Gold World News Flash

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• China's Gold Imports Soar by Massive 500% on Investment Demand
• Silver availability disappearing in Vancouver
• Today, Keiser goes mainstream, detailing his thoughts in The Guardian, which courtesy of its massive circulation is sure to reach far more readers to whom this idea is new
• The Confiscation Con
• The Goldsmiths, Part CLXX
• Top Seven Most Profitable Gold Stocks
• Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver Gain With Stocks Again
• Joe Lieberman's Campaign To Trample The First Amendment Is Proceeding Right On Schedule
• Breakouts imminent in silver, then gold and shares, Turk says
• S&P Vs Fed Treasury Holdings: Spot The Correlation
• CPPIB Focuses on Asia
• In the News Today
• Some Christmas cheer – “Well we'll just buy more silver this year” (is this the skipper from the Time Bandit from that show “Deadliest Catch?”)
• Four Reasons Why Gold Will Hit $1,900 in 2011
• Gold Price Traded Sideways to Lower, Might Be Double Top With Wednesday at $1,398.30, Target Still $1,600
• Some Cold Water In The Face Of A Manic-Depressive Market That Has Overdosed On Lithium
• Northern Exposure
• WEALTH YOU CAN WEAR
• David Tice: The Case for $6,000 Gold
• Comforting. . . Comfort silver porn for early morning contemplation. . . Yea, Got Some Silver, y'all.
• Was JPM's October 2008 Redemption From Madoff On Concerns Of Fraud The Reason For The Ponzi's Implosion?
• From the "Wealth of Nations" to the "Debt of Nations"
• More good music – Good silver porn – Good God – This SHIT IT GONNA WORK!!!!!
• THURSDAY Market Excerpts
• Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts
• Want JP Morgan to crash? Buy silver: Max Keiser
• Guest Post: Deaf To History’s Rhyme: Why President Obama Is Failing
• Investment demand boosts Chinese gold imports 6-fold
• Inter-Galactic Bailout – The Fed extends the hand of debt beyond borders
• The precious metals power higher: James Turk
• The Pain in Spain…and in Ireland
• The Big Fix – world markets snap their losing streak…based on more losing data
• A “Reckoning?” Really?
• SEC Kills Whistleblower Initiative Claiming Its Billion Dollar Budget Is Insufficient
• Still About the Dollar
• Thursday Thrust – Just Buy the F’ing Dips!
• Can You Keep a Secret? - New Free Shares Watch
• Why Governments Will Buy Silver
• Fed Names Recipients of $3.3 Trillion in Crisis Aid
• EMERGING MARKETS POISED TO COLLAPSE
• Are Accountants The Weakest Link In Unraveling The Fraudclosure Scandal?
• China Gold Imports Increase Dramatically
• James Turk - Expect Extremely Bullish Action in Mining Shares
• China Gold Imports Increase Five- or Six-fold
• Economic Ruination in Three Words or Less
• The Gulf of Mexico is Dying
• Bundesbank Joins Fed in Demanding Secrecy For Gold Swaps
• Gold, Wealth You Can Wear
• Quick Pivot
• Kazakhstan: A Positive Climate for Gold

China's Gold Imports Soar by Massive 500% on Investment Demand Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:51 PM PST Chinese buyers are concerned about inflation and the depreciation of the fiat yuan/renminbi and looking to gold as a store of value. Chinese people do not have trust in paper currencies due to their experiences with authoritarian government and hyperinflation.

Silver availability disappearing in Vancouver Posted: 02 Dec 2010 06:55 PM PST Hi Max, Silver is becoming more difficult to find by the day.  After using the couple days after Thanksgiving as an excuse to "catch up on their orders", Apmex took my money when they are on back order and their shipment won't be until December 7th. I wanted to buy some more silver today and [...]

Today, Keiser goes mainstream, detailing his thoughts in The Guardian, which courtesy of its massive circulation is sure to reach far more readers to whom this idea is new Posted: 02 Dec 2010 06:52 PM PST Max Keiser's Plan To Destroy JP Morgan Goes Mainstream, After The Guardian Posts His "Silver Squeeze" Thoughts Share this:

The Confiscation Con Posted: 02 Dec 2010 06:07 PM PST It's important to note that confiscation was necessary to Roosevelt's plan because we were under a gold standard. Gold at that time was widely held throughout the population. If Roosevelt had devalued the dollar without confiscation, then whatever savings Americans held in gold would have been immune from this hidden tax. Furthermore, many Americans likely would have redeemed whatever paper dollars they held in fear of another devaluation. This could have wrecked the dollar's viability as a currency.

The Goldsmiths, Part CLXX Posted: 02 Dec 2010 06:03 PM PST The Goldsmiths CLXIX, as published last week, made the case for the work of the Rothschild Cabal of super rich bankers to use the US government and US dollar for its worldwide work of making profits and moving the globe ever closer to world government. If there ever was a story dominating the news wires better able to make that case, it happened the past week when the Fed, under legal pressure, finally released some (but not all) of the details of its secret loaning operations in the past few years in connection with the so-called economic meltdown now in progress.

Top Seven Most Profitable Gold Stocks Posted: 02 Dec 2010 05:33 PM PST Kapitall submits: The following is a list of the most profitable gold stocks, based on average gross and net profit margins over the last five years. To compile this list, we started with a universe of about 60 gold stocks. We then narrowed the list by only focusing on those stocks that have higher gross and net profit margins compared to industry averages. Complete Story »

Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver Gain With Stocks Again Posted: 02 Dec 2010 04:00 PM PST Gold rose to as high as $1394.79 in Asia before it fell to see a $2.70 loss at $1384.10 at about 9AM EST and then spiked back higher in New York to as high as $1398.44 by early afternoon, but it then fell back off in late trade and ended with a gain of just 0.12%. Silver erased over 1% gains seen in Asia and fell to as low as $28.283 in early New York trade before it also rallied back higher and rose almost 3% to as high as $29.014 by early afternoon, but it then fell back off in late trade and ended with a gain of just 1.17%.

Joe Lieberman's Campaign To Trample The First Amendment Is Proceeding Right On Schedule Posted: 02 Dec 2010 03:24 PM PST As if it wasn't enough that America's ruling oligarchs were sufficiently happy with abdicating their governing duties to the Federal Reserve, they have now decided to imitate China in every possible way, and in addition to making up economic data as they go (for actual numbers just look around you, for all the other imaginary bullshit there's the BLS), they have now proceeded to wipe their ass with the first amendment, on their way to converting the US to a complete banana republic. After Joe Lieberman made a mockery of Internet freedom of speech (and of Amazon's independence) he has now decided to step up his campaign against un-coopted journalists everywhere, precisely as we suspected would happen next in the USSA. Per MSNBC, the Independent Connecticut senator has told Tableau, a Seattle company that allows Web users to post charts, to remove several charts describing the release of WikiLeaks material. The company removed the charts on Thursday, following the lead of Amazon, which had taken down the WikiLeaks documents themselves. The punchline: none of the charts contained any classified data: "The charts were not produced by WikiLeaks, but by a freelance journalist. And they contained no classified or secret material. The charts merely depicted how many times each country, or topic, was discussed in the cables." In other words, as Bill Dedman concludes: "these charts were journalism." A cached version of the chart in question is being reproduced below: Tableau's statement in response to Lieberman's bullying was as follows: Wednesday afternoon, Tableau Software removed data visualizations published by WikiLeaks to Tableau Public. We understand this is a sensitive issue and want to assure the public and our users that this was not an easy decision, nor one that we took lightly. . . . Our decision to remove the data from our servers came in response to a public request by Senator Joe Lieberman, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, when he called for organizations hosting WikiLeaks to terminate their relationship with the website. Below is the take of Salon's Glenn Greenwald on this incurision into the last remaining liberty that Americans actually had left (in addition to collecting jobless benefits in perpetuity of course... and buying NFLX at 1,000x fwd PE): Those are the benign, purely legal documents that have now been removed from the Internet in response to Joe Lieberman's demands and implied threats.  He's on some kind of warped mission where he's literally running around single-handedly dictating what political content can and cannot be on the Internet, issuing broad-based threats to "all companies" that -- by design -- are causing suppression of political information.  I understand Tableau's behavior here; imagine if you were a small company and Joe Lieberman basically announced:   I am Homeland Security and you are to cease being involved with this organization which many say is a Terrorist group and Enemy Combatant.  What Lieberman is doing is a severe abuse of power, and even for our anemic, power-revering media, it ought to be a major scandal (though it's not because, as Digby says, all our media stars can process is that "Julian Assange is icky").  If people -- especially journalists -- can't be riled when Joe Lieberman is unilaterally causing the suppression of political content from the Internet, when will they be? After all, as Jeffrey Goldberg pointed out in condemning this, the same rationale Lieberman is using to demand that Amazon and all other companies cease any contact with WikiLeaks would justify similar attacks on The New York Times, since they've published the same exact diplomatic cables on its site as WikiLeaks has on its (added:  the only diplomatic cables posted on the WikiLeaks site thus far are the ones published by the newspapers with which WikiLeaks partnered -- such as the NYT, Guardian, Der Spiegel, etc. -- and they include those newspapers' redactions; no other cables have yet been posted to the WikiLeaks site).  What Joe Lieberman is doing is indescribably pernicious and if "journalists" cared in the slightest about their own self-interest -- never mind all the noble things they pretend to care about -- they ought to be vociferously objecting to this. As this pretty much covers it all, there is little to add. Our advice: after Lieberman is done censoring the Internet, he and his fellow deranged banker puppets will start going down the list of constitutional amendments... which is why if you have been putting of on procuring that gun permit, and putting that bar or two of gold in a safe far, far away from America, this may be a good time to do so.

Breakouts imminent in silver, then gold and shares, Turk says Posted: 02 Dec 2010 02:27 PM PST 10:25p ET Thursday, December 2, 2010 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver): Interviewed by Eric King at King World News, GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk sees an imminent breakout in silver and then gold and the gold and silver mining shares. Excerpts from Turk's interview are headlined "Expect Extremely Bullish Action in Mining Shares" and can be found at the King World News blog here: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2010/12/2_Ja... Or try this abbreviated link: http://bit.ly/dM7ZON CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT Opportunity in the gold coin market Swiss America Trading Corp. alerts GATA supporters to an opportunistic area of the gold coin market. While the gold bullion market has been quite volatile lately and as of November 29 gold has risen only $7 per ounce over the last month, the MS64 $20 gold St. Gaudens coin has risen about 10 percent in the same time. The ratio between the price of these coins and the price of gold is rising. If you'd like to learn more about the ratio and $20 gold coins, Swiss America can e-mail you a three-year study of it as well as other information. Swiss America also can provide a limited number of free copies of "Crashing the Dollar," a book written by Swiss America's president, Craig Smith. For information about the ratio between the $20 gold pieces and the gold price and for a free copy of "Crashing The Dollar," please call Swiss America's Tim Murphy at 1-800-289-2646 X1041 or Fred Goldstein at X1033. Or e-mail them at trmurphy@swissamerica.com and figoldstein@swissamerica.com. Support GATA by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: http://gata.org/tshirts 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: http://www.goldrush21.com/ * * * 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: http://www.gata.org To contribute to GATA, please visit: http://www.gata.org/node/16 ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Drills 71.17 Metres of 0.52 percent NiEq (0.310 percent Nickel 0.466 g/t PGMs +Au and 0.223 percent copper) from surface at Wellgreen Project in the Yukon Prophecy Resource Corp. (TSX-V: PCY) reports that it has received additional assays results from its 100-percent-owned Wellgreen PGM Ni-Cu property in the Yukon, Canada. Diamond drill holes WS10-179 to WS10-182 were drilled during the summer of 2010 by Northern Platinum (which merged with Prophecy on September 23, 2010). WS10-183 was drilled by Prophecy in October 2010. Highlights from the newly received assays include 71.17 metres from surface of 0.52 percent NiEq (0.310 percent nickel, 0.466 g/t PGMs + Au, and 0.233 percent copper) and ended in mineralization. For more drill highlights, please visit: http://prophecyresource.com/news_2010_nov29.php

S&P Vs Fed Treasury Holdings: Spot The Correlation Posted: 02 Dec 2010 01:32 PM PST When the Fed announced that MBS/agency purchases would be a part of QE1 way back in 2008, few were surprised. After all that was the easiest way to lower interest rates on mortgages: a topic that back then seemed critical as there was still hope that the Fed had some control over housing (a premise since proven false now that housing is well into its double dip round). Yet the Fed's purchases of Treasurys seemed somewhat arbitrary: after all, why buy the most liquid rate security, and more importantly, which derivative asset class was the Fed targeting through UST purchases? And just before QE Lite and QE2 was announced there were additional rumors that the Fed would go after MBS again to assist housing (recall all those Pimco purchases of MBS on margin - of course, only later was it discovered that Gross hopes to get them all put back to Bank of America). To the surprise of many, the Fed picked Treasurys as the preferred security of choice once again. The debate was open: if the Fed is targeting the housing market it should be buying MBS again. No such luck. So now that two years of QE (in their 1, Lite and 2 iterations) are in the history, we finally can run some correlation analyses to see just what asset class the Fed had been targeting all along. The attached chart presents the very simple result. The chart below shows total Fed holdings of USTs and of the SPY. Now here's a thought: the Fed has another $800 billion in UST purchasing dry powder left under QE2 alone... ...Of course the chart above excludes the price of gold in US currency, which confirms that on a real basis, the value of the black line has declined over the same period as it has gotten progressively more diluted with pieces of linen courtesy of the red line.

