Gold World News Flash |
- Trying to solve the Silver COT Mystery
- Gold Seeker Weekly Wrap-Up: Gold Gains Over 1% on the Week While Silver Surges Almost 7%
- The Silver Log (03.01.2011) – Silver in Two different markets
- US Dollar Commitment of Traders Report
- Utah House passes precious metals currency bill
- Market Commentary From Monty Guild
- Jim?s Mailbox
- Bob Hoye: Pivotal Events - Signs of the Times
- Next Phase of the Economic Attack on America: Steal the Gold
- Investing in Silver Instead of Toilet Paper Currencies
- 2010 Gold Demand and Supply Figures and Market Changes
- The Coming Economic Collapse Revisited
- The Gold Price Gains a Mere 1.4% This Week, I'll Feel Comfortable When It Clears $1,451
- Guest Post: The Free Market Death Panel
- False Choice: Yield vs. Safety
- As Gas Prices Surge By 28 Cents A Gallon In The Last 10 Days To $3.47, The APTA Informs Us How This Is Actually Great News
- Via Email
- Why You Should Buy a House
- Mideast unrest spurs demand for precious metals
- Japanese Markets: Trendsetters in the Global Economy
- Gold Prices Settle Higher on Jobs Reading; Silver Hits 31-Year High
- Cheap Money, Speculation and Hoarding
- Stock & Gold Markets Technical Update
- Gold adds to gains ahead of the weekend
- More Q.E. Could Send Silver Above $50
- Charles Oliver: Out of Africa, into Americas
- The Truth Behind Saudi Arabia’s “Spare Capacity”
- Don't call it inflation . . . The shocking, counterintuitive story of credit collapse and rising oil prices and apparently only MISH truly understands it.
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Blythe Spanked
- Gold, silver dips are ever shorter, Embry tells King World News
| Trying to solve the Silver COT Mystery Posted: 04 Mar 2011 04:01 PM PST In attempting to get to the bottom of this COT discrepancy, I have gone back to analyze the data from the various reports and the exchange daily open interest readings. If you look at the Daily chart of Silver showing the Open Interest at the top, you can see what has been occuring in this market. Note that the recent run higher in price that began in late January was accompanied by a solid increase in open interest which jives with the CFTC COT reports. The COT reports showed a substantial build in the Managed Money net long side exposure which was being offset mainly by the Swap Dealers and the Commercial categories. That is textbook bull market action. However, Open interest peaked on February 17, and then has begun a steady decline until levelling off some over the last week. Price however has continued to move higher as you can see from looking at the dotted line which matches the peak in open interest to the price on the chart below. Since it requires energy to move pric...
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| Gold Seeker Weekly Wrap-Up: Gold Gains Over 1% on the Week While Silver Surges Almost 7% Posted: 04 Mar 2011 04:00 PM PST Gold traded mostly slightly higher in Asia and London before it jumped to as high as $1432.00 by midday in New York and then fell back off a bit in afternoon trade, but it still ended with a gain of 0.85%. Silver climbed to a new 30-year high of $35.388 and ended with a gain of 2.83%.
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| The Silver Log (03.01.2011) – Silver in Two different markets Posted: 04 Mar 2011 02:56 PM PST Share this:
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| US Dollar Commitment of Traders Report Posted: 04 Mar 2011 02:54 PM PST ...
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| Utah House passes precious metals currency bill Posted: 04 Mar 2011 02:14 PM PST By Lee Davidson http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/51364301-76/silver-gold-legal-tender.h... It may not fold as conveniently as dollar bills, but the Utah House took a first step Thursday to recognize gold and silver as legal tender. It voted 47-26 to pass HB317 by Rep. Brad Galvez, R-West Haven, and sent it to the Senate. The measure would recognize as legal tender gold and silver coins issued by the federal government -- not just their face value, but also their value in gold and silver or to a collector. It also would order the state to study whether Utah should establish an alternative form of legal tender, such as one backed by silver and gold. "This is a step in preparedness, a step in security," Galvez said, "that allows us to be able to help hold up our economy as the dollar continues to shrink." ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Resource Spins Off Platinum/Palladium Venture: Company Press Release, January 18, 2011 VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Prophecy Resource Corp. (TSX-V:PCY)and Pacific Coast Nickel Corp. announce that they have agreed that PCNC will acquire Prophecy's Nickel PGM projects by issuing common shares to Prophecy. PCNC will acquire the Wellgreen PGM Ni-Cu and Lynn Lake nickel projects in the Yukon Territory and Manitoba respectively by issuing up to 550 million common shares of PCNC to Prophecy. PCNC has 55.7 million shares outstanding. Following the transaction: -- Prophecy will own approximately 90 percent of PCNC. -- PCNC will consolidate its share capital on a 10 old for one new basis. -- Prophecy will change its name to Prophecy Coal Corp. and PCNC will be renamed Prophecy Platinum Corp. -- Prophecy intends to distribute half of its PCNC shares to shareholders pro-rata in accordance with their holdings. Based on the closing price of the common shares of PCNC on January 17, $0.195 per share, the gross value of the transaction is $107,250,000. For the complete announcement, please visit: http://prophecyresource.com/news_2011_jan18.php Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, said, for example, that a 1960s John F. Kennedy half-dollar coin -- 90 percent silver -- would have bought three gallons of gasoline with its face value in the mid-1960s. But the value of the silver in it today would buy about five gallons of gas, while the face value of the coin would buy only a fraction of a gallon. Ivory said the bill is "a way for us to preserve for the citizens of Utah ... the purchasing power of the money they hold." The bill would not require anyone to accept gold and silver coins as legal tender. It also would exempt the sale of such U.S. coins from state sales taxes and from capital-gains taxes. Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, a certified public accountant, opposed the bill, saying it could create tax loopholes. He said people seeking to escape capital-gains taxes on other assets -- such as gold bullion -- might be able to do so by selling it for coins under the bill. Support GATA by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: http://www.gata.org/node/16 ADVERTISEMENT Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit, Extending the Mineralization of the Southwest Vein on the Property Company Press Release, October 27, 2010 VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sona Resources Corp. reports on five drillling holes in the third round of assay results from the recently completed drill program at its 100 percent-owned Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property in the Lillooet Mining District of southern British Columbia. Highlights from the diamond drilling include: -- Hole E10-66 intersected 17.4g gold/ton over 1.54 metres. -- Hole E10-67 intersected 96.4g gold/ton over 2.5 metres, including one assay interval of 383g of gold/ton over 0.5 metres. -- Hole E10-69 intersected 85.4g gold/ton over 4.03 metres, including one assay interval of 230g gold/ton over 1 metre. Four drill holes, E10-66 to E10-69, targeted the southwestern end of the Southwest Vein, and three of the holes have expanded the mineralized zone in that direction. The Southwest Vein gold mineralization has now been intersected over a strike length of 325 metres, with the deepest hole drilled less than 200 metres from surface. "The assay results from the Southwest Zone quartz vein continue to be extremely positive," says John P. Thompson, Sona's president and CEO. "We are expanding the Southwest Vein, and this high-grade gold mineralization remains wide open down dip and along strike to the southwest." For the company's full press release, please visit: http://sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR19_2010.pdf
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| Market Commentary From Monty Guild Posted: 04 Mar 2011 01:50 PM PST View the original post at jsmineset.com... March 04, 2011 04:21 PM Dear CIGAs, Inflation, Oil, Gold, Ignorance, and The Media We hear many so-called pundits say that rising oil prices will dramatically damage growth in the emerging world. However, we see the contrary as more likely to occur: rising oil prices will unleash more inflation in the emerging world, which may actually accelerate economic activity. We already are seeing substantial inflation in the emerging world. It will be exacerbated by oil price increases. Assuming that oil does not go crazy and rocket up past $150 per barrel in 2011, we maintain that higher oil prices don't have to derail economic growth in the emerging world. Many emerging countries export more oil than they import, and others often produce exportable commodities which tend to rise in price along with oil, such as foodstuffs, base metals and precious metals. Some Countries' Policies Put Them at More Risk than Oth...
