saveyourassetsfirst3 |
- Gold and Silver rebound/Gold finishes up 11% on the year/
- Japan's new tax law prompts bullion sales spree
- China Gold Exchange Restrictions Will Cut Risk, Not Appetite
- Gold Records 11th Annual Gain, Ends 2011 Up 11% as World Stocks Drop 8%
- Is a Powerful Rebound In Gold and Silver Prices About To Begin?
- John Swifts lost Silver Mine
- By the Numbers for the Week Ending December 30
- Commodities: Let The Buyer Beware
- At Years End, two out of three aient bad
- Why I Am Short Gold Futures
- Mark My Words, These Stocks Will Double In 2012
- 30 Statistics That Show That The Middle Class Is Dying Right In Front Of Our Eyes As We Enter 2012
- China's yuan hits new high
- NTR and RVS Volume Candle Charts Show End of Tax Loss Selling Pressure
- Gold Up About 10% on Year, But Suffers Q4 Loss
- Silver ends year with record high price
- Dollar Finishes 2011 Mixed, With Second Yearly Gain Against Euro
- Lessons Learned in 2011 and Implications for 2012
- Gold Confiscation, a Reality?
| Gold and Silver rebound/Gold finishes up 11% on the year/ Posted: 31 Dec 2011 01:07 AM PST |
| Japan's new tax law prompts bullion sales spree Posted: 31 Dec 2011 12:48 AM PST Japan's new tax law prompts bullion sales spree  By Rujun Shen | Reuters – Thu, Dec 29, 2011SINGAPORE, Dec 29 (Reuters) - A new taxation law inJapan has triggered a bullion sales spree among gold investors at the end of the year despite sharp falls in gold prices, dealers said. From Jan. 1, bullion retailers are required to report to tax authorities physical gold and platinum transactions of over 2 million yen ($25,700) with members of the general public, said a senior official with a large bullion house in Tokyo. Bullion houses stayed open on Thursday, even though it was a public holiday in Japan, to receive investors who wanted to sell their physical gold holdings or swap big chunks of gold for smaller lots, such as coins. "The general public does not want to pay additional tax on their gold investment," said the official. "So even though prices dropped sharply overnight many are coming to bullion shops for liquidation." Demand for coins has gone up sharply as investors split their gold holdings into smaller pieces, he added. Spot gold fell to a three-month low on Wednesday as fears about the euro zone debt crisis intensified just before a key bond auction by Italy later on Thursday. Under current taxation laws, individuals are required to report profit exceeding 500,000 yen on their bullion trades to authorities, but the rule has largely been ignored, the official said. http://my.news.yahoo.com/japans-tax-...045241192.html |
| China Gold Exchange Restrictions Will Cut Risk, Not Appetite Posted: 30 Dec 2011 11:21 PM PST ¤ Yesterday in Gold and SilverThe gold price spent the entire trading day on Friday in the black, with the high of the day coming shortly before lunch in New York. From there it got sold off about a percent by the close of Comex trading at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time...and then did nothing into the close of electronic trading at 5:15 p.m. Eastern time. The spot gold price closed at $1,566.40...up $20.90 on the day. Not surprisingly, volume was down quite a bit from the prior couple of days, as only 94,000 contracts were traded.
Silver got sold off about 50 cents by mid-day Hong Kong time, but began to recover around 2:00 p.m. local time. Like gold, the high price tick came just before noon on the east coast...and then it got sold off. From its Hong Kong low, to its New York high, silver gained about $1.30...and once the pre-noon sell-off began, silver got sold off about 90 cents by 2:20 p.m. Eastern...and from there, the silver price recovered to finish off the day up only a few pennies from Thursday's close. The silver price closed at $27.86 spot...up a whole 9 cents from Thursday. Volume was pretty decent at 24,500 contracts.
With the world shutting down for the New Year celebration, I wouldn't read too much into yesterday's price action...although I was somewhat surprised that silver got sold off so hard [more than 3% in the New York afternoon] with only hours left in the 2011 trading year. I'm tempted to say that someone was painting the year-end tape in both metals, but I'll bite my tongue on that one. The reason I'm tempted to say that, is because the price action in platinum and palladium barely followed the silver and gold price action at all...platinum did a little, but palladium not at all. The dollar opened quietly at 80.40 cents...and spiked up 20 basis points between 3 and 4 a.m. Eastern time. From there, the dollar declined to the 80 cent mark by 11:30 a.m. Eastern time...the exact low price for gold and silver. The dollar recovered about 25 basis points of its loss going into the close of trading. Like Wednesday and Thursday, Friday's dollar price action pretty much matched the price action in gold and silver...but was, once again, way out of proportion to the price action in either metal.
