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Sunday, January 15, 2012

Gold World News Flash

Save Your ASSets First

Gold World News Flash

International Forecaster January 2012 (#4) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More

Posted: 16 Jan 2012 03:32 AM PST

Europe continues to predominate the news. At a Monday meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy won the backing of German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a tax on financial transactions. Britain says it won't work unless it is applied worldwide. Britain is correct, but is the UK begging the point. Could Britain have wanted the tax from the beginning, as long as it was global? Of course they would, it is a method of taxing investors, for governments along with the IMF, UN and World Bank, which is what these people have been up to for years. We believe a game is being played here to tax financial transactions to fund anything the elitists' want. We question the geniusness of England as an honest player.


Investing in the Gold Bull Market Like Jesse Livermore

Posted: 16 Jan 2012 03:15 AM PST

Some ignorant and skittish commentators have been making outrageous claims about the gold "bubble" popping. But here at TDV Golden Trader, we are students of the Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT) and have a deeper understanding of the real reason for the 10+ year bull market in gold - the radical devaluation of the worlds reserve currency - the pure fiat Federal Reserve Note (FRN).


New Era of Stability in Some African Countries

Posted: 16 Jan 2012 03:00 AM PST

Mining analysts at Ocean Equities spend more time at mining sites than at the natural resource brokerage's London headquarters. In fact, Christopher Welch, a mining analyst with Ocean Equities, has been crisscrossing the Atlantic for most of the last year, he tells The Gold Report in this exclusive interview. Recent trips to Africa have bolstered his conviction that mining plays in Africa are being overlooked, but it's not too late for investors to get in on the ground floor.


More Naked shorts added...here we go again

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 08:04 PM PST

Anyone saying in the open media that the big banks are done shorting silver are living in Disney Land....


Cruise Ship Passengers Were Lied To About What Was Happening As Ship Began To Sink

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 05:04 PM PST

from MOXNEWSd0tCOM :

[Ed. Note: We are posting this for one reason: It's an allegory for what we are facing in America. The passengers aboard the Costa Concordia say they were misled about how serious the problem was. The same could be said about the average American citizen today regarding the national debt and the long-term viability of their dollar. This system is showing its cracks daily, and yet most don't recognize the danger. Mainly because they are being lied to. But soon the reality of what we are facing will set in, and no additional hike in the national debt ceiling will save us. And that's when the real panic will set in.]

Gold is NOT a Perfect Inflation Hedge! Here?s Why

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 04:20 PM PST

So says Daniel R. Amerman, CFA ([url]www.danielamerman.com[/url]) in edited excerpts from his original article*. [INDENT]Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.FinancialArticleSummariesToday.com (A site for sore eyes and inquisitive minds) and www.munKNEE.com (Your Key to Making Money!) has edited ([ ]), abridged (…) and reformatted (some sub-titles and bold/italics emphases) the article below for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. The article’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 avoid copyright infringement. [/INDENT]Amerman*goes on to say, in part: A*time of severe monetary crisis could be the most dangerous time in our lifetimes to be uninformed [and those] investors who are unaware of this profoundly unfair tax, or who choose to ignore it,…[will] become helpless victims of th...


Will Gold Regain its Safe Haven Status in 2012?

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 03:08 PM PST

Last year was an eventful one for the gold market. The yellow metal was up 10 percent in 2011 for its 11th consecutive annual gain. But despite making an all-time high on Sept. 5 at $1,900/oz. gold finished the year down 18 percent from that high. Read More...



Peter Schiff : Gold puts the power to the people Fiat money gives the power to the government

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 02:22 PM PST

Peter Schiff : "obviously that's a just a bunch...

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website http://goldbasics.blogspot.com for full Content ]]


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Iran Foreign Ministry Claims Nuclear Scientist Was Executed By CIA, As Nigeria Strike Talks Collapse

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 02:15 PM PST

While on one hand we get news from Nigeria that the government and the labor unions have failed to end a labor strike, raising the prospect of a halt of all production in the country which produces 2.4 million barrels of oil per day or roughly the same as Iran exports, we now find out that the US attempt at de-escalating tensions with Iran (following Thursday's news of an extension in the oil embargo deadline by 6 months - one would almost think Obama realized $5.00 gas may be an issue with the election looming) may have failed massively, and it is now Iran's attempt to score political brownie points knowing well it has all the advantage. As EA WorldView reports, instead of backing away from last week's sensitive issue of the assasination of a nuclear scientist, Iran has ripped the scab right off the wound and its foreign ministry has boldly proclaimed that it has "reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA. The documents clearly show that this terrorist act was carried out with the direct involvement of CIA-linked agents." So the ball is now squarely back in America's court, and any further attempts at appeasement, such as the embargo extension was perceived as being, will merely serve to make US foreign policy appear even more toothless. Which Hillary will hardly stomach. So we may well be back at square one (only this time with two aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea instead of just one).

