canada, is considered to be the richest gold mine in the world. During his tenure at Goldcorp, McEwen transformed the company from a collection of small companies into a mining powerhouse, growing its market capitalization from $50 million to approximately $8 billion. For Prophecy Resource Corp.'s complete statement: http://www.prophecyresource.com/news_2010_mar11b.php Support GATA by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: * * * Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Preliminary Feasibility Study Completed for Seabridge Gold's KSM Project Study Reports Reserves of 30.2 Million Oz. Gold, 7 Billion Lbs. Copper, Base Case Life of Mine Cash Operating Costs Estimated at $144/oz. Gold Produced Toronto -- Seabridge Gold Inc. has announced results from a National Instrument 43-101 compliant preliminary feasibility study of its 100-percent owned KSM project in northern British Columbia, Canada. The study was prepared by Wardrop, a Tetra Tech company, a major international engineering and consulting firm. Seabridge President and CEO Rudi Fronk says, "The study confirms that the KSM project now hosts the largest gold reserve in Canada and one of the largest in the world. KSM is projected to provide an extraordinary mine life of more than 35 years with estimated cash operating costs well below the current average of the major gold producers. Estimated capital costs are in line with those of comparable, large-scale, undeveloped gold-copper projects and KSM has the advantage of being located in a low-risk jurisdiction." For the complete Seabridge Gold statement: http://www.seabridgegold.net/readmore.php?newsid=283
|
| Gene Arensberg: Large commercials get shorter but not aggressively Posted: 30 Apr 2010 12:17 PM PDT 8:15p ET Friday, April 30, 2010 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver): At Got Gold Report, Gene Arensberg reports tonight that the large commercial shorts in gold and silver on the New York Commodities Exchange increased their positions this week but not aggressively so. Arensberg's report is headlined "COT Flash April 30" and you can find it here: CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Silver Phoenix Resources Inc. [CNSX: SP] has announced a non-brokered private placement offering to raise up to $2 million by issuance of up to 4 million flow-through units at a price of $0.50 per unit. Non-flow-through common shares are being offered on the same terms to interested subscribers. Private Placement Offering for Silver Phoenix Resources Inc. Each flow-through unit consists of one common share in the capital of the corporation (a "flow-through share") and half of one non-flow-through common share purchase warrant (a "warrant"). Each whole warrant shall entitle the holder to acquire one non-flow-through common share in the capital of the corporation (a "warrant share") until 5 p.m. Vancouver time on the date 24 months following the closing date (as defined herein) at a price of $0.70. The proceeds raised from the offering will be used for general exploration and to drill the 100-percent-owned River Jordan Property. This historic property hosts the King Fissure [aka River Jordan] lead, zinc, and silver deposit. Following a comprehensive field program in 1991, a structural re-interpretation of the complex folds hosting the King fissure deposit resulted in a major increase in potential mineralization to 20 million tonnes of 7.5 percent lead, 7.5 percent zinc, and 100 g/t silver [Laird and Clark, 1991]. The estimated tonnage of the light rare earth and niobium-bearing extrusive carbonatite unit is on the order of 33,750,000 tonnes, with no ore grade currently established. This historical estimate predates National Instrument 43-101 legislation. Interested parties can contact: William J. Murray, President and CEO For more information about the River Jordan Property, please visit: http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p1047687515&d=River_Jordan_Property.... Support GATA by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: * * * Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Anglo Far-East Bullion Co., the Original Private Bullion Custodian For two decades Anglo Far-East Bullion co. has been providing select international clientele the highest degree of privacy, security, and access to buy, hold, and sell allocated gold and silver bars. -- Allocated gold and silver bars: AFE will not only provide you with the individual bar numbers of the bullion bars you own, but you can also rest safely in the knowledge that each bar is sight-verified by a top Swiss auditor and annually checked off against AFE accounts to ensure that your metal is locked away safely. -- Guaranteed market access and liquidity: AFE buys and sells directly with LBMA-certified metal refineries only. In bypassing the commodities market exchanges such as the Comex and bullion banks, AFE provides clients a means of access to the global physical precious metals markets that may not be available to others should systemic issues in the bullion markets arise. -- Stand for delivery: If at any time you wish to take delivery of your metal, AFE will arrange to have bars shipped to you anywhere in the world. -- Zero tolerance for leverage: AFE refuses to deal with "paper gold." We believe our clients want the metal itself so they may avoid the risks of the paper markets. AFE will not introduce such risk to its clients. -- Metal vaulted outside the banking system: None of AFE's clients have to worry that their metal is exposed to encumbrances bearing on bullion banks and commodities markets. None of AFE's vaulting partners or other strategic providers are controlled or majority-owned by banks. This is by design, not by accident. -- Access to the LBMA system of refineries, vaults, and security providers. This allows AFE clients to maintain London Good Delivery status of their metal, ensuring ease of sale or transfer, while being insulated from the "paper gold" market. -- Total privacy: AFE accounts are managed as numbered accounts in the Swiss private banking tradition. At no time does identifying information such as name and address appear on any account statement or other account documents. -- Geo-political diversification: In the words of the wise King Solomon, "Place a portion of seven and eight throughout the land, for you know not where evil may arise." Many of AFE's clients choose AFE specifically because their metal is safely vaulted outside the jurisdiction they reside in. -- Iron-clad governance: By contract with AFE's vaulting provider, no access may be made to the vaults without the attendance of an agent of the vault as well as an agent of the third-party signatory trustee, in this case top Swiss auditor Grant Thornton. All metal going into and -- more importantly -- coming out of the vaults requires the approval of a third-party signatory trustee as well as a detailed, sight-verified report of each bar and serial number by the auditor. For more information and a personal consultation with one of our private account liaisons, please contact us: Anglo Far-East Bullion Co.
