saveyourassetsfirst3 |
- 7 Vastly Undervalued Energy Stocks Poised To Pop
- 6 ETFs That Are Forever Holds
- Ampio's Zertane: A Multi-Purpose Drug Potentially Worth Multi-Billions
- Breakup Risk In Europe Rises
- 8 Stocks Insiders Are Buying Right Now
- 7 Strong Energy Stocks With Significant Upside Potential
- WATCH: Gold and Silver News 10.18.11
- Richard Russell: This is a modern day Depression
- A cheap new place to buy gold and silver you probably haven't considered
- Chinese gold production continues to increase
- Devaluation of the Words on the Dollar Bill
- Silver Market Update
- Continued Rally?
- China data and French concerns weigh on markets
- Hong Kong Starts Trading Gold in Yuan to Tap ‘Triple Demand’
- Is Silver the Next Apple? - King World News Special
- ECB Forced to Print, Gold's Lowest Target $3,000: Greg Weldon
- South Carolina mine sparks mini-gold rush to the Southeast
- Mining giant sparks Europe's new gold rush
- Financial repression means long-term inflation, steadily rising gold, Rickards says
- Gold coins in demand, jewellery loses sheen
- Hong Kong Starts Trading Gold in Yuan to Tap 'Triple Demand'
- Gold & Silver Market Morning, October 18, 2011
- BrotherJohnF: Silver Update – “Bottoming” – 10.18.11
- Peak Gold, easier to model than Peak Oil ? Part II
- Gold ETFs gaining in popularity in emerging markets
- Gold vs. Gold Mining: Wrong Question, Part II
- Man vs. Universe
- Appetite for Wealth Destruction
- Our Money System
| 7 Vastly Undervalued Energy Stocks Poised To Pop Posted: 18 Oct 2011 06:41 AM PDT By David Alton Clark: Global oil and gas energy company shares fell 21 percent in the third quarter, the worst three months since 2008. Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have forecast a rush of oil and gas buyouts. The oil and gas industry's recent horrific collapse has heralded a surge of takeovers in the US oil patch as Asian buyers put enormous amounts of cash to work. The writing is on the wall, oil and gas companies are currently undervalued. Once the European sovereign debt issues are resolved and the global recovery kicks in, oil and gas companies will return to their high flying nature, I have no doubt. These seven oil and gas stocks have positive catalysts for future growth and PEG ratios of less than or equal to 1. The PEG ratio is a broadly used indicator of a stock's prospective worth. It is preferred by numerous Complete Story » | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 18 Oct 2011 06:19 AM PDT The word "forever" means different things to different people, but in this case, I really do believe that these six ETFs could be purchased for a long-term portfolio and never sold. The fact is that the sectors and/or industries that these ETFs represent should form the absolute rock-solid core of any diversified portfolio. And yes, I hold them all in my portfolio. PowerShares Dynamic Oil & Gas Services ETF (PXJ) is an important play for me. I like holding the big oil producers like ExxonMobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP) and BP (BP) for their solid dividends (2.4%, 3.1%, 3.8%, and 4.2% respectively), but I want to be invested in the guys who sell the picks and shovels, not the ones mining for the gold, if you know what I mean. You get a basket of stocks including Rowan Companies (RDC), Weatherford (WFT), Transocean (RIG), and Baker Hughes (BHI). These Complete Story » | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ampio's Zertane: A Multi-Purpose Drug Potentially Worth Multi-Billions Posted: 18 Oct 2011 06:01 AM PDT By Timeless Wealth: Where an estimated 23% of men ail worldwide, a multi-billion dollar market exists – and one pharmaceutical company sees justified cause for entry. Premature Ejaculation (PE) is four times as common as Erectile Dysfunction (ED), according to Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (AMPE), the maker of one of two drugs approved by regulatory bodies to treat PE. The other drug aimed at fixing the most common sexual dysfunction problem among men is Priligy, an SSRI antidepressant held by healthcare conglomerate Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). The bitter-sweet case for Priligy, however, rests with a 'black box' warning for suicide risk as a PE medicine. Zertane offers the distinction of efficacy and an extended safety profile over and above Priligy's. Additionally, Ampio Pharmaceuticals has erected barriers to entry by holding patents on Zertane in 32 countries. Commercialization Strategy Ampio Pharmaceuticals is engaging regional partners that can distribute Zertane in their local market. The underlying Complete Story » | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 18 Oct 2011 05:49 AM PDT By David Urban: The EU stumbled in Slovakia last week as they questioned why an EU member who plays within the rules and has the lowest average salaries in the eurozone should bail out a country with three times their pensions and a history of noncompliance. In the wake of UBS's $2 billion dollar forex loss caused by the pegging of the Swiss Franc to the Euro trading desks around the world are running simulations regarding a potential Greek default. Books are becoming more and more vanilla as we approach the tipping point. The EU now wants to reopen the July agreement which called for bondholders to take a 21% haircut in hopes of raising the haircut to 50% or more. Two questions immediately spring to mind. 1. If you thought there was even a remote possibility of a 50% forced write down of Greek debt, why would you invest in European banks Complete Story » | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8 Stocks Insiders Are Buying Right Now Posted: 18 Oct 2011 05:34 AM PDT By Insider Monkey: Corporate insiders have material non-public information and they sometimes trade based on such information. Other times they have an edge because they know their companies and industries better than almost all other investors. We believe that by imitating the investments of the insiders, investors are more likely to beat the market in the long term. Below we compiled a list of stocks insiders are buying right now. All stocks have at least $2 billion market cap and were purchased by at least one insider during the past seven days.
