Gold World News Flash

“Gaining access to physical gold is its top strategic priority.”
Prophets Of Doom: 12 Shocking Quotes From Insiders About The Horrific Economic Crisis That Is Almost Here
Strong Dollar Equals Weak Stocks, Gold and Silver
Martin Armstrong, market forecaster stifled by U.S. government, interviewed by King World News
Martin Armstrong: Gold’s Next Move
Technical Gold Market Update - October 2, 2011
Qatari wealth fund plans $10 billion gold mine buying spree
Bernanke Getting Cold Feet On European Bank Bail Out?
“Gold Is A Most Volatile, Unstable, Fickle And Risky Asset”
Jim's Mailbox
KWN Exclusive: Martin Armstrong - Gold’s Next Move
Qatari Wealth Fund Plans $10 Billion Gold Buying Spree
Gold Market Update
Silver Market Update
Meltdown - The Conclusion: "After The Fall"
Meltdown - The Conclusion: "After The Fall"
Hokey Pokey Plan
Robert Lenzner: Even after smashdown, gold surpasses everything else
Qatari wealth fund plans $10bn gold buying spree
Peak Silver?
International Forecaster October 2011 (#1) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More
Physical Silver Shortage to Follow Paper Selloff
Peter Schiff on Gold: Don?t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth!
Turns out Qatar, not China, will deal for Greece's gold for pennies
To THe BRiDGE!
Greece To Miss Budget Deficit Targets, As Usual, While Qatar Prepares A Bailout Pennies-For-Gold Swap
Gold price suppression is 'conspiracy theory' only to those who won't look at facts
Alasdair Macleod: EU elite lost at sea
Scott Gardner: Europe's Debt Crisis and Its Effect on Gold
Credit Dislocated, Again

“Gaining access to physical gold is its top strategic priority.”

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 07:13 PM PDT

Qatari wealth fund plans $10bn gold buying spree

Prophets Of Doom: 12 Shocking Quotes From Insiders About The Horrific Economic Crisis That Is Almost Here

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 05:18 PM PDT

Prophets Of Doom: 12 Shocking Quotes From Insiders About The Horrific Economic Crisis That Is Almost Here

Courtesy of Michael Snyder of Economic Collapse

We are getting so close to a financial collapse in Europe that you can almost hear the debt bubbles popping. All across the western world, governments and major banks are rapidly becoming insolvent. So far, the powers that be are keeping all of the balls in the air by throwing around lots of bailout money. But now the political will for more bailouts is drying up and the number of troubled entities seems to grow by the day. Right now the western world is facing a debt crisis that is absolutely unprecedented in world history. Europe has had a tremendously difficult time just trying to keep Greece afloat, and several much larger European countries are now on the verge of a major financial crisis. In addition, there is a growing number of very large financial institutions all over the western world that are also rapidly approaching a day of reckoning.

The global financial system is a sea or red ink, and when we get to the point where there are hundreds of ships going under how is it going to be possible to bail all of them out? The quotes that you are about to read show that quite a few top financial and political insiders know that things cannot hold together much longer and that a horrific economic crisis is coming. We built the global financial system on a foundation of debt, leverage and risk and now this house of cards that we have created is about to come tumbling down.

A lot of people in politics and in the financial world know what is about to happen. Once in a while they will even be quite candid about it with the media.

As I have written about previously, Europe is on the verge of a financial collapse. If things go really badly, things could totally fall apart in a few weeks. But more likely it will be a few more months until the juggling act ends.

Right now, the banking system in Europe is coming apart at the seams. Because the global financial system is so interconnected today, when major European banks start to fail it is going to have a cascading effect across the United States and Asia as well.

The financial crisis of 2008 plunged us into the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

The next financial crisis could potentially hit the world even harder.

The following are 12 shocking quotes from insiders that are warning about the horrific economic crisis that is almost here....

#1 George Soros: "Financial markets are driving the world towards another Great Depression with incalculable political consequences. The authorities, particularly in Europe, have lost control of the situation."

#2 PIMCO CEO Mohammed El-Erian: "These are all signs of an institutional run on French banks. If it persists, the banks would have no choice but to delever their balance sheets in a very drastic and disorderly fashion. Retail depositors would get edgy and be tempted to follow trading and institutional clients through the exit doors. Europe would thus be thrown into a full-blown banking crisis that aggravates the sovereign debt trap, renders certain another economic recession, and significantly worsens the outlook for the global economy."

#3 Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, global head of securities services at UniCredit SpA (Italy's largest bank): "The only remaining question is how many days the hopeless rearguard action of European governments and the European Central Bank can keep up Greece's spirits."

#4 Stefan Homburg, the head of Germany's Institute for Public Finance: "The euro is nearing its ugly end. A collapse of monetary union now appears unavoidable."

#5 EU Parliament Member Nigel Farage: "I think the worst in the financial system is yet to come, a possible cataclysm and if that happens the gold price could go (higher) to a number that we simply cannot, at this moment, even imagine."

#6 Carl Weinberg, the chief economist at High Frequency Economics: "At this point, our base case is that Greece will default within weeks."

#7 Goldman Sachs strategist Alan Brazil: "Solving a debt problem with more debt has not solved the underlying problem. In the US, Treasury debt growth financed the US consumer but has not had enough of an impact on job growth. Can the US continue to depreciate the world's base currency?"

#8 International Labour Organization director general Juan Somavia recently stated that total unemployment could "increase by some 20m to a total of 40m in G20 countries" by the end of 2012.

#9 Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackerman: "It is an open secret that numerous European banks would not survive having to revalue sovereign debt held on the banking book at market levels."