|
| Another Rally in The Main Stock Indices and Gold? Posted: 30 Apr 2010 12:04 PM PDT This essay is based on the Premium Update posted on April 30th, 2010 Three weeks ago we've commented on the link between the general stock market and gold, but since the situation has changed significantly since that time, we would like to provide you with a follow-up. Let's begin with the very-long-term chart (charts courtesy by http://stockcharts.com) of the S&P 500 Index, and then we'll move to implications for gold. In short – we still expect to see a general stock market correction in the not too distant future, but not right away. This week there was very little change in the S & P Large Cap index chart. The recent decline meant nothing with respect to the long-term picture although it was clearly visible on a day-to-day basis. As we stated in a previous update, in past years, when RSI levels [based on weekly closing prices] was in the 70 range, it normally remained there for months. In the past, we have also seen stocks forming a temporary top above the 200-week moving average. Since we are not presently above it, we would expect the rally to continue until we have seen the index in or slightly above the area marked on the above chart with red ellipse. Until this takes place, it is likely that we will see the RSI fluctuate near the 70 level. Let's zoom in for more details. Moving to the long-term SPY ETF chart, we do see some changes as compared to last week. The market has been consolidating for several days and this has caused the RSI (based on daily closing prices) to move much lower, actually touching the 50 level. This indicates that we are no longer in an overbought situation. We are therefore presently bullish as the trend surely appears to be upward. A further rally is likely given that the overbought situation is behind us. Looking back to 2009, we see similarities. An overbought period was followed by an RSI plunge to 50 (marked on the chart with red ellipse) which quickly resulted in a stock market rally. Several weeks ago, we mentioned that this was likely to take place and we see it now (marked on the chart with blue ellipse). This has been confirmed by volume levels recently, thus validating that our analogy with 2009 is still intact. During the final part of the decline, we also saw a decline in the high volume levels. We saw this twice in 2009, during periods of consolidation and slight decline. Perhaps, our current consolidation interval is coming to an end. The likely implications for precious metals can be surmised from a look at previous periods with similar trends. We saw PM's rally in very similar situations and we expect to see this once again. Consequently, we remain medium term bullish on gold. Still, in order to provide you with details, we need to further elaborate on the values from our correlation matrix. There is virtually no change to the correlation matrix for this week. Once again, the USD and precious metals are uncorrelated and the high correlation readings are seen between PM's and the general stock market. Gold continues to be highly correlated with the general stock market and therefore our previous bullish points apply here as well. The lack of correlation with the US dollar resulted from a situation where gold continued to rise in spite of the recent strength shown by the USD. We expect this trend to continue in week ahead and once again reaffirm our bullish outlook for the yellow metal. The gold chart provides us with details. Gold prices moved higher this week. Today the question is have we reached a local top or would we call this a pause in the rally? We feel more strongly that the latter is true. The gold rally most likely will continue over the next week or three with short periods of sideways movement possible. The situation is to some extent unclear mainly due to the lack of clarity in the self-similar pattern. In October 2009, we saw a similar period to what we've seen recently followed by a rally. We also have seen consolidation patterns come to an end. In either case, a downward movement occurred first followed by a rally. We do not feel at this time that one should bet on a downward movement in the short term. All signs point to higher gold prices in a week or three regardless of what happens in the next few days. The short-term bullish analysis is confirmed by the GDX:SPY ratio. The GDX:SPY ratio measures precious metal stocks outperformance vs. the general stock market. It is a useful tool for estimating when a top or bottom is in for PM stocks as this ratio usually tops out along with PMs and PM stocks. Please note that virtually each time we've seen a top in the ratio, it was accompanied by big volume. Presently, it is obvious that the daily volume is relatively low. This indicates the top is not yet in. We see that the RSI is approaching 70, which usually means that a top is near, but this level has not yet been reached. Additionally, when the ratio moved above the declining resistance line near the 0.4 level, it quickly moved upwards to the 0.45 range. We haven't seen a rally this big so far, which – once again – suggests that the rally is not over yet. Summing up, although the general stock market has been rallying strongly since February, we again state that the correction, which we still feel is inevitable, may still be some time away. The market appears to have gained some strength of late, which should hold off a short-term correction for the near future, which has bullish implications for the gold market. Additionally, the analysis of ratios reassures us that the final top for this rally is not yet in. Targets and short-term details are available to our Subscribers. To make sure that you are notified once the new features are implemented, and get immediate access to my free thoughts on the market, including information not available publicly, I urge you to sign up for my free e-mail list. Sign up today and you'll also get free, 7-day access to the Premium Sections on my website, including valuable tools and charts dedicated to serious PM Investors and Speculators. It's free and you may unsubscribe at any time. Thank you for reading. Have a great and profitable week! P. Radomski * * * * * Interested in increasing your profits in the PM sector? Want to know which stocks to buy? Would you like to improve your risk/reward ratio? Sunshine Profits provides professional support for precious metals Investors and Traders. Apart from weekly Premium Updates and quick Market Alerts, members of the Sunshine Profits' Premium Service gain access to Charts, Tools and Key Principles sections. Click the following link to find out how many benefits this means to you. Naturally, you may browse the sample version and easily sing-up for a free weekly trial to see if the Premium Service meets your expectations. All essays, research and information found above represent analyses and opinions of Mr. Radomski and Sunshine Profits' associates only. As such, it may prove wrong and be a subject to change without notice. Opinions and analyses were based on data available to authors of respective essays at the time of writing. Although the information provided above is based on careful research and sources that are believed to be accurate, Mr. Radomski and his associates do not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the data or information reported. The opinions published above belong to Mr. Radomski or respective associates and are neither an offer nor a recommendation to purchase or sell securities. Mr. Radomski is not a Registered Securities Advisor. Mr. Radomski does not recommend services, products, business or investment in any company mentioned in any of his essays or reports. Materials published above have been prepared for your private use and their sole purpose is to educate readers about various investments. By reading Mr. Radomski's essays or reports you fully agree that he will not be held responsible or liable for any decisions you make regarding any information provided in these essays or reports. Investing, trading and speculation in any financial markets may involve high risk of loss. We strongly advise that you consult a certified investment advisor and we encourage you to do your own research before making any investment decision. Mr. Radomski, Sunshine Profits' employees and affiliates as well as members of their families may have a short or long position in any securities, including those mentioned in any of the reports or essays, and may make additional purchases and/or sales of those securities without notice.
|
| John Williams: A Hyper-Inflationary Great Depression Is Coming Posted: 30 Apr 2010 12:00 PM PDT Source: Tim McLaughlin and Karen Roche of The Gold Report 4/30/10 http://www.theaureport.com/pub/na/6199 ShadowStats' John Williams has done his math and believes his numbers tell the truth. He explains why the U.S. is in a depression and why a "Hyper-Inflationary Great Depression" is now unavoidable. John also shares why he selects gold as a metal for asset conversion in this exclusive interview with The Gold Report. The Gold Report: John, last December you stated, "The U.S. economic and systemic crisis of the past of the past two years are just precursors to a great collapse," or what you call a "hyper-inflationary great depression." Is this prediction unique to the U.S., or do you feel that other economies face the same fate? John Williams: The hyper-inflationary portion largely will be unique to the U.S. If the U.S. falls into a great depression, there's no way the rest of the world cannot have some negative economic impact. TGR: How will the United States' decreased economic power impact global economies? Will the rest of the world survive? JW: People will find to their happy surprise that they'll be able to survive. Most businesses are pretty creative. The thing is, the U.S. economic activity accounts for roughly half that of the globe. There's no way that the U.S. economy can turn down severely without there being an equivalent, at least a parallel downturn outside the U.S. with its major trading partners. When I talk about a great depression in the United States, it is coincident with a