CPPIB Focuses on Asia Posted: 02 Dec 2010 01:32 PM PST Via Pension Pulse. Tara Perkins of the Globe and Mail reports, CPPIB's Wiseman focuses on Asia: Mark Wiseman, the man in charge of investments at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, has a habit of checking his wrists.   It’s something he started a couple of years ago, but these days he’s doing it all the time.   That’s because on his frequent travels to Asia, Mr. Wiseman collects cufflinks with Asian pictures and patterns.   “I have them on almost every day,” he says. “I like them, but I also think it’s good to wear them to remind myself that I’ve got to be thinking about Asia.”   His taste in accoutrements isn’t the only thing that’s changed in the past few years. Asia has eclipsed Europe in his travel schedule. “It’s not that Europe is unimportant, it’s just relatively less important,” he says.   Mr. Wiseman and his fellow executives are increasingly turning their sights to Asia in an effort to ensure the fund’s required future growth trajectory. It’s estimated that CPP contributions will exceed the amount the plan pays out each year until the end of 2021, after which some of the fund’s investment profits will be needed to help pay CPP benefits.   The CPPIB opened its first office outside Canada in Hong Kong in early 2008, and its only other foreign office is in London. In September, Mr. Wiseman made the trek to Hong Kong for the opening of a new, larger, CPPIB office.   “We were already out of space,” he said. “Our growth [in Asia] has exceeded our expectations.”   The office has roughly 15 investment professionals and five support staff, but that’s expected to double.   The CPPIB has already committed more than $1.6-billion to eight private equity funds that focus on greater China and smaller emerging countries in Southeast Asia (excluding India). It has almost $350-million invested in China’s real estate market and more than $1-billion in a passive index portfolio that trades in Hong Kong, out of a total portfolio of $138.6-billion.   But what’s causing Mr. Wiseman some anxiety is the fact that less than 1 per cent of the fund’s assets are directly invested in China. Although the CPPIB is already ahead of many peers in China, Mr. Wiseman is working to ensure that it substantially ramps up its investments in the country, and that the fund has access to the phenomenal economic growth expected to continue there.   “The reality is that China will be the largest economy in the world,” he said during an interview in his office, as he pointed to a presentation that was recently given to the fund’s board of directors. “To go to the United States or Europe [to invest] is an easy thing to do, but it’s not reflective of what the world looks like today and it’s certainly not going to be reflective of where the world’s going to be long term.”   Over time, CPPIB wants to become a player in India and other areas of Southeast Asia. “We’re focused on building a presence in emerging markets, but China’s the logical place to start,” Mr. Wiseman said.   The fund’s strategy has been to find partners with local knowledge, including big North American names such as KKR Asia and TPG Asia, but mostly Chinese-based private equity firms such as CITIC Capital and Hony Capital.   “We know we’re going to get taught some lessons along the way, and so we’re not jumping in with both feet,” Mr. Wiseman said.   But as it learns from the locals and assembles its team on the ground, CPPIB is setting the stage for its first large direct investment in China. It has hired Peter Chen, a direct investor who was a founding member of Bain Capital Asia and prior to that was a manager at General Electric Corporate Financial Services, with responsibilities for greater China.   Asked whether CPPIB has created a position as head of its Asian business yet, Mr. Wiseman said “stay tuned.” A number of large funds are increasingly setting their sights on Asia. There are tremendous opportunities in Asia, but there will also be some major hiccups along the way. Nouriel Roubini is the latest economist to warn that China is overheating. Finally, I invite you to carefully read the Absolute Return Partners' November commentary, Four Rather Sick Patients. I quote the following: The problem in a nutshell is that many EM currencies are either explicitly or implicitly tied to the US dollar, and US interest rates are far too low to suit the fast growing economies of Asia and Latin America. Hence the lax monetary policy in Washington is not only creating asset inflation in the US (and therefore also by implication elsewhere), but consumer price inflation in emerging market countries across the world.   This is no different from the benefits enjoyed by countries such as Ireland and Spain when they joined the eurozone. They feasted on low interest rates for years but, ultimately, reality caught up. Governments in many emerging market nations are now repeating those mistakes, and it can only end in tears; however, it will take time. In the meantime, there will continue to be considerable upward pressure on EM currencies. Will there be tears in EMs and China? It's possible but I remain more optimistic, believing the the Chinese will use their vast foreign exchange reserves to spur new industries like alternative energy and keep growing their way into the next decade. Is CPPIB wrong to place so much focus on Asia? Not at all. They need to build an extensive network, investing in both public and private funds in Asia, and capitalize on opportunities as they arise. But Mark Wiseman is right, they will be taught lessons along the way, and there is no rush to jump in with both feet.

In the News Today Posted: 02 Dec 2010 01:09 PM PST Dear CIGA's This is EXTREMELY SERIOUS for reasons that most gold observers haven't a clue about. At this moment it appears as if some smartass scientist has found the Holy Grail of counterfeiting. It will slowly but significantly impact gold ETFs – especially if an investor reads the prospectus. It will result in market demand that exchanges with warehouses, verifying that the gold is in fact gold. It also will benefit the sovereign coin market. Jim Subject: FW: $$: Lots of fake gold shows up in Hong Kong Dear Jim: Without knowing the exact ratios, it looks like a PhD-level metallurgist has come up with a perfect recipe to fool a density test checking for tungsten. The metallurgist has now created an extremely exotic alloy that's a generation beyond the simple "tungsten scam". This alloy is more expensive than tungsten and with the right combination of elements could have close to the same density as gold. I am concerned! Sincerely, CIGA in the Bullion Know HK gold market hit by sophisticated scam By Robert Cookson in Hong Kong Published: December 2 2010 03:59 | Last updated: December 2 2010 03:59 Hong Kong goldsmiths have been sold hundreds of ounces of fake gold this year in one of the most sophisticated scams to hit the Chinese territory's gold market in decades. Industry executives say the scam – while not massive and hitting only the retail sector – uncloaks the increasingly elaborate gold swindles perpetrated by criminals in Asia as bullion prices soar to record highs of $1,400 a troy ounce. The counterfeits have shocked Hong Kong's gold community not because of the amount involved, but because of their sophistication. "It's a very good fake," said Haywood Cheung, president of the Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society, Hong Kong's century-old gold exchange, highlighting how criminals are developing new techniques to commit an age-old fraud. More… Jim Sinclair's Commentary Our youngest and finest give up their lives for this? Cables Describe Scale of Afghan Corruption By SCOTT SHANE, MARK MAZZETTI and DEXTER FILKINS WASHINGTON — From hundreds of diplomatic cables, Afghanistan emerges as a looking-glass land where bribery, extortion and embezzlement are the norm and the honest man is a distinct outlier. Describing the likely lineup of Afghanistan's new cabinet last January, the American Embassy noted that the agriculture minister, Asif Rahimi, "appears to be the only minister that was confirmed about whom no allegations of bribery exist." One Afghan official helpfully explained to diplomats the "four stages" at which his colleagues skimmed money from American development projects: "When contractors bid on a project, at application for building permits, during construction, and at the ribbon-cutting ceremony." In a seeming victory against corruption, Abdul Ahad Sahibi, the mayor of Kabul, received a four-year prison sentence last year for "massive embezzlement." But a cable from the embassy told a very different story: Mr. Sahibi was a victim of "kangaroo court justice," it said, in what appeared to be retribution for his attempt to halt a corrupt land-distribution scheme. The cables make it clear that American officials see the problem as beginning at the top. An August 2009 report from Kabul complains that President Hamid Karzai and his attorney general "allowed dangerous individuals to go free or re-enter the battlefield without ever facing an Afghan court." The embassy was particularly concerned that Mr. Karzai pardoned five border police officers caught with 124 kilograms (about 273 pounds) of heroin and intervened in a drug case involving the son of a wealthy supporter. More…

Some Christmas cheer – “Well we'll just buy more silver this year” (is this the skipper from the Time Bandit from that show “Deadliest Catch?”) Posted: 02 Dec 2010 12:00 PM PST Share this:

Four Reasons Why Gold Will Hit $1,900 in 2011 Posted: 02 Dec 2010 11:54 AM PST Peter Krauth submits: Gold investors are a happy bunch. Those with the luck or foresight to have boarded the golden railroad back in 2001 have experienced a fivefold investment in the "metal of kings." That works out to compounded return of better than 20% a year. Such a torrid performance has evoked claims that this is just another financial bubble - that's soon to burst. Complete Story »

Gold Price Traded Sideways to Lower, Might Be Double Top With Wednesday at $1,398.30, Target Still $1,600 Posted: 02 Dec 2010 11:45 AM PST Gold Price Close Today : 1388.50 Change : 1.20 or 0.1% Silver Price Close Today : 28.542 Change : 0.154 cents or 0.5% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 48.65 Change : -0.222 or -0.5% Silver Gold Ratio Today : 0.02056 Change : 0.000093 or 0.5% Platinum Price Close Today : 1709.80 Change : 25.20 or 1.5% Palladium Price Close Today : 760.05 Change : 27.80 or 3.8% S&P 500 : 1,221.53 Change : 15.46 or 1.3% Dow In GOLD$ : $169.16 Change : $ 1.46 or 0.9% Dow in GOLD oz : 8.183 Change : 0.071 or 0.9% Dow in SILVER oz : 398.09 Change : 3.71 or 0.9% Dow Industrial : 11,362.41 Change : 106.63 or 0.9% US Dollar Index : 80.24 Change : -0.475 or -0.6% The GOLD PRICE today traded sideways to lower, posting what might be a double top with Wednesday at $1,398.30. Maybe this is just a breath-catcher after such a long hard run. No doubt in my little mind that $1,400 is the barrier wearing gold out, but as long as gold remains above $1,380 it can still clear $1,400. I have to say that my target for this long move remains $1,600. At the Comex settlement gold had risen a non- committal $1.20 to $1,388.50 while silver added a meager 15.4c to 2854.2c. Looking at the SILVER PRICE chart I am inclined to think that silver's slowing momentum has been born of its nearness to the last peak at 2933c (intraday), and that once it jumps that resistance fencing it in, it will head for the hills like your cocker spaniel when he discovers his radio-controlled shock collar is broken. On the other hand, I know what a double top looks like, too. I still think it's odd that silver and gold have slowed so much in the face of dollar weakness, when they were soaring against dollar strength. When something doesn't smell right, it usually means it's gone off. Long and short: silver must not venture below 2800c and to reach escape velocity must clear 2900c. Did y'all ever ride in a train? How do you know when the train is coming to a stop? You can feel it slowing down, maybe it jerks some, and the trees aren't flying by so fast. That's the way silver and gold feel. They've slowed down the past few days, largely (I suspect) as resistance builds to gold at $1,400 and sellers line up there. But let me think about the scrofulous dollar first. The US DOLLAR INDEX fell again today, shedding 47.5 basis points (0.61%). Right now it's trading at 80.238, after bouncing off 80.062. Since the dollar also bottomed at the same place on Monday, that appears to be a parking place with some support. It coincidentally happeneth that a 50% correction of the move from 78 - 81.44 lands at 79.67, while the last high kicks in lateral support at 79.46. As long as the dollar doesn't break 76.50, it's still rallying, although in a brief correction. The equally scrofulous yen and euro couldn't make up their minds today. Yen dropped 0.35% while the euro rose 0.84%. One day soon the dollar will turn around and when it does, 'twill scratch the smile off those complacent souls who believe trend following is an easy way to make a living. Stocks rallied today. The Dow stole another 106.63 points to close at 11,362.41 and S&P500 rose 15.46 to 1,221.53. I don't care, I wouldn't buy stocks with y'all's money if you gave it to me. Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com © 2010, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate in a bubble, primary trend way down. Whenever I write "Stay out of stocks" readers inevitably ask, "Do you mean precious metals mining stocks, too?" No, I don't.