#10 Alastair Newton, a strategist for Nomura Securities in London: "We believe that we are just about to enter a critical period for the eurozone and that the threat of some sort of break-up between now and year-end is greater than it has been at any time since the start of the crisis"

#11 Ann Barnhardt, head of Barnhardt Capital Management, Inc.: "It's over. There is no coming back from this. The only thing that can happen is a total and complete collapse of EVERYTHING we now know, and humanity starts from scratch. And if you think that this collapse is going to play out without one hell of a big hot war, you are sadly, sadly mistaken."

#12 Lakshman Achuthan of ECRI: "When I call a recession...that means that process is starting to feed on itself, which means that you can yell and scream and you can write a big check, but it's not going to stop."

*****

In my opinion, the epicenter of the "next wave" of the financial collapse is going to be in Europe. But that does not mean that the United States is going to be okay. The reality is that the United States never recovered from the last recession and there are already a lot of signs that we are getting ready to enter another major recession. A major financial collapse in Europe would just accelerate our plunge into a new economic crisis.

If you want to read something that will really freak you out, you should check out what Dr. Philippa Malmgren is saying. Dr. Philippa Malmgren is the President and founder of Principalis Asset Management. She is also a former member of the Bush economic team. You can find her bio right here.

Malmgren is claiming that Germany is seriously considering bringing back the Deutschmark. In fact, she claims that Germany is very busy printing new currency up. In a list of things that we could see happen over the next few months, she included the following....

"The Germans announce they are re-introducing the Deutschmark. They have already ordered the new currency and asked that the printers hurry up."

This is quite a claim for someone to be making. You would think that someone that used to work in the White House would not make such a claim unless it was based on something solid.

If Germany did decide to leave the euro, you would see an implosion of the euro that would be truly historic.

But as I have written about previously, it should not surprise anyone that the end of the euro is being talked about because the euro simply does not work.

The only way that the euro would have had a chance of working is if all of the governments using the euro would have kept debt levels very low.

Unfortunately, the financial systems of the western world are designed to push governments into high levels of debt.

The truth is that the euro was doomed from the very beginning.

Now we are approaching a day of reckoning. We have been living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, but the bubble is ending. There are several ways that the powers that be could handle this, but all of them will lead to greater financial instability.

In the end, we will see that the debt-fueled prosperity that the western world has been enjoying for decades was just an illusion.

Debt is a very cruel master. It will almost always bring more pain and suffering than you anticipated.

It is easy to get into debt, but it can be very difficult to get out of debt.

There is no way that the western world can unwind this debt spiral easily.

The only way that another massive economic crisis can be put off for even a little while would be for the powers that be to "kick the can down the road" a little farther by creating even more debt.

But in the end, you can never solve a debt problem with more debt.

The next several years are going to be an incredibly clear illustration of why debt is bad.

When the dominoes start to fall, we are going to witness a financial avalanche which is going to destroy the finances of millions of people.

You might want to try to get out of the way while you still can.

Strong Dollar Equals Weak Stocks, Gold and Silver

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 04:37 PM PDT

by George Maniere, MarketOracle.co.uk:

For the last several weeks I have had readers mailing me asking why gold and silver have been selling off. The answer is very simple. There is a strong correlation between a strong dollar and weak commodities. The dollar is no different than anything on earth – it will always follow the path of least resistance. As the dollar grows stronger commodities sell off or become cheaper. Take a look at the chart of the dollar below.

I look at this chart will show that in late August – early September The FOMC initiated "Operation Twist". "Operation Twist" was a plan that took the money that was maturing from the short term bonds the FOMC had bought during QE2 and were rolled into longer 20 and 30 year treasuries that carried a higher yield. This caused the dollar to grow stronger because the yields on longer treasuries are higher.

Read More @ MarketOracle.co.uk

Martin Armstrong, market forecaster stifled by U.S. government, interviewed by King World News

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 03:00 PM PDT

10:55p ET Sunday, October 2, 2011

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Former investment adviser and fund manager Martin Armstrong, imprisoned by the U.S. government for an unpredecently long period of more than seven years on a complaint of contempt of court, which began to look like an attempt to silence him or gain control of his proprietary trading system, has given King World News a fascinating interview covering the world economy and gold as well as his own case. The interview is 27 minutes long and you can find a short summary of it as well as full audio of it at King World News here:

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/10/2_KW...

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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Golden Phoenix Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire and Reopen Santa Rosa Gold Mine in Panama

Company Press Release
Monday, September 19, 2011

SPARKS, Nevada -- Golden Phoenix Minerals Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: GPXM) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 60 percent interest, with an option to buy an additional 20 percent interest, in the Santa Rosa gold mine in Panama, now owned by Silver Global S.A., a Panamanian corporation.

Santa Rosa produced more than 100,000 ounces of gold from 1996 to 1998 before being closed in part to low gold prices, which are now more than five times higher.

Golden Phoenix intends to acquire its initial 60 percent interest in Santa Rosa by acquiring 60 percent of the share capital of a recently created company under the name Golden Phoenix Panama S.A., formed to hold and operate the mine.

Tom Klein, CEO of Golden Phoenix says: "The agreement establishes a solid framework from which we can advance Mina Santa Rosa to production-ready status."

For Golden Phoenix's complete statement, please visit:

http://goldenphoenix.us/press-release/golden-phoenix-signs-definitive-ac...

Martin Armstrong: Gold’s Next Move

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 02:26 PM PDT

from King World News:

With continued turmoil in global markets, King World News has now released the exclusive interview with internationally followed Martin Armstrong, Founder and Former Head of Princeton Economics International, Ltd.. Armstrong's firm rose to be perhaps the largest multinational corporate advisor in the world and by the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, Armstrong was invited by China and he flew to Beijing to advise the Central Bank. As KWN has already disclosed, many people don't realize that Congress went to Martin Armstrong for help as the fires were burning during the financial collapse of 2008.