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| Posted: 04 Mar 2011 01:50 PM PST View the original post at jsmineset.com... March 04, 2011 10:30 AM U.S. Dollar Index At Important Technical Juncture CIGA Eric The dollar index is dangerously close to completing the "three taps and out" trading heuristic of a large consolidation pattern that formed in 2008. A break of this pattern would signal not only continuation of the secular downtrend and but also, and more importantly so, further loss of confidence in the dollar and the paper it denominates. U.S. Dollar Index More… The Problem Is Debt, Not Jobs CIGA Eric The rate of job destruction has slowed appreciably. This is illustrated by the slow and steady climb of Jobs Creation Histogram (JCH) towards zero. While this is good news for job seekers, it does not suggest an end of the economic problems that continue to plague the global economy. The headlines and talking heads seem unable to recognize is that today's economic problems are debt rather than job based. Gold has and will not decl...
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| Bob Hoye: Pivotal Events - Signs of the Times Posted: 04 Mar 2011 01:45 PM PST Source: Bob Hoye, Institutional Advisors, The Gold Report 03/04/2011 "Any investors willing to bet that the commodities boom is running out of steam may need both courage and patience. Major mining companies have wagered more than US$110B on the opposite view." -Financial Post, February 19, 2011 "Consumer Confidence in U.S. Increases to Three-Month High" -Bloomberg, February 22, 2011 "U.S. treasury secretary: poor financial regulation in Britain fueled financial crisis." -Telegraph, February 22, 2011 Regulators seem innocent of knowledge about financial regulations and financial crises. It is runaway speculation that causes panics, and when a mania erupts there is no way of curbing it. Even when the senior currency was convertible into gold there were huge bubbles and consequent collapses. As a prominent banker in the mid-1800s observed, "No warning can save a people determined to suddenly grow rich." The problem is that governments enjoy tax revenues from the boo...
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| Next Phase of the Economic Attack on America: Steal the Gold Posted: 04 Mar 2011 01:32 PM PST Have you seen the guys standing out in the cold waving the signs "We Buy Gold" outside of storefronts? They seem to be everywhere around the Midwest. I've talked to the buyers behind the desks inside the warm shops. None of those stores sell gold back to the public. The men never have a problem telling me they send all the gold they buy to a larger buyer who melts it all down before selling it again to an even bigger buyer. Past that, though, the men really don't know if the gold even stays in the USA or it's shipped overseas. Maybe it's used to make jewelry in India or it comes out of a vending machine in a 5-star hotel in Dubai or it sits in a vault in China. I don't blame the poor guy out in the cold who waves the sign (some of them get "paid" in cigarettes and coffee like we're already in a 3rd world nation –I kid you not). It would be easy to blame the guy I can see behind the desk who sucks every scrap of gold from the people in the local community while paying below spot price, but he isn't responsible for creating the current situation. I can put some blame on our domestic leaders in government and business who consciously put policies in place which were designed to destroy the economies of those local communities. It's clear this situation was planned to yoke an entire class of people to a wagon and transfer their wealth. Did those people buck very much when the yoke was first put across the backs of their necks? Not at all. In fact, some of my readers would lay all the blame squarely at the feet of those lowest citizens. But, how the blame game will change as the yoking of necks moves up the social ladder in the years ahead. A shrinking economy, taxes, debt, and hyperinflation all have a way of bringing the mighty [of middle-class-weight] down low as well. More Here.. 
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| Investing in Silver Instead of Toilet Paper Currencies Posted: 04 Mar 2011 01:12 PM PST I was intrigued by an essay titled "What You Need to Know About Buying Silver Today"' which came as the result of Jeff Clark, of Big Gold, being interviewed by The Daily Crux. Of course, Mr. Clark knows all the reasons to buy silver, and deftly ticks them off, one after another, as I would do if they ever asked me, instead of everyone always rudely shouting at me, "Hey! You can't come in here!" and "Don't eat that!" and, "Stop yelling at me to buy gold, silver and oil stocks as protection against the suicidal lunacy of the Federal Reserve creating so much money!" Mr. Clark never actually gets to the point of hysterical raving that people should buy, buy, buy silver, silver, silver, and calling people idiots – idiots! – if they are not buying silver, which is convenient for me because that is exactly what I do. Idiot! You're an idiot if you are not buying silver! See? Anyway, The Daily Crux asks the Big Question On Everyone's Lips (BQOEL), which is, "Just how high do you think silver...
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| 2010 Gold Demand and Supply Figures and Market Changes Posted: 04 Mar 2011 01:00 PM PST So just how much gold central banks will buy in the open market is difficult to project. All we can say is that taking the amount over the IMF total of 403.3 tonnes plus the amount the IMF sold in the open market [181.3 tonnes plus 87.2 tonnes] we have a figure of the amount central banks bought in the open market in 2010 of 268.5 tonnes, told us that, that was their appetite for gold last year. We expect that appetite to grow in 2011. This amount of even 268 tonnes would now have to come from the open market in London.
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| The Coming Economic Collapse Revisited Posted: 04 Mar 2011 12:32 PM PST
I first published this essay in the Summer of 2009. At that time the whole world believed Obama’s Stimulus Program was working at that the stupid greenshoot recovery was underway. Today I’d like to reprint this essay because the same structural issues that plagued the US in 2009 are still valid and because this piece proved, two years ahead of time, that the US would suffer a massive economic collapse.