Alcoa, Inc. (AA): Alcoa Inc is engaged in the Complete Story » | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 7 Strong Energy Stocks With Significant Upside Potential Posted: 18 Oct 2011 05:26 AM PDT By David Alton Clark: Global oil and gas energy company shares fell 21 percent in the third quarter, the worst three months since 2008. Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have forecast a rush of oil and gas buyouts. The oil and gas industry's recent horrific collapse has heralded a surge of takeovers in the US oil patch as Asian buyers put enormous amounts of cash to work. The writing is on the wall, oil and gas companies are currently undervalued. Once the European sovereign debt issues are resolved and the global recovery kicks in, oil and gas companies will return to their high flying nature, I have no doubt. These seven oil and gas stocks have positive catalysts for future growth and PEG ratios of less than or equal to 1. The PEG ratio is a broadly used indicator of a stock's prospective worth. It is preferred by numerous Complete Story » | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| WATCH: Gold and Silver News 10.18.11 Posted: 18 Oct 2011 02:54 AM PDT Gold and Silver's Christian Garcia with your Tuesday 10.18.11 Gold and Silver news.
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| Richard Russell: This is a modern day Depression Posted: 18 Oct 2011 01:14 AM PDT From Pragmatic Capitalism: I wouldn't know what one looks like, so who am I to question someone who has lived through an actual depression (via Richard Russell): "The signs are growing. I can see the signs in the number of vagrants in La Jolla and south in Pacific Beach. As I drive by, I see little clusters of men and women (mostly men) huddled in doorways or sitting in the bushes beside the roads. These are vagrants, always a sign of a severe recession. Men holding cardboard signs stand by the side of the road. The signs read, 'Vet needs work' or 'Single mom needs food for her three children.' Where do these people live? I wonder, where do they sleep? How do they have the energy to stand in the blaring sun all day with their cardboard signs? But they are the signs of hard times. I've seen them before – in the 1930s... Read full article... More from Richard Russell: Richard Russell: The No. 1 reason to avoid stocks today Richard Russell: 12 tips for surviving the "End of America" The great Richard Russell's take on Ben Bernanke and gold | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A cheap new place to buy gold and silver you probably haven't considered Posted: 18 Oct 2011 01:12 AM PDT From Hard Assets Investor: London and New York City may be the primary epicenters to trade gold and silver, yet more investors are finding new ways to buy and sell the two precious metals. One of the newest major channels is eBay's Bullion Center, which opened in May. eBay's online bazaar for gold and silver trading joins several ETFs and Internet-based sites for dealing and storing bullion. San Jose-based eBay touts its Bullion Center as a one-stop shop that links shoppers for precious metals in a single marketplace experience. The featured sellers in the Bullion Center provide free shipping, no hidden fees, and no minimum purchase amount. "The Bullion Center was created as... Read full article... More on precious metals: Gold is approaching a "major crossroads" This is the cheapest place in the world to buy gold today Three ways the government will try to confiscate your gold | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese gold production continues to increase Posted: 18 Oct 2011 01:00 AM PDT China's gold production continues to increase and reached 226,388 metric tons in the first eight months of this year. This corresponds with an increase of 3.87% compared with the same period last ... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Devaluation of the Words on the Dollar Bill Posted: 17 Oct 2011 11:30 PM PDT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 17 Oct 2011 09:53 PM PDT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 17 Oct 2011 09:37 PM PDT Last week ended with a rally and looked like it would continue until earning disappointed to begin Monday. Below are comments on how the market looked at the end of last week. Dow Jones Industrial Average: Closed at 11644.49 +166.36 on 80% of normal volume and rising momentum. Price has been trading ever lower in very wide channel of roughly 1,000 points since the second week of August. Now, we see a new breakout on some unexpected and positive earnings. The price closing rose to just a few points under the important 200-day moving average at 11647.84, hard resistance. Importantly, for next week, the close was above the 20 and 50 day moving averages. Support is 11,500-11,400. With the leading stock index indicator Nasdaq 100, showing a breakout today, we see stocks rising next week. A close at the top of the trading range giving further credence to a rally on Monday. S&P 500 Index: Closed at 1224.58 +20.92 breaking out and above the 20 and 50 day averages. New resistance is the 200-day average at 1234.80; just ten points away. Support is 1225 right on the close. Momentum is up and volume was about 90% or normal. After the price touches, resists and breaks out, up and above the 200-day at 1234.80 on Monday, our next higher objective would be 1250. However, since the 200-day average is a hard nut to crack, the Monday close could be right on that number. If so, in following trading days, the price would move up more, toward the 1250 resistance and support; a major magnet price in the S&P 500 Index. S&P 100 Index: Closed at 554.60 +9.68 touching the 200-day price, resisting and stopping for the close. We find it interesting the S&P 100 closed up with more force than the S&P 500. This leads us to believe fund managers stepped in to take some new positions for the longer view lasting until the end of this year. This point alone tells me the last two weeks of this month might not do any more damage to stocks. New support and resistance is the 200-day moving average at 554.93. The following higher goal would be 565.00. Nasdaq 100 Index: Closed at 2371.94 +45.06 on rising momentum and 90% of normal volume. This is the third rising bull gap up on this chart in five trading days. This is a clear signal to buy all the stocks and stock indexes. However, we are still wary of what happens in Europe on October 23rd when the grand ESFS plan is announced. We pretty much figure all they have is to downgrade Greece 50%, keep them in the Euro-land fold for a little longer and support the crashing bond markets using ESFS bond credit. Interestingly, the ESFS credits have nothing behind them but smoke, mirrors and bad debts. However, I have full confidence in the Euro-bankers to sell this can of worms and bounce all the weakening markets. Technically, the Nasdaq can touch 2400-2450 next week but after that, it has been so strong, the price must correct and backfill on some of those price chart trading gaps to 2250-2350 after touching 2450. 