When asked if the coming mania in gold will eclipse what was seen at the end of the '70s gold bull market, Armstrong responded, Read More @ KingWorldNews.com

Technical Gold Market Update - October 2, 2011

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 02:16 PM PDT

In classic fashion gold's brutal plunge ended in a zone of strong support just above its 200-day moving average. Normally, a drop of this severity would lead to more downside action, but there is now strong evidence that gold hit bottom last Monday, and that it is now basing prior to turning higher again.

Qatari wealth fund plans $10 billion gold mine buying spree

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 02:10 PM PDT

By Garry White
The Telegraph, London
Monday, October 3, 2011

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/gold/880279...

The Qatari royal family plans to spend up to $10 billion (L6.4 billion) buying stakes in gold producers through their sovereign wealth fund, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The fund is seeking to invest in a range of natural resources, but gaining access to physical gold is its top strategic priority.

On Sunday, Qatar Holdings, which controls the wealth of the Middle East state's royal family, confirmed it would invest about $1 billion in European Goldfields, a London-listed miner currently developing the largest gold-mining project in Greece.

"Qatar Holdings have done a systematic and detailed study of the gold sector," said Ken Costa, who put the deal together. "They chose European Goldfields because [chairman] Martyn Konig is very experienced -- a 30-year veteran in the gold market."

... Dispatch continues below ...

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Lewis E. Lehrman on How to Solve the U.S. Debt Problem

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Working Americans are not saving, which enables the banks to lead the country into a cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust.

Lehrman says: Eliminating the budget deficit of a trillion and a half dollars cannot be done overnight. The proposal by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan was very dramatic -- one Republican called it radical -- but it was not happily received. The solution, of course, is to design an American program for prosperity, because you can solve these entitlement problems with a growing economy. We need a tremendous program of investment, and investment comes from savings. When you pay savers, middle-income professionals, and working people 0 percent at the bank, you are not going to encourage them to save. Then we are left with a bank cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust."

To read more and to sign up for The Gold Standard Now's free, noncommercial, weekly report, "Prosperity through Gold," please visit:

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While Mr Costa would not comment on future likely targets, the Qataris are known to have been focusing in particular on opportunities in Africa and Russia. The valuation of North American gold miners was said to be too high.

The gold price has increased every year for the past 10 years as investor concern about the devaluation of global currencies, particularly the dollar, mounts.

The price is up by 14 percent this year, despite a recent correction, and currently sits at $1,623.97 an ounce after it hit a record high of $1,923.70 on September 5.

However, shares in listed gold miners have underperformed this year, with European Goldfields shares down 41 percent in the year to date. This is despite the company receiving the long-awaited approval for its mines from Greek authorities in July.

The Qatari fund has acquired a 9.9 percent stake in European Goldfields from Greek construction group Ellaktor and one of its directors, Dimitrios Koutras. Qatar Holdings will also provide a $600 million loan facility at an interest rate of 7 percent.

Athens will be celebrating the bold investment move, as the southern European country teeters on the edge of default, because the deal represents a vote of long-term confidence in the troubled Greek economy.

After securing the investment, about 1,500 jobs will be created in Greece. The deal was agreed by George Papandreou, Greek prime minister, and Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the ruling emir of Qatar, on Saturday.

Qatar Holding was advised by Credit Suisse, with Lazard and Liberum Capital advising European Goldfields.

* * *

Join GATA here:

The Silver Summit
Thursday-Friday, October 20-21, 2011
Davenport Hotel, Spokane, Washington

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New Orleans Investment Conference
Wednesday-Saturday, October 26-29, 2011
Hilton New Orelans Riverside Hotel

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Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins:

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Help keep GATA going

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:

http://www.gata.org

To contribute to GATA, please visit:

http://www.gata.org/node/16

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Bernanke Getting Cold Feet On European Bank Bail Out?

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 02:03 PM PDT

from ZeroHedge:

Two weeks after Bernanke agreed to invest unlimited taxpayer funds in the form of global FX swap lines to prevent a worldwide dollar funding squeeze arising from the Europen financial collapse, the Chairman appears to be getting cold feet. BusinessWeek reports: "The Federal Reserve Bank of New York may ask foreign lenders for more detailed daily reports on liquidity as the U.S. steps up monitoring of risks from Europe's sovereign debt crisis, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Regulators held informal talks with some of the largest European lenders about producing a "fourth-generation daily liquidity" or 4G report, according to the people, who asked for anonymity because communications with central bankers are confidential. The reports may cover potential liabilities such as foreign-exchange swaps and credit-default swaps, said one person. The U.S. has already increased the number of examiners embedded in these banks, the person said." In other words, not only after Bernanke's pledge to fund as much money as is needed to prevent bank defaults around the world, is he actually going to have enough information to determine if there is any danger of this money not getting repaid. Well, better late than never. But at least we can permanently set aside any latent questions over whether European banks have liquidity problems. When even the Fed no longer believes you, you have far bigger problems than just liquidity (except for Dexia: liquidity there may well be the largest problem, but at least it won't be for long).

Read More @ ZeroHedge.com

“Gold Is A Most Volatile, Unstable, Fickle And Risky Asset”

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 01:59 PM PDT

by Robert Lenzner, Forbes.com:

So blows the constant trumpet of NYU economist Nouriel Roubini, who is trying to recapture his crown as prognosticator-in-chief that he held back in 2008 for his extraordinarily accurate scenario of the financial meltdown cum crisis. You might wonder why Roubini didn't sound off at gold's recent peak of $1920 an ounce, prior to its inglorious retreat below $1600.