The gold shares didn't follow the gold price at all...and even the Dow price action didn't match the HUI's price pattern. The gold stocks peaked at precisely 10:00 a.m...but the gold price peaked at 11:30 a.m. sharp. One has to wonder who was selling into every rally attempt. I also note that the HUI got sold off at the close, just as it was about break above the 500 point mark. Like the gold and silver price action yesterday, I suspect that someone was painting the year-end tape.
It was a mixed bag for the silver equities yesterday. Some did spectacularly well...and others did next to nothing. The seven large cap silver stocks that make up Nick Laird's Silver Sentiment Index fit that description as well. The SSI finished up 1.94%.
(Click on image to enlarge) The CME's Daily Delivery Report for Friday showed a sharp drop-off in deliveries for the January contract, as only 86 gold and 82 silver contracts were posted for delivery next Wednesday. The link to this action is here. Once again there were no reported changes in either GLD or SLV on Friday...and the U.S Mint ended the year with no sales report, either. It was another busy day over at the Comex-approved depositories on Thursday, as they reported receiving 1,211,071 ounces of silver...and shipped 603,781 troy ounces out the door. Here's the link to that action. Yesterday's Commitment of Traders Report, for positions held at the close of trading on Tuesday, December 27th didn't show a lot of change...but what changes there were, were all positive. In silver, the Commercial traders decreased their net short position by a smallish 693 contracts...and the technical funds [Non-Commercial traders] pitched another 276 long contracts, plus they went short an additional 297 contracts. The Commercial net short position in silver is now down to 14,132 contracts...or 70.66 million ounces. The tiny net long position in the Non-Commercial category is now down to 6,855 contracts...and the small traders [the Nonreportables] are long the difference, which is 7,277 contracts. Every one of the numbers in this paragraph are at record lows. As you can tell, this has been a clean-out to the downside of absolute biblical proportions. The changes in gold are barely worth mentioning, as the Commercial traders decreased their net short position by a very small 622 contracts. The current net short position in gold [as of last Tuesday's report] stood at 16.4 million ounces, just a hair below last week's number. But don't forget the fact that parts of Wednesday and Thursday trading were big down days in gold and silver as well. The engineered sell-off from the Wednesday morning highs in London, to the absolute lows at the London silver fix at noon local time on Thursday...about twenty-four hours later...resulted in a $70 decline in gold and another $2.70 decline in silver. These changes are not in yesterday's COT report. That's why I'm hoping that we'll get through next Tuesday without a major price jump in either metal, as I want to see what changes this 24-hour period made in the COT report. The rallies off those London lows in both metals appeared to be short covering...and that will improve next Friday's COT report as well. Reader E.F. has, once again, provided his analysis of the COT report, along with all his most excellent graphs. His introduction begins as follows..."The other commercials (Ted Butler's Raptors) haven't held this many contracts net long since 10/28/2008 when silver closed at $9.09. Furthermore, top 4 commercial concentration hit an important new multiyear low this week. Top 4 commercial concentration fell to 43.5%, the lowest reading since September 2005." The link to his must read commentary is posted over a the ewfresearch.com website...and the link is here. I have the usual number of stories for you today, which is quite a few, so I hope you have time to at least skim the paragraphs of each that I've posted. As I said before, I wouldn't read a lot into yesterday's price action in both gold and silver...but it's hard not to. Japan's new tax law prompts bullion sales spree. Peter Grandich doubles his gold price challenge to Kitco's Jon Nadler. Paul Wants to Check Fort Knox for Gold. ¤ Critical ReadsSubscribeForeigners Dump Record Amount Of US Treasurys In Past MonthAs the Fed's critical H.4.1 weekly update shows (which is leaps and bounds more accurate than the Treasury's TIC international fund flow data), in the week ended December 28, foreign investors sold the second highest amount of US bonds in history, or $23 billion, bringing total UST custodial holdings to $2.67 trillion, a level first crossed to the upside back in April. This zerohedge.com posting is courtesy of West Virginia reader Elliot Simon...and the link is here.  $135 Billion Redeemed From US Equity Mutual Funds In 2011, 34 Of 35 Consecutive Weekly OutflowsTo date, and with just one week left in, investors have withdrawn a whopping $135 billion from equity mutual funds, which we are 100% certain is an all-time record for any year in which the S&P closed even nominally positive for the year, proving that nobody believes this farce known as a market any longer. This is another zerohege.com posting...this one from Phil Barlett. The link is here...and the chart is worth the trip.  