hyper-inflation. We're already in the deepest and longest economic contraction seen since the Great Depression. If you look at the timing as set by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which is the arbiter of U.S. recessions, as to whether or not we have one, they've refused to call an end to this one, so far. But assuming you called an end to it back in the middle of 2009, it would still be the longest recession seen since the first down-leg of the Great Depression. In terms of depth, year-to-year decline in the gross domestic product, or GDP, as reported in the third quarter of 2009, was the steepest annual decline ever reported in that series, which goes back to the late '40s on a quarterly basis. Other than for the shutdown of war production at the end of World War II, which usually is not counted as a normal business cycle, the full annual decline in 2009 GDP was the deepest since the Great Depression. There's strong evidence that we're going to see an intensified downturn ahead, but it won't become a great depression until a hyper-inflation kicks in. That is because hyper-inflation will be very disruptive to the normal flow of commerce and will take you to really low levels of activity that we haven't seen probably in the history of the Republic. Let me define what I mean by depression and great depression, because there's no formal definition out there that matches the common expectation. Before World War II, economic downturns commonly were referred to as depressions. If you drew a graph of the level of activity in a depression over time, it would show a dip in the economy, and you'd go down and then up. The down part was referred to as recession and the up part as recovery. The Great Depression was one that was so severe that in the post-World War II era, those looking at economic cycles tried to come up with a euphemism for "depression." They didn't want to create the image of or remind people of the 1930s. Basically, they called economic downturns recessions, and most people think of a depression now as a severe recession. I've talked with people in the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the National Bureau of Economic Research in terms of developing a formal depression definition. The traditional definition of recession—that of two consecutive quarters of inflation-adjusted contraction in GDP—still is a solid one, despite recent refinements. Although there's no official consensus on this, generally, a depression would be considered a recession where peak-to-trough contraction in the economy was more than 10%; a great depression would be a recession where the peak-to-trough contraction was more than 25%. We're borderline depression in terms of where we're going to be here before I think the hyper-inflation kicks in. You've certainly seen depression-like numbers in things such as retail sales, industrial production and new orders for durable goods, where you're down more than 10% from peak-to-trough. In terms of housing, you're down more than 75%, and that certainly would be in the great depression category. With hyper-inflation, you have disruption to the normal flow of commerce and that will slow things down very remarkably from where we are now. TGR: After a period of recession, isn't inflation considered a good sign? JW: There are a couple of things that drive inflation. The one that you're describing is the relatively happy event where strong economic demand is exceeding production, and that's pushing prices higher, as well as interest rates. That's a relatively healthy circumstance. You can also have inflation, which is driven by factors other than strong economic activity. That's what we've been seeing in the last couple of years. It's been largely dominated by swings in oil prices. That hasn't been due really to oil demand, as much as it has been due to the value of the U.S. dollar. Oil is denominated in U.S. dollars. Big swings in the U.S. dollar get reflected in oil pricing. If the dollar weakens, oil rises. That's what you saw if you go back to the 1973-1975 recession, for example. That was an inflationary recession. Indeed, the counterpart to what you were suggesting earlier about the strong demand and higher inflation is that usually in a recession you see low inflation. The '73 to '75 experience, however, was an inflationary recession because of the problem with oil prices. That's what we were seeing early in this cycle, where a weakening dollar rallied oil prices, and then the dollar reversed sharply and oil prices collapsed. We have passed through a brief period of shallow year-to-year deflation in the consumer price index, but, as oil prices bottomed out and headed higher since the end of 2009, we're now seeing higher inflation, again. I'm looking at hyper-inflation, which is a rather drastic forecast. This has been in place as an ultimate fate for the system for a number of years. Back in the '70s, the then Big 10 accounting firms got together and approached the government and said, "Hey guys, you know you need to keep your books the way a big corporation does. You're the largest financial operator on earth." The government then, as well as today, operates on a cash basis with no accrual accounting and such. Yet, over a period of 30 years, the accountants and government put together generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, accounting for the federal government and introduced formal financial statements on that basis in 2002, which supplement the annual cash-based accounting. If you look at those GAAP-based statements and include in the deficit the year-to-year change in the net present value of the unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare, what you'll find is that the annual operating shortfall is running between $4 and $5 trillion; not $500 billion as we saw before the crisis or the $1.4 trillion that they announced for fiscal 2009. Now to put that into perspective, if the government wanted to balance its deficit on a GAAP basis for a year, and it seized all personal income and corporate profits, taxing everything 100%, it would still be in deficit. It can't raise taxes enough to contain this. On the other side, if it cut all government spending except for Social Security and Medicare, it still would be in deficit. With no political will to contain the spending, eventually the government meets its obligations by revving up the currency printing press. TGR: With all this new paper money coming into the system, wouldn't we see a bigger bubble than we've ever seen prior to a hyper-inflationary great depression? JW: No, in fact, it's a very unusual circumstance that we have now. Put yourself in Mr. Bernanke's situation—he had to prevent a collapse of the banking system. He was afraid of a severe deflation as was seen in the Great Depression, when a lot of banks went out of business. The depositors lost funds and the money supply just collapsed. He wanted to prevent a collapse of the money supply and keep the depository institutions afloat. Generally, that has happened. The FDIC expanded its coverage and everything that had to be done to keep the system from imploding was done. The effects eventually will be inflationary. In the process, what Mr. Bernanke did was to expand the monetary base extraordinarily, more than doubling it over a period of a year. The monetary base is money currently in circulation plus bank reserves. If you go back to before September 2008, the bank reserves were in the $50 to $60 billion range. Where the currency was maybe $800 billion, we've gone over $2 trillion in total reserves. Most of that is in excess reserves and not required reserves that banks have to keep to support their deposits. Normally banks would take their excess reserves and lend them out into the regular stream of commerce, and in doing so, that would create money supply. Instead they're leaving the excess reserves on deposit with the Fed. Money supply and credit are now generally contracting. We're going to see an intensified downturn in the near future. I specialize in looking at leading indicators that have very successful track records in terms of predicting economic or financial turns. One such indicator is the broad money supply. Whenever the broad money supply–adjusted for inflation–has turned negative year over year, the economy has gone into recession, or if it already was in a recession, the downturn intensified. It's happened four times before now, in modern reporting. You saw it in the terrible downturn of '73 to '75, the early '80s and again in the early '90s. In December of 2009, annual growth in real M3 turned negative. It's now at a record low in terms of decline, down more than 6% year over year. What that suggests is that in the immediate future you're going to see renewed downturn in economic activity. In all the prior instances that I mentioned, this event led recessions, except for '73 to '75. That's when you had the oil spike and a recession that came from that. When the money supply turned down in that recession, the economy accelerated in its decline. We're going to see something along those lines, now, with about a six-month lead time. You're going to have negative economic growth this year. The implications for that are extraordinary, because the projections on the federal budget deficit, a number of the state deficits, and the solvency and stress tests for the banking system all were structured assuming positive economic growth in the 2% to 3% range for 2010. Instead it's going to be negative. Many states are going to be in greater difficulty than they thought. Most likely, you're going to have federal bailouts there. The banks are going to have more troubles. All this means more government support, more government spending, greater deficits and greater funding needs for the U.S. Treasury. We have a global market that already is increasingly reluctant to hold the dollars and U.S. Treasuries. TGR: The U.S. dollar is still the reserve currency, and it's holding its value while the euro struggles. Wouldn't decoupling precede hyper-inflation? JW: I don't know if it will decouple from being the reserve currency formally, but it will de facto. The reserve status is