Some Cold Water In The Face Of A Manic-Depressive Market That Has Overdosed On Lithium Posted: 02 Dec 2010 11:18 AM PST In an amusing turn demonstrating just how manic-depressive the market has become, stocks have gone from fearing an all out onslaught in Europe, to complete euphoria, based on a favorable ADP payroll number (which in the past several months had been broadly ignored due to its consensus misses). What is even more stunning is how the two main rumors that forced the market to surge: that Trichet was commencing a debt monetization program (refuted) and that the IMF would increase its funding contributions to Europe (mysteriously leaked by a "source" in the administration to Reuters, then also promptly refuted but only after it had already raised stocks another 50 bps) ended up being false. In the meantime we got an initial claims number that was weaker than expected, and an ISM that missed consensus, and a pending home sales that was so low it could only go higher, and which will likely result in half of the transactions falling due to the spike in mortgage rates. But hey: at least Goldman managed to boost the value of the stock portion of its bonuses, after the firm upgraded the economy, but more importantly, all banks, itself most certainly included. It is yesterday's ISM that we wanted to focus on. Much as we hate to rain on the parade, we (unlike Princeton educated Ph.D. economists) continue to firmly believe that the market does not make the economy, especially when even your cab driver knows it is all a ponzi scheme (or, rather, it's a buy the dip scheme). As John Lohman, and David Rosenberg subsequently, remind us, the spread between the inventory and the new orders components of the manufacturing ISM came at a spread unseen in over 30 years, and a phenomenon which without fail leads to at least a sub 50 print in the ISM, if not outright (re)recession. Here is how Rosenberg described this variance: The U.S. ISM manufacturing index that came out yesterday, it actually came in below expected (bucking the regional indicators and dipping to 56.6 from 56.9). And with the sag in orders and pickup in inventories, the components were less than impressive. As today’s LEX column points out in the FT, when ISM orders slip below the inventory sub-index, “this usually indicates an oncoming recession...a return to sub-50 ISM readings cannot be ruled out...there is still the possibility that the V turns into the first half of a W.” Hey, don’t shoot the messenger (even if we concur)! That goes double for us. The magic of inventories is that just like China, one can accumulate all the goods needed (on cheap credit) but at some point these have to be sold. Just ask GM, which has now stuffed enough cars at its dealers that it won't be able to unclog channels for quarters (buy hey, the IPO is a resounding propaganda success). The main growth driver of the economy, and more importantly, of that new global economic dynamo - China, is and continues to be inventory accumulation. So when orders plunge and inventories surge, no matter how hard one spins it, it is impossible to reach a different conclusion that something will snap eventually. How long before it does? It all depends on credit procurement. If Bernanke keeps real rates negative, it is possible that on the first chart below, the Inventory-Order differential (red line) may hit all time lows in a few months, even as the ISM hits all time highs. And we have no doubts that the spinsters on a ratings-challenged CNBC will spend no time to present the data as positive. We once again will beg to differ. But in the global game of extend and pretend, where as we speculated earlier, even a modest downdraft in stocks now has the potential to bring down entire banks due to the pledging of equity securities with various central banks (definitely at the Fed, and most certainly in Europe), it is the Fed's only job now to keep the S&P hyperinflated. Below is the chart of the ISM and its orders less inventories component: And the same chart showing just how far the differential has dropped: there are only a few times in history when the 3MMA has dropped below zero. Each and every one of those times was accompanied by an ISM sub-50 contraction. So please pardon us while we remain completely unconvinced that like the amusing cartoon yesterday made all to clear, the only thing this market is chasing is its tail. As market historians know all too well, in the period between 1930 and 1939, and during the Japanese two lost decades, stocks had so many 50%+ headfakes it is difficult to count. And never before was the entire world on the verge of global bankruptcy, when the only recourse was to devalue currencies with impunity, leaving increasingly more to create their own gold standard by purchasing ever more physical gold. So those who wish to chase this ponzi higher, are welcome to do so: it is only fitting that the previous post talks about Barney Madoff. We wonder how many of the people invested with Madoff would have pulled their money the day, month, year or decade before the ponzi was discovered had they known they would all lose everything. But such is human psychology: chasing momentum and inflection points, in a broken market, supervised by corrupt regulators, and ultimately determined by central bankers however, is not for us. We can only wish the best of luck to those who do enjoy tossing live grenades.

Northern Exposure Posted: 02 Dec 2010 11:17 AM PST From the November 2010 Hard Rock Analyst Dispatch David Coffin & Eric Coffin, HRA Advisories November is a busy conferencing month due in part to post-field season confabs by the exploration community. This year marked a shift for us from Quebec's annual get together, to the one in Yukon with which it unfortunately conflicted. Whitehorse, with a population of 23,000, is one of the world's smaller cities and home to 2/3 of the Yukon population - in a territory that is larger than all but two US States and four European countries. The Territory was created because of the Klondike gold rush and mining has shaped its modern history as much as any other activity. This shows in the work of the government and industry organizations which put together the annual Geoscience forum. This is a technical forum for exploration types that is akin to the better known Roundup in Vancouver or the PDAC in Toronto (pre hullabaloo). This year's Geoscience forum was filled to capa...

WEALTH YOU CAN WEAR Posted: 02 Dec 2010 11:10 AM PST Don't be a cheap bastard. Buy your sweetie real gold for Christmas. By Jeff Clark, Senior Editor, BIG GOLD In 1975, as Saigon was falling, South Vietnamese refugees were air-evacuated into Guam and the U.S. The company Deak-Perera was hired by the State Department to serve as the official "money changer" for the refugee camps, [...]

David Tice: The Case for $6,000 Gold Posted: 02 Dec 2010 10:38 AM PST Prieur du Plessis submits: Federated’s David Tice says weak international currencies, rising unemployment and a falling Dow could push gold as high as $6,000. Complete Story »

Comforting. . . Comfort silver porn for early morning contemplation. . . Yea, Got Some Silver, y'all. Posted: 02 Dec 2010 10:30 AM PST Share this:

Was JPM's October 2008 Redemption From Madoff On Concerns Of Fraud The Reason For The Ponzi's Implosion? Posted: 02 Dec 2010 10:19 AM PST Earlier today, Irving Picard, trustee of the Madoff liquidation trust, filed a lawsuit against JPM, accusing the bank of enabling massive fraud and seeking over $6 billion in fees and damages from Jamie Dimon's bank. As per the press release (full copy below), the reason for the lawsuit is that "JPMC admitted in the months before Madoff’s arrest that BLMIS’s returns were too good – especially in down markets – to be believable, but for years they pretended that was not the case,” while on the banking side, the complaint charges, JPMC should have been more vigilant in seeing illegal cash flows. Instead, “JPMC was willing to ignore decades of suspicious and inexplicable activity." As a result "given that the main BLMIS account was held by JPMC, the bank was in a perfect position to investigate,” Mr. Sheehan said. “It had only to review its internal account records to determine whether there was a legitimate explanation for the cash moving in and out of the BLMIS accounts. And when there ultimately was suspicion of illegal activity, JPMC had a duty to take action. It failed to do so." The release goes on further to indicate that the full complaint has been filed under seal in bankruptcy court, undoubtedly per JPM's demands that its dirty laundry not be exposed, very much the same reason why Goldman is seeking a sealed courtroom hearing during its lawsuit against Sergey Aleynikov. Luckily, ABC has managed to obtain what appears to be a key part of the evidence confirming just how much JP knew. Curiously, we find that it may have been a major redemption by none other than JPM in October of 2008 that set off the avalanche leading to Madoff turning himself in once the ponzi was over. From ABC News, which has dug up an October 29, 2008 internal memo (months before Madoff handed himself in) in which the firm explains its suspicion: JPMCB's concerns around Madoff Securities are based (1) on the investment performance achieved by its funds which is so consistently and significantly ahead of its peers year-on-year, even in the prevailing market conditions, as to appear too good to be true - meaning that is probably is, and (2) the lack of transparency around Madoff Securities trading techniques, the implementation of its trading strategy, and the identity of its OTC option counterparties; and (3) its unwillingness to provide helpful information. As a result JPMCB has sent out redemption notices of one fund, and is preparing similar notices for two more funds. And like any ponzi, the second there is a major redemption request, the jig is up (same thing goes for the broader stock market these days): this opens up the interesting question - was JPM's redemption request the reason for the collapse of Madoff Securities? Surely, unable to replenish funds during the most volatile market in history, this is precisely the straw on the camel's back that started the unwind and led to Madoff's turning himself in. While JPM may or may not be at fault, we have one question namely why is Picard going after JPM for not doing something that the relevant regulator in this case - the SEC - should have done? After all, it is the SEC's fault for allowing Madoff to continue as long as he did. And even after all the internal investigations, the SEC continues to be the same toothless, corrupt, incompetent organization which is currently allowing hundreds of other like ponzi schemes to flourish in the current market, about which we will read only after the market blows up next time. And another question: should every fund whose administrator believes may be a scam, be turned in by said administrator? And to whom? Obviously the SEC no longer even pretends to be a market reulgator: after all how does one reach them: advertisements on redtube.com? Alas we believe Picard's case in this matter is very weak. But who knows: perhaps for once justice may prevail. Then again, the plaintiffs are people who only used to be rich. As such, their ability to bribe the relevant legal representatives may be severely limited. And that, as everyone knows, is the only way to "extract" justice in America these days. Full ABC disclosure HT_SAR_101202 Link to Picard release.