The seeds of today’s crisis were first sown in 1971 when the US formally opened up trade with China. In an effort to boost profits, large scale US manufacturers and other multinational firms began outsourcing their manufacturing jobs to the People’s Republic soon after.
When other industries realized the kind of money that can be saved by sending work overseas, they soon followed suit. Outsourcing moved up the corporate food chain until even R&D jobs and other high-level, high-skill set jobs were shifted to Asia. This, of course, diminished the number of these positions in the US. Thus began three major trends:
The US’s economic shift from manufacturing to services (mainly financial) The massive drop in US incomes The beginning of the debt bubble
Nothing illustrates the first point like the rise of the financials sector. From 1970 until 2003, financials’ market capitalizations as a percentage of the S&P 500 rose from less than 5% to 22%. Over the same period, financials’ earnings as a percentage of the S&P 500’s total earnings rose from less than 10% to 31%.
Put another way, by 2007 one in every three dollars of corporate profits came from the financial sector. Meanwhile, China was experiencing an unprecedented level of growth thanks to our renewed trade: Chinese per-capita income doubled from 1978 to 1987 and again from 1987 to 1996.
Now, fewer jobs in the US means lower US incomes. Going by the Federal government’s official (inaccurate) data, weekly US incomes peaked in October 1972 and have since fallen 15%. Of course, these numbers are based on official inflation data which is horribly under-stated. According to John Williams of www.shadowstats.com, if you were to go by real inflationary data, US incomes have fallen more like 40%.
This fact stares us in the face everyday, though no one really notices it. In the early ‘70s, typically one parent worked and the other stayed home. Today, BOTH parents work and most Americans are barely getting by.
The reason we didn’t notice the dramatic drop in quality of life in the US before is because of one thing:
Credit.
Credit cards had been in use since the ‘50s, but they had yet to catch on, largely because banks couldn’t make obscene profits from them (the interest rates they could charge were limited on a state-by-state basis).
Then, in 1978, the Supreme Court passed a law stating that banks could charge their cardholders any rate allowed in the bank's home state. With this ruling, credit cards suddenly had the potential to become a major profit center for banks. Major banks immediately shifted their credit card operations to states where there were no limits on interest rates (Delaware and South Dakota).
Credit creates the illusion of wealth (or in the US’s case for the last 30 years, the illusion of maintaining the same standard of living) because you’re able to spend more than you make or spend money without paying upfront. Americans, earning less and facing rising costs of living, gradually began their descent into indebtedness: between 1980 and 1990, credit card spending average household credit card balances quadrupled.
In this manner, the average American didn’t notice that his or her quality of life was deteriorating at a rate of about 2-3% a year. Similarly, he or she didn’t notice that more and more jobs (of greater and greater technical expertise) were shifting overseas.
And thus began the epic shift in American wealth to Wall Street (the rise in the financial industry) and China (the producer of cheap goods we had to buy due to the drop in incomes).
Because of this, incomes fell in the US forcing consumers to start using credit to maintain their living standards. The same practice occurred in the public sector as well. Adjusted for inflation, gross tax receipts have only risen 40% in the last 39 years. However, over the same time period, total government spending increased 2,600%!!!
To fund this insanity, the US issued debt in the form of Treasuries. Foreign governments (most notably China) which were generally getting richer selling us stuff loaded up. The whole scheme is similar to buying a toy from the store, then having the store lend you money to buy another toy… ad infinitum: hardly a sensible long-term plan for financial solvency.
Now, everyone knows we run deficits. But not everyone knows that the deficits we publish are unbelievably understated. Corporations, in order to qualify for generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) have to count their pension and healthcare expenses for retirees.
Uncle Sam doesn’t.
John Williams of www.shadowstats.com notes that official US deficit statistics do NOT include net present value of unfunded social security OR Medicare expenses. A lot of folks have made a big deal about the US running a $1 trillion deficit this year. Well, if you included the net value of those unfunded Social Security and Medicare expenses we cleared a $1 trillion deficit in 2007, a $5 TRILLION deficit in 2008 and are on course to clear a $9 TRILLION deficit this year.
To give you an idea of how big a problem these deficits are, consider that the US government could tax its citizens 100% of their earnings and NOT have a balanced budget.
In light of these issues, the government’s $787 billion stimulus package doesn’t exactly breed confidence in an economic turnaround. Incomes have lagged inflation in this country for 30+ years. Creating a bunch of temporary positions related to construction and the like is NOT going to alter this in any significant way.
Moreover, most of the job growth in the last 10 years has come from Bubbles: two out of five jobs created between 2002 and 2007 came from the housing industry. The irony here, of course, is that the Stimulus Plan is merely following this trend, creating jobs from our latest (relatively unreported) Bubble: the bubble in government spending and employment.
Bottomline: the US needs to create sustained job growth involving skilled professionals with high wage earning potential, NOT more guys laying concrete. We need fundamental structural changes to the US economy, NOT temporary positions resulting from one-time government projects.
And with a $9 trillion deficit in the works, $787 billion doesn’t really mean much in terms of increased tax receipts. Also, and this is bit of a personal aside, it’s hard to believe that throwing $787 billion towards creating jobs really shifts our economy away from financial services when we’ve thrown $2 trillion+ towards Wall Street and the banks (via direct loans and lending windows).
The US has a MAJOR debt problem. Including future social security and Medicare expenses we owe $65 TRILLION. Because we live in a world in which the words, “billion” get thrown around with too much ease, I’d like to put that number into perspective.
Let’s say you have a stack of $1,000 bills. $1 million would be a stack eight inches high. $1 billion would be a stack 800 feet high (think the Washington Monument). And $1 trillion would be a stack 142 miles high. Total US debt, if laid on its side, would be a stack of $1,000 stretching more than 1/3 of the way around the earth.
Ok, so where is the US economy REALLY at right now?
Year over year real employment, real industrial orders, real housing starts, and real retail sales are all posting their largest drops since the production shutdown following WWII. Put another way, the last time the US economy fell this hard this fast, we were intentionally shutting down the monster than was the US war machine in WWII.
This is no recession. We are already on our way to a Depression (a GDP contraction of 10%) possibly even another Great Depression. One in nine Americans are currently receiving food stamps. Real unemployment (without birth/death seasonal nonsense and all the other Federal gimmicks) stands at 20%.
So I don’t buy the “green shoots” theory at all. Having things get horrendous at a slightly slower rate is NOT a sign of a recovery. Green shoots can pop up anywhere including the asphalt in the parking lot outside my office. That doesn’t mean the parking lot is about to become a lush meadow.