30-Year Bonds: Closed at 138.41 -0.70 on falling momentum and price. Stocks are going up and bonds are going down; old story. New support is the 50 day average at 138.25 and resistance is 140.52 on the 20-day average. Watch for bonds to sell down to 136.50 support. The cycle is to sell between now and mid-December. It will be interesting to see how high the yields can go in this depressed yields market. Some bond traders have been playing dangerously, buying and selling lots of junk bonds for those higher yields. We think this is beyond scary in these markets. The next major support below 136.50 is 135.00, attainable this fall. GDXJ Junior Gold Miners And XAU: The GDXJ closed at 31.02 +0.51 on normal volume and rising momentum. Momentum had hit the very bottom and has now based, supported and curled up. Rally moves in PM shares were not as strong as in the broader markets but they did in fact begin to rise today with the XAU showing a distinct move above the 20-day average at 195.41. Also, importantly, the metal to shares ratio finally got up off the floor and started to rise. It was not a hard move, but showed inclinations to buy. Watch for the XAU to rise to 201.82 on the 50-day moving average next week. The GDXJ is slower but should touch the 50-day average to resist at 32.98. Expect rising PM shares move up at a slower rate than broader markets. Should physical metals speed-up, PM shares could begin to gain more momentum. Gold: Closed at 1681.70 +14.20 after finding support at 1607 and moving steadily up to 1685.00 resistance on our forecasts. The 20-day average at 1683.74 was already touched this week. The 50-day average is 1700-1707. Once past 1707 we see an achievement of gold near 1748.50 resistance; next. We are hopeful of seeing the recent top at $1,923 being hit before the end of this year. If in fact the metals can get up a head of steam, there is a one in four chance we might get to $2,000 before the normal holiday correction. Much of gold's buying power is predicated on activity in Europe and how gracefully they can exit their messes. Silver: Closed at 32.17 +0.30 on based and rising momentum. Price has been trading between $30.00 and 32.50 for the last three weeks. The next resistance is the 20-day average at 33.22, which was the jumping off support point for silver when it had the big rally to $49.00. After 33.22, on the 50-day average; 35.82 is next along with the 200-day at 34.90. Silver has some hard nearby resistance to overcome but if gold can get some zip, silver will follow. Our revised high for this quarter is $38.85 with a chance at $44.00-$45.00. Silver will initially rise slower than gold but then play catch-up next month. US Dollar: Closed at 76.60 -0.35 after nearly touching 80.00 resistance earlier this month. Price dropped down and through a bottom channel support beneath the 20-day moving average. The close was five ticks off the 50-day average 76.65 (now support and resistance) and only 15 ticks above the 200-day at 76.45. Momentum is down with the price but supports were near the 50% retracement level during the last six weeks. A now selling dollar was overbought as the Euro currency finally gained support from announcements and credit plans in Euro-land. Watch for the dollar to trade between 75.50 and 76.50 for the next few days. The Euro will stay supported until Mrs. Merkle's credit news is out on October 23rd. Depending upon how well that news is received, the dollar and Euro trading will reflect the outcome. Crude Oil: Closed at 86.80 +2.22 on rising momentum and a new price breakout from congestion. Price is touching and up under and against an important trading channel line on the close. However, price is above the 20 and 50 day moving averages moving toward 90.71, the 200-day average. With rising stocks and a potential in Europe of a temporary resolution of credit messes, crude oil should rise with other markets on expectations crude oil usage will increase. Further, inflation is moving more swiftly and this can increase prices in a hurry, especially in Asia. Expect a breakout rally next month taking oil to 90.71-92.50 resistance. CRB Index: Closed at 317.18 on based and rising momentum. The price jumped-up today leaving a gap just above 311.28 on the 20-day moving average. With the grains, metals and energy group gaining new ground the CRB made its next move. The 50-day average is new resistance at 320.47, which we should touch on Monday. Then, the following higher number is 328.32 on the 200-day moving average where we see stiffer resistance. Watch for a CRB peak in the second week of November. Several of the December futures and options contracts expire in the second and third week of November and this creates a sell in those prices. -Traderrog         This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| China data and French concerns weigh on markets Posted: 17 Oct 2011 09:30 PM PDT Disappointing Chinese economic data and increasing fears about the health of the French economy have overwhelmed the markets, with losses in gold, silver, commodities and equities. Gold and silver ... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hong Kong Starts Trading Gold in Yuan to Tap ‘Triple Demand’ Posted: 17 Oct 2011 09:20 PM PDT ¤ Yesterday in Gold and SilverGold didn't do much in Far East trading...and the real action started at the open of London trading at 8:00 a.m. local time...3:00 a.m. Eastern. This rally lasted for a couple of hours, but a few minutes after 10:00 a.m. BST...a seller showed up as the dollar turned lower...and by half past lunchtime in London, the gold price was down about a percent...and back to almost it's Friday New York close. A minor rally into the New York open got sold off...and, once again, the gold price got sold down to Friday's New York low. Then at precisely noon in New York, a not-for-profit seller showed up...and in the space of about fifteen minutes, gold was down just under a percent. Each tiny rally after that got sold off...and gold finished at $1,670 spot, down $9.10 on the day. Net volume was pretty light at 109,000 contracts.