From EA WorldView:

The Foreign Ministry has asserted in a letter, handed to the Swiss Ambassador, "We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA. The documents clearly show that this terrorist act was carried out with the direct involvement of CIA-linked agents."

 

The Swiss Embassy represents the interests of the US, which broke diplomatic ties with Iran in 1979.

 

Iranian State TV said a "letter of condemnation" had also been sent to the British Government, contending that the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists had "started exactly after the British official John Sawers declared the beginning of intelligence operations against Iran".

And as for Nigeria, here is AP with the latest:

Nigeria's government and labor unions failed to end a paralyzing nationwide strike over high gasoline costs, potentially sparking an oil production shutdown in a nation vital to U.S. oil supplies.

 

It was not immediately clear early Sunday whether a major oil workers' union had gone ahead with its threat to have its members walk off their jobs starting at midnight in an effort to halt oil production. But the fact labor unions left quickly from their meeting with the government and no one announced when talks would resume raised concerns the impasse would see Nigeria go through more days of disruptive strikes.

 

Nigeria, which produces 2.4 million barrels of oil a day, is the fifth-largest oil exporter to the United States. Any disruption to oil production could roil the oil futures market at a time traders remain concerned about world supply.

 

President Goodluck Jonathan did not show up for a meeting with union representatives held Saturday night at the presidential villa in Nigeria's capital Abuja, nor did Vice President Namadi Sambo. Instead, the nation's Senate president and its House speaker represented the government along with other officials.

 

After the meeting, Nigeria Labor Congress President Abdulwaheed Omar told waiting journalists: "We have not reached a compromise."

 

Asked whether oil production would immediately halt, Omar said: "We are taking these things gradually.

As for next steps, here is an idea.

Libya - before:

and after...

Nigeria - before:

after:

 

?

James Turk : Gold soon over $2000/oz

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 12:25 PM PST

James Turk : "With regard to gold and silver...

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Chinese Gold Bugs Take The Lead

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 12:17 PM PST

"The big decline in gold and silver prices in late September...plus the decline in the last week of December had absolutely zero to do with the dollar." [COLOR=#7f4028] Yesterday in Gold and Silver As I commented in 'The Wrap' in Friday's column, the gold price got sold off as soon as trading began in the Far East on their Friday morning. It hit its low price tick around 11:30 a.m. Hong Kong time, but rallied back to virtually unchanged just moments before London opened at 8:00 a.m. local time...which was 3:00 a.m. Eastern. As you know, it was all down hill from there ri...


Using vaults to store gold and silver

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 12:00 PM PST

I consider gold and silver to be the bedrock asset of an investment portfolio. In other words, it is the foundation stone upon which the rest of a portfolio is built. Given this important role in ...


What If Your Broker Goes Bust?

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 10:49 AM PST

If investing seems harder than it used to, you're not imagining things. U.S. stocks are down from a decade ago, the gold/silver miners haven't kept up with the underlying metals, and though Treasury bonds have done pretty well, only a lunatic would count on them going forward.

And now that MF Global has crashed and taken its customers' money with it, we're faced with the possibility that even if our stocks go up, the accounts they're in might disappear without a trace. So yeah, it's harder than it used to be.

On this last point, there's clearly a market for advice on how to minimize brokerage account risk, and BullMarketThinking's Tekoa Da Silva has has just published a report, "Bulletproof Your Shares", that does a good job of explaining the various alternatives. The report sells for $44.95, but he's graciously allowed DollarCollapse to post a few excerpts:

The Greatly Misunderstood MF Collapse
What most investors haven't grasped yet, and what the mainstream media has not reported—is the fact that MF Global was not just a clearinghouse for Futures and Futures Options—it was a clearinghouse for securities as well. This means the "first domino" in the broker dealer industry has already fallen. Now the question remains—was it an isolated case? Or will there be more dominos to fall?