No, the US is heading for a really, really rough time. The US monetary base has doubled in the last year. We owe $65 trillion in liabilities. The US government could tax every company and every American 100% of their annual incomes AND NOT PAY THIS OFF. The Feds will have to inflate this mess away. And they’ve got a master money printer Ben Bernanke overseeing this situation.
Now, I cannot foretell precisely how this will all play out. Typically when a bubble bursts it takes 10+ years, possibly an entire generation, before the assets that participated in the Bubble return to new highs (sometimes they NEVER do).
Now, we just got off the biggest credit/ debt bubble in the world’s history. I’m talking about 30+ years of spending money we don’t have culminating in a period in which Americans were speculating in the single largest asset they ever purchase (a house) without putting a cent of their own money at risk (0% down NINA loans).
We also saw a bubble in stocks, Treasuries, and most every other asset you can invest in. So the idea that we can recover from this in a couple of years seems over enthusiastic to say the least.
Remember, Japan experienced a similar Bubble (though they had higher savings than we did) and “lost” a decade of economic growth. It’s worth noting that Japan WAS NOT an Empire like the US. Japan did not have with bases in 170 countries, a world reserve currency, and a crippled job market (history rhymes, it does not repeat).
So in terms of the real US economy, I don’t foresee a recovery anytime soon. The stock market may soar thanks to the Fed’s money printing, but a jump in financial speculation is NOT an economic recovery. If the S&P 500 goes to 20,000, but we’re drinking $1,500 beer and wiping ourselves with $100 bills, we haven’t gotten richer (nevermind the fact that an S&P 500 of 20,000 DOESN’T create jobs).
So how will we know when a bottom is in and the economy will recover? I’ve postulated a few signs (some humorous, others not so pleasant). Bear in mind, much of this in tongue in cheek. But like all sarcasm, there’s a grain of truth. We will bottom WHEN:
CNBC and Bloomberg start firing anchors and cutting their coverage time by hours, not minutes.
Maria Bartiromo and Jim Cramer start telling investors to short the market with all they’ve got.
Questions like “do you think we’re heading for a recovery” result in the questioner getting punched in the face or ignored like a loony tune.
People HATE stocks and stock ownership |
| The Gold Price Gains a Mere 1.4% This Week, I'll Feel Comfortable When It Clears $1,451 Posted: 04 Mar 2011 11:54 AM PST Gold Price Close Today : 1,428.20 Gold Price Close 25-Feb : 1,408.70 Change : 19.50 or 1.4% Silver Price Close Today : 3531.7 Silver Price Close 25-Feb : 3289.8 Change : 241.90 or 7.4% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 40.44 Gold Silver Ratio 25-Feb : 42.82 Change : -2.38 or -5.6% Silver Gold Ratio : 0.02473 Silver Gold Ratio 25-Feb : 0.02335 Change : 0.00137 or 5.9% Dow in Gold Dollars : $ 176.10 Dow in Gold Dollars 25-Feb : $ 178.01 Change : $ (1.91) or -1.1% Dow in Gold Ounces : 8.519 Dow in Gold Ounces 25-Feb : 8.611 Change : -0.09 or -1.1% Dow in Silver Ounces : 344.49 Dow in Silver Ounces 25-Feb : 368.73 Change : -24.24 or -6.6% Dow Industrial : 12,166.40 Dow Industrial 25-Feb : 12,130.45 Change : 35.95 or 0.3% S&P 500 : 1,320.95 S&P 500 25-Feb : 1,319.88 Change : 1.07 or 0.1% US Dollar Index : 77.234 US Dollar Index 25-Feb : 77.234 Change : 0.00 or 0.0% Platinum Price Close Today : 1,835.10 Platinum Price Close 25-Feb : 1,803.30 Change : 31.80 or 1.8% Palladium Price Close Today : 809.65 Palladium Price Close 25-Feb : 790.55 Change : 19.10 or 2.4% The GOLD PRICE seems positively somnolent with a mere $19.50 gain this week (1.4%), yet it, too, claimed a new high at $1,437.20 on 2 March. I will feel much more comfortable when gold clears $1,451 (2% above the 3 January high), but still have to call it a breakout. Gold is flashing early, tiny signs of weakness, but I am putting my hand discreetly over my mouth, as I have been fighting this rally since 26 January and by now look pretty foolish even for a natural born fool from Tennessee. THUNDERATION! As my grandfather used to say. What can I say about the SILVER PRICE when in one week it rises 7.4 percent or 241.9 cents? Drink up! I love the party and everybody's having a high old time, but the cops will show up sooner or later. Parabolic rises are paroxysms, and eventually correct. Still, now that the SILVER PRICE has made another new high and smashed down the wall at 3500c, where will it stop? 3700c? 3950c? Those levels are the only little jiggles of resistance on the chart, and that from 31 years ago. Comex silver rose 100.4c to 3531.7c, a new high. At some point a big break will land on silver and gold, but for now the party is raging. The GOLD/SILVER RATIO, naturally, made another new low this week, today in fact, at 40.439. I would have y'all ponder this: since 17 October 2008 at its 84.329 reaction high, the ratio has lost 25.7% of its peak value. Pondering that you will understand why I have recommended -- against complaints about the bulk -- buying more silver than gold since 2001. And why on the home page of my website stands the article, "Why Silver Will Outperform Gold 400%." And why I tell folks that heavy old silver won't weigh near as much when it fetches $50 or $75 an ounce. More numbers for thought: from 1960 to 1980 the GOLD PRICE swelled from $35 to $850, 24.3 times. Silver augmented from $1.2929 to $50, 38-2/3 times. At today's closes, gold has climbed to 5.56 times its 2001 low, and silver 8.77 times. Past performance guaranteeth no future performance, but 'tis our sole guide. If silver and gold merely perform to their last bull markets, then so far they have climbed only 1/5 of their ultimate ascent. Stated another way, silver and gold could increase about five more times from here. I warn you to read that against the background of short term volatility. A sharp correction will hit here soon, but you ought merely use it to increase your position. This bull market has much longer to run both in time and price. I am slap-out astonished, yea, even I who all these years has been waiting for silver to explode. Now my face is all black and my hair blown straight back and frizzed from the explosion, and all I can do is gawk in amazement. The US DOLLAR index, fossilized relic of socialism, totalitarianism, cronyism, and parasitism, backslid again today. Not much, 8.9 basis points, but it still drooped ending at 76.394. On the weekly chart the dollar stands plumb astraddle the uptrend line from the 70.70 low in May 2008. One slip and Humpty Dollar plunges off the wall with only one obvious target: 70.70. However, 'tis more likely that the buck will turn around and rally for a while. Yes, yes, I know I have been musing over that possibility for a while and it has never emerged, but the dollar's fall really has lost momentum. Assuming it doesn't violate today's 76.30 low -- assuming -- then my phantom rally might materialize. Standing in the ghost's way is a rallying euro. The euro's strength ranks as yet more phantasmal and fantastical than the scrofulous