The gold crowd, who have been licking their wounds lately, won't be happy either with CNN's GPS host Fareed Zakaria,, who came down hard this morning on all that glitters. Zakaria first blasted the "scare mongerers like Glen Beck for his absurd mantra on "gold, God and guns."

Then, Zakaria, a newsman who knows more about Pakistani politics than precious metals, chastised gold for being a "symbol that can fall out of favor.. It's not a share, not a bond, not oil," the CNN anchor went on. Someday, he suggested, tongue in cheek, you might find that a can of baked beans will be worth more than a bar of gold."

Read More @ Forbes.com

Jim's Mailbox

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 01:08 PM PDT

Hi Jim,

This is good news for gold mining companies.

All the best, CIGA Omid

Qatari wealth fund plans $10bn gold buying spree The Qatari Royal family plans to spend up to $10bn (£6.4bn) buying stakes in gold producers through their sovereign wealth fund, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. By Garry White 10:30PM

Continue reading Jim's Mailbox

KWN Exclusive: Martin Armstrong - Gold’s Next Move

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 10:38 AM PDT

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Qatari Wealth Fund Plans $10 Billion Gold Buying Spree

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 10:10 AM PDT

[Ed Note: If you think the run in gold and silver is over, stay tuned. It's just heating up.]

By Garry White

The Qatari Royal family plans to spend up to $10bn (£6.4bn) buying stakes in gold producers through their sovereign wealth fund, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The fund is seeking to invest in a range of natural resources, but gaining access to physical gold is its top strategic priority.
On Sunday, Qatar Holdings, which controls the wealth of the Middle East state's royal family, confirmed it would invest about $1bn in European Goldfields, a London-listed miner currently developing the largest gold-mining project in Greece.

Read More @ Telegraph.co.uk

Gold Market Update

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 10:04 AM PDT

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 10:00 AM PDT

Previously, we brought you parts one, two and three of the Canadian must see documentary "Meltdown." In this final episode "After the Fall", we hear about the sheikh who says the crash never happened; a Wall Street king charged with fraud; a congresswoman who wants to jail the bankers; and the world leaders who want a re-think of capitalism. As one world leader handles the crisis through denial, other leaders try to re-think capitalism. Even though the causes of the 2008 meltdown are now clear, there is no magic formula to stop it from happening again. The world has to start planning for the next crisis, even as we recognise that this one is not over yet.

Courtesy of Al Jazeera

Meltdown - The Conclusion: "After The Fall"

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 10:00 AM PDT

Courtesy of Al Jazeera

Hokey Pokey Plan

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 09:50 AM PDT

(Taken from the Week Ahead Section of Stock World Weekly)

The Fed announced its upcoming schedule for "Operation Twist." The Fed plans to buy approximately $44 billion long-term treasuries funded by its sale of approximately $44 billion short-term bonds in October. While this program was named after the dance craze of the early 60's, a more appropriate name might be "Operation Hokey Pokey," since it is a simple program of exchanging short bonds for long bonds, or in other words "you put your short bonds in, you pull your long bonds out, you put your short bonds in and you shake them all about."

One of the purported beneficiaries of the Fed's policy is the housing market because "Operation Twist" is expected to push interest rates down for home mortgages, which will (hopefully) put more money in homeowners' pockets, and ultimately the economy at large.

The housing market can use the help. A recent survey of economists, analysts and real estate professionals concluded that the "housing market remains shaky and is unlikely to deliver significant growth in prices over the next five years." On the other hand, many question the wisdom of the Fed's intervention. Robert Shiller, cofounder of MacroMarkets, opined "markets and government institutions are visibly struggling to respond consistently to an unprecedented rash of crises and conflicts. These struggles diminish confidence, which compounds the underlying economic stresses and lowers expectations." (Five more years of housing problems, with some stability in local markets)

Paul Craig Roberts questioned the potential efficacy of the Fed's Hokey Pokey program. In Saving the Rich, Losing the Economy, he wrote, "The Federal Reserve announced that the bank would purchase $400 billion of long-term Treasury bonds over the next nine months in an effort to drive long-term US interest rates even further below the rate of inflation, thus maximizing the negative rate of return on the purchase of long-term Treasury bonds. The Federal Reserve officials say that this will lower mortgage rates by a few basis points and renew the housing market.

"The officials say that QE 3, unlike its predecessors, will not result in the Federal Reserve printing more dollars in order to monetize US debt. Instead, the central bank will raise money for the bond purchases by selling holdings of short-term debt. Apparently, the Federal Reserve believes it can do this without raising short-term interest rates, because back during the recent debt-ceiling-government-shutdown-crisis, the Federal Reserve promised banks that it would keep the short-term interest rate (essentially zero) constant for two years.

"The Fed's new policy will do far more harm than good. Interest rates are already negative. To make them more so will have no positive effect. People aren't buying houses because interest rates are too high, but because they are either unemployed or worried about their jobs and do not see a recovering economy.

"Already insurance companies can make no money on their investments. Consequently, they are unable to build their reserves against claims. Their only alternative is to raise their premiums. The cost of a homeowner's policy will go up by more than the cost of a mortgage will decline. The cost of health insurance will go up. The cost of car insurance will rise. The Federal Reserve's newly announced policy will impose more costs on the economy than it will reduce.

"In addition, in America today savings earn nothing. Indeed, they produce an ongoing loss as the interest rate is below the inflation rate. The Federal Reserve has interest rates so low that only professionals who are playing arbitrage with algorithm-programmed computer models can make money. The typical saver and investor can get nothing on bank CDs, money market funds, municipal and government bonds. Only high risk debt, such as Greek and Spanish bonds, pay an interest rate that is higher than inflation.