The silver price was pretty much a carbon copy of what happened in gold, but the changes in price were quite a bit larger...and the intraday price swing was over 3%. The silver price closed at $31.80 spot...down 36 cents. Volume was pretty light at 34,000 contracts net.
At 10:00 a.m. BST [5:00 a.m. Eastern time] right on the button, the dollar took off like a rocket...with most of the gains coming in the next two hours and fifteen minutes. By 7:15 a.m. Eastern, the dollar was up about 55 basis points from it from the start of the rocket rally. From there, the dollar didn't do much of anything until around 1:00 p.m. Eastern time...and then rose to its high of the day, adding about another 25 basis points, closing around 75 basis points off its low. The gold price pretty much followed the dollar until the not-for-profit seller showed up at noon in New York. But, judging by the slight lag in the turn in the gold price...coming quite a few minutes after 10:00 a.m...the gold price was hit pretty hard precisely because it wasn't co-relating with the dollar. Then, once the not-for-profit seller showed up at precisely 12 o'clock noon Eastern time, the dollar price action and the gold price action were not co-related at all.
All of the precious metals pretty much followed the same script yesterday...and I have no problem at all thinking that the precious metal prices were all driven lower by the New York bullion banks, or their proxies. The precious metals stocks behaved just about like every other stock yesterday...and they pretty much mirrored what happened on Wall Street, with the HUI finishing down 2.63%
The silver stocks got smacked pretty good as well, with Nick Laird's Silver Sentiment Index down 3.85%
(Click on image to enlarge) For whatever reason, the CME did not update their Daily Delivery Report for Monday's activity, as it's still showing Friday's numbers. There were no reported changes in either GLD or SLV yesterday. The U.S. Mint had a sales report again. They sold 3,500 ounces of gold eagles...1,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...and another 502,000 silver eagles. Month-to-date the mint has sold 33,000 ounces of gold eagles...10,500 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...and a very chunky 2,432,000 silver eagles. On Friday, the Comex-approved depositories reported receiving 55,386 ounces of silver...and shipped 686,454 troy ounces out the door. The link to that action is here. Here's a free paragraph from silver analyst Ted Butler's weekend commentary to his paying subscribers. "Silver has not felt like it has outperformed gold over the past two weeks. That's because silver has been subject to almost daily beat-downs above and beyond any interim declines in gold or any other commodity. That's not accidental, in my opinion. Just like the stunning 30% recent price smash (the second of the year), there seems to be a concerted effort to make investors gun shy and uncertain about silver's future investment prospects. What better way to instill doubt than by regularly ripping the rug out from silver prices? It's not hard to come up with a list of candidates behind the effort to make silver look punk...or their motive. As for who is behind the attempts to discredit silver via rotten price action, just round up the usual bunch of commercial suspects, led by JPMorgan. As far as a motive, that's even clearer – in order to get spooked silver longs, especially those on margin, to sell and then to not even think about buying again. One major tool in the intentional attempt to make silver look bad is High Frequency Trading (HFT), the mindless and economically unjustified trading practice infecting many markets. But only in silver is the price-depressing effort taken to such obvious extremes."