Darker Nights as Some Cities Turn Off the LightsHighland Park, Michigan — When the sun sets in this small city, its neighborhoods seem to vanish. In a deal to save money, two-thirds of the streetlights were yanked from the ground and hauled away this year, and the resulting darkness is a look that is familiar in the wide open cornfields of Iowa but not here, in a struggling community surrounded on nearly all sides by Detroit. Cities around the nation, grappling with what is expected to be a fifth consecutive year of declining revenues and having exhausted the predictable budget trims, are increasingly considering something that would once have been untouchable: the lights. This story was posted in The New York Times on Thursday and, once again, I thank reader Phil Barlett for sharing it with us. The link is here.  Delusions of the Euro Zone: The Lies that Europe's Politicians Tell ThemselvesSince its inception, the euro zone has been built on lies, the most grievous of which is the idea that the common currency could work without political union. But Europe's politicians are currently suffering under a different but equally fatal delusion -- that they have all the time in the world to fix the crisis. This 2-page article showed up over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and is Roy Stephens first offering of the day, for which I thank him. It's worth the read...and the link is here.  Defiant Hungary passes disputed central bank lawHungary's parliament has adopted a set of controversial laws increasing political influence over the judiciary and the nation's central bank, prompting critics to warn that the country is drifting towards a "more authoritarian political system". Critics say the measure -- which prompted the European Union and International Monetary Fund to walk out of talks this month on a possible bailout for Hungary worth 15-20 billion euros ($20-25 billion) -- will increase government influence over monetary policy...and could see the central bank disappear as a separate institution altogether. Roy Stephens sent me this, plus two the other stories below, in the wee hours of the morning. This AFP story is posted over at the france24.com website...and the link is here.  Spain unveils tax hikes, warns deficit will riseSpain's new government warned Friday that the country's budget deficit will be higher than anticipated this year as it unveiled a first batch of austerity measures that include surprise income and property tax hikes. Following the new conservative government's second Cabinet meeting, the budget deficit for this year was revised up to 8 percent of national income from the previous government's forecast of 6 percent. Alongside the upward revision, which comes amid predictions that the Spanish economy will soon be back in recession, the government, which is headed by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, announced further measures to get a handle on its debts, including €8.9 billion ($11.5 billion) in spending cuts. This AP story is Roy's second offering from the france24.com website...and the link is here. Gold Records 11th Annual Gain, Ends 2011 Up 11% as World Stocks Drop 8% Posted: 30 Dec 2011 05:22 PM PST |
| Is a Powerful Rebound In Gold and Silver Prices About To Begin? Posted: 30 Dec 2011 05:20 PM PST |
| Posted: 30 Dec 2011 04:00 PM PST Rootsweb |
| By the Numbers for the Week Ending December 30 Posted: 30 Dec 2011 01:56 PM PST We initiate new silver trade for the first time in over a year. HOUSTON -- Just below is this week's closing table followed by the CFTC disaggregated commitments of traders (DCOT) recap table for the week ending December 30, 2011.
Vultures, (Got Gold Report Subscribers) please note that updates to our linked technical charts, including our comments about the COT reports and the week's technical changes, should be completed by Monday evening, January 2. Please also note our new trade comment in the linked silver chart, which was entered early Thursday morning, but should not have come as any surprise to Vulture members, as our green box has been in the same locale for months. As a reminder, the linked charts are always the first place to look for new commentary at GGR. In the future we intend to rely more on the charts to communicate, especially when it comes to our own trades. Continued… Gold and Silver Disaggregated COT Report (DCOT) In the DCOT table below a net short position shows as a negative figure in red. A net long position shows in black. In the Change column, a negative number indicates either an increase to an existing net short position or a reduction of a net long position. A black figure in the Change column indicates an increase to an existing long position or a reduction of an existing net short position. The way to think of it is that black figures in the Change column are traders getting "longer" and red figures are traders getting less long or shorter. All of the trader's positions are calculated net of spreading contracts as of the Tuesday disaggregated COT report.