dollar's. With about a third of its members teetering on bankruptcy and only the strong will of the ECB to bail out the French and German banks who've loaned these deadbeat governments money, the euro ain't exactly the Charles Atlas of currencies itself. Why it is rallying while North Africa disintegrates is a deep mystery. Technically, though, it broke out past its last high (1.3841), it stands above its 20, 50, and 200 day moving averages in that order, and if I tear the top off the chart and ignore all the rotten fundamentals, I have to say it will rally further. When I say rotten, I mean it. You could grow mushrooms on the euro or the dollar. BIG mushrooms on the yen. Mmmmmmm. STOCKS are falling on rising volume? What meaneth this sign? That the blade of the guillotine is speeding up. Stocks have now failed twice at their 50% correction of the 12,400 - 12,000 fall. This ain't baseball. Worse yet, today the Dow closed BELOW its tripwire 20 day moving average (12,201), first warning of a downturn. Not far below lies the 50 DMA at 11,944.13, then support at 11,803 and 11,450. Right, 300 and 700 points below today's close at 12,166.40. Dow gave back 91.8 points today, down 0.75%. S&P showed itself a little worse, down 0.94% (10.02 points) at 1,320.95. A remote chance remains that the Dow might rise once more to 12,400 for a double top, but that changes nothing. It will merely collapse from a higher level. Stocks remain the burnt-orange leisure suit in the Investment Fashion Parade -- not cool. Defeated yet again, the Dow in Gold Dollars (DiG$) has left off rallying and returned to its 200 day moving average, ready to roll off the curb and into the gutter. DiG$ is flashing clearly that stocks are about to lose big value against gold. The Dow in Silver ounces kept on making new post-2003 lows again this week, down to 344.5 oz from its 2003 high at 2,556.7 oz. A neat, clean 86.6% loss. Y'all enjoy your weekend. Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com Phone: (888) 218-9226 or (931) 766-6066 © 2011, 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. 
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| Guest Post: The Free Market Death Panel Posted: 04 Mar 2011 11:46 AM PST
Submitted by Miss America The Free Market Death Panel http://www.ny.frb.org/tmpg/index.html http://www.ny.frb.org/tmpg/best_practices.html
The Beautiful thing about irony is… it’s so ironic! You see, in their best practices latest release from September 14, 2010 (http://www.ny.frb.org/tmpg/bestpractice_09142010.pdf) the TMPG speaks of how these guidelines will create a more efficient market. Yet on Septemeber 14th, there were $75billion in fails. If there are fewer disruptions, then what cause these massive fails? Too funny!
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| False Choice: Yield vs. Safety Posted: 04 Mar 2011 11:24 AM PST The 5 min. Forecast March 04, 2011 02:23 PM by Addison Wiggin - March 4, 2011 [LIST] [*] Oil reaches new milestone, for no obvious reason… The 5 uncovers some less-obvious ones [*] The myth of “spare capacity”… How the world’s oil “cushion” could disappear by 2013 [*] Labor Department delivers so-so jobs report… Two key metrics that remain at multi-decade lows [*] Silver tops $35… What to watch for this summer that could be the signal for $60 [*] Where the teachers can “shove their summer vacations” and other reader input on unions, public and private… [/LIST] Crude oil topped $103 this morning. The last time oil was this high was Sept. 26, 2008 — the last trading day before the U.S. House rejected the first bank bailout bill. Wall Street then threw a snit and slashed 777 points off the Dow in one day. Good times. There doesn’t appear to be any overt reason why the price to pop...
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| Posted: 04 Mar 2011 10:04 AM PST
As the bruised and battered US consumer continues to be fornicated at the pump, there is, we are told, an amazing silver lining to this inflationary catastrophe: according to the American Public Transportation Association, as gas prices spike they bring with them the savings for U.S. commuters who rely on public transportation, a transit group said on Friday. See: and now the surge in price has been spun. Soon, when gas is $5 then $10/gallon, the administration will tell us how we are all saving so much money by using the subway... Of course until such time as the already insolvent MTA (and other regional transportation authorities) are "forced" to hike prices due to retaining those workers which even Wal Mart decided to pass on. From Reuters:
And the kicker from the APTA:
Next up: the administration touts the benefits of death. Just consider the amazing savings one will have by not having to spend tens of thousands of dollars on that barbarous relic, food.
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| Posted: 04 Mar 2011 10:02 AM PST ----- Original Message -----From: victorthecleanerTo: FOFOASent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 11:23 PMSubject: question about bullion banksDear FOFOA,I have read a few of your postings with great interest although I admit by far not all of them. I have one question concerning the claim that it is the allocation of unallocated gold accounts that will put the bullion banks out of business. I shall be
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| Posted: 04 Mar 2011 10:00 AM PST Chairman Ben Bernanke promises to "promote inflation." We take him at his word…and so do the commodity markets. The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of commodity prices has soared 80% from its lows of early 2009 – touching a fresh two-and-a-half-year high yesterday. But even if commodity prices weren't soaring (yet), we would take the Chairman at his word. After all, trusting a central banker to promote inflation is like trusting water to flow downhill. Inflation is not good for very many things, but neither is it all bad. For example, inflation is great for debtors who are trying to cheat their creditors. Inflation is also great for the folks who happen to own the stuff that's inflating. The traditional winners during inflationary cycles are hard assets like gold and real estate. The traditional losers are long-dated bonds and, of course, the currency in your wallet. Every cycle is different, but we have no reason to doubt that the upcoming inflationary cycle will produce the typical distribution of winners and losers. Hard assets will win; the currency in your wallets and purses will lose. If, therefore, inflation is taking root in American soil once again, how should the forward-looking investor prepare? "Buy gold," is the time-honored answer…and we would not quarrel with it. But an alternative answer, especially this time around, might be: "Buy a house." Consider the table below, which tracks the price history of specific houses in the United States that were standing in 1913 – the year the Federal Reserve came into existence – and are still standing today. While this sample of homes is not scientific, it does illustrate housing's value as an inflation hedge. On average, this collection of American homes produced the identical annualized return as gold.