the reason the dollar didn't collapse per se a year and a half ago during the September '08 panic. The movement is already afoot, however, to try to relegate the dollar to some status other than a reserve currency. For example, OPEC purportedly is looking to price oil in something other than U.S. dollars. The pressure is there to change the status. Again, if you start to see a great depreciation of the U.S. currency or a tremendous increase in lack of confidence in the soundness of the government's fiscal condition, there is a problem. You mentioned Greece, for example. The sovereign solvency issues there are minuscule compared to what we have with the United States, which is the elephant in the bathtub. The markets know it's there. The central bankers know it's there. Again, with the downturn in the economy, all the issues are going to be brought to a head. As they come to a head, there will be that effort to dump the dollar. I would expect that, indeed, it will be decoupled from its reserve status, although it could follow after the fact as opposed to before the fact. TGR: Major economic indicators suggest significant improvement; even the IMF has stated that we've averted a global depression. What are you seeing that these governing bodies are not? JW: What I'm using is a leading indicator of economic activity: year-to-year change in inflation-adjusted broad money supply. We're now seeing a very sharp year-over-year decline, which has not been seen since the 1990 recession. This indicator does not work always in the upside; it doesn't necessarily give you a signal for a rising economy. It is, however, basic. If you strangle liquidity you can always contract an economy. Deliberately or not, liquidity's being strangled. You're seeing very sharp declines in consumer credit, commercial and industrial loans and commercial paper outstanding. You are getting happy news from governments, central banks, financial markets, Wall Street analysts and the popular media, which does tend to cater to Wall Street. Such is standard practice. Happy news is what sells and you don't want to discourage people. The Obama administration, interestingly, started talking-down the economy when it wanted to get its stimulus package in place. As soon as that was done, it started talking-up the economy. Everything was just fine and dandy again. This is the most extraordinary downturn most people living today have ever seen. In terms of modern economic reporting, which basically started after World War II, we've never had a downturn as long or as severe. Perversely, the extreme nature of the downturn actually has warped recent reporting of seasonally-adjusted data to the upside. TGR: Earlier you mentioned that business around the world will survive in the event of a depression. Aren't there sustainable businesses in the U.S. as well? Won't an influx of printed currency and green-tech job creation offer some value? At some point, doesn't stimulus money become real cash producing real goods? Surely the economy would be viable at some level? JW: Not without income growth. There's nothing there that you've described to me that is growing, aside from inflation. To have sustainable growth in the economy, you have to income growth, net of inflation. That is not happening, and there is nothing in existing government stimulus that will cause real income growth. Beyond income issues, the problem with the hyper-inflation is that very quickly the use of cash will cease. Let me contrast our circumstance here with a very popularly followed hyper-inflation case that's now run its course in Zimbabwe. There you had probably the worst hyper-inflation that anyone's ever seen. After devaluation upon devaluation, they successively lopped the zeros off the bills. If you took a $2 bill that they first issued back in the '80s and then tried to come up with the equivalent of a $2 bill in the last form of the currency, it would be very difficult to do because it was so worthless. If you put a pile of those together to equal the original $2 bill, it would actually stretch from the earth to the Andromeda Galaxy. We're talking light years. There are not enough trees on earth to print them. Yet the Zimbabwe economy survived and functioned. They had a lot of problems, but they operated. The reason they functioned was because they had a back-up system, which was a black market in U.S. dollars. People switched out of the Zimbabwe dollar to U.S. dollars. They could live with that. In the U.S., we don't have a back-up system. TGR: You mentioned in a recent interview with CNN that you're recommending individuals move into both cash and gold. With the euro and the dollar in jeopardy, where does that leave us? JW: I don't like the euro. I don't think that's going to hold together, and I've thought so for some time. If it should break up and you have a new German currency, a new mark or something like that might be a strong one option. At the moment I like the Canadian dollar, the Australian dollar and the Swiss franc. For anyone living in the United States, rather than looking at the short-term volatility in the markets and trying to make money off of that, this is the time to batten down the hatches and to look to preserve your wealth and assets. In terms of preserving the purchasing power of your assets, the best thing I can think of is physical gold. That's worked over the millennia. I'm not per se a gold bug. It just happens to be a circumstance in which it's the cleanest asset around for that. You don't need to put all your assets into gold, but hold some. Hold some silver. I'd look to get some assets out of the U.S. dollar and look to get some assets out of the U.S. When I say outside of the U.S. dollar, again, I look at the Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, Swiss franc in particular. I think they will tend to do particularly well, whereas the U.S. dollar is going to become effectively worthless. As the dollar breaks down, you'll also likely see disruptions in supply chains, including shipments of food to grocery stores. People should consider maintaining stockpiles of basic goods needed for living, much as they would for a natural disaster. I sit on the Hayward fault in California. I have a supply of goods and basic necessities in case something terrible happens—natural or man-made—that will carry me for a couple of months. It may take that long for a barter system to evolve, which I think is what you're going to end up with; at least until a new currency system is reorganized and you get a government that's able to bring its fiscal house into order. No currency system in the U.S. is going to work unless the fiscal conditions that drove it into oblivion are also addressed. On a global basis, where the dollar is the world's reserve currency, 80% of currency transactions involve the U.S. dollar. There's going to have to be an overhaul of the global currency system. To gain credibility with the public, the powers that be likely will design a system that has some kind of a tie to gold, but that's purely speculative. TGR: From a personal investment point of view, you emphasized that this is a time to conserve assets, including gold and other currencies. How else can investors protect themselves? JW: I like physical gold and silver. I look to gold as a primary hedge. If you can come out of this holding gold, you'll be in a position where you'll be able to take advantage of some extraordinary investment opportunities that will follow. With inflation, real estate is usually a pretty good bet. It tends to hold its value over time. There may be periods of illiquidity, though, and it's not portable. Neither of those limitations is an issue with gold. Maybe gold will become the black market to support U.S. economic activity. It certainly would be the area that people will try to transfer their assets to as time goes along. You see people now as gold gets to a new high saying, "Oh my goodness, I bought at $200, and I can sell out at $1,100 making a good profit." What people don't realize is that they haven't made a real profit. What they've done is retained the purchasing power of the dollars that they invested in gold, and they've lost proportionately the purchasing power of the amounts left in dollar-denominated paper assets over the same time. Gold is a long-term wealth preserver. Again, where many people are used to an investment environment where they can buy a stock, make a quick profit and then sell, with gold you need to hold on for the long haul as an insurance policy, not as a quick investment. TGR: Thank you very much for your time. Walter J. "John" Williams was born in 1949. He received an A.B. in Economics, cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1971, and was awarded a M.B.A. from Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Business Administration in 1972, where he was named an Edward Tuck Scholar. During his career as a consulting economist, John has worked with individuals as well as Fortune 500 companies. For more than 25 years he has been a private consulting economist and a specialist in government economic reporting. His analysis and commentary have been featured widely in the popular media both in the U.S. and globally. Mr. Williams provides insight and analysis on his website, www.shadowstats.com. Want to read more exclusive Gold Report interviews like this? Sign up for our free e-newsletter, and you'll learn when new articles have been published. To see a list of recent interviews with industry analysts and commentators, visit our Expert Insights page.
|
| Posted: 30 Apr 2010 12:00 PM PDT This article appearing recently at the Huffington Post by James Bacchus, a "former member of Congress," is noteworthy because it musters all the arguments against a Federal Reserve audit and, generally, Fed transparency. While Ron Paul (R-Tex) and others have been calling for an audit of the Fed, various defenders of the Fed's business as usual are mustering any defense they can to retain the "independence" of the said agency.
|
| smokin hot cup of golden java!!!!! Posted: 30 Apr 2010 11:36 AM PDT hope for $1500 gold this fall holiday season....if you ain't caffenated, better drink it up!