"For four years interest rates, when properly measured, have been negative. Americans are getting by, maintaining living standards, by consuming their capital. Even those with a cushion are eating their seed corn. The path that the US economy is on means that the number of Americans without resources to sustain them will be rising."

Lee Adler of the Wall Street Examiner reported on unusual activity in the Treasuries markets recently. He wrote, "Foreign central bank dumping of Treasuries and Agencies reached record levels this week, far beyond anything seen in the 9 years since I started tracking this data. The last time anything remotely similar happened was at the top of the bull market in the summer of 2007, and those levels pale by comparison with what is going on today. Furthermore, this is no flash in the pan. This has been going on for 4 weeks, and has been growing for the past 3. Over the past 9 years, there has never been a time when FCBs were sellers of their Treasury and Agency debt for 4 weeks in a row. I do not believe that the bull market in bonds can survive under these conditions, regardless of what the Fed does. If the runs on European banks, bank paper, and sovereign debt subside, by even a little, it's over.

"Furthermore, this withdrawal of FCB liquidity from the US market, combined with no net new liquidity from the Fed, should keep stock prices under pressure. For months falling stock prices have gone hand in hand with rising bond prices and falling yields. Any reversal in the trend of bond yields may not be accompanied by a similar reversal in stock prices, or at least not to the same degree. We need to be alert for any signs of a shift in these correlations in the weeks ahead." (Foreign Central Banks Massively Dump Treasuries)

We will also be keeping an eye on the U.S. Dollar, which had been running in a channel between 73 and 76 from April through early September. More recently, it broke higher into the 76 to 79 range. Phil wrote, "We anticipate the rising Dollar to adversely effect the earnings of companies that earn a lot of revenues overseas. Clearly in this environment, it is very difficult to push through price increases and, if revenues are the same in Euros, then they will be lower when the company reports them in Dollars – a simple enough premise."

The big question of the day is, are we going to see a strengthening economy, or are we going to backslide into recession? Many are thinking the latter. EconMatters sees multiple reasons that the economy is already contracting, including the falling prices of oil, cotton, copper and the S&P 500. (4 Market Signs Signaling a Recession)

And what about the stock market? Phil wrote, "Keep in mind, we are still around 2/3 cash in our (virtual) allocations. That keeps us flexible but it's no reason to be careless. Our main job, as we retest the bottom of our range for the forth time since early August, is to decide if "this time is different." Is this case the same as 2008 when the Global Economy is going off a cliff and we can just throw VALUE out the window as panicked traders sell their stocks at any PRICE? Or is this another opportunity for us to be greedy when others are fearful, and pick up some great VALUES at low PRICES?

"With 500-point weekly swings and 1,000 point monthly swings since July – it's a fantastic market to trade in but you have to have that balance and, if we do begin to fail our major supports – we also have to have restraint because what looks like a bargain today may not seem like one after Greece defaults or a major bank fails or AAPL misses earnings or some other kind of major catastrophe." (Weekend Update - Are We Bear Yet?)

As always, determining the difference between "price" and "value" is critical for making good trading decisions in the markets. For now, we're not quite bearish yet, and since our current strategy of "cashy and cautious" has been working for us, we'll continue to stick with it until it makes sense to change our stance.

Free trial to Stock World Weekly here >

Robert Lenzner: Even after smashdown, gold surpasses everything else

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 08:00 AM PDT

'Gold Is a Most Volatile, Unstable, Fickle, and Risky Asset'

By Robert Lenzner
Forbes.com
Sunday, October 2, 2011

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2011/10/02/gold-is-a-most-vola...

So blows the constant trumpet of NYU economist Nouriel Roubini, who is trying to recapture the crown as prognosticator-in-chief that he held back in 2008 for his extraordinarily accurate scenario of the financial meltdown-cum-crisis. You might wonder why Roubini didn't sound off at gold's recent peak of $1,920 an ounce, prior to its inglorious retreat below $1,600.

The gold crowd, who have been licking their wounds lately, won't be happy either with CNN's GPS host Fareed Zakaria, who came down hard this morning on all that glitters. Zakaria first blasted the "scare mongerers like Glenn Beck for his absurd mantra on 'gold, God, and guns.'"

... Dispatch continues below ...

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Lewis E. Lehrman on How to Solve the U.S. Debt Problem

Lewis E. Lehrman, chairman of the Lehrman Institute, sponsor of The Gold Standard Now project, advises that to reduce the $1 1/2 trillion U.S. deficit, the Republican Party must initiate an investment program.

Working Americans are not saving, which enables the banks to lead the country into a cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust.

Lehrman says: Eliminating the budget deficit of a trillion and a half dollars cannot be done overnight. The proposal by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan was very dramatic -- one Republican called it radical -- but it was not happily received. The solution, of course, is to design an American program for prosperity, because you can solve these entitlement problems with a growing economy. We need a tremendous program of investment, and investment comes from savings. When you pay savers, middle-income professionals, and working people 0 percent at the bank, you are not going to encourage them to save. Then we are left with a bank cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust."

To read more and to sign up for The Gold Standard Now's free, noncommercial, weekly report, "Prosperity through Gold," please visit:

http://www.thegoldstandardnow.org/gata

But then Zakaria, a newsman who knows more about Pakistani politics than precious metals, chastised gold for being a 'symbol that can fall out of favor. It's not a share, not a bond, not oil," the CNN anchor went on. Someday, he suggested, tongue in cheek, "you might find that a can of baked beans will be worth more than a bar of gold."