*** We will have more in the linked technical charts for Vultures by Monday evening.*** We bid 2011 farewell and look forward with great anticipation to 2012. Happy New Year everyone.
Image courtesy of: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/12/30/stunning-fireworks-photos/
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| Commodities: Let The Buyer Beware Posted: 30 Dec 2011 01:48 PM PST By Saj Karsan: The forecast for mining companies in 2012 is that they will make record profits. Is that the kind of backdrop in which you should invest in this space? Probably not! High prices for commodities Complete Story » |
| At Years End, two out of three aient bad Posted: 30 Dec 2011 01:34 PM PST I predicted "guessed" in a previous thread: Silver will NOT reach $50 this year Gold will NOT reach $2000 this year Platinum will NOT reach $1500 this year One and two were spot on (nyuk nyuk)...surprised Platinum broke this low, I mean its rarer than gold and not traded as much, and even those who buy insist on physical delivery. As for gold and silver, whenever those Jinxed Punks at JP predict something, I smell a rat, even in the year of the dragon. Once they changed their tune and praised gold at $2500 at years end I knew there was a con in there somewhere. JPnews link: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-...08-713367.html My prediction on November 5th: http://www.goldismoney2.com/showthre...110#post287110 |
| Posted: 30 Dec 2011 12:38 PM PST By Herve Jacques: After a set of unmitigated bullish opinions, we now see some experts correctly identifying that we are in a deflationary cycle and that deflation hurts gold prices as here. They nevertheless then proceed on the basis of Elliot Wave theory or some other technical wizardry to forecast... a spike to higher prices. Some justify this stance on "oversold conditions" or "prevalent excessive bearishness." That makes up for good readership, as does anything pampering to gold fans, but little sense. On what basis can one reckon that there's prevalent bearishness? I see truckload of articles predicting price spikes, after an 11-year-old bull market. Gold bulls swarm all over numerous websites, gloating over price rises and advocating backing up the truck anytime prices move down. Is that prevalent bearishness? Any increase in central banks balance sheets has (ignorant) commentators predicting that "fiat currencies" are headed to inflation Armageddon, not realizing that those Complete Story » |
| Mark My Words, These Stocks Will Double In 2012 Posted: 30 Dec 2011 11:53 AM PST By David Alton Clark: In this article, we will discuss the following stocks: Alcoa, Inc. (AA), Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU), Citigroup, Inc. (C), Chesapeake Energy Corporation (CHK), Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX), The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS) and Ford Motor Company (F). The stocks covered are stocks trading significantly below their 52-week highs, by nearly 50% with the exception of Chesapeake. These stocks are speculative contrarian plays that have major upside potential once the geopolitical and macroeconomic issues of the eurozone, U.S. and the world fade from the forefront of investors' minds and a renewed focus on fundamentals and company specific catalyst emerges. Mark my words: these stocks will double in 2012. Reversion To The Mean Phenomenon The mean reversion strategy is based on the mathematical premise that all prices will eventually move back toward the mean, or average, return. Thus, if a stock is underperforming, its price will move toward its Complete Story » |
| 30 Statistics That Show That The Middle Class Is Dying Right In Front Of Our Eyes As We Enter 2012 Posted: 30 Dec 2011 09:25 AM PST 
Today I went over to Safeway and I was absolutely appalled at the prices. I honestly don't know how most families make it these days. I ended up paying over 140 dollars for about two-thirds of a cart of food. That was after I "saved" 67 dollars on sale items. When the cost of the basic things that we need - housing, food, gas, electricity - go up faster than our incomes do, that means that we are getting poorer. Sadly, if you look at the long-term numbers, some very clear negative trends emerge.... -The number of good jobs continues to decrease. -The rate of inflation continues to outpace the rate that our wages are going up. -American consumers are going into almost unbelievable amounts of debt. -The number of Americans that are considered to be "poor" continues to grow. -The number of Americans that are forced to turn to the government for financial assistance continues to go up. After you read the information below, it should become abundantly clear that the U.S. middle class is in a whole heap of trouble. The following are 30 statistics that show that the middle class is dying right in front of our eyes as we enter 2012.... #1 Today, only 55.3 percent of all Americans between the ages of 16 and 29 have jobs. #2 In the United States today, there are 240 million