Obviously, the actual returns on housing would be lower than that of gold, since housing is subject to taxes, maintenance, etc. On the other hand, have you ever tried to raise a family inside a gold bar? Maybe compromise is the best course of action: Buy a house and then put some gold bricks inside. That's right, we said, "Buy a house." As faithful readers would be well aware, we have not always been so sanguine about the US housing market. From early 2005 through early 2007, your California editor published numerous columns predicting the demise of the housing bubble. May, 2005: Affluenza May, 2005: Houses and Spouses June, 2005: The After-Life October, 2005: No Way Out May, 2006: Homeless August, 2006: The Housing Bust Begins October, 2006: A Housing Bubble White Paper January, 2007: When Realtors Become Waiters Your editor also took to the airwaves to offer his gloomy observations and grim expectations for the housing market. In May of 2005, he showed up at CNBC studios to take part in a segment about the housing market entitled "Bubble: Fact or Fiction?" Your editor argued the "fact" side of the debate, while Jerry Howard, the CEO of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), argued the "fiction" side. Unfortunately, as we noted in our essay "Outside Day Reversals and the Return of the Housing Market" in Wednesday's edition of The Daily Reckoning, Mr. Howard's forecast did not pan out. The residential housing market began to implode almost as soon as the two of us unhooked our microphones and stepped away from the CNBC cameras…and that's no fiction. Four months after this CNBC interview, your editor put his home in Pound Ridge, New York, up for sale…and waited. The wait seemed like an eternity. Seven months later, the wait ended…favorably. A few days after escrow closed, in May of 2006, your editor published the following remarks: Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan both agree that the housing boom is over and that it will begin an "orderly" decline. We agree that the housing boom is over and that home prices will begin to decline, but we aren't so sure about the "orderly" part. Throughout the seven months that prospective buyers streamed through your editor's home, it became increasingly clear that the prospective buyers were becoming increasingly price-sensitive…and picky…and arrogant. Before our very eyes, literally, we watched the balance of power in the housing market shift from seller to buyer… A home is a wonderful thing to own; but it is also a wonderful thing to sell…especially when prices are slumping and buyers are disappearing… In October 2006, when we published a white paper, entitled simply, "Housing Bubble," we observed: By now, everyone knows the housing boom has busted. Even the National Association of Realtors admits as much… The only issues worth pondering, therefore, are how low prices might fall and/or how long the bust might last. Without trying to be too specific, we'd guess that prices will fall a lot and/or that the bust will last a long time… Without easy credit, and lots of it, real estate could never have achieved its epic valuations. Credit not only enabled first-time buyers to "stretch" a bit, it also enabled and emboldened speculative buyers, speculative builders, second-home buyers, second-home builders and every other variant of housing market participant/speculator. But because financing became so exotic, and speculative participation in the market became so great, the simultaneous unwinding of both will be as pleasant as hanging out with your in-laws during a root canal… We all know what happens NEXT. But we just don't know how bad it will be. Please allow your editor to offer a prediction:
As a post-mortem to the Housing Bust White Paper, we published a column in January, 2007, entitled, "When Realtors Become Waiters." To lead off this column, we remarked, "Out here in the Golden State, jokes like the one below are becoming all too common: Question: What's another name for a California real estate agent? Answer: A waiter. Home sales volumes in California are sliding sharply… Why should we care what happens in California? We should care because California epitomized the excesses of the late great housing bubble. It was here in California where quirky, high-risk mortgages flourished; it was here where the median home became unaffordable to 84% of the average residents; and it was here where actors became waiters, then became real estate agents…only to become waiters again. What happens in the California real estate market, therefore, might anticipate what will happen in the rest of the country…and that's probably not good news… The increasingly dire conditions of the mortgage industry suggest that a genuine recovery remains a delusional hope. The willingness to lend and the willingness to borrow are both in retreat. This is how cascades start… Over the near-term, therefore, do not be surprised to hear an occasional California diner call out, "Hey waiter! Could we please see a menu…and a copy of your newest listings?" Four years have elapsed since your editor published the column above. During that timeframe, home prices have dropped substantially…and they continue to drop. But now that the bubble has burst, and the housing market is devoid of hope, your editor has become slightly more hopeful. Undoubtedly, the housing market will continue to produce ample pain and suffering in the months ahead…along with ample anxiety in the years ahead. But it is possible, if not likely, that the pain and suffering will yield a highly satisfactory reward. Read on… Eric Fry Why You Should Buy a House originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning has published articles on the impact of quantitative easing, bakken oil, and hyperinflation.
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| Mideast unrest spurs demand for precious metals Posted: 04 Mar 2011 09:22 AM PST Gold touched a fresh nominal record this week and silver prices rose to their highest level since the Hunt brothers cornered the market in 1980 as fears of spreading political unrest in the Middle East and rising inflation spurred investors to buy the precious metals. Events in the Middle East have had a doubly bullish effect on gold and silver: on the one hand, the metals are seen as a haven in times of political instability; on the other, the sharp rise in oil prices has raised the prospect of higher inflation, driving investors to the precious metals for wealth protection. [source]
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| Japanese Markets: Trendsetters in the Global Economy Posted: 04 Mar 2011 09:10 AM PST And now, let's update our Trade of the Decade. Our "Trade of the Decade" called for selling Japanese bonds and buying Japanese stocks. The bonds go down when the liquor runs out…and then, when Japan can no longer close its budget gaps by borrowing, it will print money. First, the bonds will crash. Then, the stocks will soar. Has it done well? Not exactly. But the decade has just become. And it looks more promising than ever. Lord Keynes may not have had the Japanese bond market in mind. But almost an entire generation of JGB investors is living proof that "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." For nearly 20 years, they thought rising supplies of Japanese bonds must lead to falling prices. As the quantity increased the quality had to decline. It was irrational to think anything else. And yet, Mr. Market not only remained irrational, he seemed to enjoy it. He was like a drunk with a half-finished bottle in his hand. Everyone knew he would have to sober up some day. But as long as there was still liquor left, why bother? Japan borrowed more and more…and speculators went broke waiting for bonds to go down. Here on the back page we yield to no man in our appreciation of the irrational. It is practically boundless, as near as we can tell. Nevertheless, sooner or later the booze runs out. What makes this interesting to readers everywhere is that Japan is a trendsetter. The Japanese stock market headed down 10 years before the NASDAQ cracked in the US in January of 2000. Japan's economy was ahead of the pack too; it went into a long correction 17 years before America's subprime lending crisis. Its central bankers and finance ministers have a long lead