A sorry bit of journalism that, since many serious investors, including the central banks of China, India, Russia, Thailand, Korea, etc., have been amassing large gold reserves to bolster their paper currency. And other professional investors -- i.e., not speculators -- have purchased positions equal to 5-10 percent of their portfolios as a hedge against the loss of value in the dollar. This includes many pension funds and university endowments.

More to the point: Gold may have sold off its highs but it's still up 15 percent this year and has compounded at even a higher rate of return over the past 11 years. You'd get indigestion from the equivalent hoard of baked beans.

* * *

Qatari wealth fund plans $10bn gold buying spree

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 07:25 AM PDT

The Qatari Royal family plans to spend up to $10bn (£6.4bn) buying stakes in gold producers through their sovereign wealth fund, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Peak Silver?

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 07:17 AM PDT

So, while we may not have achieved peak silver, the white metal is by no means abundant. I still don't think that most people appreciate its rarity.

International Forecaster October 2011 (#1) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 07:14 AM PDT

Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble says there is no secret plan to leverage the EU's bailout plan from $595 billion to $2.7 trillion. This increase, illegal in Germany, would cause a downgrade in the sovereign debt rating of the solvent states. If there is a secret master plan put together with the help of the Fed, it will destroy Germany's constitution and democracy. Social Democrats denounced the back-room dealing and the secrecy. The real implications of such a deal is to put Germany's domestic finances under the control of the EFSF and eventually the European Monetary Union, the EMU. German citizens are being taken to the cleaners, they do not know about these back-room deals. It could lead, once exposed, to a referendum and a new constitution, which would destroy Germany's democracy in order to form government by bureaucrats, who would prepare the EU for the new world order.

Physical Silver Shortage to Follow Paper Selloff

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 07:07 AM PDT

After a decline equal to the magnitude we saw most recently, a physical shortage is almost guaranteed.

Peter Schiff on Gold: Don?t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth!

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 07:00 AM PDT

…[F]ollowing the crowd has never been the reason to buy gold. After all, that same logic would have recommended buying a house in Phoenix five years ago. Since the fundamentals still point to gold’s long-term viability…*why [are] investors responding by selling gold and buying dollars and euros? I was always told not to look a gift horse in the mouth… [so] take advantage of the dip. Words: 880 So says Peter Schiff ([url]www.europac.com[/url])**in edited excerpts from*an article* originally posted at [url]www.TheDailyBell.com[/url] which Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.munKNEE.com (Your Key to Making Money!), has further edited ([ ]), abridged (…) and reformatted below*for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. The author's views and conclusions are unaltered and no personal comments have been included to maintain the integrity of the original article. Please note that this paragraph must be included in any article re-posting to a...

Turns out Qatar, not China, will deal for Greece's gold for pennies

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 06:27 AM PDT

Greece To Miss Budget Deficit Targets, As Usual, While Qatar Prepares A Bailout Pennies-For-Gold Swap Qatar's sovereign wealth fund will invest $1 billion in European Goldfields including $600 million to finance operations in Greece, where the London-based firm has a … Continue reading →

To THe BRiDGE!

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 06:12 AM PDT

Most of you know that one of my favorite techniques is to visually mash historic events as well as cultural icons. Yesterday, I referred to it as "time unraveling." This morning someone asked me what the point was of the protestors assembling and marching downtown. After all, most of the the financial services industry is no longer situated on Wall Street and they, Occupy Wall Street, are just inconveniencing Chinese tourists who have no idea what is going on.

That person caught me at precisely the wrong moment. I was thinking all day about how the venues for these protests are literally a treasure trove of American symbolism and cultural heritage. Liberty Square sits smack in the middle of a golden triangle of Americana. Wall Street and the NYSE (although the latter is a shadow of its peak days of glory), the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, even Chinatown, Little Italy and Union Square are all within a stone's throw.

In this symbolic cauldron we have it all. The situs of raw capitalism, the mighty feat of the engineers, the myth of boundless American abundance (go West young man), the dream of the emigrant, the gateway to liberty, etc etc.

Street democracy is no stranger to this entire vicinage. That is why I find it rather puzzling that so many people do not appreciate the metaphorical power of Occupy Wall Street. I am also amazed at how dumb the media is playing. All the bull shit about the lack of a coherent platform ignores the central theme.

The Republic is is sitting in the emergency room and "Wall Street" is deeply, albeit not exclusively, implicated. Yes, they are being singled out. Jamie Dimon can whine all he wants. You reap what you sow pal.

This is certainly not the first time in history that Wall Street has been singled out for popular outrage. But few would disagree that in this respect, this time...the stakes are very different.

So what about the bridge? I am going to leave it to your left brain lobe to review the evidence and decide for yourself what happened yesterday afternoon. I don't know if the protestors planned to take the bridge or if they were they were channeled there in an elaborate Police "kettling" tactic.

Either way, they all wound up on the bridge. And that bridge is a very rich symbol indeed. First of all, it is a symbol of personal perseverance and triumph. Look up John and William Roebling. They were publicly ridiculed for suggesting that a bridge could span the East River. Father died in an on-site accident and son saw it through to completion even though paralyzed by the same accident.

Once the bridge was built, it was a marvel of modern engineering. It became the earliest symbol of American industrial might, shortly thereafter to be followed by the railroads.

But perhaps most importantly, and many books have been published on the subject, the Brooklyn Bridge captured the public's imagination at a time when American's thought their country was an invincible beacon of liberty, hope and optimism.

The following is a famous poem by Hart Crane. It is not an easy poem to read. But it is full of all of the imagery that emanates from that bridge.

Truthfully, I never read the poem until today. Read it and then ponder where we were roughly a century ago and where we now find ourselves. It is time well spent.