From the "Wealth of Nations" to the "Debt of Nations" Posted: 02 Dec 2010 10:01 AM PST → Washington’s Blog As everyone from Paul Krugman to Simon Johnson has noted, the banks are so big and politically powerful that they have bought the politicians and captured the regulators (and see this) But it's not just a question of regulatory capture and corruption. It's actually a loss of sovereignty. As Damon Vrabel wrote in July: It seems ridiculous to point this out, but sovereign debt implies sovereignty. Right? Well, if countries are sovereign, then how could they be required to be in debt to private banking institutions? How could they be so easily attacked by the likes of George Soros, JP Morgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs? Why would they be subjugated to the whims of auctions and traders?   A true sovereign is in debt to nobody and is not traded in the public markets. For example, how would George Soros attack, say, the British royal family? [Vrabel is presumably referring to Soros' currency speculation against the British pound and other currencies.] It’s not possible. They are sovereign. Their stock isn’t traded on the NYSE. He can’t orchestrate a naked short sell strategy to destroy their credit and force them to restructure their assets. But he can do that to most of the other 6.7 billion people of the world by designing attack strategies against the companies they work for and the governments they depend on.   The fact is that most countries are not sovereign (the few that are are being attacked by [the big Western intelligence services] or the military). Instead they are administrative districts or customers of the global banking establishment whose power has grown steadily over time based on the math of the bond market, currently ruled by the US dollar, and the expansionary nature of fractional lending. Their cult of economists from places like Harvard, Chicago, and the London School have steadily eroded national sovereignty by forcing debt-based ... currencies on countries.   We long ago lost the free market envisioned by Adam Smith in the “Wealth of Nations” [the book widely considered to be the foundation of modern economic theory]. Such a world would require sovereign currencies.... Only then could there be a “wealth of nations.” But now we have nothing but the “debt of nations.” The exponential math of debt by definition meant that countries would only lose their wealth over time and become increasingly indebted to the global central banking network. An obvious example of a nation which has lost it's sovereignty and gone from the "wealth of nations" to the "debt of nations" is Ireland. The Irish bailout won't really help the Irish people, but will help the big banks which invested in Ireland. See this and this. Ironically, German banks may actually be more at fault for the Irish crisis than the Irish banks themselves. See this, this and this. And the EU is now arguably trying to tell Ireland what to do (while using pleasantries and niceties to appear not too pushy), and somewhat ignoring Ireland's status as a sovereign nation. See this, this and this. Similarly, Americans - without their knowledge or consent - are bailing out banks all over the world . See this, this and this. Of course, there is no bright line between private and central banks, since big banks own the Fed, and the world's central banks - in turn - own the BIS. Central bankers are not elected by - or accountable to - the people of the nations in which they sit, nor are the IMF or World Bank. The IMF often loans money to countries and then imposes draconian austerity packages. Sure, Irish and American politicians were irresponsible and corrupt, and both people were spendthrifts. But - as I've repeatedly pointed out - the game has also been rigged in favor of the banks and against the sovereign nations. For example, economist Michael Hudson points out that debt grows exponentially, while the economy only grows in an s-curve. So the amount of debts will always surpass the size of the real economy. If private banks have the power to create debt, then the biggest banks will always eventually win out over the sovereign nations, especially when the amount of credit which can be created (i.e. the size of the monetary base) is not limited by real assets, but is simply based on a system of fiat currency. As I wrote in October, in a post entitled "The Founding Fathers' Vision of Prosperity Has Been Destroyed": The ability for America and the 50 states to create its own credit has largely been lost to private bankers. The lion's share of new credit creation is done by private banks, so - instead of being able to itself create money without owing interest - the government owes unfathomable trillions in interest to private banks. America may have won the Revolutionary War, but it has since lost one of the main things it fought for: the freedom to create its own credit instead of having to beg for credit from private banks at a usurious cost. And see this. But - whatever one thinks about public banking or paper currencies - one thing should be clear to everyone: the giant banks are rapidly chipping away at the sovereignty of virtually all of the world's nations.

More good music – Good silver porn – Good God – This SHIT IT GONNA WORK!!!!! Posted: 02 Dec 2010 09:52 AM PST Share this:

THURSDAY Market Excerpts Posted: 02 Dec 2010 09:42 AM PST Gold futures test $1400 again The COMEX February gold futures contract closed up $1.00 Thursday at $1389.30, trading between $1385.10 and $1399.70 December 2, p.m. excerpts: (from Reuters) Gold turned flat after failing to break above $1,400 an ounce, as safe-haven buying faded after European lenders offered a liquidity safety net for vulnerable banks and as U.S. data showed signs of an improving economy. European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said the ECB would keep providing banks unlimited liquidity well into next year, but it did not commit to a major bond-buying program to contain the euro zone crisis. Gold has made solid gains this week, currently up nearly 2%, amid investor jitters that the crisis could spread…more (from Dow Jones) Gold saw a slight boost early in the session from worse-than-expected U.S. weekly jobless claims. Initial unemployment claims rose 26,000 in the week ended Nov. 27, the Labor Department said. The precious metal reached an intra-day high of $1,399.70, eclipsing Wednesday's high of $1398.30, but was again unable to sustain those levels throughout the day. The dollar seesawed against the euro throughout the trading day, leaving gold futures with little direction, with the euro recently at $1.3195, up from $1.3122 late Wednesday…more (from TheStreet) It was a volatile session as momentum traders jumped into the market but profit takers emerged and held gold prices below the $1,400 resistance level. George Gero, vice president at RBC Capital Markets, said gold was getting hit as traders allocated funds to other markets "due to strength in stocks after indications of an improving economy." Better-than-expected retail sales for November as well as a 10% surge in existing home sales in October improved risk appetite and led traders' flight into stocks…more (from Bloomberg) The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained as much as 1.3%, while the Thomson Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 commodities jumped as much as 1%. "Gold is up primarily on dollar weakness and economic optimism," commented Adam Klopfenstein, a senior market strategist for Lind-Waldock. "This is very positive for gold on the future inflation front." Gold assets in exchange-traded products rose 7.65 tons to 2,094.48 tons yesterday, the highest amount since Oct. 27, according to data compiled by Bloomberg…more (from Marketwatch) From the other side of the world came more indications of rising demand. China has imported more than four times as much gold in the 10 months to October than in the full year of 2009, according to reports citing figures by Shanghai Gold Exchange Chairman Shen Xiangrong. Bullion imported into China in the January-to-October period totaled 209.7 metric tons, compared with 45 metric tons in all of 2009. The figures offer a glimpse into China's growing appetite for gold…more see full news, 24-hr newswire…

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts Posted: 02 Dec 2010 09:20 AM PST This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Want JP Morgan to crash? Buy silver: Max Keiser Posted: 02 Dec 2010 09:12 AM PST Here's how the campaign works: wealth tied to a fiat currency is easily overwhelmed by wealth tied to silver and gold. And the world is waking up to the fact that they have the ability, without government assistance or other interference, to create a new precious metals-based backed currency system by simply converting their fiat paper into real money. If anyone is interested in helping to crash JP Morgan, buy silver. In the end, it's about transferring wealth back to the people from where it came.

Guest Post: Deaf To History’s Rhyme: Why President Obama Is Failing Posted: 02 Dec 2010 08:49 AM PST Submitted by Thomas Palley Deaf To History’s Rhyme: Why President Obama Is Failing The great American novelist Mark Twain observed “history does not repeat itself but it rhymes.” Today the rhyme is with the 1930s, and if you don’t hear it read FDR’s great Madison Square Garden speech of October 1936: “For twelve years this nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing government. The nation looked to government but the government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years with the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that government is best which is most indifferent.” Despite this clarity, the Obama administration insists on hearing a rhyme with the 1990s. That tone deafness has its roots in political choices made at the administration’s outset and explains why the administration has stumbled so badly in its first years. If continued, the economic and social consequences will be grave. In 2008 President Obama captured the nation with a message of change, yet in office he has chosen to deliver change of style rather than change of substance. At the headline level this choice was reflected in his call for bi-partisanship that looked to split the difference with Republicans. In economic policy, it was reflected in the wholesale reappointment of the Clinton administration team led by Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, a case of continuity not change. Now, the administration is sinking under failure of its economic policy. That failure is due to its attempt to revive a 1990s paradigm that never worked as advertised and can only deliver stagnation. Painful though it is for Democrats to acknowledge, the reality is the economic policies of President Clinton were largely the same as those of President Bush. On this the record is clear for those willing to see. The Clinton administration pushed financial deregulation; twice reappointed Alan Greenspan; promoted corporate globalization through NAFTA and China PNTR; initiated the strong dollar policy; spoke of the “end of the era of big government”; contemplated privatization of Social Security; and struck down a core element of the New Deal by ending the right to welfare. The main difference between the Clinton and Bush administrations was the former’s willingness to offer some helping-hand policies to cushion the harsh effects of the invisible hand. Differences in outcomes were not policy driven but reflect the fact the Clinton administration enjoyed the good fortune of the Internet investment bubble. It also benefitted from the beginning of the housing bubble when American families had plenty of untapped home equity and credit. President Obama’s fateful decision to go with Clintonomics meant the recession was interpreted as an extremely deep downturn rather than a crisis signaling the bankruptcy of the neoliberal paradigm that has ruled both Republicans and Democrats for thirty years. That implied the recession could be fully addressed with stimulus, which was the same response as the Bush administration to the recession of 2001. The current recession is the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, inviting comparisons with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR had the advantage of taking office three years into the Depression when the unemployment rate was near 25 percent. The verdict was in: the system needed change. President Obama took office as the crisis was deepening. Those who had designed the system could still argue it could be revived and as establishment insiders they had the upper hand. But that argument is done and today the prospect is of long stagnation. The New Deal was a break with both the politics and economic policies of the past. Its economic policy innovations like Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the Wagner Act granting the right to organize, are still celebrated. However, it was FDR’s new politics of solidarity and compassion that created the necessary political space: solidarity that recognized the country was in the Depression together and compassion that recognized many were suffering through no fault of their own. That is the political rhyme President Obama must hear, while the New Deal is the policy rhyme. The President’s failure to deliver on the country’s desire for change of substance has left a vacuum that is being filled by dangerous unstable forces. This is the tale of the Tea Party, which is a tale that has resonance for Europe. The economic risk, already more advanced in Europe, is a doubling-down of disastrously failed hardcore neoliberal economic policies. The political risk is a rise of intolerance and xenophobia. These are not normal times. If the administration persists with its deafness to history it will surely hit the rocks and an historical opportunity for progressive change will be squandered. Worse yet, its deafness will leave the field open to the extreme right whose “blame-the-victim” social message and “liquidationist-austerity” economic policies clearly confirm today’s rhyme is with the history of the 1930s.

Investment demand boosts Chinese gold imports 6-fold Posted: 02 Dec 2010 08:47 AM PST by Rujun Shen Thursday 02 Dec 2010 (Reuters) — Investors' rapidly-growing appetite for gold has pushed up China's gold imports six-fold in the first 10 months of the year, a Shanghai Gold Exchange official said on Thursday, highlighting the appeal of the precious metal as a hedging tool. In a rare revelation of China's gold trade data, which is not published by customs, exchange chairman Shen Xiangrong said the country imported 209.72 tonnes of gold in the first ten months of the year. … On an annualised basis, China's gold imports would reach about 250 tonnes, higher than a Reuters survey consensus last month of about 180 tonnes. China's gold output [i.e., new supply from domestic mining] could reach 324 tonnes for 2010, based on calculations on official gold output data in the first ten months of the year. [source] RS View: The people of China have become 'magnets' for gold — they're pulling the yellow metal up from the ground and in from overseas. It seems like they've embraced the idea that if you can manage to snag a plastic bag that's drifting through the wind, you're better to fill it with some tangible gold rather than trying to bring home a house of cards. Perhaps the niftiest thing about a floating(price) 'gold standard' is that this wise paradigm of tangible reserves/savings is indeed already available today to all those who desire it. (Excepting the Fed, of course, who — as an entity under the Scrooge-like pinch of Uncle Sam — has its gold reserves rationed out by the Treasury Department for the Fed's use on the balance sheet at the miserly rate of $42.22 per ounce; a frozen rate at which nothing more of any substance can be expected until the iceworks of Congress are thawed by a spark of wisdom that at the present time is nowhere to be found within those particular legislative halls.)