I have a lot of stories today. Most of them are either Europe...or precious metals related...so I hope you have the time to wade through them, or at least the introductions I provide. How long they can keep this up is unknown, but they can't keep it up forever, as physical demand is eating them alive from all corners of the planet. Gold coins in demand, jewellery loses sheen. Mining giant sparks Europe's new gold rush. South Carolina mine sparks mini-gold rush to the Southeast. Sprott makes a bet on a different kind of bank. ¤ Critical ReadsSubscribeMatt Taibbi: Break Up the 'Too-Big-to-Fail' Financial Behemoths that Destroyed the EconomyThis week, finance industry journalist Matt Taibbi put together a list of five political demands Occupy Wall St. protestors could agitate for. First on his list was the breakup of the "too-big-to-fail" financial institutions holding the global economy hostage. In the following transcript from "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," Taibbi elaborates on how to break up the financial behemoths that sunk the economy. This piece was posted over at Rolling Stone magazine last Friday...but this version is from the alternet.org website. I thank Roy Stephens for sending it along...and the link is here.  Cars burn, police and demonstrators injured as Rome rocked by most violent protests for yearsTens of thousands of people took to the streets of the Italian capital to protest peacefully, but several dozen mask-wearing anarchists broke free from the main demonstration to rampage through the city. Police fired tear gas and water cannons as rioters smashed shop and bank windows, set fire to cars and hurled bottles. Some protesters carried clubs, others wielded hammers. They destroyed bank cash machines, set bins on fire and assaulted at least two news crews from Sky Italia. At least 70 protesters were injured and three were reported to be in critical condition. Twenty five of the injured were treated at a field clinic near St John Lateran square, where most of the clashes between protesters and police occurred, while the rest were taken to hospitals around the city. More than 30 policemen were hurt. This story was posted in The Telegraph on Saturday afternoon...and is another Roy Stephens offering. The link is here.  German foreign minister hits out at US over debt crisisGuido Westerwelle told the Bild am Sonntag weekly: "Let us not forget that the cause of the current crisis is too much debt in Europe, but also too much debt worldwide. "Therefore, I cannot understand some of the critical comments from our American friends regarding our policy of reducing debt." Westerwelle's remarks were the latest in a series of barbs between Berlin and Washington over Europe's perceived dithering over the crisis. Like I said, the U.S. rating agencies...which the U.S. government is using as a weapon of mass destruction against Europe...will downgrade everything European until the cows come home...anything to keep the world's eyes off the economic, financial and monetary disaster that exists inside the USA. This story is from the Sunday Telegraph...and is Roy's third offering in row. The link is here.  Europe's lost decade as $7 trillion loan crunch loomsEurope's banks face a $7 trillion lending contraction to bring their balance sheets in line with the US and Japan, threatening to trap the region in a credit crunch and chronic depression for a decade. The risk is "Japanisation" without the benefits of Japan: without a single government, or a trade super-surplus, or 1pc debt costs, or unique social cohesion. Even today, the jobless rate for youth is near 10pc in Japan. It is already 46pc in Spain, 43pc in Greece, 32pc in Ireland, and 27pc in Italy. We will discover over time what yet more debt deleveraging will do to these societies. Stephen Jen from SLJ Macro Partners says the loan to deposit (LTD) ratio of Europe's lenders is 1.2, much like Japanese banks in the early 1990s at the onset of the country's Lost Decade (now two decades). I thank reader Neil Stansbury for sharing this story that was posted in The Telegraph on Sunday...and the link is here.  The Next Domino? Top Economists Warn of France DowngradeWith the euro crisis going from bad to worse, it is looking increasingly likely that France may not be able to emerge unscathed. Indeed, leading German economists on Monday told the website of financial daily Handelsblatt that French debt is likely to be downgraded in the months to come. "A new bailout package for debt-stricken countries in the southern part of the currency union will also strain French state finances," Jörg Krämer, chief economist for the German banking giant Commerzbank, told the website. "In the coming year, the country could lose its top AAA rating." Thorsten Polleit, chief economist of Barclays Capital Deutschland, agrees. "The problems of their domestic banks could result in significant additional pressure for the financial situation of the French state," he told the Handelsblatt website. This story was posted over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and is Roy's fourth contribution to this column. The link is here.  The World from Berlin: 'The Protests Are an Expression of Bitter Disappointment'Hundreds of thousands of protesters demonstrated in hundreds of cities around the world on Saturday against banks and the global financial system. In Germany, the main marches took place in Berlin and the country's financial center, Frankfurt. Demonstrators mounted protests in around 50 German cities, with total participation of more than 40,000 people according to Attac, one of the events' organizers. Taking their cue from the "Occupy Wall Street" movement in the United States, they took to the streets with their "We are the 99 percent" message to draw attention to the negative effects of a financial and economic crisis that has driven millions of people into poverty and was triggered by severe excesses by the world's banks and financial system. In a rare development, the protests drew widespread support from politicians in Germany and Europe, who are currently wrestling with banks to increase the participation of private creditors in the debt bailout currently being planned for Greece. The same politicians are frustrated by their inability in recent years to push through tougher regulations for financial institutions. This is another story posted over at spiegel.de yesterday...and is another Roy Stephens offering. This one is certainly worth the read...and the link is here. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Is Silver the Next Apple? - King World News Special Posted: 17 Oct 2011 09:20 PM PDT  Here's another KWN blog that Eric sent me yesterday afternoon. I found it very interesting reading...and I suggest you run through it if you have the time. It's not overly long...and the graphs are of interest. The link is here. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ECB Forced to Print, Gold's Lowest Target $3,000: Greg Weldon Posted: 17 Oct 2011 09:20 PM PDT  Eric King of King World News fame sent me this Greg Weldon blog from Saturday...and the link is here. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| South Carolina mine sparks mini-gold rush to the Southeast Posted: 17 Oct 2011 09:20 PM PDT  A Canadian mining company and a tiny South Carolina town are leading what could be a modern gold rush to the southeastern United States. Romarco Minerals Inc. reopened the historic Haile Gold Mine near Kershaw, S.C., this year and expects to pour its first gold bar there in early 2014, Chief Executive Diane Garrett told Reuters this week. Once environmental impact studies and permits are complete, Haile will be the only modern gold mine east of the Mississippi River, Garrett said, and the first since the Kennecott Minerals mine closed in Ridgeway, S.C., in 1999. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mining giant sparks Europe's new gold rush Posted: 17 Oct 2011 09:20 PM PDT  The river runs red in Rosia Montana. The rouge-coloured run-off of zinc, iron, arsenic and other sulphides from nearly 2,000 years of gold mining make the waterway in Romania's Transylvanian mountains live up to the area's name, which means red mountain in Romanian. If not deadly, a mouthful or two would certainly not be a good idea but the clean-up plan for this waterway has become a focal point of an epic planning battle over the future of the largest gold mine in Europe. The mine, first exploited by the Romans in 131AD, has a reserve of 10m ounces of gold, putting it in the top 10 of worldwide undeveloped gold assets. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Financial repression means long-term inflation, steadily rising gold, Rickards says Posted: 17 Oct 2011 09:20 PM PDT  Geopolitical analyst James G. Rickards told King World News yesterday that the U.S. government policy of financial repression will force major banks to stop trading for their own accounts and buy mostly U.S. government bonds at negative real interest rates, engineering long-term inflation of 5 percent per year to devalue the dollar by half over 15 years. Meanwhile, Rickards says, governments around the world will buy gold stealthily, pushing the price up, but also cautiously, lest their buying push the price up too fast. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold coins in demand, jewellery loses sheen Posted: 17 Oct 2011 09:20 PM PDT  Rising gold prices may not have severely affected the yellow metal's attractiveness for Indian households but it is slowly altering consumer behavior. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hong Kong Starts Trading Gold in Yuan to Tap 'Triple Demand' Posted: 17 Oct 2011 09:20 PM PDT  Hong Kong's Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society, a century-old bullion bourse, started trading gold quoted in yuan, boosting the city's status as an offshore hub for the currency. The contract may generate as much as HK$6 billion ($770 million) in trades a day, exchange President Haywood Cheung said in an Oct. 14 interview. Daily bullion trading volume at the society, which has 171 active members, has jumped to HK$136 billion this year from last year's HK$31 billion on appetite for gold as a haven from stock declines, he said. "There's triple demand for this yuan product," said Cheung. "Investors can enjoy the bull market in gold, the yuan's appreciation and hedge gold denominated in other currencies against the yuan." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold & Silver Market Morning, October 18, 2011 Posted: 17 Oct 2011 09:00 PM PDT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BrotherJohnF: Silver Update – “Bottoming” – 10.18.11 Posted: 17 Oct 2011 08:30 PM PDT Brother John discusses Jim Willie's latest article, a likely bottoming of the silver price, and a $100 end of year price target.. ~TVR | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Peak Gold, easier to model than Peak Oil ? Part II Posted: 17 Oct 2011 07:30 PM PDT The Oil Drum | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold ETFs gaining in popularity in emerging markets Posted: 17 Oct 2011 05:48 PM PDT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold vs. Gold Mining: Wrong Question, Part II Posted: 17 Oct 2011 05:32 PM PDT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 17 Oct 2011 02:17 PM PDT --Well this should be interesting. The Germans have brought the stock market rally to an abrupt halt with their Teutonic realism. "Dreams that everything will be resolved and dealt with by next Monday cannot be fulfilled," says Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert. The S&P 500 fell by 1.94%. Crude oil was down 1.53% and copper down 2.02%. --You wouldn't want to play poker with the Germans, would you? Are they bluffing and trying to force European bondholders into taking larger haircuts on their Greek bonds? Or do the Germans really have their serious face on? Are they telling everyone else in Europe there will be no easy inflationary way out of this debt trap? --The forbidding news out of Berlin has prevented the S&P 500 from breaking out to new highs. But you can see that there are a lot of traders just itching for an even more powerful fourth quarter rally in "risk" assets. This matters for Australia because "risk" assets include commodities, Aussie stocks, and the Aussie dollar. --For example, Bloomberg reports hedge funds are piling in on the growth/commodities story.