|
| The Future For Gold And Mining Stocks Posted: 30 Apr 2010 11:20 AM PDT Both Gold and the HUI Amex Gold Bugs Index remain inside long-term rising trend-channels. Further, from an Elliott Wave perspective, Gold looks to be starting a fifth wave rally. Read More...
|
| Why You Should Be VERY CONCERNED About The Financial Crisis In Greece Posted: 30 Apr 2010 11:00 AM PDT
This has been quite a week for Greece and for the other nations in Europe teetering on the edge of financial disaster. Standard & Poor's reduced Greek debt to "junk" status, and Spain and Portugal's debts were also downgraded substantially. These unprecedented steps by Standard & Poor's have many concerned that this financial "contagion" could start spreading across all of Europe. We'll take a look at the "austerity measures" being forced on Greece in a moment, but first it is important to note that financial panic is already spreading to other nations in the region. In Portugal, the government has announced that additional "austerity measures", beyond those in the current three year plan, are expected to be implemented. Perhaps they wouldn't need to take such drastic steps if they hadn't spent all of those millions constructing those shiny new soccer stadiums a few years ago. But in any event, many analysts are now forecasting that Portugal will be the next domino to fall. Officials in Spain are expected to announce this week that unemployment has hit 20%. But of course any nation that implements a hardcore "cap and trade" law like the one in Spain should expect unemployment to soar into the stratosphere. So they are just reaping what they have sown, but the fallout could end up being very painful. Spain's economy is approximately five times larger than Greece's so if Spain ends up defaulting it will create a financial nightmare for all of Europe. There are now rumors that even Italy and Ireland are in a massive amount of trouble financially. So will the EU and the IMF end up having to bail all of them out? Well, for now Greece is first in line. European officials said on Friday that the Greek government, facing a rapidly deteriorating financial situation, is close to completing negotiations for assistance from the International Monetary Fund. So Greece is going to get the money that it needs - but it comes with strings. Greece must surrender some of its fiscal sovereignty and adopt a three year program of severe spending cuts and higher taxes. In fact, one major Greek newspaper says that wage and job cuts for public workers will also be ordered alongside the spending cuts and tax increases to get through what they are calling "three hard years". You see, the truth is that Greece is a highly socialized nation. In a population of just over 11 million people, Greece employs more than a million in the public sector. Just think about that for a moment. That is huge. They get paid extremely well, and Greek civil servants also enjoy very generous pension benefits and early retirement. Needless to say a lot of these Greek civil servants are not happy at all about the changes the IMF is forcing upon them, and they have called a general strike for May 5th. For his part, the Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, is trying to convince the Greek people that these new spending cuts and tax increases are necessary to keep his nation afloat. According to The Associated Press, Mr. Papandreou recently told the Greek Parliament the following.... "The measures we must take, which are economic measures, are necessary for the protection of our country — for our survival, for our future, so we can stand firmly on our feet." There are even fears that this sovereign debt crisis could spell the end for the Euro. Back on Wednesday, the leaders of the 16 countries currently using the Euro called an emergency meeting to attempt to avert a Euro meltdown triggered by Greece's financial collapse. Of course the Euro is not actually going to collapse, but the fact that they all felt the need to get together and talk about this situation is quite telling. In fact, the language used by some of the top financial authorities in the world when speaking about the Greek debt crisis is quite alarming.... Angel GurrÃa, head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: "This is like Ebola. It's threatening the stability of the financial system." Colin Ellis, economist at Daiwa Capital Markets: "The time for horse-trading, prevarication and posturing is over. Arguably, the very future of the euro area is now teetering on a knife edge." Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund: "If we don't fix it in Greece, it may have a lot of consequences on the EU." But for the people of Greece, getting help with their debt means giving up their ability to determine their own affairs. They have gotten into so much debt that now they are forced to do whatever the IMF and the EU tell them to do. Of course there are many in Greece who are extremely upset by this as evidenced by the recent riots there.... But this is what happens when a nation allows itself to get into way too much debt. In fact, this has been done by design in third world nations for decades. In his extraordinary book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman The alarming thing today is that it just isn't third world nations where this game is being played anymore. Now that they have perfected the blueprint, they are trying it out on nations like Greece. The reality is that this is all part of the push towards globalization. In fact, Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, emphasized the need for global coordination in financial matters during his April 26th address at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Global coordination" sounds nice, but just like "global governance" and "global cooperation", it is just another way of saying that we need to transfer more power and more authority to globalist institutions. You see, whatever problem that pops up (in this instance it is the Greek debt crisis), the solution always seems to be to transfer more power to global institutions. In fact, as a "solution" to the global financial crisis, the IMF is proposing two new taxes on financial institutions worldwide: a "financial stability contribution" which levies a small charge on financial institution balance sheets, and a "financial activities tax", which would tax "excess profits" and bonuses. As the nations of the world continue to get deeper in debt, and as more power and more money is transferred to unelected global institutions, the people of the world may find their lives increasingly being run by heartless bureaucrats on the other side of the globe. For anyone who loves freedom, that is a very sobering thought.
|
| China’s Property Market Is Another Risk To Global Growth Posted: 30 Apr 2010 10:57 AM PDT The extraordinary gains in the Chinese real estate market may be coming to an end. In fact, there are several indications that the property market bubble is topping and that the measures instituted by the Chinese Government to slow down the property market will be effective. Although the Chinese infrastructure boom is often cited as the underlying reason for the global growth story, industrial commodities and many global stock markets are ignoring the threat of a slowdown in China.
|
| Posted: 30 Apr 2010 10:37 AM PDT
Thought For The Day The cost for a Greek bailout to the citizens of the US via the IMF will be $100 billion. Now there is a nice addition to the Federal Budget Deficit.
Jim Sinclair's Commentary Are you joining me on the non-corporate delegation to Tanzania to examine investment opportunities? AFDB predicts fastest recovery of Tanzanian economy in East Africa DAR ES SALAAM (Xinhua) — Tanzania is expected to experience the biggest economy expansion in East Africa this year, the African Development Bank (AFDB) has projected. The second largest economy in East Africa's economy is forecast to grow at 5.7 per cent, while Uganda and Rwanda to expand by 5.1 per cent and 4.8 per cent respectively, the local media on Thursday quoted the AFDB projections as saying. Kenya, the regional largest economy, is expected to grow by 4.3 per cent while Burundi's economy will accelerate by 3.2 per cent, the AFDB said. The regional bank believes that policy changes in many countries have created an environment favorable to more internal and foreign private investment. AFDB President Donald Kaberuka said that the outlook for continuing growth in 2010 is extremely promising if the world economy and world trade continue to recover, and oil and non-oil commodity prices remain close to current levels, with a projected almost 6 percent rate of the pre-crisis period. He noted the similarities of contemporary African landscape with that of Asia a few decades ago with an increasing number of investors willing to take advantage of countless opportunities in Africa and a fast-growing middle class. The AFDB projected that the picking up of Tanzania's growth in the aftermath of the global economic crisis would steer back the country into the unprecedented growth of the past decade that averaged seven percent. Commenting on the AFDB's estimates, Tanzania Private Sector Foundation Executive Director Evans Rweikiza said Tanzania needed to bank on agriculture for sustainable growth. He pointed out that improving agriculture would mean a better life for the majority of Tanzanians, whose livelihoods are closely tied to farming, calling for the extending of the free market principles to agriculture.