Inter-Galactic Bailout – The Fed extends the hand of debt beyond borders Posted: 02 Dec 2010 08:34 AM PST The Fed is now bailing out the whole world! But who will bail out the Fed? After the news came out yesterday, the Dow rose 249 points. Gold was up $2. Here's the latest from Bloomberg: Stocks jumped, sending US benchmark indexes to their biggest gains in three months, while the euro and commodities rallied and Treasuries slid amid improving data on the American and Chinese economies and speculation of a larger effort to end Europe's debt crisis. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 2.2 percent, the most since Sept. 1. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose 2.2 percent, its biggest gain since Aug. 2. The euro rebounded above $1.31 while Spanish 10-year bonds snapped an 11-day drop. The rate on 10-year Treasury notes increased 17 basis points to 2.97 percent, a four-month high. Oil and copper advanced more than 3 percent. After the US close, S&P 500 futures added 0.1 percent at 7 p.m. in New York and Japan's stocks rose in early trading. European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said yesterday that investors are underestimating policy makers' determination to halt the region's debt crisis and shore up the euro ahead of a meeting of the bank's Governing Council tomorrow. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 249.76 points, or 2.3 percent, to 11,255.78. The Dow has rallied in December more than in any other month over the last century, according to Bespoke Investment Group. The 30-stock gauge rose 1.3 percent on average in the month during the past 100 years and gained 1.5 percent and 1.7 percent over the last 50 and 20 years, respectively, the Bespoke data show. Stocks and the euro extended gains after Reuters reported that an unidentified official said the US may support enlarging a European financial rescue program by adding cash from the International Monetary Fund. The US is not discussing extra IMF money for Europe, a US official in Washington told Bloomberg News. "Whoa…did you see that?" asked an Indian analyst we met this morning. "This is it. They're really turning on the presses now. They're trying to bail out the entire world. I never would have believed it. But it makes sense." The US official may not be discussing it openly, but Fed figures show that the US central banks is already bailing out foreigners. Reports tell us that 35 foreign banks took advantage of its EZ money policies. It appears that the Fed is supporting Europe's banking sector. And it would not be surprising if the US also backed the IMF. It's not just the banks that are in trouble in Europe. Governments are deep in debt too. They are so intertwined, that it's hard to know where private debt ends and public debt begins. Americans may see the dollar rising against the euro and feel a little patriotic pride. But this is not a good thing for Americans. If Europe comes unhinged, the crisis will waste no time in hitting American banks and the US economy. Ben Bernanke has been trying to get the dollar to go down. A rising greenback makes Germany's products less expensive and US exports less competitive. It contributes to the threat of deflation…and encourages a long, drawn-out Japanese-style slump by prompting people to save, rather than spend. Not only that, collapse of European economies would kill world trade. Exporters would be out of business. Importers would be out of money. The whole planet would be out of luck. The crisis would make its way around the world like a giant tsunami…wiping out stock markets immediately…and then swamping almost all economies. Yes, dear reader…this is the downside of globalization.. One region's problem can easily become a disaster for everyone. So, what's going to happen? We wish you wouldn't ask us questions like that, dear reader. But we'll take a guess. The European situation is more dangerous than most Americans realize. It could still melt down. US authorities must know this. And they must know too that if Europe melts down, so will the USA. So, the rumors will probably turn out to be true. The US will back the IMF. The IMF will back Europe. Europe will back Ireland. Ireland will back its banks. And the banks will back their lenders. Meanwhile, the euro will be backed by the dollar, which will also back the US economy, US banks, the US government, and about half the households in Christendom…not to mention the others! Who's got the kind of money you need to do all this backing? Ah…there's the rub… There's the weak link in this strange and magical chain. Let's see, if all the world's debts are guaranteed by paper money…isn't the paper money itself impaired by the amount of the losses? Won't the losses be passed along to dollar holders everywhere? Yes. But, no one knows how much the losses are. And no one knows how much extra "stimulus" money the feds are going to put out. And no one knows when people will get scared and flee the dollar…the euro…and all paper currencies. And no one knows what a panic out of the dollar would produce. And no one wants to find out. So, what's the solution? We won't bother to offer a solution to the world's financial authorities. They won't pay any attention anyway. But how about a solution for you? Did you buy gold when we suggested it, dear reader? We hope so. And more thoughts… The New York Times tells us that astronomers had seriously underestimated the number of stars in the universe. They can't see the little ones. Which means, their last count was probably a few trillion off. Or maybe a few gazillion off. Which suggests to us that astronomers and federal debt analysts must be using the same calculators. Both are trillions off the mark. But the reason we bring this up is to give dear readers hope. Maybe…circulating around one of these invisible stars…a few billion light years away from earth…is a habitable planet. And maybe, the people who live there are very good with figures…and money. And maybe they're also very accomplished space travelers. And very generous. And maybe they'll show up – any time now – and offer to bail out the whole Milky Way …if not the whole damned universe. Regards, Bill Bonner, for The Daily Reckoning Inter-Galactic Bailout – The Fed extends the hand of debt beyond borders 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."

The precious metals power higher: James Turk Posted: 02 Dec 2010 08:32 AM PST I am often asked when it will be time to sell the gold and silver we are now accumulating as our savings to get us though the crisis as it continues to unfold in the years ahead. I always respond that the end of this bull market will not be like the one that ended in January 1980. When gold and silver eventually become overvalued at some future date, you won't "sell" your metals; you will "spend" them. With the inevitable failure of national currencies, gold and silver will be the currency of choice.

The Pain in Spain…and in Ireland Posted: 02 Dec 2010 08:23 AM PST Financial markets underestimate just how deep the rot extends into the euro zone's banking systems and economies. Since early 2010, when credit spreads on the euro zone's periphery started blowing out, I've viewed the EU bailouts as futile efforts to refinance themselves out of a solvency crisis. If you're truly bankrupt, trying to put it off by refinancing never works out. European asset values and GDP, taken together, will not be sufficient to satisfy both debts and unfunded liabilities. In other words, the real economy in the euro zone is too small to subsidize enormous banking systems and bloated government budgets. Greece was the first sizeable bailout, and Ireland is the second. There will be others, including Spain. The problem with Greece and Ireland – at least from the perspective of pro-Euro EU bureaucrats – is that the political will to stick with austerity programs is weak. Irish citizens are rightfully upset that their economy has suffered in order to bail out reckless Irish banks. We're already seeing the emergence of a popular revolt against the bailout from the Irish Green Party. As Greece's economy continues to spiral downward, we'll see a popular drive to end plans of budget austerity, and a movement to default on Greek government debt. Europe faces a solvency crisis because its banking systems grew wildly out of proportion to its economies. Also, when you start to appreciate its terrible demographic profiles, most European countries owe far too much in the way of unfunded liabilities (like pensions and healthcare). Bureaucrats, nevertheless, will always seek to sustain an unsustainable status quo. They have gone to great lengths to avoid a painful but necessary restructuring of the banking system and welfare state. The parallels to the US financial crisis are clear: bureaucrats are imposing huge current and future costs on taxpayers and innocent bystanders in order to bail out reckless banks and government budgets. Since early October, yields on 10-year Spanish bonds have jumped from 4% to 5%. They will continue to rise. Interest expense will start eating up a larger and larger amount of Spanish GDP. This is bad news for an economy that saw capital misallocation on a monumental scale into residential housing and "green energy." Both of those sectors remain on life support, propped up by the government, and there's little hope for growth or employment in other sectors. Just like in the US, housing will remain in a depression as long as the government prevents markets from clearing and title from changing hands to better-capitalized owners. The problems in Spain lie not so much in its government debt, but in its banking system. The opaque accounting for bad mortgage and construction loans throughout the Spanish banking system makes the US look like a model of transparency. Consider the shenanigans these banks are employing just to maintain access to European Central Bank lending facilities. In his excellent Inner Workings blog, David Goldman describes how Spanish banks are buying defaulted loans out of the mortgage backed securities they sponsor in order to avoid ratings downgrades for these MBS. The ECB requires minimum investment-grade ratings for the mortgage securities it's willing to accept as collateral for loans. Spanish banks must take capital charges when they repurchase soured loans out of MBS. They must also shoulder the costs of bringing more non-performing real estate onto their balance sheets, so this is truly an act of desperation. Goldman calls this process "the financial equivalent of a derelict selling blood to buy booze." "Spain will have to cut government spending drastically," Goldman continues. "The trouble is that government is nearly 50% of GDP, so that the economic effect of cuts in government spending and its adumbrations upon the failing real estate market are all the worse." Considering this backdrop, I had to laugh when I saw Spanish government officials recently denying that they have any problems. It reminded me of former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's misleading statements about the health of Fannie Mae and the US banking system in mid-2008. The bottom line regarding why this matters for US financial markets: the Euro is likely to continue falling against the US dollar. Many holders of Euros will soon conclude that the ECB will dramatically debase the currency in the near future, much to the chagrin of what you might call the "Bundesbank honest money" camp. The inflationists at the ECB will eventually win out as we see more riots, strikes, and social turmoil in Europe. The ECB has a lot of catching up to do in order to match Ben Bernanke's turbocharged printing press. A falling Euro is bearish for risky assets, so we're likely to see a continuation of the "risk off" trade. Regards, Dan Amoss, for The Daily Reckoning The Pain in Spain…and in Ireland 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."

The Big Fix – world markets snap their losing streak…based on more losing data Posted: 02 Dec 2010 08:14 AM PST "Hey why's the market up big?" your editor asked a stockbroker friend yesterday. "Because everything's great today?" the friend deadpanned. "But wasn't everything broken yesterday?" your editor persisted. "Yes," the friend replied. "But today it's fixed." "Even Europe?" your editor asked incredulously. "Wasn't Europe super-broken yesterday? Wasn't Ireland bankrupt? And wasn't the euro falling to its lowest level in nearly a year?" "Yep," said the friend. "But that was yesterday. Today, Trichet [the President of the European Central Bank (ECB)] came out and hinted the ECB might launch a European-style quantitative easing program. The ECB, in other words, might start buying up shaky bonds from Ireland, Spain and Portugal." "And that's good right?" your editor joked. "Yeah," the stockbroker answered, "that's good because any time any government steps in to fix a problem, you can be sure it will be fixed. So if the Irish borrowed more money than they can repay, no problem, the ECB can fix that, just by lending the Irish more money on different terms, while also printing euros to buy up a bunch of Irish bonds. It's perfect really." "So is that the only reason the Dow is up 250 points?…Because the ECB fixed the Irish debt problem?" your editor wondered. "No," the friend replied, "the US economy is also doing just great, according to all these bozos that are showing up on CNBC today. Everything is just great. You can't sell a house and you can't get a job, but, hey, don't worry about that, the ISM number was better than expected." "You're sounding a little sarcastic there, buddy," your editor cautioned. "Maybe you should try buying some call options for a change. As I keep writing in the Daily Reckoning, the stock market might be a short, but the bond market is a better short. This quantitative easing stuff is NOT bearish for stocks; it is bullish. Think about it; the housing market is flat-lining, the commercial real estate market is sketchy, all the TV people say gold is in a bubble and short-term bonds pay pitiful yields. So the money HAS to go somewhere. The stock market at least offers the hope of something better. I'm not saying things ought to be this way, just that they are this way." "Yeah, maybe your right," the bearish stockbroker groaned. "But it's hard for me to invest by default." "I don't blame you," your editor replied. "But just remember that cash isn't the riskless trade it used to be. Thanks to quantitative easing – and sundry other dollar debasement schemes – cash is sort of the 'new safe' – certain to lose value, but probably not very quickly." The stockbroker laughed, but he wasn't really laughing…and neither was your editor. Whatever the theoretical merits of Ben Bernanke's quantitative easing experiment, the actual demerits are considerable. For starters, printing dollars is a strange way to instill confidence in the dollar…or in the economy that generates 13 trillion dollars worth of GDP every year. For another thing, governments and bureaucracies fix far fewer items than they break, especially if the item happens to be complex…like a $13 trillion economy. The government does a decent job fixing potholes, but not such a good job fixing things as complex as ethnic strife in foreign lands or medical insurance, or even automobile registrations. Governments muck things up. That's what they do. That's what Ben Bernanke is doing. Maybe, by some modern miracle, QE1, QE2 and whatever additional QEs may follow, will succeed in stimulating economic activity without also stimulating inflation. But we doubt it. "We have to reinforce the authority of the public authority," Trichet declared yesterday. "It is on the authority of the public authority that we can continue the resistance to an environment which is very demanding and will continue to be demanding for a period of time." Translation: We have to have more money to throw at the identical tactics that are already failing. Our response: Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus. Translation: "False in one thing, false in everything." The curative power of currency debasement is a false concept – just as false as the "benefit" of every other governmental intrusion into the private sector. [Think: Social Security]. Neither Jean-Claude Trichet nor Ben Bernkanke needs "more authority"…or more money to indulge their monetary fallacies. They need more time in a La-Z-Boy doing crossword puzzles. Let the debtors default and let the capitalists pick up the pieces. Eric Fry for The Daily Reckoning The Big Fix – world markets snap their losing streak…based on more losing data 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."