Personally, I am grateful to all of the people downtown who are publicly expressing the frustrations and emotions that so many Americans of different walks and political persuasions are now feeling. They are doing it without violence, they are doing it with class.

You have heard it so many times before:

We're sick and tired and we're not gonna take it any more.

WB7

TO BROOKLYN BRIDGE

Hart Crane

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty--

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away;
--Till elevators drop us from our day . . .

I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights
With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene
Never disclosed, but hastened to again,
Foretold to other eyes on the same screen;

And Thee, across the harbor, silver-paced
As though the sun took step of thee, yet left
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,--
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!

Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks,
A rip-tooth of the sky's acetylene;
All afternoon the cloud-flown derricks turn . . .
Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.

And obscure as that heaven of the Jews,
Thy guerdon . . . Accolade thou dost bestow
Of anonymity time cannot raise:
Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show.

O harp and altar, of the fury fused,
(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)
Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge,
Prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry,--

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path--condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City's fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year . . .

O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies' dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.

[WB7: If you google the title of the poem, you will see that it has been the subject of a great deal of social and philosophical commentary and critique]

.

.

.

Greece To Miss Budget Deficit Targets, As Usual, While Qatar Prepares A Bailout Pennies-For-Gold Swap

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 05:55 AM PDT

As the Greek parliament meets to finalize huge public sector job cuts, Reuters is reporting that Greece will miss the deficit targets set in its EU/IMF bailout this year and next... We would say "again" but at this point "as usual" makes far more sense, Why this should come as a surprise to anyone is beyond us but the next steps by the Troika (as again and again targets are not met and yet still bank-extending-and-pretending-funding is provided) will be fascinating as they switch from carrot to stick and back to carrot perhaps. Assuming, of course, the "wildcat strikes" at all the government institutions allows access for Troika member to them at some point in the near to long-term future. Add to this the comment from the Deputy Leader of the CSU (one of Merkel's tri-party coalition) that Greece would find it easier to recover outside the currency bloc and rhetoric remains high. The biggest winner: Qatar which just snuck in some recycled petrodollars into Greece, which will last the kleptocorrupt government about 1 week, in exchange for Greek gold.

Deutschland sets to pace of what to expect from the EURUSD in two hours:

"I believe it is a solution, if one wants to bring Greece back into a economically stable competitive condition, that this would be done outside the euro zone,"

More from Reuters:

Greece will miss the deficit targets set in its EU/IMF bailout this year and next as it faces worse-than-expected recession, sources said ahead of the adoption by the cabinet of the 2012 draft budget on Sunday.

Greece sees its 2011 budget deficit reaching 8.5 percent of GDP this year, missing a 7.6 percent target, the documents set to be approved by the cabinet show, two sources said.

The budget draft foresees that the deficit will be brought down to 6.8 percent of GDP, above a 6.5 percent target in the bailout that saved Greece from bankruptcy, the sources said.

In the same documents, Greece sees its economy contracting by 5.5 percent this year and 2 percent next year. This is in line with the IMF's World Economic Outlook, published last month, but much worse than the projections used for the July bailout negotiations, which predicted the country's economy would return to growth next year.

Athens blames its failure to meet EU/IMF deficit targets on the worse-than-forecast contraction of the economy, while its lenders say failure to push through much-needed structural reforms is also largely to blame.

A deeper-than-expected recession makes it harder for Greece to collect revenues and meet its deficit targets. It also makes the impact of austerity measures such as tax hikes and wage cuts weigh harder on people.

At least it is always somebody's fault.

The good news, at least for Qatar, is that the Arab country will provide some much needed funding... in exchange for gold.

Qatar's sovereign wealth fund will invest $1 billion in European Goldfields including $600 million to finance operations in Greece, where the London-based firm has a permit to mine gold, the fund's head said on Saturday.

It was the second major investment in Greece by the Gulf state in two months. Qatar struck a deal in August to provide funding for a merger of two of the recession-hit country's largest banks.

Greece, which is in dire need of private investment as its worst recession in four decades is seen extending into next year, has long sought to convince the wealthy emirate to invest in its private and public companies.

Qatar Holdings will buy a 10 percent stake in European Goldfields from Greek building firm Ellaktor (HELr.AT) and has a call option to buy another 5 percent, CEO Ahmad al-Sayed said after a meeting between Greek and Qatari officials in Athens.

"In total, we will invest in the company about $1 billion," Sayed told reporters.

And in a shocking twist of Ph.D. fate, Greek spam factories remain without any Petrodollar funding.

Gold price suppression is 'conspiracy theory' only to those who won't look at facts

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 05:20 AM PDT

Contrary to Connor's assertion, the gold cartel is hardly "invisible." It has been visible since before any of us were born. But the visibility here is like that in the Hans Christian Andersen fable "The Emperor's New Clothes," as it is bad business to get in the way of powerful governments and financial institutions generally, and bad business particularly for those who would make a living applying traditional technical analysis to markets to admit that they may have been dissecting mere holograms. Gold price suppression is "conspiracy theory" only to those who refuse to examine the documentation offered to them.

Alasdair Macleod: EU elite lost at sea

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 04:47 AM PDT

12:40p ET Sunday, October 2, 2011

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Economist and former banker Alasdair Macleod, who spoke at GATA's Gold Rush 2011 conference in London in August, writes today at GoldMoney that Europe's main problems are ever-growing government and ever-weakening currency. Macleod writes:

"The deterioration in the underlying quality of private-sector business, the result of central planning and needless regulation, has been concealed by the expansion of bank credit, which has fueled both private- and public-sector debt. According to the International Monetary Fund, at the end of 2010 gross government debt-to-GDP for the Euro area was 87%, and household debt 72%, giving a total of 159%. Germany itself was running a combined total of 142%, which is often overlooked. On these figures alone, it is clear that the Keynesian solution of more government spending as the route to salvation is unaffordable, whatever the economic arguments."