Jim Sinclair's Commentary John Williams is correct. Consider subscribing. - GDP Growth Lacks Sustainability "No. 294: First-Quarter GDP, Mounting Systemic Risks"
Jim Sinclair's Commentary These are as scary as Friday's bankruptcies. Thanks to JB Slear, our "Bullion Delivery Man." Enforcement Actions April 29, 2010 April 29, 2010 April 27, 2010 April 27, 2010 April 26, 2010
Jim Sinclair's Commentary Lets here a round of applause for the accomplishments of those that recently said "We are doing the work of God." Chicago-area foreclosure auctions hit new high More than 9,300 homeowners lost properties last quarter More Chicago-area homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure in the first three months of the year than in any quarter in the past five years. This disturbing statistic raises doubts about the effectiveness of mortgage loan modification efforts and could put more downward pressure on property values. Within the six-county Chicago region during the first quarter, 9,302 homes went through a court-ordered auction, the last step in the foreclosure process, and 95 percent of those properties were taken back by lenders. Within the city of Chicago, almost 3,500 homes went to auction, and 95 percent of those also became bank-owned, according to data to be released Thursday by Woodstock Institute, a Chicago-based think tank. A portion of the increase in auctions can be attributed to various moratoriums lenders put in place during the holiday season and while they evaluated homeowners either for the federal government's Home Affordable Modification Program or their own internal programs. However, it appears clear lenders are now stepping up efforts to push properties through the foreclosure system as homeowners fail to qualify for loan modifications or default again. More than half of all loan modifications fell 60 days or more past due by nine months after the initial modification, the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said in a report last month on fourth-quarter mortgage performance. Lenders "put a halt on the process, but did it help [borrowers] in the end?" said Geoff Smith, Woodstock Institute's senior vice president. "Are these foreclosure prevention programs working? If HAMP was working, you'd have less completed foreclosures. More people lost their homes. That's undisputed."
Down with 'Too Big to Fail': Angry Americans march on Wall Street..
Jim Sinclair's Commentary Roubini is everywhere every day, however this is so correct it had to be posted. U.S is in worst shape than Greece! Nouriel Roubini Discusses U.S.. Government Deficits-
Jim Sinclair's Commentary Remember "We are doing the work of God?" Banks must defend against bid rigging charges. Goldman faces criminal probe.
Jim Sinclair's Commentary Gold is the only currency with no liability attached to it and is universally acceptable. Gold has always acted as a storehouse of value and medium of exchange. Debt misery helps gussy up gold's appeal TOKYO (MarketWatch) — As debt problems in Europe intensify, gold's ready to fly to investors' rescue, but in a world of uncertainty, those investors want to know if they can safely put their trust in expectations for a significant climb in the metal's prices. Gold certainly has the strength and incentive to do what's expected. Futures prices for the metal have gained around 5% in a month, and they've been making a gradual climb since early February toward the record front-month price of more than $1,226 an ounce seen in early December 2009. "The primary factor likely to lead to higher gold prices is the combination of safe-haven investor demand and pension and central-bank diversification into gold," said Mark O'Byrne, director at GoldCore. And "the real risks of a sovereign debt crisis and an international currency crisis are likely to make this demand remain robust for the foreseeable future." Those sovereign debt risks multiplied Tuesday when Standard & Poor's cut its credit rating on Greece to "junk" status and lowered Portugal's long-term rating by two notches.
Jim Sinclair's Commentary 33 states of the USA are headed for bankruptcy. Ravitch: New York Deficit Could Swell to $15 Billion Next Year NEW YORK, NY April 29, 2010 —New York's $9.2 billion budget deficit is expected to balloon to $15 billion next year, according to Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch. Speaking to a midtown audience of real estate developers, Ravitch said he does not expect the state to reach a budget deal any time soon, despite the state's desperate fiscal situation. The budget is nearly one month late and Ravitch says there are no external triggers forcing lawmakers and the governor to act. "States can't go into bankruptcy. They are not included in the bankruptcy code," he says. Today's outlook is different from the city's fiscal crisis of the 1970s when the state couldn't find any lenders. Instead, he says, bankers are circling Albany with tempting offers. "The financial community is ready to lend the state all kinds of money. They have 20-odd schemes they are suggesting about how the state can borrow money," Ravitch says.
Jim Sinclair's Commentary I am amazed that CNN covered this. Next thing you know they will be revealing the existence of tea parties. Protesters descend on Wall Street, New York City banks New York (CNN) — Protesters rallied in downtown New York City Thursday to voice their anger over what they perceive as the roles Wall Street and big banks played in America's economic crisis. Marching from City Hall to Wall Street, the protesters chanted "good jobs for all," and held signs with messages including "Hold banks accountable," "Make Wall Street Pay," and "Reclaim America." Marching from City Hall to Wall Street, the protesters chanted "good jobs for all," and held signs with messages including "Hold banks accountable," "Make Wall Street Pay," and "Reclaim America." The AFL-CIO organized the rally, and union President Richard Trumka addressed the crowd, saying, "How long will we allow the spirit of greed to continue to drive us into economic holes?" The National Action Network, a group that was involved in organizing the protest, said in a news release that demonstrators represented unemployed workers, foreclosure victims and community activists. Protester Gerard Pettine said he just wants Wall Street to be held accountable for its involvement in the economic collapse.
Jim Sinclair's Commentary This is one more low for US corporate culture. GM must think it can fool the public, and then the head honcho advertises it. We need a Car Fax on anything Motors says. As goes GM so goes America is once again proven. GM Under Fire for 'Misleading' Bailout Ad The Obama administration is concerned about a new General Motors commercial in which the bailed-out automaker touts last week's repayment of the remaining $4.7 billion that it owed to the government from funds it received under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. In the commercial, the automaker's CEO, Ed Whitacre, boasts that it has repaid its "government loan in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule." That sounds great, but that's not exactly true, warned Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Thursday. At a Senate subcommittee hearing, Collins told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that the ad seems "very misleading," citing bailout watchdog Neil Barofsky's comments that GM had simply used one pot of bailout money to repay another.
|
| Today's Most Important Price Points in Gold Posted: 30 Apr 2010 10:25 AM PDT To better understand where gold currently stands in this "The 21st Century Gold Bull Market", a look at the entire bull market to date will give us a good understanding and appreciation for where gold finds itself today. Read More...