A “Reckoning?” Really? Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:58 AM PST by Addison Wiggin - December 2, 2010 A fiscal “reckoning”? Blue-ribbon panel discovers we have a problem, seven years late A strategy that’s worked through all of 2010… and a better one to pursue now Demand for foreclosure properties plunges… Why it’s about to fall even more “No foreign bailouts?” Federal Reserve’s own data contradict Bernanke Readers sound off on street signs specs (with updated news) and those frisky critters (still!) “In final report, federal debt commission warns of fiscal 'reckoning'” reads the headline in the Los Angeles Times. President Obama's deficit commission warned yesterday that without a major change in course, a fiscal “reckoning will be sure and the devastation severe.” Wow, it's as if they’re warning us about a Financial Reckoning Day that's soon to come... who'd have thought? Wish someone would have said this sooner, maybe back in 2003. "If we do not act soon," the report continues, "the risk of a crisis will increase, and the options available to avert or remedy the crisis will both narrow and become more stringent." You don't say? So America has become some sort of Empire of Debt. Sounds awfully familiar. Maybe the commission could make an easy-to-understand, entertaining documentary on our deficit crises to help people "get it"... name it something clever like I.O.U.S.A. The first edition of Financial Reckoning Day came out when the national debt totaled $6.7 trillion. Only now, when the total has more than doubled to $13.8 trillion -- and if you throw in future Social Security and Medicare obligations, you could get north of $200 trillion -- does a “blue-ribbon panel” warn us that the course is unsustainable. The one on the left saw what was coming seven years ago… and it’s far more entertaining and enlightening. You can even get a free copy of the updated 2009 edition here. Already, the original recommendations from the panel’s bipartisan co-chairs have been watered down from three weeks ago. Former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles and retired Sen. Alan Simpson are trying desperately to reach “consensus” among the other 16 members. So now the final recommendations include -- for instance -- a payroll tax holiday next year, the lost revenue to be made up in future years by… well, the report doesn’t say. Congress can figure that out, right? But for all that bending over backward, Bowles and Simpson have had to put off the final vote on the proposal from yesterday till tomorrow. And they’re still unlikely to muster the 14 out of 18 votes to formally pass on their recommendations to Congress. Stocks are up modestly today, adding to yesterday’s big gains. The Dow is within shooting distance of 11,300. So once again, it looks as if it pays to buy the S&P 500 on the first two days of the month and sell on the third. As we pointed out a while back, through September, this approach would have generated 10.4% gains this year… while buying and holding the S&P would have garnered just 2.3%. We haven’t formally updated the numbers, but a cursory glance at the day-to-day performance of the S&P in October and November seems to confirm the pattern. Nice coincidence, but not much of a strategy. We much prefer the approach of Bulletin Board Elite editor Greg Guenthner. As the major indexes racked up losses in November, his readers got this performance (we’re showing everything, warts and all here)… A 60% gain in less than eight months A play with no gain or loss A 25% gain in less than three months A modest 10% loss after five weeks holding time A 45% gain in six weeks A 100% gain in just under a year A 63% gain in just over four months. If you want to learn more about Greg’s approach, there’s no better time: Bulletin Board Elite is one of our two most expensive services… but you can secure membership right now for a substantial savings, and be on board for Greg’s next recommendation this Sunday. Time is limited, though… Watch your inbox for this special offer later tonight. One reason the Street is celebrating today: Pending home sales jumped 10.4% in October, according to the National Association of Realtors. That’s a record monthly gain in a data set going back to 2001. We offer our usual caveat with this figure: Pending home sales can fall through, especially if the buyer can’t line up financing. Or if there’s some question about the title history. Which brings us to this… Demand for foreclosure properties plunged in the third quarter, according to RealtyTrac. 189,000 foreclosures were sold -- down 25% from Q2, and down 31% from the same period in 2009. Don’t expect this number to improve. "The foreclosure-processing controversy, which was brought to light at the very end of the third quarter, could chill demand even further,” says RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio. “It's become MUCH more difficult to obtain title insurance on foreclosed homes,” explains Byron King -- who, in addition to his background as an oil field geologist and a Navy pilot, has practiced bankruptcy law. “The shortcuts involved in both the original sale ("robo-signing") and the eventual foreclosure ("robo-signing") have clouded many a title. Who is the ‘real’ mortgage note holder? “Did the previous owner pay the mortgage to the ‘right’ party? Is the foreclosure subject to later challenge based on the procedural deficiencies? How do you insure against that? How do you price that insurance? It's a totally unknown and unknowable risk. “This foreclosure mess has created an entirely new class of real estate with tainted title, and hence lowered values across the board. It'll take a generation (or maybe two) to work this crud through the transactional pipeline.” Gold is approaching $1,400 again, the spot price up to $1,398, mostly on a weaker dollar. Silver isn’t too far from its highs last month, currently $28.92. The Federal Reserve has coughed up a boatload of data about the bailouts and rescues it conducted from late 2007, up through this last summer. The data cover 21,000 transactions totaling $3.3 trillion in emergency lending. The biggest revelation appears to be the degree to which European mega-banks benefited. The top 12 list of banks that dumped their crappy mortgage-backed securities on the Fed looks like this: In addition, UBS was the biggest borrower from the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility, good for another $75 billion. And Barclays borrowed $48 billion from the Primary Dealer Credit Facility in just one night -- Sept. 18, 2008. We’re not sure how all this squares with Ben Bernanke’s assertion to Congress last February that “We have no plans whatsoever to be involved in any foreign bailouts.” We also won’t hold our breath for someone at the Justice Department to launch a perjury investigation… any more than we did when we learned the junk bonds the Fed graciously bought after the Bear Stearns meltdown weren’t really investment grade, as Bernanke told Congress. Here are some things we still don’t know about the bailouts -- and won’t -- because Congress watered down Rep. Ron Paul’s bill providing for a top-to-bottom audit of the Fed… Who borrowed from the Fed’s discount window… and how much? Among the loans disclosed yesterday, exactly what securities did the recipients of those loans put up as collateral? (And what’s that collateral worth today?) The data dump yesterday revealed how illiquid the banks were at the peak of the crisis. The data we haven’t seen would reveal whether they were insolvent… or potentially are now. “At some point, hopefully, the feds will be ignored when pimping garbage such as this,” writes a reader who caught our item about the federal mandate that street signs have upper- and lowercase lettering at least six inches high. “Don't need it, can't afford it. What better time to tell them to shove it.” The 5: As it turns out, this is one time the feds listened. The U.S. Department of Transportation is now backing off the new regulations. "I believe that this regulation makes no sense,” says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “It does not properly take into account the high costs that local governments would have to bear.” This episode is a fascinating microcosm of how Washington works. “The American Traffic Safety Services Association -- which represents companies that make signs and the reflective material used on them -- lobbied hard for the new rules,” according to ABC News. “And at least one key study used to justify the changes was funded by the 3M Corp., one of the few companies that make the reflective material now required on street signs.” “As a consulting firm, we engage independent contractors from time to time and have always issued 1099s,” writes a small business owner. “We also pay more than $600 a year to our landlord (a national firm), SCANA Energy and Georgia Power. Are those some of the companies that Obama thinks are cheating on their taxes? ”It would not be a burden on us to send a 1099 to companies such as Georgia Power, but how are the company and the IRS going to deal with the thousands, perhaps millions, of 1099s sent to just that one utility? “Georgia Power is currently seeking a rate increase, which it will get, so when the 1099s kick in, guess who will be paying for the all the clerks who will be filing and reporting the blizzard of 1099s” “The United States of America has gone from the greatest country in the world to the largest debtor nation in the world. We have currently the highest unemployment we have had since the Great Depression. Our citizens need help. “How can our government continue to send $ in foreign aid to countries all over the world? Does anyone know how many billions this might be? Why do we feel compelled to give support to illegal aliens at the expense of our own people in need? “Benevolence is a wonderful thing, but those who are broke usually don't practice it. Our friends in China have a huge surplus. How much do they give? I'm sure it isn't much in comparison. Yet who's hated more around the world? “This great country of ours can still be saved, but Washington had better wake up soon. Tell Addison to rattle their cages while he is in town. Get those who send information to let their readers know how much is spent on things only a wealthy nation might be able to afford. Printing money to pay for things you can't afford makes no sense at all.” The 5: Amen on your last point, but we have to burst your bubble on another: At $13 billion, foreign aid amounts to just 1% of the federal budget. It’s a drop in the ocean compared to Social Security, health care and the maintenance of a globe-spanning military. Any plan to shrink the deficit that doesn’t tackle those things is just tinkering at the margins. That’s a point Addison has tried to get across for years now, and which the deficit commission is recognizing, however belatedly. “I LOVE the humping animal pictures,” writes a reader determined to continue a discussion we inadvertently launched on Monday. “It's a reminder of everyday life in corporate/government America. Gotta keep your sense of humor!” “OK, first off, the panda and the bear was funny as hell,” adds another. “People really need to get over themselves. Vulgar? C'mon, I can walk though the local mall and see much more vulgar things than that. “Secondly, since when are you supposed to be giving ‘worthy’ information, and when did this become an ‘investment document’? As much as I love The 5, and as much as I appreciate your insights, let's face it: It's a free newsletter and is much more entertaining than serious. “Sounds to me like the offended writer is just one more whiner too cheap to pay for the actual investment advisory services you offer. Damn fine advisory services, at that. “No wonder the Chinese own our collective asses.” “I wish you'd throw a cat in the pigeon sack every day,” says our final contributor. “The flaps you create (intended or not) are a blast to observe.” The 5: Sometimes we’ll stir the pot, other times readers stir it for us. We’re glad you find the results tasty. Bon appetit, Dave Gonigam The 5 Min. Forecast P.S.: As of this writing, Addison is meeting with Rep. Ron Paul and other members of the Liberty Caucus. We hear there may be a vote today on extending the Bush-era tax cuts. Whatever’s going on, Addison will no doubt find some entertainment value… Look for his report here tomorrow.

SEC Kills Whistleblower Initiative Claiming Its Billion Dollar Budget Is Insufficient Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:52 AM PST Just when you thought the parasitism at the SEC could no longer surprise, we find ourselves stunned yet again: "The Securities and Exchange Commission, facing the probability that resurgent congressional Republicans will cut its budget, has put on hold part of the work it has been tasked with by the Dodd-Frank financial law. The SEC will delay setting up five new offices mandated by the law, including a new office to field tips from informants about wrongdoing that was a signature accomplishment of SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. The so-called whistleblower office won't be staffed; its functions will temporarily be carried out instead by existing enforcement staff, the SEC said on its website. A new credit rating office, an office for municipal securities and two separate offices focused on investors and women and minorities are also on hold." In other words, let's all just sing Kumbaya and pretend our markets are supervised even as Wall Street continues to funnel trillions of NPV dollars in its pockets today, while sticking future generations with what is now nearly $14 trillion in debt. More from Dow Jones: The SEC said the work is "being deferred due to budget uncertainty." The Dodd-Frank law authorized a series of budget increases for the SEC that would nearly double the agency's funding over the next few years. But the money must be appropriated by Congress. With Republicans back in control of the House of Representatives next year, it looks increasingly unlikely the SEC will see the increases that have been authorized. Federal agencies are currently operating under last year's spending levels as Republicans and Democrats remain locked in an impasse over the budget. Some Republicans have vowed to cut spending to 2008 levels. The SEC's workload swelled with the passage of Dodd-Frank. It was tasked with writing more rules and regulations than any other federal agency to implement the law. As a reminder the world's most corrupt, incompetent and porn-addicted organization has a budget of $1.23 billion. Here's a thought: terminate Mary Schapiro immediately. That act alone will allow the SEC to actually regain about 120% of the credibility it has lost in the last two years. Then proceed with terminating everyone else and actually hiring grossly overpaid bureaucrats who actually know what a bid and an ask are. That way you won't even need a whistleblower office. h/t London Dude Trader

Still About the Dollar Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:49 AM PST While the SP500 goes on to test the recent highs, let's make no mistake about it that the last 2 days of positive price action have been predicated on a falling Dollar. Of course, this set of circumstances is no different than the ... Read More...