As reported to me by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), 800 MF Global account holders suffered ownership losses holding shares in their accounts. Those account holders are now being replenished by the SIPC. A second question remains: How much has been paid out, and how much does the SIPC have left in the event of another broker dealer collapse? This they could not share.

As stock investors–how are we supposed to respond and prepare if these collapses begin spreading to stock broker dealers? How would you respond if you were informed your stock broker went bankrupt—and your assets are in the hands of trustee to be split among a long line of creditors?

Many claim they'll be protected by the SIPC, which insures stocks accounts from broker collapse up to $500k for securities, and account cash balances up to $250k. But what if you have more than $250k in cash and/or more than $500k of securities in your account? What if one of the largest broker dealers in the country went bust, bringing down thousands of accounts and depleting the entire reserves of the SIPC?

Additionally, we have yet to see the largest debtor nation in the history of the world (The United States of America) come under budget funding pressure by the bond markets. What if two major broker dealers went bust, while at the same time, the U.S. government suffers a major Treasury bond auction failure? This would result in billions of dollars of non-recoverable losses by investors, who would likely never invest in the financial markets again. Under that scenario you can forget about relying on the SIPC.

With these risks in mind—what if I were to tell you that for the cost of administrative fees, you can purchase an additional layer of "common-sense insurance" on any size stock portfolio, even on share investments worth north of $100 million? Well that's what I've discovered in my research. I found there are two additional layers of preventative action you can employ starting right now to protect your shares in the event your broker dealer goes bust. These two methods are so reliable, that even if your broker lost all the cash and securities held in each and every one of its customer accounts, you'd be able to sleep safe and sound, knowing your investments would be fully protected.

Da Silva goes on to outline those extra layers of protection, their costs, paperwork requirements and set-up procedures, while answering some related questions like what to do if you lose a paper certificate and how to manage this kind of transition in an tax deferred investment account:

Q: I want to use these methods of share ownership for my stocks, but they're stuck in a 401k or IRA—What do I do?

A: Self-directed 401ks and IRA's are the best option. What the financial community does not tell individual investors is that self-directed retirement accounts can offer the flexibility of investing in nearly everything—from gold and silver coins, to farmland, farm tractors and oil wells. This includes shares investments using DRS and paper certification. Please see our Resources section at the end of this paper, for the names of a few companies which offer self-direction services for retirement accounts.

The full report is available here.


Jim's Mailbox

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 10:23 AM PST

Jim Sinclair's Commentary

There is an axiom that must be remembered under today's strange financial circumstances with top financial management by sociopaths.

The guarantee is no better than the guarantor.

Hi Jim,

Regarding Jeff Berwick's article, "Who Really Owns Your Gold Stocks?," it is important for JSMineset readers to understand the limitations of SIPC

Continue reading Jim's Mailbox

Steve St. Angelo: Silver coin production in U.S., Canada exceeds mine output

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 09:47 AM PST

5:40p ET Saturday, January 14, 2012

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver):

Silver coin production in the United States and Canada appears to have begun exceeding silver mine output in those countries, Steve St. Angelo reports at SilverSeek. He charges that the silver market analysis published by GFMS, which reports an annual surplus of silver, is misleading because it categorizes coin production as supply rather than demand or consumption. Meanwhile, he notes, silver production is declining. He concludes that "the great stampede in silver is yet to come." He commentary is headlined "Silver Sales Up as Supply Slips" and it's posted at SilverSeek here:

http://m.silverseek.com/article/silver-sales-supply-slips

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


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Sona Discovers Potential High-Grade Gold Mineralization
at Blackdome in British Columbia -- 13.6g over 1.5 Meters

From a Company Press Release
November 22, 2011

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- With its latest surface diamond drilling program at its 100-percent-owned, formerly producing Blackdome gold mine in southern British Columbia, Sona Resources Corp. has discovered a potentially high-grade gold-mineralized area, with one hole intersecting 13.6 grams of gold in 1.5 meters of core drilling.