|
| Posted: 30 Apr 2010 10:07 AM PDT Jim, It seems that the US isn't going to strengthen the dollar directly thru painful economic policies. Rather, we are going to destroy all the other western currencies by hedge fund/zombie bank attacks on their sovereign debt with credit default swaps. The last man standing ploy. CIGA Shelly W
Jim, The jesters revealed the protesters were descending on Wall Street because they need to insure their survival by appearing to be on the right side of the fence when it hits the fan! The American people are waking up to the smoke and mirror games the creatures of Jekyll Island play. The alternative media that sheds true light on the net such as your fine service, is not controlled or silenced by the king makers. CIGA "The Gordon"
|
| COT Gold, Silver and US Dollar Index Report - April 30, 2010 Posted: 30 Apr 2010 10:04 AM PDT COT Gold, Silver and US Dollar Index Report - April 30, 2010
|
| Stock Market Investing: Why the Majority Must Lose Posted: 30 Apr 2010 10:00 AM PDT I was sitting there, cool and comfy, wearing my new Mogambo Crisis Outfit (MCO), consisting of a pair of snazzy red cowboy boots, a combat helmet, a bullet-proof vest and a ballerina tutu (which, as an aside, does a lousy job of concealing a pistol in a shoulder holster), each piece of my dazzling and daring fashion ensemble carefully chosen for either maximum protection or maximum confusion to the enemy, which, at last count, is apparently everybody. I was idly thinking that maybe a nice tiara would really add that "little extra something" to my finery when I was interrupted in my meditations by Chris Mayer here at The Daily Reckoning saying, "Ken Heebner's CGM Focus Fund was the best US stock fund of the past decade. It rose 18% a year, beating its nearest rival by more than three percentage points. Yet according to research by Morningstar, the typical investor in the fund lost 11% annually! How can that happen?" Naturally, I figured that he was tossing me an easy question to which I already knew the answer; the majority of investors must, by necessity, lose money so that a minority of investors can make a small profit (and the financial services industry can screw us with charges and fees and the government tax everything involved). I mean, it's simple arithmetic that a million guys putting $100 into the market can't each take $200 out! And besides, this ugly "loss of 11%" result is only the dismal result in nominal terms, because when using inflation-adjusted dollars, virtually all investors will lose over the long-term because of the loss of purchasing power of their dollars (because the Federal Reserve and the banking system keeps creating more and more money, measured in the literal trillions and trillions of dollars) makes prices go up, and which has the same effect as a tax, or a regular, nominal loss (like where that stupid stock you bought on the advice of your brother went bust), which you notice only when you compute the comparative metric of "the pile of stuff you could buy with your money when you started is smaller than the pile of stuff you can buy at the end." Unfortunately and embarrassingly for me, this was not exactly what Mr. Mayer was talking about, he ignored me and my fabulous explanation completely, and went on "It happened because investors tended to take money out after a bad stretch and put it back in after a strong run", which, in short, is that the investors made the worst possible trading decisions, in that "They sold low and bought high. Incredibly, these investors owned the best fund you could own over the last 10 years – and still managed to lose money". Naturally, I interrupt and say, "Of course they lost money! They were the majority, and the majority of investors must lose money so that the minority of investors can make a profit, however small after suffering the fees-and-expenses pillage by the financial services industry and the tax bite of the government!" Well, I suddenly noticed that Mr. Mayer must have been impressed with either my snazzy, radiant resplendence or the powerful logic of my original point (which was that the overwhelming majority of investors must lose money by investing, and that all investors will lose by virtue of the loss of buying power of their dollars) because he then went on to note that James Montier's book, Value Investing: Tools and Techniques for Intelligent Investment, "cites research by the Brandes Institute that shows how, in any three-year period, the best investors find themselves among the worst performers about 40% of the time!" Naturally, I think smugly to myself that this means that majority of idiots investing their pathetic IRAs and 401(k)s in the stock and bond markets are going to get whacked because of simple arithmetic, while I will wax prosperous because I invest in gold, silver and oil because, as Jethro Bodine said to his uncle on The Beverly Hillbillies, "I can cipher, uncle Jed!" And then I smile because, "Whee! This investing stuff is easy as shootin' at some food and up from the ground came a bubbling crude. Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea!" The Mogambo Guru Stock Market Investing: Why the Majority Must Lose originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, offers a uniquely refreshing, perspective on the global economy, investing, gold, stocks and today's markets. Its been called "the most entertaining read of the day." Check out our new special report Investing in Offshore Oil
|
| Posted: 30 Apr 2010 09:58 AM PDT
By Nic Lenoir Of ICAP In case politicians don't understand what's at stake, the market kindly gave them a little reminder with a nasty close for equities today. In the early morning it seemed people were quite willing to ignore GS's misfortunes in its dealings with the ever more schizophrenic government. Washington simply cannot understand why it can't destroy speculation and leverage yet keep the equity market up, as it is the only economic driver in the US since easy credit is no longer available. Tough indeed: since nothing or close to nothing is manufactured in the US we need our upper class's investments to skyrocket so it is inclined to spend thereby providing service jobs. US politicians have a lot of work on their plate with the financial reform. Any measures too drastic in terms of balance sheet reduction will be tough on financial assets and curb lending, and any measures to curb speculation on commodities will hit this asset class hard and the commodity stocks along with them (miners are amongst leaders in US equities). European politicians have one fine mess to sort as well and money markets are pricing in higher Libor and funding difficulties ahead already. Without expanding too much on the subject, there is no one I would like less to depend on to make the right decisions.
Commodities curiously did not share the late day panic, and Gold was joined by Copper and Oil for more upside for a change. We have reached the 1,185/1,190 resistance in Gold but at this point there are few reasons other than madness out of the financial reform committy that can prevent a run towards new highs.
|
| Treasury Redeems A Gargantuan $643 Billion In Treasuries In April Posted: 30 Apr 2010 09:33 AM PDT
A week ago we were practically speechless when we showed that the Treasury had redeemed nearly $494 billion in Bills in April. A truly stunning number and an indication of just how much cash the Treasury needs to have access to to keep rolling its ridiculously short average maturity debt load. Today we stand even more speechless: according to today's DTS, the Treasury has now redeemed $596 billion in Bills in Aprils: an all time world record, even when accounting for the Fed's steroid abuse period of SFP 1 (we are currently in the second iteration). Add $47 billion in Notes and there are almost $650 billion in redemptions. This number is simply ridiculous. Forget the interest expense: this ever increasing roll is the number one danger to the US and world economy. Should the Treasury be unable to keep issuing shorter and shorter dated debt (and it already is skirting away from even the belly of the curve), it is for all intents and purposes game over.
|
| Posted: 30 Apr 2010 09:20 AM PDT Gold hits 2010 high, ends April up 6% The COMEX June gold futures contract closed up $11.90 Friday at $1180.70, trading between $1167.80 and $1182.50 April 30, p.m. excerpts: see full news, 24-hr newswire… April 30th's audio MarketMinute
|
| An Extremely Confident Mike Maloney On Silver Posted: 30 Apr 2010 09:19 AM PDT I love Mike Maloney. He's truly brilliant.