too. Every rabbit, currently being pulled out of Ben Bernanke's hat, was hopping around in Tokyo many years ago. For example, the Japanese have been "zero bound" for 15 years. In an effort to restart the economy, the Bank of Japan went to ZIRP (a zero interest rate policy) in 1995. They've been within 50 basis points of zero ever since. So too did Japan's huge central government deficits begin a decade ahead of those in the US. But the rope that was thrown out as a lifeline has become a noose. Japan can't go back to normal policies; it can't afford it. Among all the world's nations none now has more debt per GDP than Japan. For every dollar of output, Japan has $2 of central government debt. The figures are much more striking, and meaningful, when you compare debt to the cash-flow that services it. The central government owes about 1,000 trillion yen. It collects less than 50 trillion in revenues each year. In other words, every dollar of tax receipts must support about $20 in debt. If it had to carry its debt at just 5% interest it would take up 100% of government revenues. And its debt is still increasing; the Bank for International Settlement says it will grow to 3 times GDP over the next 10 years. Pondering these numbers, JGB speculators must have thought they had found a gold mine. Japanese bonds HAD to go down, they said to themselves. What they discovered was that a government can stay insolvent longer than they could stay rational. And now, practically every financial official, householder and investor on the home island is foaming at the mouth. Having avoided sanity for so long, they think they can do so forever. The descent into insolvency was directed by the Bank of Japan and enabled by bond buyers themselves. It did not bother them that Japan was the most broke nation in the world. Or that the Japanese were dying out, with negative population growth and more people retiring than entering the workforce. Or that the primary sources of funding for Japanese deficits were drying up. Corporate profits are pinched between the forefinger of a strong yen and the thumb of higher energy prices. The savings rate for people over 60 has fallen to zero. And as a percentage of GDP, national savings, net of both public and private borrowing, has fallen from plus 11% in 1991 to minus 5% today. Lenders must be as stupid or as mad as borrowers. Even today, they give their money to the government for 10 years, at a yield of only 1.2%. But so far, they have been right. The inflation rate in Japan is negative by about 2%, giving them a real yield of 3.5%. And compared to other investors in Japan, bond-buyers are geniuses. Japanese stocks are down 75% since 1990. Real estate is down about 70%. He should get out more. Take a trip to Japan. He would see where $1.5 trillion deficits, ZIRP, and QE lead – to more deficits, more ZIRP, and QE squared. He would see the madness in investors' eyes…and palsied hands of his central banker cronies. They couldn't stop. Neither can he. Not without higher unemployment and falling prices – the very things he fears more than the fires of Hell. Once an economy drinks deeply, it cannot stop until the bottle is empty. Regards, Bill Bonner Japanese Markets: Trendsetters in the Global Economy originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning has published articles on the impact of quantitative easing, bakken oil, and hyperinflation.
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| Gold Prices Settle Higher on Jobs Reading; Silver Hits 31-Year High Posted: 04 Mar 2011 09:09 AM PST NEW YORK (TheStreet ) — Gold prices rose after an expectation-meeting U.S. jobs report and a double digit selloff on Thursday. Silver also tapped a 31-year high. Gold for April delivery added $12.20 to $1,428.60 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gold price today has traded as high as $1,432.80 and as low as $1,413.80. Silver prices added $1 to $35.32 an ounce. U.S. dollar index was slightly lower at $76.38. [source]
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| Cheap Money, Speculation and Hoarding Posted: 04 Mar 2011 09:09 AM PST It's fatuous to ask which is more valuable. To most people, the pile of Dollars wins hands down, because it has far more immediate utility; you can't go shopping with gold. But to the handful of people (well...21,000 or so) holding that ... Read More...
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| Stock & Gold Markets Technical Update Posted: 04 Mar 2011 08:54 AM PST Super Force Signals A Leading Market Timing Service We Take Every Trade Ourselves! Email: [EMAIL="trading@superforcesignals.com"]trading@superforcesignals.com[/EMAIL] [EMAIL="trading@superforce60.com"]trading@superforce60.com[/EMAIL] Weekly Market Update Excerpt Mar 04, 2011 I’ve consulted with the best in the business, and spent the past week tightening up my template, so 100% of the focus in my newsletter is on trading markets. I want to give you maximum coverage of all the major markets in play, as I trade them myself. To do that, at the level of professionalism I demand from myself, I have to leave economic and political commentary to others in the gold community who are much better at it that I am. To make you the most money, I need to focus 100% of my time and effort on what I do best, which is technical analysis of price and volume. The stock market is now front and center on my radar screen, and my technical work is flashing substantial signals of...
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| Gold adds to gains ahead of the weekend Posted: 04 Mar 2011 08:41 AM PST SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures settled higher Friday and silver futures topped $35 an ounce as still-nervous investors decided for the safe-haven trade ahead of the weekend amid potential for more turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa. Gold for April delivery /quotes/comstock/21e!f:gc\j11 (GCJ11 1,430, +13.50, +0.95%) advanced $12.20, or 0.9%, to settle at $1,428.60 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The metal gained 1.4% on the week. Silver settles at fresh 31-year high. [source]
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| More Q.E. Could Send Silver Above $50 Posted: 04 Mar 2011 08:35 AM PST "SLV ETF adds another 976,380 ounces of silver. What is gold telling us? Gold’s gains may have meaning beyond the market. In Colombia, New Gold Rush Fuels Old Conflict...and much more. " Yesterday in Gold and Silver As I mentioned in the closing paragraphs of my column on Thursday, the gold price had recovered back to Wednesday's closing price of $1,435.70 spot before a not-for-profit seller showed up. From that point, the gold price got sold off another three or four times during London and New York trading sessions...and gold closed down over $20...but off its low of the day...which was $1,409.40 spot. I also mentioned in yesterday's column that silver was "knocking on the $35 door" around 1:30 p.m. Hong Kong time on Thursday before it, too, got smacked...and from that point, followed the gold price down for the rest of the day. As you can see from the chart below, silver [like gold] made many attempts to recover, but got sold off every time it...
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| Charles Oliver: Out of Africa, into Americas Posted: 04 Mar 2011 08:31 AM PST Source: Brian Sylvester of The Gold Report 03/04/2011 Sprott Asset Management Senior Portfolio Manager Charles Oliver says the social unrest in the Middle East could lead to a premium for junior companies operating in North and South America. He's even betting on it, saying, "I believe juniors will give you the best long-term outperformance and alpha." He's taken profits on companies with exposure to Africa and moved that cash into others with primary assets in the Americas, where, he says, there is much lower risk. Charles discusses a basket full of those names in this exclusive interview with The Gold Report. The Gold Report: Charles, the Sprott Gold and Precious Minerals Fund (TSX:SPR300) had an impressive 74.7% gain in 2010. That same fund was up 114% in 2009. Congratulations! Charles Oliver: Thank you very much. TGR: Most of those gains came from dramatic rises in gold and silver juniors but more recently you trimmed back a lot of those positions in exchange f...