"We intersected a promising new mineralized zone, and we feel optimistic about the assay results," says Sona's president and CEO, John P. Thompson. "We have undertaken an aggressive exploration program that has tested a number of target zones. Our discovery of this new gold-bearing structure is significant, and it represents a positive development for the company."

Sona aims to bring its permitted Blackdome mill back into production over the next year and a half, at a rate of 200 tonnes per day, with feed from the formerly producing Blackdome mine and the nearby Elizabeth gold deposit property. A positive preliminary economic assessment by Micon International Ltd., based on a gold price of $950 per ounce over eight years, has estimated a cash cost of $208 per tonne milled, or $686 per gold ounce recovered.

For the company's complete press release, please visit:

http://www.sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR18_2011-opt.pdf


Join GATA here:

Vancouver Resource Investment Conference
Sunday-Monday, January 22-23, 2012
Vancouver Convention Centre West
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/vancouver-resource-investme...

California Investment Conference
Saturday-Sunday, February 11-12, 2012
Hyatt Grand Champions Resort
Indian Wells, California, USA

http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/california-investment-confe...

Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins:

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Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt:

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

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

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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:

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Prophecy Drills 384.9 Meters Grading 0.623 g/t PGM+Au,
0.3% Ni, 0.15% Cu (0.45% NiEq) From Surface At Yukon Wellgreen Project

Company Press Release
Thursday, December 8, 2011

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) has announced the final drill results from 2011 drilling at the company's fully owned Wellgreen platinum group metals, nickel, and copper project in the Yukon Territory.

Borehole WS11-192 intercepted 384.9 meters of 0.45 percent nickel equivalent starting from 9.45 meters depth. Included in this greater interval of continuous mineralization is a platinum group metals-rich zone with a combined platinum-palladium-gold grade of 1.358 grams per ton over 19.23 meters (nickel equivalent 0.74%).

The final drilling results for 2011 have shown the Wellgreen Central-East and Central-West deposits to be one contiguous body, whereby there is good potential to broaden significantly the Central-West resource base, which currently contributes only about a quarter of the current 43-101 compliant resource at Wellgreen. Overall the drilling program met with good success in expanding the resource to the east and south. The long drill intercepts suggest the deposit remains very much open in those directions.

For the complete drilling results and the full company statement, please visit:

http://prophecyplat.com/news_2011_dec08_prophecy_platinum_wellgreen_dril...

Der Verkauf Ist Verboten - Germany Considers Ban On Sovereign Bond Sales

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 09:11 AM PST

When back in August, Europe declared a short selling ban of any financials (here we are willing to channel Romney, and make a $10,000 bet with anyone that said ban will never be lifted), and which as we predicted has had no favorable impact on bank stocks which have since tumbled, we suggested that the next step will also be the final one: the passage of laws prohibiting sales of any kind. As usual we were partially joking. And as so often happens, we are about to be proven right again. As the FT reports in its headline article today, whose gist is simple enough, that Europe is on the verge, it is the tactically-placed final paragraph that is of particular curiosity. It says the following: "Speaking on the fringes of a start-of-year retreat of her Christian Union lawmakers in the city of Kiel, Ms Merkel said she would consider calls from her party colleagues for legislation to bar institutional investors such as insurance companies from selling bonds when ratings were downgraded, or fell below investment grade." Allow us to recopy and repaste the key part: "legislation to bar institutional investors such as insurance companies from selling bonds."

And there you have it: after everything else has failed, the state, not the politically independent, if at least on paper central bank, is about to formally enter the capital markets. And yes, first it will be a ban of selling on downgrades, then it will be a ban of selling on any downtick, and finally it will be a ban of selling anything and everything.

Naturally, since whatever is left of the market is still oddly rational, and somewhat forward looking, those who are still foolishly long the bonds will dump them asap, before this idiotic law is passed and finally crashes the European market.  Correction: the market will be there, but it will consist entirely of the ECB only buying bonds, and never selling to comply with German capital control laws. Because after all Frau Merkel has elections to consider, and it will hardly be beneficial if the Dax were to be cut in half in an election year.

We do find it odd that insurance companies are being targeted - as these, just like AIG, are being completely ignored for the time being. Perhaps not much longer, and goes back to our thesis that Allianz & Generali, aka "A&G", are about to be the European equivalent of AIG, whose demise also began with that one particular rating agency downgrade.