"Speculators boosted their wagers on higher commodity prices for the first time in five weeks as increasing confidence that the global economy will avoid another recession spurred the biggest rally of the year." --Speculators and confidence: the stuff that new highs are made of? --The story reveals that:
"Money managers boosted combined net-long positions across 18 U.S. futures and options by 0.2 percent to 656,691 contracts in the week ended Oct. 11, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show." --What's the trade here then? How about: short the dollar and long commodities? See the chart below. --The dollar index is the blue line. The CRB commodities index is the black line. The weaker the US dollar, the more dollars it takes to buy stuff. You can see that once the fourth quarter began, the CRB rallied and the dollar fell. The question is: why? --Well...why not?! A market isn't a market if people don't have different ideas about what things are going to be worth in the future. But yes...this has the feel of a self-fulfilling (self-deluded) rally. Stocks and commodities are rallying because traders say they must and are putting their money where their mouth is. --The Germans have more spine than the speculators. And at heart, the speculators are just looking to make a buck. Our guess is the speculators will throw in with the dollar against the Euro, and you'll see the US dollar/Treasury bond rally while everything else falls. But we'll see soon enough. --In the meantime, let's get back to the disordered universe we all live in. Yesterday we tried to make the point that trying to redesign an economic system based on ideas like fairness, social justice, and equality is bound to fail. Those may be admirable concepts. But you can't remake the universe in your own image. It just won't work. You'd better quit while you're ahead...and go home and take a shower. --The economy is a complex adaptive system, like an ecosystem, and perhaps like the cosmos itself. As Lee Smolin writes in The Life of the Cosmos...
"A great deal of the order and regularity we find in the physical world might have arisen just as the beauty of the living world came to be: through a process of self- organisation, by means of which the world has evolved over time to be intricately structured." --It is hard for busy-body social scientists and engineers and economists to imagine that given a few simple rules, an economy might self-organise and a complex system emerge. It's hard to believe because the result is that millions of people (nearly 7 billion now) act without knowledge of each other's intentions and without instructions. But they still somehow manage to produce a diverse economic order that offers vocations, employment, incomes and a huge variety of goods and services...without anyone being in charge of it. --The fact that the universe, like the economy, is a changing, dynamic, evolving thing is bound to deeply unsettle some people. Some people prefer eternal truths, unchangeable laws, and the certainty of a highly regulated order in life. These people are usually scared of the future, highly controlling, and naturally gravitate toward politics. Their natural instinct will be to fight back...against the universe. --So get ready for the war to preserve the cosmos...or the war to preserve the old order. In one camp IS the old order, the oligarchs and plutocrats of Europe and America who want the next 100 years to be like the last 100 years. And on the other side is...everyone else. --The situation is evolving and unstable. Only psychopaths and criminals like a revolution. They will be agitating for one. But our guess is that the Occupy Wall Street movement will be pushed, from the margin, into an act of violence that terrifies what's left of the middle class. They will crave for order and demand that someone bring it to them. --By the way, has anyone seen David Petraeus lately? --Next, let's clear up this mess about pensioners. We fear a miscommunication about the word "pensioner". We got some angry mail last week accusing us of bashing pensioners. But the confusion is a result of a language difference. --In Australia, a pensioner is an older person who receives a small government stipend. We weren't referring to those pensioners. We were referring to public sector employees who've used collective bargaining to negotiate taxpayer-funded, defined benefit pensions. These pensioners are now the key players in the decline of the Welfare State. To the aged pensioners who patiently read the DR, no offence intended. You weren't our target. --Reader mail?
Dear Dan --Thanks Tony. We'll keep battling!
Hi Dan --One for Bill...
Dear Bill, --And finally, how to thrive during a fire sale economy...
Dear Nick and Dan, Dan Denning
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| Appetite for Wealth Destruction Posted: 17 Oct 2011 02:04 PM PDT The debt-slave rebellion! Get ready; it's coming...the uprising of the popolo minuto...the revolt of the masses...the Jacquerie! Bloomberg reports:
The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that began last month in Lower Manhattan migrated uptown on Oct. 15, as about 6,000 people gathered in Times Square during what organizers called a "global day of action against Wall Street greed." There were 92 arrests, according to the New York City Police Department. More than 100 people were injured in Rome, where as many as 200,000 amassed, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported. We read reports on the worldwide demonstrations in The Washington Post, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. Nowhere was there the slightest hint at the real problem. Nobody's interested in the real problem. There are two aspects to humans, said the ancient Greeks. There is the "appetite" — which is the rational mind figuring out how to get what it wants. And there is the "spirit" — concerned with intangible things, like honor, status, religion and so forth. It may be the appetite that builds wealth...but it's the spirit that fuels revolutions. People have an innate sense of what's right and what's wrong...what's fair and what's not fair. When they feel they are being cheated...they join the revolution. The press talks about how the rich got richer. Here's The Washington Post:
From 1973 through 1985, as Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, documented in 2009, American banks never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate profits. By the mid-2000s, that figure rose to 41 percent. As with profits, so with pay: For more than three decades, from 1948 to 1982, pay levels in finance ranged from 99 to 108 percent of the average of private- sector pay. By 2007 they had reached 181 percent. But why? How? "Wall Street greed" is the reply given by both the protestors and the press. But wait. Wall Street was just as greedy back when it made 10% of corporate profits. Wall Street is always greedy. So is everyone else. But it wasn't Wall Street's greed that tilted the world's playing field in the direction of the rich. Nope. It was the feds. You've heard our explanation before. We'll give it again...below...and at where this popular revolt might lead. But first, let's look at the news... Friday, the Dow rose 166 points. Stock market investors are ahead for the year. And look at this: oil is trading at $87 a barrel. And gold is moving up too. Is the correction in the gold market over? Looks like it. How about stocks and oil? Are they going back up? Looks like it. But who knows? According to our way of looking at things, they all should be going down. We're in a period of de-leveraging, which is on the verge of tipping into a worldwide depression. This is not the time for oil, gold and stocks to be going up. But Mr. Market doesn't listen to us. He doesn't care what we think. He has plans of his own! Want to know how the rich got richer? Want to know how Wall Street made so much money? We didn't think so. But we'll tell you anyway. The post-1971 US dollar-based monetary system permitted an explosion of credit, which naturally favored the credit industry directly, and the entire financial asset-holding investoriat, indirectly. At the expense of the middle and lower classes. In other words, the expansion of credit, caused by a flexible, expandable money regime, set the whole economy ablaze. The middle and lower classes went deeply into debt to buy things. The "rich" — or at least those who owned stocks and bonds — got richer, as consumer spending lit up the business world, and particularly the financial industry itself. Profits from the financial industry were only about 10% of the total profits on Wall Street in 1970. By the time the credit bubble blew up in 2007 they had grown to 40%. Wages for working stiffs were flat for 40 years. But earnings on Wall Street soared. In 1970, the typical salary in the financial industry was about the same as for equivalent positions in the rest of the economy. But, by the 21st century, Wall Street salaries were nearly twice as high. People who complain about "greedy" executives and rich people miss the point. People — rich and poor — are always greedy. But they don't always have a monetary system that encourages debt and favors investors over working people. This money system was created in 1971 by the Nixon Administration, which probably didn't know what it was doing...and it was later perfected by subsequent Federal Reserve chairmen. In addition to stretching the gap between rich and poor, the non- gold monetary system had one other notable consequence. It undermined the working classes' ability to compete in the modern world. This it did by moving more and more production to the emerging markets. In pre-1971 days, nations had to settle up on their trade balances. That is, when one nation sold more to a neighboring nation than it spent with it, the nation in surplus ended up with an excess of the neighbor's currency. This surplus currency was then presented to the deficit country. The accounts were settled by transferring gold — the monetary system's reserve at the time — from the deficit country to the surplus country. As the gold left, it had a chilling effect on the deficit nation's economy — either because investors caused interest rates to rise or because the central bank pushed them up. This resulted in slower economic growth and less spending, thereby correcting the outflow of funds to the neighbor. It was precisely this self-correcting mechanism that the feds were determined to stop when the Nixon Administration "closed the gold window" at the Treasury department in August of 1971. The US had spent too much on the Vietnam War. French banks, which were still very active in Vietnam, tended to be the recipients of the money...which flowed to the Bank of France. The French, anticipating a problem with the dollar, wanted to exchange dollars for gold. This was the proximate cause of the Nixon Administration's reaction — an actual default on its financial obligations. It was also the cause of the subsequent run up of the price of gold...which was followed by a bust in gold...and thereafter, a huge boom, in which ordinary Americans were lured into debt and coaxed towards poverty. The rich got richer; the poor got poorer. The middle classes got poorer too. Between 1975 and 1992, the wealth of the richest 1% rose from 22% of total national household wealth to 42%. Why? Were the richest more productive? Had they become smarter? Of course not...the playing field had been tilted in their direction! The "ciompi" revolted in the 14th century. They were wool carders in Florence...the "popolo minuto" — the little people — without power or money. They rose up in June 1378, attacked government buildings and by July they were in control of the government. But then, other trade groups got jealous. In August, the butchers attacked them at the Piazza della Signoria. After that, the power of the ciompi declined...until things were back to normal. This was just one of many uprisings of the lower orders in Europe. In France, a peasant named Jacques led a revolt against the authorities in the 14th century. That was just the beginning of a long list of uprisings — Jacqueries — that didn't end until the 18th century. One of the most wrongheaded ideas of the entire 20th century came from Francis Fukayama, who asked — apparently in earnest — if we had reached "The End of History?" He thought modern democracy and modern capitalism had reached such a point of perfection, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, that no improvement was possible. History had come to an end. Jacqueries — he believed — were no longer necessary. Because modern democracy adapted naturally to the challenges it met. If the people had a grievance, all they had to do was to put in a call to their elected representatives. The politicians would discuss the matter and come to a solution, right? Ha, ha, ha....Fukayama misunderstood everything. Democracy. Capitalism. History. Politics. Everything. As an institution matures, little by little it shifts from serving its original purpose to serving the ends of those who control it. It becomes rigid — digging in its heels and resisting any change that would diminish the power and wealth of the controlling groups. The longer the institution remains unchanged, the more parasitic and arthritic it becomes. It drains resources away from honest production and redirects them towards favored groups of leeches. Then...history returns. Then cometh the revolution. Regards, Bill Bonner,
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| Posted: 17 Oct 2011 02:01 PM PDT sounds like the Hyper Kitty |
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