Thursday Thrust – Just Buy the F’ing Dips! Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:47 AM PST Thursday Thrust – Just Buy the F’ing Dips! By Phil of Phil's Stock World  It's very sad when you can get your best financial advice from cartoon characters. I apologize for the language but  this video pretty much says it all.  As the man in green says:  "Buy the f'ing dip, you f'ing idiot."  That's the entirety of the market strategy we are being trained like Pavlov's dogs to follow.  Also as the man says "Now, don't forget this only works if you go out and tell all your friends and family to do the same.  That way, when they are buying more expensively than you, you can sell back to them and collect your money."   Of course it's a Ponzi scheme but it's a gigantic, legal one and the best thing about it is that the Government FORCES everyone to play so you never run out of suckers.  When there is a lack of actual new sucker/investors to put money in, the Government steps in with stimulus or buys equities (QE1) or buy Treasuries from the banks so they can have free capital to buy equities with (QE2).  They debase the currency and drive inflation higher while talking it up even more so and virtually penalizing people for saving money and not shopping.  In this way, the US Government places a tax on every single citizen through a systemic devaluation of their lifetime accumulation of wealth as well as unfavorable savings and inflation conditions that are aimed to force money into equities and commodities.   What is the logic to this?  Well, none if you are a government that actually cares about the long-term benefit of 310M people but we haven't had a government that was "for the people" since they put two in the back of Kennedy's neck so why complain about it now?  What we should be doing is celebrating the sheer stupidity of the situation and enjoying the ride as this stock market roller coaster clacks up the tracks - towards a drop that is certain to have investors screaming all the way down but, for now, let's listen to what the Bernanke Bears have to say in their latest cartoon about the Bank America crisis with WikiLeaks as well as their advice on NFLX and CRM: Now, what could be more simple than that?  Just take all your money out of bank stocks and put it into NetFlix.  Well, maybe not NFLX as we were shorting them this week and it does look like we'll be rewarded as they got a spot of bad news (that we expected, hence the short) as the FCC proposes net neutrality regulations that  endorse the concept of usage-based pricing and that would be TERRIBLE for NetFlix's model, which is based on being able to hog up about 1/3 of the entire bandwidth of the Internet for free.  What a shocker that this plan my not pan out, right?  Even Jim Cramer is abandoning the stock, telling his viewers to sell half in last night's broadcast.   #fe9934; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"> While last night's video may confuse the people who took Jim Cramer's advice in this one, that NFLX was "unstoppable" at $185 (video removed by CNBC/Cramer but we saved the text!) at least it's up $15 but I'd be selling all at this price before we're back at $170!  Of course those Oct 27th viewers will be nowhere near as confused as the Nov 30th viewers (yes 2 days ago!), who Jim told to BUY NetFlix at $208, which was the same time we were buying too, only it was the January $155 PUTS at $2 that we picked up in NFLX - we'll see how that goes but we're very thankful to Cramer for his quick 180 turnaround - usually it takes him several days to be proven wrong (and months to admit it, if ever).  In fact, the above cartoon bears mention how great it would have been to have not listened to Cramer back in March of '09 and bought some banks stocks.  They forget to mention how great it would have been to listen to ME!  I was, in fact, on TV that same crash day telling people to BUYBUYBUY: BAC ($3.13) , XLF ($6), FAS ($14), the RUT ($390), GE ($7) and 8 other stocks - pretty much "buying the f'ing dips" when everyone else was panicking out of the market (video on the left is my March 6th, 2009 appearance on LiveStock and here is the summary of that week's events).   THAT'S the kind of dip you buy on, now these little pullbacks!  Meanwhile, the anti-Cramer trade is still one of the most sure-fire ways to make money in the markets but the downside is you have to actually watch Cramer - which is something not many people are willing to do anymore as is evidenced by Mad Money's 24% decline in viewers since last November, down to just 41,000 people a show according to Nielson (the ratings guys, not the cool Coconut Song guy).  CNBC has, overall, a 36% drop in ratings caused, perhaps, by 36% of the people who listen to their advice losing their homes with the Fast Money crew dropping a precipitous 56% in the past 12 months but still holding onto the same audience (41K) as Cramer.   Why is CNBC failing in the ratings? Because they put people like Kudlow and Cramer and Adami and Najarian on TV instead of people (yes, like me) who are going to give you the real news and attempt to actually inform you. Now, here's the thing you need to think about - what kind of TV show(s) have you ever heard of that lose half their audience in a year and remain on the air?  The answer - #ff0000;">PROPAGANDA#ff0000;">!   Only a show that has an AGENDA other than making money could possibly stay on the air while it's driving viewers away in droves.  It takes years to build up a viewership but, as CNBC has proven, only 12 months to drive half of them away.  Fast Money is not the only CNBC show that would have been canceled a year ago by any responsible programming executive - "The Call" is down 37%, "Power Lunch" is off 47%, "Street Signs" is down 45% and hour one of "Closing Bell" is down 43% while poor Maria drives another 8% away in hour 2.   So, is it a sign of a market top when CNBC only has an average of 47,000 suckers tuned in at any given moment?  Sadly, in these thin market volumes, 47,000 sheeple mindlessly following Cramer off a cliff can still move the markets, so we have to torture ourselves daily and pay attention to what CNBC is saying as neither Fox Financial or Bloomberg have managed to match CNBC's impact for moving the markets.  Even now, when I go to visit brokers on Wall Street, every office has TVs tuned to CNBC (maybe they are not Nielson families), even though, clearly, the broadcasts did nothing at all to help Wall Street avert the last crash and, in fact, many would argue that their mindless trend-following and their constant cheer-leading for the latest bubble greatly exaggerated the damage done in the markets as people tune in expecting news and instead get nothing but #ff0000;">PROPAGANDA #000000;">that leads them to making very poor investment decisions.   We try not to make poor investment decisions, of course, but we also realize that sometimes we do. That's why PSW stresses portfolio management techniques, position sizing as well as fundamental analysis.  It is ridiculous to tell viewers to "do their own homework" and then rattle off 20 trades in a 5 minute "lightning round" that sends the tickers flying.  There's really no way to reconcile television to responsible market discussions in an hourly format, which is why I have thus far declined all opportunities to make a fool of myself in some sort of show.  If I ever did TV or radio, I would want a show from 8am to 5pm where we did pretty much what we do in Member Chat now - observe and talk about the markets live and, occasionally, share trade ideas.  Would anyone watch?  Probably not, which is why I'm writing and not broadcasting this morning but if you ever see me with an hour show or jammed into a regular "segment" on some other show, you already have my permission to call me a sell-out and I can only pray that day never comes!   To me, CNBC is just re-running the script from 2008, when we were teetering on the verge of disaster but GE had a lot of real estate loans to dump and military contracts to get signed so CNBC was on from 4am to Midnight telling you how great everything was and to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain while they funnel away your investments and sell your country down the river, signing you and your family up for a future of 3 generations of debt and a broken safety net.  We like to trade FUNDAMENTALS not whatever mental patients are trading!  That's very hard when you're in a market where cartoon super heroes can say "just buy the f'ing dips" and you start thinking - "hey, this guy knows his stuff!"   It's all fine to follow the trend if you are a hit and run trader - that's the kind of trading we've been doing since we cashed out last month but, to make real money, you need to take a stand. We're trying to make 100% in 2 months with our $10K-$50K portfolio so we need to take a stand and our stand was a bearish one that we dug into yesterday with 4 bearish trade ideas in the Morning Alert, including the XRT Jan $44 puts, that were my Free Trade Idea of the Week in the morning post, which came in at just .80 on the morning spike.  As the market stayed strong we strengthened our Mattress Play (more bearish) and shorted oil (also mentioned in morning post) shorted China, shorted the Russell, shorted PCLN (again) and shorted TM, which seemed like a super-obvious short to me as they disclosed very poor sales numbers at about 1:20 and they just ran up from $69 to $79 in a month so we aggressively played the $80 puts for $1.60, which can make a very fast 50% or more on a $1 pullback we expected once the Nikkei opened (looking good this morning).  THAT's how you trade the market - wait PATIENTLY for opportunities to present themselves and use our FUNDAMENTAL knowledge of the market to quickly identify good trading opportunities.  You can't do that in a TV show because you are constrained by the time of your segment and that means you will be forcing trades, rather than waiting for good ones to present themselves - that's why no one on TV can tell you anything useful about the markets... Maybe we're wrong, maybe we'll get burned but our decision was based on the trends we were following all month - the Dollar's move, the EU situation, the economic numbers, the retail sales, the commodity pricing...  So many things to watch but today it is about the dollar holding 80.50, something we discussed in last night's Member Chat so I won't get into it again here.  We didn't think the EU was really going to run a QE2, which is what rallied the markets yesterday and the afternoon rumor was, not only will the ECB run a QE Program but the US would pitch in through the IMF, which sounded like complete and utter BS to me so we held our short positions even while the market strongly disagreed with us in the afternoon.   The ECB met this morning and Trichet did not announce any major policy changes and the IMF rumors were already shot down and that is dropping the EU markets quickly.  We'll have to see what sticks but it looks like NFLX and TM should be treating us well this morning and, who knows, maybe if we hold our bounce levels again we'll be motivated to buy the f'ing dips. Isn't trading fun?!? - Phil For a 20% discount to try PSW newsletters and options trading services, click here.

Can You Keep a Secret? - New Free Shares Watch Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:37 AM PST The following graph puts into laser focus just how much confidence has been lost in the world's reserve currency over the past decade. ... This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Why Governments Will Buy Silver Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:37 AM PST SilverStrategies

Fed Names Recipients of $3.3 Trillion in Crisis Aid Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:30 AM PST Federal Reserve Releases Data on Multi-Trillion Dollar Special Bailout Programs | Public Intelligence Federal Reserve's 'astounding' report: We loaned banks trillions (Christian Science Monitor): [INDENT]The Federal Reserve has lifted its veil of secrecy regarding special lending programs during the financial crisis, responding to a mandate from Congress by revealing the specifics of transactions with firms like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Critics of the Federal Reserve are poring over the data, seeking red flags regarding potential improprieties. And Congress has asked its Government Accountability Office to sift through the numbers and offer its own analysis. At the same time, it's possible that the release of details will end up largely vindicating the Fed for the massive financial support that it gave the economy at a time of severe stress. The emergency loans, in the view of many finance experts, helped to avert a much deeper economic slump. And those loan...

EMERGING MARKETS POISED TO COLLAPSE Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:29 AM PST Smokey. The Super Bowl isn't too far off. China will collapse beforehand. Pucker up. Albert Edwards: The Bubble In China And The Rest Of The Emerging World Is On The Brink Of Popping Gregory White | Dec. 1, 2010, 2:59 PM | The emerging market bubble that everyone has been ignoring is on the brink [...]