Macleod's essay is headlined "EU Elite Lost at Sea" and you can find it at the GoldMoney Internet site here:

http://www.goldmoney.com/gold-research/eu-elite-lost-at-sea.html?gmrefco...

Along with your secretary/treasurer, the monetary historian and GATA consultant Edwin Vieira, and industrialist and gold standard advocate Lewis E. Lehrman, Macleod will speak at the fall dinner meeting of the Committee for Monetary Research and Education on Thursday, October 20, in New York City. You can find information about attending that dinner here:

http://www.gata.org/node/10334

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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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

Join GATA here:

The Silver Summit
Thursday-Friday, October 20-21, 2011
Davenport Hotel, Spokane, Washington

http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48

New Orleans Investment Conference
Wednesday-Saturday, October 26-29, 2011
Hilton New Orelans Riverside Hotel

http://www.neworleansconference.com/

Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins:

https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12

Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt:

http://gata.org/tshirts

Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009:

http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal

Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon:

http://www.goldrush21.com/

Help keep GATA going

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:

http://www.gata.org

To contribute to GATA, please visit:

http://www.gata.org/node/16

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Prophecy Platinum Drills 120.9 Meters
Grading 1.26 g/t PGM+Au at Yukon Wellgreen Project

Company Press Release
Monday, September 26, 2011

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) has announced the drill results received from its 2011 drilling Wellgreen platinum group elements, nickel, and copper project in the Yukon Territory.

Borehole WS11-188 encountered 457 meters of mineralization grading 0.47% nickel equivalent (including 0.72 grams per ton platinum, paladium, and gold) from surface to the footwall contact. Within this larger swath of mineralization, the hole encountered a high-grade section of 17.8 meters of 3.14 grams per ton platinum, palladium, and gold, 1.03% nickel, and 0.74% copper (1.77% nickel equivalent).

The hole was drilled completely outside of current resource boundaries, between the East Zone resource and the West Zone resource that was reported in the company's press release no July 14, 2011.

The high-grade intercept located between the two resources not only demonstrates that the East and West Zone resource form a single, geologically contiguous body but also indicates that the higher-grade material in the East Zone continues to the west and at depth at Wellgreen.

For drill result tables and maps, please see the company's full press release here:

http://www.prophecyplat.com/news_2011_sep26_prophecy_platinum_wellgreen_...

Scott Gardner: Europe's Debt Crisis and Its Effect on Gold

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 04:00 AM PDT

If you want to know the future, pay attention to the decisions European policymakers will have to make regarding debt, says Scott Gardner, chief investment officer at Verdmont Capital. In an exclusive interview with The Gold Report, he shares his analysis of debt policy investment implications.

Credit Dislocated, Again

Posted: 02 Oct 2011 03:51 AM PDT

We have discussed the dynamics of the credit-equity-vol relationship for many months in the hope that it broadens investment horizons and opens traders' eyes to a bigger picture of global risk appetite. Following (and understanding) the debt-equity relationship has proved, in general, a very useful instrument in an investor's toolkit and Barclay's Capital this week points to just how dislocated European credits are relative to stocks (having underperformed) and while we may not be quite as exuberant as them in the call to add credit exposure here (as we see more structural than cyclical concerns ahead), we cannot argue that on a relative-value basis, arguments for significant re-allocation from bonds to stocks simply do not make sense (from both valuation and risk perspectives) - no matter how many times Pisani tells us so.

From Barclay's Capital: European Credit On Deck:

Credit strongly underperformed equities over the past week, as the market struggled to follow the equity rally sparked by weekend rumors about potential new sweeping initiatives to contain the sovereign crisis in Europe. While the Eurostoxx 50 has gained almost 9% since last Friday's close, iTraxx Main is only 4bp tighter – well below the tightening expected given the recent relationship between the two indices (Figure 1). We do not see a fundamental reason for this disconnect and expect some normalization in the near term.

From a historical perspective, the current underperformance is in line with a general theme of credit underperforming equities in periods of elevated market volatility. To illustrate this effect, in Figure 2 we show the rolling average of 3-month z-scores from CDS-equity regressions for constituents of the iTraxx Main S15. Average z-score measures the extent to which current CDS spreads deviate on average from levels implied by equity prices.

A positive value indicates that credit is trading wide relative to what the equity performance would imply (and vice versa). Over the past four years, spikes in market volatility, as measured by the VSTOXX, have tended to coincide with jumps in the average z-score, highlighting credit market's unusually strong negative sensitivity to volatility. The most prominent of such instances include:

August 2007 – the beginning of the financial crisis;

Late 2008 – the Lehman collapse;

May 2010 – the first Greek bailout.

Conversely, periods of credit outperformance have been typically accompanied by low or falling volatility. In other words, since 2007, credit has led equity markets in any downturn, even as the relationship has normalized over longer periods of time.

When broken down to the sectoral level, its interesting to note that the recent credit underperformance has been consistent across non-financial sectors, with financials being the only sector in which CDS, on average, are trading in line with stocks. Given the close connection between sovereign solvency and bank impairments, it is not surprising that the financial sector has shown a stronger linkage in performance across asset classes. Nonetheless, the significant underperformance of all other sectors relative to equities leads us to argue that credit is poised for outperformance whichever direction the market turns from here. If the rally continues, then on a beta-adjusted basis credit has a long way to go to catch up with equities, while if market softness continues, credit widening should be limited by the fact that it is not very far from the recent (and all-time) wides at the index level.