working age people. Only about 140 million of them are working. #3 According to CareerBuilder, only 23 percent of American companies plan to hire more employees in 2012. #4 Since the year 2000, the United States has lost 10% of its middle class jobs. In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs. #5 According to the New York Times, approximately 100 million Americans are either living in poverty or in "the fretful zone just above it". #6 According to that same article in the New York Times, 34 percent of all elderly Americans are living in poverty or "near poverty", and 39 percent of all children in America are living in poverty or "near poverty". #7 In 1984, the median net worth of households led by someone 65 or older was 10 times larger than the median net worth of households led by someone 35 or younger. Today, the median net worth of households led by someone 65 or older is 47 times larger than the median net worth of households led by someone 35 or younger. #8 Since the year 2000, incomes for U.S. households led by someone between the ages of 25 and 34 have fallen by about 12 percent after you adjust for inflation. #9 The total value of household real estate in the U.S. has declined from $22.7 trillion in 2006 to $16.2 trillion today. Most of that wealth has been lost by the middle class. #10 Many formerly great manufacturing cities are turning into ghost towns. Since 1950, the population of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has declined by more than 50 percent. In Dayton, Ohio 18.9 percent of all houses now stand empty. #11 Since 1971, consumer debt in the United States has increased by a whopping 1700%. #12 The number of pages of federal tax rules and regulations has increased by 18,000% since 1913. The wealthy know how to avoid taxes, but most of those in the middle class do not. #13 The number of Americans that fell into poverty (2.6 million) set a new all-time record last year and extreme poverty (6.7%) is at the highest level ever measured in the United States. #14 According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 dropped by 27 percent after you account for inflation. #15 According to U.S. Representative Betty Sutton, America has lost an average of 15 manufacturing facilities a day over the last 10 years. During 2010 it got even worse. Last year, an average of 23 manufacturing facilities a day shut down in the United States. #16 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs. #17 Most Americans are scratching and clawing and doing whatever they can to make a living these days. Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week. #18 Food prices continue to rise at a very brisk pace. The price of beef is up 9.8% over the past year, the price of eggs is up 10.2% over the past year and the price of potatoes is up 12% over the past year. #19 Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row. #20 The average American household will have spent a staggering $4,155 on gasoline by the end of 2011. #21 If inflation was measured the exact same way that it was measured back in 1980, the rate of inflation in the United States would be well over 10 percent. #22 If the number of Americans considered to be "looking for work" was the same today as it was back in 2007, the "official" unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government would be up to 11 percent. #23 According to the Student Loan Debt Clock, total student loan debt in the United States will surpass the 1 trillion dollar mark at some point in 2012. Most of that debt is owed by members of the middle class. #24 Incredibly, more than one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps and one out of every four American children is on food stamps at this point. #25 Since Barack Obama took office, the number of Americans on food stamps has increased by 14.3 million. #26 In 2010, 42 percent of all single mothers in the United States were on food stamps. #27 In 1970, 65 percent of all Americans lived in "middle class neighborhoods". By 2007, only 44 percent of all Americans lived in "middle class neighborhoods". #28 According to a recent report produced by Pew Charitable Trusts, approximately one out of every three Americans that grew up in a middle class household has slipped down the income ladder. #29 In the United States today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined. #30 The poorest 50 percent of all Americans now collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States. Sadly, this article could have been much, much longer. There are so many other statistics about the middle class that could have been included. For even more insane economic numbers that show just how dramatically the U.S. economy is declining, just check out this article: "50 Economic Numbers From 2011 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe". What is even more frightening is that this is about as good as things are going to get. We have already had "the economic recovery", such as it was. Now we are heading for another major financial