And for anyone who thinks this form of lunacy is limited to Germany, we have news: it isn't. With Obama facing a daunting reelection task, one can be 100% certain that this and other potential laws are being contemplated (not least of which is the one-time financial asset tax as explained here back in September), and will likely take place just as soon as QE3, which SocGen believes will begin in March, fails completely to do much if anything about the market collapse, let alone the economy, the unemployment rate, and inflation.

Are The Middle East Wars Really About Forcing the World Into Dollars and Private Central Banking?

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 08:28 AM PST

A Gadhafi-driven gold revolution would have, however, imperiled the positions of central bankers & their political and media power-brokers."


Harvey Organ's Daily Gold & Silver Report

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 07:31 AM PST

Greece


S & P Downgrades, Dollar, Debt, Trade the Fed

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 07:16 AM PST

Jamie Dimon Says JPM Could Lose Up To $5 Billion From PIIGS Exposure

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 06:58 AM PST

from ZeroHedge:

In an interview with Italian newspaper Milan Finanza on Saturday, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that he could lose up to $5 billion from the firm's exposure to the PIIGS countries. As Reuters reports, "Dimon said the bank was exposed to the five countries (PIIGS) to the tune of around $15 billion. "We fear we could lose up to $5 billion … We hope the worst won't happen, but even if it did happen, I wouldn't be pulling my hair out," he said. Dimon said Europe was the worst problem for the banking sector. "But the EU and euro are solid even if the states will have to be financially responsible and do all they can to develop common social policies," he said." While it is admirable of JPMorgan to disclose some of its dirty laundry, as this was a topic that received hardly any mention in the firm's prepared quarterly release, and is predicated surely by the fact that its Basel III Tier 1 Common of $122 billion dwarfs this possible impairment, there are some questions left open. Such as what happens if and when Greek CDS, now most likely before March 20, were triggered? And the logical follow up – what happens when Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy, and who knows who else (Hungary?) follow suit and decide that a coercive restructuring is actually not suicidal, even though it most certainly is once a given threshold is reached. In other words, how long can Europe tolerate the same two-tiered sovereign debt market that S&P warned about so explicitly yesterday? Finally what happens to JPM's Tier 1 Common when the European dominos impact not only the directly exposed PIIGS nations, and specifically their bonds, but all those other banks, insurance and reinsurance companies, whose current viability makes up the balance of JPM's remaining $117 billion in Tier 1? Because in its essence, stating that JPM is "fine" even if Europe were to collapse is analogous to Goldman telling Congress it would collect on its AIG CDS if and when the CDS market were to implode absent the government bailout of AIG, which itself was accountable for over $2 trillion of the entire CDS market itself.

Read More @ ZeroHedge.com

James Turk Gold outlook for 2012

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 06:54 AM PST

James Turk Gold outlook for 2012 : what we are...

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Gold and the XAU - A Positive Diagnosis

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 06:40 AM PST

" Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by it."--Joseph Pulitzer. Pictures of Health The following two weekly charts for the XAU demonstrate a condition that is considerably better than apparent on the surface. XAU/Gold Ratio (Weekly) Market Pendulum's XAU Market Health Indicator (Weekly) ...


Richard Russell: PLEASE MOVE INTO GOLD!

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 05:34 AM PST

[/CENTER] [/CENTER] [INDENT]Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.FinancialArticleSummariesToday.com (A site for sore eyes and inquisitive minds) and www.munKNEE.com (Your Key to Making Money!) has edited ([ ]), abridged (…) and reformatted (some sub-titles and bold/italics emphases) the article below for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. The article’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 avoid copyright infringement. [/INDENT]Russell*goes on to say, in part: Those who think gold has lapsed into a bear market simply do not know what they are talking about. Gold has simply been correcting in an on-going bull market [See my article entitled These Charts Say It All: GOLD Is STILL a BUY]*. This is a time when almost every central bank in the world is grinding out paper currency, grinding ...