Are Accountants The Weakest Link In Unraveling The Fraudclosure Scandal? Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:28 AM PST With the recent realization that virtually the entire residential mortgage securitization system in America is hinging on fraud, as few if any of the recent structured finance packages actually were in possession of the necessary mortgage promissory notes (which were often improperly retained by seller banks as has been made all too clear after rounds of sworn and recorded servicer testimonies) we have seen a veritable explosion in the discussions, papers, essays and op-eds that claim that the existing housing system in America is based on a legal lie. Yet despite what has become glaringly obvious, the administration and the banks simply refuse to deal with the issue: that is to be expected as the damaging discoveries would result in a collapse in trillions of structured finance products leading to a fall out far worse than anything in the post-Lehman days. Furthermore, since banks now have recourse to trillions in fungible excess reserves the backdoor schemes to fill capital deficiencies will allow banks to pad the funding holes for the indefinite future. Additionally, rumors that the banks are pushing hard for a class settlement with the various attorneys general who have not yet been co-opted, bribed and otherwise converted to the fold indicates that it may only be a matter of time before this topic, which has lead so many in the blogosphere to the edge of hysteria will soon be buried. So is this merely another open and shut case which will disappear soon, and banks will continue with life and record bonuses as they know? Perhaps not. Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil suggests that instead of going after the banks and the legal system, which is now obviously beyond repair, those who seek justice should instead go after what could be the weakest link in the entire fraudclosure chain: the (well paid) auditors of these banks who may have committed fraud by signing off on their financial statements. Weil explains: Thanks to a Nov. 16 court ruling in Camden, New Jersey, we now know that a Bank of America Corp. employee, Linda DeMartini, testified last year that the lender routinely retained possession of mortgage promissory notes and related documents, even after loans were packaged into bonds that were sold to investors. If we’re to believe what she said, it raises the prospect that some of those loans still should be on Bank of America’s balance sheet today. Yet if they are, and are not being represented as such, is BofA to blame? Surely, after such fiascoes as Repo 105 and countless other cases where banks have been caught red handed fudging their numbers openly, there is little we can expect from the banks in terms of voluntary disclosure. But what about Bank of America's outside auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers? Aha... DeMartini’s statements also place Bank of America’s outside auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, in a tough spot. The firm has no choice now under U.S. auditing standards but to find out definitively if what DeMartini said is correct, and whether the answer would affect any of its prior audit conclusions. PwC billed Bank of America $128 million for its audit and other services last year. The mortgage at issue in the court ruling was originated in 2006 by Countrywide Financial, which Bank of America bought in 2008. And here is where it gets interesting: while it is clear that the banks will lie without remorse to preserve the status quo, will accountants, whose business is at least on paper based on transparency and honest, be willing to take the fall for the Ken Lewises and Agent Oranges of the world? The last thing investors need now, of course, is a new reason to worry about a too-big-to-fail bank’s accounting. The company’s regulators would have every incentive to keep any serious problems from coming to public light, for fear of destabilizing the financial markets. PwC and the other major accounting firms haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory, either, since the financial crisis began in 2007. Indeed, as Weil makes all too obvious, it may be naive to believe that someone, somehere in this completely corrupt financial system will do the right thing. But at least there is a paper record...more so at the accountants, apparently, than anywhere else. And here is the kicker: Generally speaking, for the transfer of a financial asset to qualify as a sale for accounting purposes, there must be a true sale at law. Otherwise, the transaction may have to be treated as a secured borrowing. One condition for sale treatment is that the party receiving the asset must have the right to pledge or exchange it. If the purchaser never received all the necessary paperwork, it might not have gained those rights or the ability to control the asset. Which is why, we believe the focus should be not on the banks: they know any disclosure short of a government subpoena (which will not come - our politicians are more corrupt than anyone out there), it will have to be from such auditors as PwC. Which is why Zero Hedge kindly requests any and all Big 4 (and all other) accounting firm whistleblowers to please stand up and let us know of any and every case of improper accounting they are aware of (preferably with supporting documentation). Zero Hedge will promptly process such data and present it to the world. While it is imperative to fix the US economy, doing so while the biggest American asset resides on fraudulent terms will be impossible, and more and more foreclosure sales will never take place as prospective buyers continue to refuse to transact in a system which is based on lies and fraud, and in which nobody knows what they are selling or buying (unless of course it is with a NINJA loan issued by the very bank in question in which case nobody cares). We are confident at least one or two good men or women will stand up within the anonymous ocean of wholesale accounting gimmickry. We await your feedback.

China Gold Imports Increase Dramatically Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:25 AM PST Tim Iacono submits: There’s been lots of news about China, India, and gold in recent days as imports, investment demand, and prices are all soaring now that the locals see consumer prices rising and look for ways to protect themselves from further depreciation of the currency. Depending on whether you read this Bloomberg report or this Reuters story, Chinese gold imports have increased five- or six-fold during the first ten months of the year. First, from Bloomberg: Gold Imports by China Soar Almost Fivefold Complete Story »

James Turk - Expect Extremely Bullish Action in Mining Shares Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:05 AM PST With gold and silver consolidating recent gains, King World News interviewed James Turk out of Spain. When asked about the action in both gold and silver Turk stated, "We should see a very big up-move in both gold and silver shortly. There is no question that the highs will be taken out on both metals, it is now just a question of when. I view the pullback off the highs of today as meaningless noise." This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

China Gold Imports Increase Five- or Six-fold Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:00 AM PST There's been lots of news about China, India, and gold in recent days as imports, investment demand, and prices are all soaring now that the locals see consumer prices rising and look for ways to protect themselves from further depreciation of the currency. Depending on whether you read this Bloomberg report or this Reuters story, Chinese gold imports have increased five- or six-fold during the first ten months of the year. First, from Bloomberg: Gold Imports by China Soar Almost Fivefold China's gold imports jumped almost fivefold in the first 10 months from the entire amount shipped in last year as concern about rising inflation increased its appeal as a store of value, said the Shanghai Gold Exchange. Imports gained to 209 metric tons compared to 45 tons for all of 2009, Shen Xiangrong, chairman of the bourse, told a conference in Shanghai. China, the world's largest producer and second-biggest user, doesn't regularly publish gold-trade figures and rarely comments on its reserves. And from Reuters: China gold imports soar six-fold on investment demand Investors' rapidly-growing appetite for gold has pushed up China's gold imports six-fold in the first 10 months of the year, a Shanghai Gold Exchange official said on Thursday, highlighting the appeal of the precious metal as a hedging tool. In a rare revelation of China's gold trade data, which is not published by customs, exchange chairman Shen Xiangrong said the country imported 209.72 tonnes of gold in the first ten months of the year. It looks as though both reports might be correct since they are comparing the first ten months in 2010 to two different time periods in 2009 – the full year in the first and, presumably, just the first ten months in the second. However you calculate the increase, that's a lot of gold to be importing for the world's number one gold producer.

Economic Ruination in Three Words or Less Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:00 AM PST If you want some bad news, then Doug Noland, in his Credit Bubble Bulletin at PrudentBear.com, has some for you. He reports that that "Global yields are on the rise." I was going to make a complimentary comment about how cleverly Mr. Noland conveyed such bad news in only five words; "Global yields are on the rise." Then I noticed that I could be more concise than Mr. Noland, a rare triumph for me, with "Bond prices falling," which is only three words. Then I noticed, with some alarm at the schizophrenic overtones, that I could eclipse myself with, "Bonds collapsing" which could be further reduced to the one-word synopsis, "Doom!" I can say "Doom!" because this means that the gigantic, towering, incalculable, worldwide glut of bonds have all gone down in value, handing the owners of the bonds unrealized losses, which are just the start of a long string of losses to more and more people as interest rates continue to rise because inflation in prices will rise with the rise in central-bank money creation. Naturally, I was going to flaunt my stylistic success in Mr. Noland's face, and say, "Up yours, Noland! You think that you are so hot because you are so clever, and so educated, and so smart, and have so much research and experience at your fingertips while I am just a frustrated, hateful little man hiding in a closet under the stairs, hacking away on some old computer. Well, two can play at this game, Mr. Noland! Hahahaha!" I was almost finished dialing the phone to call Mr. Noland, and I was chuckling at myself as I imagined how the conversation would go. I figured he would answer, "Hello?" and I would spring the Mogambo Surprise Attack (MSA) and immediately say, "Up yours, Noland! I got your terrifying 'global yields are on the rise' distilled down to one word! One! I got it down to the word 'Doom!' How do ya like them apples?" And then I figured that he would ask, "What?" and I would say, "It is I, the Mogambo, who is kicking your brevity-is-the-soul-of-wit butt in describing the effect on bonds falling in price, on the falling wealth of holders of bonds, and of rising inflation in prices to match the rising inflation in the money supply thanks to the foul perfidy of the treacherous Federal Reserve!" Not to brag or anything, but this is not the first time that I have personally bested someone who is an intellectual giant compared to me. Usually, whoever I called to inform them of the fact would, at this point in the conversation, usually hangs up, like that time I outdid Marlon Brando with my memorable acting scene with me crying out, "Stella!" but with me on my hands and knees puking my guts out all over the place, overcome with Stanley's remorse and fear, his bitter loneliness despite the love of a good woman making him puke! "Now THAT'S acting!" I told Brando just before he hung up. But we both know the real score, which is the important part! Anyway, this is not about how I have finally matched Mr. Noland after all these years of him making me look bad, and cause people to write me and say hurtful things like, "Dear Mister Mighty Mogambo (MMM), How come Doug Noland can literally overwhelm us with important facts and figures gleaned from around the world, but you never actually do anything except run your fat mouth and work yourself into an hysterical hissy-fit about inflation because the Federal Reserve is creating so much money? (signed) Curious in Columbus." I kindly respond, "Dear CIC moron, It is perhaps more than coincidental, in a cosmic kind of way, that CIC stand for both 'Curious in Columbus' and 'Currency In Circulation,' which is the sum total all the coins and bills created by the Federal Reserve's stamping machines and printing presses. And this increase in literal spending-cash is up by a goodly $54.4 billion in the last 12 months, and which is $544 added to the money supply for every one of the 100 million private-sector workers in American workforce, and who are the only people in the Whole Freaking Country (WFC) who can make a profit from their labors with which to pay taxes!" In case CIC missed my point, which is that I both fear inflation with a mortal dread, and that I am a vicious, vindictive little bastard, I go on, "I mention this, you moron, only as a small, small example of the outrageous inflations in money being perpetuated by the foul Federal Reserve, the biggest to date being the new Quantitative Easing (QE2) to create another $600 billion in new money (and $900 billion with reinvestments) in the next Six Freaking Months (SFM)! So when inflation in prices starts eating you alive, then we'll see who is having a hysterical hissy-fit about inflation in prices!" I finished with, "And then, on that glorious day in the near future, we will also see who is saying 'Oh, woe is me! I did not buy gold, silver and oil as protection against the inflation in prices that the Federal Reserve was creating with their inflating of the money supply so that the government could deficit-spend us into another $1.8 trillion in debt!' versus those who bought them and will thus say, 'Oh, happy and rich me! Whee! That investing stuff was easy!'" The Mogambo Guru for The Daily Reckoning Economic Ruination in Three Words or Less 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."

The Gulf of Mexico is Dying Posted: 02 Dec 2010 06:41 AM PST By Dr. Tom Termotto It is with deep regret that we publish this report.  We do not take this responsibility lightly, as the consequences of the following observations are of such great import and have such far-reaching ramifications for the entire planet.  Truly, the fate of the oceans of the world hangs in the balance, as does the future of humankind. The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) does not exist in isolation and is, in fact, connected to the Seven Seas.  Hence, we publish these findings in order that the world community will come together to further contemplate this dire and demanding predicament.  We also do so with the hope that an appropriate global response will be formulated, and acted upon, for the sake of future generations.  It is the most basic responsibility for every civilization to leave their world in a better condition than that which they inherited from their forbears. More Here.. Max Keiser's Plan To Destroy JP Morgan Goes Mainstream Why Does The FBI Orchestrate Fake Terror Plots?

Bundesbank Joins Fed in Demanding Secrecy For Gold Swaps Posted: 02 Dec 2010 06:26 AM PST "China gold imports soar almost five fold on inflation concerns. India's gold imports up 11.6% from Q3/2009. SLV adds another big chunk of silver... and GLD adds gold. Interview with CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton... and much more. " Yesterday in Gold and Silver It was a very quiet day for gold on Wednesday. The high price tick was around $1,398 spot in very late morning trading in London... about 6:45 a.m. Eastern time. From that point, gold declined to its New York low [$1,381.20 spot] exactly four hours later... then didn't do much for the rest of the Wednesday trading session. Nothing to see here, folks. Silver's price was pretty flat until late morning in Hong Kong... and then it began to rise... with its high of the day [around $28.85 spot] coming shortly after twelve noon in London. Silver's spike low [$28.09 spot] in New York came at the same moment as gold's low... 10:45 a.m. Eastern time. From that low, silver rose to $28.65 by half-past lunc...

Gold, Wealth You Can Wear Posted: 02 Dec 2010 06:23 AM PST Jeff Clark, Senior Editor, BIG GOLD writes: In 1975, as Saigon was falling, South Vietnamese refugees were air-evacuated into Guam and the U.S. The company Deak-Perera was hired by the State Department to serve as the official "money changer" for the refugee camps, and it quickly became apparent to the employees that even the most prominent of Vietnamese citizens arrived with nothing but the clothes on their backs and whatever belongings they could carry. It was a somber scene.

Quick Pivot Posted: 02 Dec 2010 06:20 AM PST The action in commodities and the Dollar Index became outstanding - perhaps enough to consider that a cyclical high for many items has been set. Technical measures such as momentum and sentiment reached as good as it gets, as the street ... Read More...

Kazakhstan: A Positive Climate for Gold Posted: 02 Dec 2010 06:10 AM PST Casey Research

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