crisis. Just like back in 2008, the entire world is going to feel the pain. But we never recovered from the last financial crisis. We are like a boxer that is not ready to handle another blow. And who is going to get hurt the most? It will be those at the bottom of the food chain of course. Tens of millions of Americans that are living in poverty will experience a massive amount of pain, and millions more Americans will fall out of the middle class and will join them. If you have a good job, do your best to hang on to it. If you don't have a job, do your best to get one while you still can. Jobs will become very precious in the years ahead. But also try to do what you can to become less dependent on the system. Almost anyone can find ways to make some extra money on the side. Yes, it will likely cut into your television time. If someday you were to lose your job you don't want to be left with zero income. Right now, the U.S. economy is slowly dying and as time goes by the number of middle class Americans it will be able to support will continue to decrease. Yes, it is like a perverse game of musical chairs, but this is where we are at. I encourage all of you to think about how you plan to make it through the collapse that is ahead. Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that everything is going to be okay is not going to help anyone. But if we all start planning for the storm that is ahead, and if we get others around us to wake up as well, that is going to do a great deal of good in the long run. |
| Posted: 30 Dec 2011 08:47 AM PST The Chinese currency Renminbi, or the yuan, rose 148 basis points to a record high of 6.3009 against the US dollar on Friday, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trading System. In China's foreign exchange spot market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by 0.5 percent from the central parity rate each trading day... Read |
| NTR and RVS Volume Candle Charts Show End of Tax Loss Selling Pressure Posted: 30 Dec 2011 08:45 AM PST Tax loss selling is officially over. In the previous VultureInReview post, we mentioned that "apparently Greg Hayes, NTR's CEO decided in December that shares of Northern Tiger had been unfairly abused after it had fallen from the C$0.60s to under $0.15. According to Ink Research, Mr. Hayes was on the bid and purchased 668,000 shares December 20 – 22 at prices between $0.13 and $0.14." Obviously insiders are stepping in to buy their own shares on NTR (and other companies we follow) which shows they believe their company's share prices are too low. Insiders sell for all kinds of reasons, but they only buy, in size, in the open market (using their own hard-earned-after-tax rersources), for one reason - they think the share price is cheap and going materially higher. With tax loss selling coming to a date-certain close today, not to mention the heavy insider buying evident for NTR, and with a good number of our "Faves" firming up as if reacting to lighter tax loss selling, we thought we would share our own short-term Volume Candle charts for Northern Tiger Resources and Riverstone Resources (as they may be showing the effects of the removal of tax loss selling pressure).
Note with NTR that selling pressure appears to have peaked near the middle of the month, as expected. As previously disclosed we were actually on the bid at the same time as Mr. Hayes, although we didn't know it at the time. We only discovered he was on the bid when we checked insider activity this morning. Riverstone actually held up better than most of its peers during the very harsh negative liquidity event of 2011 (for good reasons!), but there was definitely some tax loss selling pressure, which also seemed to peak about the middle of the month, although it failed to mark a new low then. We would say that these charts are not "the exception" and instead are representative of a large number of the issues we follow and share with Vultures on our linked tracking charts. At least for the past two weeks we can point to a general firming of prices and a lessening of overt selling pressure. Will that continue into 2012? We'll see soon enough, but we could be in the process of repeating the 2008-9 end-of-negative-liquidity-event period we mentioned in our piece titled "Why Remain Bullish on Small Mining Shares." In that article, which we shared on the blog on December 21, is a chart of the Canadian Venture Exchange Index (CDNX) showing the end of the terrible 2008 negative liquidity event, which occurred abruptly in the last week of 2008 and the first week of 2009. Just below is the current CDNX chart for reference. Is that the first higher turning low trying to form already? It's not exactly as compelling as the reversal in 2008-9 was - so far, but at the very least it is moving in the "right" direction again. Drilling down into the data a bit further, just below is a very short term chart that compares the small miner tracking CDNX with gold metal via GLD. It has been quite a while since "The Little Guys" have outperformed gold.