Q4 Spanish Unemployment Soars By Most Since Lehman, Hits "Astronomical" 23.3%

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 05:16 AM PST

For anyone convinced that yesterday's S&P two notch downgrade of Spain to A is the last one for a while, we have some bad news: in Q4 Spanish unemployment soared by the most since the Lehman collapse, hitting what new PM Mariano Rajoy called an "astronomical" 5.4 million. This compares to 4.978 million people unemployed at the end of Q3 2011. Since the official number is not yet public and will be released on January 27 we will take his word for it. In which case it becomes clear that in Q4 the Spanish economy experienced a Lehman-like collapse, losing more than 400K people, or the most since the bankruptcy of Lehman brothers. In percentage terms this means that Spanish unemployment rose by a ridiculous 2%, or from 21.5% to 23.3%, in one quarter! And since Spain is a country of the Keynesian persuasion, we can only assume the number includes a whole bunch of meaningless birth/death and seasonal adjustments, but we'll leave it at that. Incidentally, it means that by the time the mean reversion exercise, with cost-cutting and what not is complete, Spanish unemployment will be well north of 30%, and 2 out of 3 people aged between 16 and 25 will be out of a job, if ot more. It also begs the question just what the real unemployment picture in the US, which lately has put the Chinese Department of Truth to shame, would be if reported on a realistic, unadjusted, and not "workforce contracted" basis. The chart below shows you everything you need to know.

This is what quarterly Spanish unemployment looks like pre-BLS "intervention"

From AP:

"This year (2011) is going to close with 5.4 million people... who want to work but cannot," Rajoy said, anticipating official unemployment data due to be published on January 27.

 

"It is an astronomical figure," he said in a speech to supporters of his conservative Popular Party in Malaga, southern Spain, in which he reaffirmed fighting unemployment as his top priority.

 

"This is our challenge and all our efforts and all our policies are going to be dedicated to this," he said, without giving a new percentage rate.

 

Economists have warned that Spain may be back in recession with the economy likely to contract in the first quarter of 2012. The Bank of Spain said the economy shrank in the last quarter of 2011.

As a reminder, S&P said there is a substantial chance it would lower Spain even further:

"We could lower the ratings again if additional labour market and other growth-enhancing reforms are delayed or we consider them to be insufficient to reduce the high unemployment rate."

Time to start pricing in the transition from spAin to sBain?

Gold Rebounds and Gains Momentum

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 03:32 AM PST

Gold rallied this week hitting its highest in a month and breaking above its 200-day moving average. There were a myriad of reasons suggested in the financial press. Some writers said it was a stronger euro that helped boost the price above the key technical level. One headline said it was due to a buying binge from China ahead of the Lunar New Year which begins January 23. (The country imported a record 103 tons of gold from Hong Kong in November, up 19% month-on-month and a 483% increase year-on-year.)


This Past Week in Gold

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 03:31 AM PST

Summary: Long term - on major buy signal. Short term - on buy signals. Gold cycle has bottomed and we have new buy signals. A pullback will establish trendline support and set ups for us to take some positions. Read More...



Global Factors Boost Gold and Silver Demand

Posted: 13 Jan 2012 11:34 PM PST

After having a strong week, gold and silver prices are pulling back today, as several developments weigh on the markets. JP Morgan provided a wake up call to rallying financials as the company reported a miss on fourth quarter earnings. For the second time in only two days, Bank of America cut its fourth quarter GDP estimate from 3.5 percent to 2.7 percent. Furthermore, the U.S. dollar continues to show strength as Standard & Poor’s downgrades France.


Friday The 13th Stock Market Scare

Posted: 13 Jan 2012 11:24 PM PST

As we approach a long weekend, I was leaning bullish for an extension of the rally into next week which is also options expiration. That changed this am as we had euro concerns causing a jump in the dollar and bonds and corresponding weakness in stocks and commodities. With the market near highs, profit taking is also a consideration. The dollar moved first, bonds are catching up right now (in the short term).


Overbought U.S. Dollar to Launch Gold Price Higher

Posted: 13 Jan 2012 11:11 PM PST

Since rocketing to new all-time highs last summer, gold has weathered a major correction.  While that selloff was healthy and necessary given the excessive optimism that catapulted gold to very-overbought levels, a strong US dollar accelerated gold’s swoon.  But with the dollar now as overbought and wildly popular as gold was in August, this currency itself is due for a major selloff that is likely to launch gold.


Buying Gold as the Concrete Sets

Posted: 13 Jan 2012 10:52 PM PST

Here's what Japan shows about Buying Gold in a zero-rate world...

read more
at

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