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| The Truth Behind Saudi Arabia’s “Spare Capacity” Posted: 04 Mar 2011 08:29 AM PST Crude oil topped $103 this morning. The last time oil was this high was Sept. 26, 2008 – the last trading day before the US House rejected the first bank bailout bill. Wall Street then threw a snit and slashed 777 points off the Dow in one day. Good times. There doesn't appear to be any overt reason why the price popped today. But beneath the surface, we see a series of ominous developments from Saudi Arabia, the world's No. 1 oil exporter. Events that could make $103 oil seem as quaint as an 8-track tape left in an abandoned car for the last 40 years. First, a little background. World energy demands – and, by extension, traders in the market – rely on something called "spare capacity" or producers' ability to jump-start new oil production within 30 days and keep it up for at least 90 days. If you listen, you'll hear it on the tip of the "official" tongue. Yesterday, for example, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner assured Congress: "It's important to note that there is considerable spare oil production capacity globally." "Spare capacity" in the oil market is directly analogous to the bag of tricks Ben Bernanke alluded he'd dip into when the time comes to unwind the Fed's balance sheet. For better or worse, most of the "spare capacity" burden falls on Saudi Arabia. Saudi princes claim to be able to goose production from 9 million barrels a day to 12 at the drop of a hat. Never mind that they've never done anything like that before, even when oil ran up from $25 to $147 a barrel between 2003-08. The official line – and, therefore, the oil market – still believes it's true. But for how long? This chart from Morgan Stanley, analyzing worldwide demand estimates, suggests "spare capacity" will be tapped out in two short years.
Even by conservative demand assumptions, "spare capacity" disappears by 2013… As fighting was getting under way in Libya a week ago, Saudi Arabian oil officials got on the phone to the International Energy Agency (IEA). They'd just boosted their daily oil production from 8.6 million barrels a day to 9 million. They wanted the world to know they could step in with the "spare capacity" to replace Libyan production. Oil prices dropped in the final half-hour of trading. Amazing, isn't it? Saudi Arabia's stated reserves are 259 billion barrels. Which is what they were last year…and every year going back to 1980. In his book Twilight in the Desert, the late Matt Simmons, a gentleman with whom we shared an editor at John Wiley & Sons, found ample reason to cast doubt on official Saudi figures during the previous decade. WikiLeaks made public last month that a senior official from the state-owned oil company believes Saudi reserves are overstated by 40%. And yet the market responded to what was effectively a PR campaign by the Saudi princes. "There is in fact good reason to think that the Saudis are producing 9 million barrels a day," says author Steve LeVine, writing at Foreign Policy, "but reasonable doubt that they went up to that level just last week in response to Libya." More likely, they boosted production some time ago to help meet domestic demand. "If they were producing that much then," LeVine says, "it does not necessarily prove that they can raise their production now, neither for the many months before full Libyan production returns to the market." The Saudis have also made public plans to start injecting carbon dioxide into the world's largest oil field, Ghawar, no later than 2013. CO2 injection is what you do when an oil field starts yielding progressively less oil. It gooses the output…for a little while. The plans come as no surprise from the Saudis, given Ghawar was discovered in 1948. Even if the Saudi princes are telling the truth about their spare capacity, it all goes bye-bye in two more years. The fact that they're resorting to complex and costly new tactics to keep the world's largest oil field creaking along doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Bottom line: "Saudi Arabia can't make the shortfall from Libyan supplies," says commodities investing legend and Vancouver veteran Jim Rogers. "They've said in the past that they can increase production, but they can't." Addison Wiggin The Truth Behind Saudi Arabia's "Spare Capacity" originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning has published articles on the impact of quantitative easing, bakken oil, and hyperinflation.
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| Posted: 04 Mar 2011 08:24 AM PST Record Gasoline Prices in Europe, Over $8 in UK, Italy, Germany; California Faces $4; Reflections on "Inflation" Share this:
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| Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Blythe Spanked Posted: 04 Mar 2011 08:21 AM PST
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| Gold, silver dips are ever shorter, Embry tells King World News Posted: 04 Mar 2011 08:19 AM PST 4:15p Friday, March 4, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver): Interviewed today by King World News, Sprott Asset Management's chief investment strategist, John Embry, remarks on how quickly the dips in gold and silver prices are being reversed. The market for real metal, Embry says, is finally taking precedence over the market for paper promises of metal. You can find excerpts from the interview here: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/3/4_Joh... Or try this abbreviated link: Meanwhile, full audio of Tocqueville Gold Fund manager John Hathaway's interview with King World News this week can be found here: CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Resource Spins Off Platinum/Palladium Venture: Company Press Release, January 18, 2011 VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Prophecy Resource Corp. (TSX-V:PCY)and Pacific Coast Nickel Corp. announce that they have agreed that PCNC will acquire Prophecy's Nickel PGM projects by issuing common shares to Prophecy. PCNC will acquire the Wellgreen PGM Ni-Cu and Lynn Lake nickel projects in the Yukon Territory and Manitoba respectively by issuing up to 550 million common shares of PCNC to Prophecy. PCNC has 55.7 million shares outstanding. Following the transaction: -- Prophecy will own approximately 90 percent of PCNC. -- PCNC will consolidate its share capital on a 10 old for one new basis. -- Prophecy will change its name to Prophecy Coal Corp. and PCNC will be renamed Prophecy Platinum Corp. -- Prophecy intends to distribute half of its PCNC shares to shareholders pro-rata in accordance with their holdings. Based on the closing price of the common shares of PCNC on January 17, $0.195 per share, the gross value of the transaction is $107,250,000. For the complete announcement, please visit: http://prophecyresource.com/news_2011_jan18.php Support GATA by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: http://www.gata.org/node/16 ADVERTISEMENT Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit, Extending the Mineralization of the Southwest Vein on the Property Company Press Release, October 27, 2010 VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sona Resources Corp. reports on five drillling holes in the third round of assay results from the recently completed drill program at its 100 percent-owned Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property in the Lillooet Mining District of southern British Columbia. Highlights from the diamond drilling include: -- Hole E10-66 intersected 17.4g gold/ton over 1.54 metres. -- Hole E10-67 intersected 96.4g gold/ton over 2.5 metres, including one assay interval of 383g of gold/ton over 0.5 metres. -- Hole E10-69 intersected 85.4g gold/ton over 4.03 metres, including one assay interval of 230g gold/ton over 1 metre. Four drill holes, E10-66 to E10-69, targeted the southwestern end of the Southwest Vein, and three of the holes have expanded the mineralized zone in that direction. The Southwest Vein gold mineralization has now been intersected over a strike length of 325 metres, with the deepest hole drilled less than 200 metres from surface. "The assay results from the Southwest Zone quartz vein continue to be extremely positive," says John P. Thompson, Sona's president and CEO. "We are expanding the Southwest Vein, and this high-grade gold mineralization remains wide open down dip and along strike to the southwest." For the company's full press release, please visit: http://sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR19_2010.pdf
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