Happy New Year Everyone Disclosure: Riverstone Resources is a Vulture Bargain Candidate of Interest (VBCI) and is our fully fledged Vulture Bargain #3. Members of the GGR team are actively accumulating shares of RVS.V or RVREF and continue to hold a speculative long position in the company. |
| Gold Up About 10% on Year, But Suffers Q4 Loss Posted: 30 Dec 2011 08:35 AM PST Gold up about 10 pct on year, but suffers Q4 loss |
| Silver ends year with record high price Posted: 30 Dec 2011 08:04 AM PST Silver ends the year with a record high price of $35.1192 (cumulative 2011 average) Breaking the old cumulative average record of 21.793 made in 1979 by a long shot! GO SILVER! :D |
| Dollar Finishes 2011 Mixed, With Second Yearly Gain Against Euro Posted: 30 Dec 2011 07:47 AM PST By Marc Chandler: The US dollar is narrowly mixed as activity winds down. The main price action to note is that the euro fell through the JPY100 level for the first time since mid-2001. For the most part, the dollar is confined to yesterday's ranges against the major currencies. Emerging market currencies are finishing the year in mixed fashion as well. Intervention by Turkey is helping the lira recover from record lows. The South African rand, which has been the strongest emerging market currency over the past couple of weeks, is shining today, gaining almost 1% against the greenback. On the other hand, intervention by Poland yesterday and possibly today appears to have been shrugged off and the zloty is the weakest of the emerging markets currencies today. More generally, the eastern and central European currencies are the weakest today. Asian equities finished the year on a firm tone, with the MSCI Asia-Pacific Complete Story » |
| Lessons Learned in 2011 and Implications for 2012 Posted: 30 Dec 2011 07:47 AM PST Daily Gold |
| Posted: 30 Dec 2011 07:15 AM PST |
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Now the New Year reviving old desires,
With the year coming to a close we are seeing what appears to be massive profit-taking by funds and other institutional investment firms. There has been no real news of anything in the political scene as far as printing, twisting and swapping so this is what appears to be a real sell off. The only thing I can imagine driving this is that the firms are looking to post a profit for the year and in order to do that, they need to realize their gains in something. This is done by selling assets that have accrued gains since you bought them and anyone buying gold these past few years has accrued massive gains. Stocks have done quite poorly in 2011, barely breaking even whereas gold has finished the year up over $150/oz.
![[Most Recent Charts from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_4.gif)
With mounting fears over the recent plunge in gold and silver and continued volatility in markets globally, the Godfather of newsletter writers, Richard Russell, had this to say in his latest commentary: "This year's close for gold marks the 11th year for higher year end gold closing. To my knowledge this is the longest bull market of any kind in history in which each year's close was above the previous year. This fabulous bull market will not end with a whisper and a fizzle. I continue to believe that the upside gold crescendo of this bull market lies ahead. We are watching market history."
Greetings and welcome to the day that wasn't… at least for our Samoan readers.
"The year 2011 is the year when inflation will play the role of wrecking ball" in emerging markets, declared Chris Mayer on Jan. 18. "The basics like food and energy are like brakes on these economies."
As if to further bear out Chris' forecast, HSBC's measure of Chinese manufacturing activity is out this morning… and it reveals a second straight month of contraction.
"You could make a lot of money investing in rare earths," said Byron King on Jan. 19, "if you can handle a lot of risk. And I mean a LOT of risk."
Another news item from China today buttresses Byron's thesis: The Middle Kingdom — still the producer of 97% of rare earths — is revamping its export quotas.
"Dividends will play a major role in investor's portfolios in 2011," declared our income specialist Jim Nelson on the first trading day of 2011.
"For 2011, my No. 1 prediction is a rise in the Producer Price Index," declared our stock market vigilante Dan Amoss, also on Jan. 3.
"Home prices, which were already headed lower before this recent spike in mortgage rates, are set to take another tumble downward," forecast Michael Pento on Dec. 13, 2010.
"Get ready… the bulls are coming back to the U.S. dollar," said Abe Cofnas on Jan. 3.
On this day last year, we pronounced 2010 "both tumultuous and profitable for the better part of the collective portfolio" here at Agora Financial. 2011 turned out to be more of both. And for 2012? We release our New Year's forecasts next week.
Stocks are drifting on the final trading day of the year. The major indexes are down fractionally.
Gold has regained a good chunk of its losses from the last two days. At last check, the spot price is $1,574. Silver has recovered to $28.29.
Gold's swoon this week is "just manipulation and panic in a paper market at the year-end," says 
"Can we just skip the lectures and get down to vibrant job creation via the gold standard?" asks Ralph Benko from the American Principles Project… who proposes a novel idea we plan to take up one month hence.
"I very much enjoyed yesterday's 5 with the individual who wrote in and said that he too had worked at the Alberta tar sands and it was as a previous commenter described."
"What would be nice," writes another, "would be to have a collection of pictures of the oily landscape and a bunch of pictures after a reclamation project."
"Right on," a reader writes in reply to Jeffrey Tucker's Overtime Briefing yesterday, "Generation Demoralized."
"For as much as I disagreed with Tucker's first article for you guys," writes another, "this one is dead center. How do I know? I have two 20-something kids who cannot find work."
"Mr. Tucker is ignorant of history, among other areas," writes someone who disagrees, "when he urges repeal of child labor laws as a means of getting the economy back on its feet."
"I love The 5," an enthusiastic 