|
| Net Euro Shorts Spike, Regain Record Highs, As Dollar Longs Surge To Highest Since August 2008 Posted: 30 Apr 2010 09:08 AM PDT
This week's risk aversion trade is nowhere more evident than in the spike of Net eureo shorts for the week ended April 27, as reported by the CFTC. After having retreated to as low as 66k two weeks ago, the net speculative position in the european currency has surged, hitting record resistance in the 97k range. (see chart below). And even as Europe fears drove speculators to abandon the euro, the one currency which is sitting in no man's land, the USD, this week saw net longs rise to the highest value since August of 2008. Feel free to oull up a chart fo the EURUDF pair and see when the last time it was preparing to blow out so wide was,
|
| Global Debt Crisis: Navigating Through the Icebergs Posted: 30 Apr 2010 09:00 AM PDT While the whole nation seems to have bought into the 'recovery,' idea, we remain very skeptical. Some of the numbers seem to have bottomed out. But they are still terrible…and will probably begin a new decline soon. We say that because the underlying causes of the downturn remain unfixed…and because the government is unfixing it even more. From what we can tell, the biggest jolt of stimulus in the history of the human race has stabilized US unemployment at about 10%…nearer to 20%, if you use a broader measure. It seems to have temporarily stabilized the housing market, with housing prices down 20% to 30%. (The first-time buyer credit expiring tomorrow!) And it seems to have slowed the move towards higher savings and less consumer spending. Stock market investors seem to think that this gives them a great opportunity to make money. But it's hard to see how stocks could advance very much further, with the winds of de-leveraging blowing in their faces…and icebergs of debt still floating hither and yon. This week, Greek debt broke free from the icepack and promptly sank. You can now get a higher yield from the Greeks than you can from the Argentines, which shows you how dangerous Greek debt has become. Spanish unemployment is officially around 20% with huge debt problems of its own. And England is not far behind. In the coming elections, Britain faces the possibility of a deadlock, with no clear winner…at the same time its public finances get hit by another big wave of borrowing and refinancing. There's also the situation in China. Real estate in some parts of Beijing is headed down, with some areas off 18%. Chinese stocks have been coming down too, with the index about 20% below its recent peak. As near as we can tell, the USS Economy is in the middle of a dangerous iceflow…and steaming ahead much too fast. We reported yesterday that passengers are abandoning ship at a record rate – with citizens and stowaways headed for the life rafts. For the first time ever, more people are said to be leaving the US than entering it. Bill Bonner Global Debt Crisis: Navigating Through the Icebergs originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, offers a uniquely refreshing, perspective on the global economy, investing, gold, stocks and today's markets. Its been called "the most entertaining read of the day." Check out our new special report Investing in Offshore Oil
|
| If you're abusive you're not helping GATA Posted: 30 Apr 2010 08:04 AM PDT 4p ET Friday, April 30, 2010 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver): In his financial letter for May 1 (http://www.gloomboomdoom.com) Marc Faber writes: "Most of my readers are very fine people and send me informative emails from which I have learned a lot. To these people I am very grateful. However, you should also see some of the abusive emails I receive, maybe not even from subscribers of this report but from people who listen to interviews of mine. I have been accused of being a socialist, a racist, an anti-Semite, and a precious metals traitor because I do not openly support GATA, which maintains that the gold and silver market are manipulated. I also insulted the war veterans, and I have been told that I only have the interest of my rich friends and clients in mind and that I do not look after small investors' needs. And for years I heard from various people that I was a complete idiot for recommending the accumulation of gold, 'because it would tumble to $200 an ounce.' I read all incoming emails and answer most of them (emails that land in my spam box are occasionally overlooked) because they provide me with some insights about how investors feel and how they might be positioned. My sense is that currently investors are very restless, impatient, intolerant, full of prejudices, and that the public in general is badly frustrated. For the U.S. and European population at large the frustration may have to do with increasing wealth and income inequality and stagnating or declining median real incomes." GATA has never commented on Faber particular and has never urged people to contact him, and its impossible to tell from his comment whether those who mentioned GATA in contacting him abusively had any more to do with GATA than with his own subscriber list. GATA is not responsible for everyone who mentions our organization. But those who would support us should know that they do us no favors by being abusive to anyone. As Faber suggests, this abuse may satisfy personal frustrations but it's not persuasive. CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Resource Corp. Appoints Rob McEwen to Advisory Board Prophecy Resource Corp. (TSX.V: PCY, OTC: PCYRF) is pleased to announce the appointment of Rob McEwen to the company's Advisory Board. McEwen is a leading Canadian mining industry entrepreneur. He is the chairman and CEO of U.S. Gold Corp. and Minera Andes Inc. McEwen was the founder and former chairman and CEO of Goldcorp Inc., whose Red Lake Mine in northwestern Ontario, Canada, is considered to be the richest gold mine in the world. During his tenure at Goldcorp, McEwen transformed the company from a collection of small companies into a mining powerhouse, growing its market capitalization from $50 million to approximately $8 billion. For Prophecy Resource Corp.'s complete statement: http://www.prophecyresource.com/news_2010_mar11b.php Support GATA by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: * * * Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Anglo Far-East Bullion Co., the Original Private Bullion Custodian For two decades Anglo Far-East Bullion co. has been providing select international clientele the highest degree of privacy, security, and access to buy, hold, and sell allocated gold and silver bars. -- Allocated gold and silver bars: AFE will not only provide you with the individual bar numbers of the bullion bars you own, but you can also rest safely in the knowledge that each bar is sight-verified by a top Swiss auditor and annually checked off against AFE accounts to ensure that your metal is locked away safely. -- Guaranteed market access and liquidity: AFE buys and sells directly with LBMA-certified metal refineries only. In bypassing the commodities market exchanges such as the Comex and bullion banks, AFE provides clients a means of access to the global physical precious metals markets that may not be available to others should systemic issues in the bullion markets arise. -- Stand for delivery: If at any time you wish to take delivery of your metal, AFE will arrange to have bars shipped to you anywhere in the world. -- Zero tolerance for leverage: AFE refuses to deal with "paper gold." We believe our clients want the metal itself so they may avoid the risks of the paper markets. AFE will not introduce such risk to its clients. -- Metal vaulted outside the banking system: None of AFE's clients have to worry that their metal is exposed to encumbrances bearing on bullion banks and commodities markets. None of AFE's vaulting partners or other strategic providers are controlled or majority-owned by banks. This is by design, not by accident. -- Access to the LBMA system of refineries, vaults, and security providers. This allows AFE clients to maintain London Good Delivery status of their metal, ensuring ease of sale or transfer, while being insulated from the "paper gold" market. -- Total privacy: AFE accounts are managed as numbered accounts in the Swiss private banking tradition. At no time does identifying information such as name and address appear on any account statement or other account documents. -- Geo-political diversification: In the words of the wise King Solomon, "Place a portion of seven and eight throughout the land, for you know not where evil may arise." Many of AFE's clients choose AFE specifically because their metal is safely vaulted outside the jurisdiction they reside in. -- Iron-clad governance: By contract with AFE's vaulting provider, no access may be made to the vaults without the attendance of an agent of the vault as well as an agent of the third-party signatory trustee, in this case top Swiss auditor Grant Thornton. All metal going into and -- more importantly -- coming out of the vaults requires the approval of a third-party signatory trustee as well as a detailed, sight-verified report of each bar and serial number by the auditor. For more information and a personal consultation with one of our private account liaisons, please contact us: Anglo Far-East Bullion Co.
|
, John Perkins explained how it was his job to go around the world and get third world governments to accept multibillion-dollar loans that he knew they would never be able to repay. Of course when the time came and they could not repay the loans, the big global institutions would go in and confiscate natural resources and impose "conditions" and implement "austerity measures" similar to the ones they are currently imposing on Greece.
| You are subscribed to email updates from Gold World News Flash To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment