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This past week in gold
LISTEN: Interview with Ned Naylor-Leyland
Silver Update: “Euro Collapse”
DavinciJ15: Paper Silver prevents the Silver Shortage
Bart Chilton: "It would appear the silver markets have been manipulated"
Why Rising Debt Will Lead to $10,000 Gold: Nick Barisheff
Continuing the analysis on the dollar [Part II] - Scott Pluschau
Tanzanian police foil $30m 'Great Plane Robbery' gold heist
Nigel Farage: Gold to See Its Biggest Spike in 2012
Whenever You See Gold Trading Below Its 200-Day Moving Average, Consider it a Buy Signal!
Was George Soros right to buy gold?
We Can Smell Bank Holidays And Bank Runs Coming In Europe
Whenever You See Gold Trading Below Its 200 Day Moving Average, Consider it a Buy Signal!
The Nature And Sources Of Interest
Wolf Richter: “German Success Recipe” or Blip?
By the Numbers for the Week Ending January 6
SGS: Why I Am Paranoid Most Times
Silver Confirms the Bullish Outlook for Precious Metals
Bob Chapman - Discount Gold & Silver Trading 06 January 2012
Mystery 'gold ingots' found on Paris train are fake
Friday ETF Roundup: UNG Surges, VXX Tanks Despite Market Woes
Gold Up 5% on Week in Euros as “Recession Data” Hit Europe, US “Can’t Decouple” from Eurozone Crisis Despite Positive Jobs News
Central Banks Go Bonkers
Buy Gold In Advance Of QE3
A "big picture" look at gold, silver, and mining stocks now
Trader alert: A stock market correction could be starting now
Bob Chapman - Gold Radio Cafe - January 6, 2012

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 06:25 AM PST

This past week in gold
By Jack Chan at www.simplyprofits.org
01/07/2012

GLD – on buy signal.
SLV – on buy signal.

GDX – on buy signal.
XGD.TO – on buy signal.
CEF – on buy signal.

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.

Disclosure
We do not offer predictions or forecasts for the markets. What you see here is our simple trading model which provides us the signals and set ups to be either long, short, or in cash at any given time. Entry points and stops are provided in real time to subscribers, therefore, this update may not reflect our current positions in the markets. Trade at your own discretion.
We also provide coverage to the major indexes and oil sector.

LISTEN: Interview with Ned Naylor-Leyland

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 02:51 AM PST

TEk talks gold ans silver with Ned Naylor-Leyland.
from TekoaDaSilva

http://www.youtube.com/user/TekoaDaSilva

Part One

Part Two

~TVR

Silver Update: “Euro Collapse”

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 02:32 AM PST

from BrotherJohnF:
Brother John compares silver price to the Euro and more 1.6.12 Silver Update.

Got Physical ?

~TVR

DavinciJ15: Paper Silver prevents the Silver Shortage

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 02:30 AM PST

An upbeat Davinci on how the paper price of silver deceives.

from davincij15:

~TVR

Bart Chilton: "It would appear the silver markets have been manipulated"

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 01:08 AM PST

"It would appear the silver markets have been manipulated."

The quesiton is, can do anything about it?

Interview with Jimmy Puppy

http://www.financialsense.com/financ...pulate-markets

Why Rising Debt Will Lead to $10,000 Gold: Nick Barisheff

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 12:32 AM PST

¤ Yesterday in Gold and Silver

The gold price wandered around in a ten dollar price range right up until the London open...and then traded just about flat right until the 8:30 a.m. Eastern time job numbers were announced. From that point, gold's brief rally was capped at precisely 9:00 a.m...and the subsequent sell-off ended at precisely 9:30 a.m. Eastern.

The smallish rally that began after that, wasn't allowed to get too far...and gold closed at $1,616.60 spot...down $4.80 on the day. Volume, net of roll-overs out of the February contract, were in the neighbourhood of 135,000 contracts.

This is the New York Spot Gold [Bid] price chart...which is the only action that matters.

Silver traded in a twenty cent price range all through Far East and most of the London trading day and, like gold, the real price activity occurred in New York. At 9:30 a.m...long after the jobs numbers had been released...and thirty minutes after gold had headed south...a not-for-profit seller showed up in the silver market as well. By 10:20 a.m. Eastern time, they had the silver price down about 80 cents.

The subsequent rally regained seventy cents of that loss by 11:25 a.m...but then silver got sold off once again. This lasted until about 3:30 p.m...and then traded quietly sideways for the rest of electronic trading in New York. There were obviously no free-market forces at work in the New York silver market on Friday...nor gold, for that matter.

Silver closed at $28.75 spot...down 62 cents on the day. Net volume was around 36,000 contracts.

Once again I'm only providing the New York Spot Silver [Bid] chart...as it's the only price action that's relevant.

The dollar index traded sideways up until about 7:30 a.m. Eastern time...and then rose about 30 basis points by about 9:50 a.m. From there it traded sideways until the markets closed at 5:15 p.m. in New York.

The gold stocks pretty much followed the gold price during the entire New York trading session...and the HUI finished down 0.95% on the day...but up 3.8% on the week.

The silver stocks didn't do particularly well as a group, either...but considering the big hit that the price took yesterday, the damage certainly could have been worse. Nick Laird's Silver Sentiment Index only closed down 1.16%.

(Click on image to enlarge)

The CME's Daily Delivery Report showed that only 10 gold, along with 82 silver contracts, were posted for delivery on Tuesday. All this week in silver it's been Jefferies as a short/issuer...and the Bank of Nova Scotia and JPMorgan as the long/stoppers. Friday's report was no different...and the link to that action is here.

There were no reported changes in either GLD or SLV yesterday.

But the U.S. Mint had another sales report yesterday. They sold a whopping 30,000 ounces of gold eagles...1,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...and 175,000 silver eagles. In the first four business days of 2012, the mint has sold 74,500 ounces of gold eagles...3,500 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...and 3,547,000 silver eagles.

It was another big day over at the Comex-approved depositories on Thursday. They received 1,180,316 ounces of silver...and only shipped a tiny 3,141 ounces out the door. As of the close of business hours on Thursday, these five Comex warehouses held 122,302,690 ounce of silver. The link to Thursday's activity is here.

I must admit that I was somewhat taken aback by yesterday's Commitment of Traders Report for silver, as it wasn't what I was expecting at all. Not even close. There was no big increase in tech fund shorting on last week's monster price drop...and no corresponding increase in the Commercial net long position. What it showed was that Commercial net short position actually increased by about 1,800 contracts because more short positions were added...and the tech funds went long by about 2,400 contracts.

The COT report in gold showed that the Commercial traders decreased their net short position by about 2,000 contracts...the technical funds showed virtually no change...and the Nonreportable [small] trader were the ones that went short the 2,000 contracts.

But on sober second thought, I suppose it's possible that the big declines that were experienced in both gold and silver on December 27, 28 and 29 were all negated by the gains on the 30th...and the big gain on January 3rd. True, there was pretty big gross volume on those days, but how much net volume was involved once all the b.s. high-frequency trading volume is removed? Maybe not very much in the middle of holiday-shortened week. If that's the case, then the big spike down...then up...in silver and gold, was done under very illiquid market conditions...and there may have been little net change in the COT report under those circumstances.

I had no opportunity to talk to Ted Butler yesterday, so I must admit that I wasn't able to pick his brain about what he saw in the Disaggregated COT Report, which is different from the legacy report that I always use. He can see a lot more under-the-hood detail from this report...and there are no other commentators [at least that I'm aware of] that use it, or even understand it. As I said in last Saturday's column...I'll wait to see what he has to say later today...and then steal what I can for my Tuesday column.

Well, if the COT report was a surprise in silver, then the January Bank Participation Report in silver was a shock. Both Ted and I were expecting big improvements in the U.S. banks short position in both silver and gold. With the big price declines in December, we should have expected nothing else.

That turned out to be the case in gold, but not in silver...not by a long shot.

For many years, there have been only two U.S. banks with short positions in silver that have really mattered. They are HSBC USA...and JPMorgan...with JPMorgan holding at least 90% of that total short position all by itself.

In the January report, these two U.S. banks were net short 15,757 Comex silver futures contracts. In the December report they were net short 15,662 futures contracts. Their net short position since the prior report actually increased 95 contracts! During the month of December the price of silver was engineered lower by five bucks...and a 95 short contract increase in their net short position on the Comex was the best that JPM and HSBC could do? Wow!

Yesterday's COT Report and BPR Report all came from the same set of data at the Tuesday cut-off...so we can compare the data directly from one report to the other. To put the JPM/HSBC Comex silver short position in context, when you remove the Non-Commercial spread trades [long one month, short another] from the total Comex silver open interest, the total open interest in silver drops down to 87,889 contracts. Divide that number into the JPM/HSBC net short position and you find that these two banks are short 17.9% of the entire Comex futures market in silver. If you remove the spread trades from the Commercial category [which aren't reported in the COT Report]...these two banks would show that they would be short north of 20% of the Comex silver market.

And those are just two of the 'big 8' short holders in the Comex silver futures market. If you add in the other six, then these eight large traders are short 34.9% of the Comex silver futures market...and as you can see, well over half of that 34.9% short position is held by JPM/HSBC.

That's concentration!

Now that the U.S. bullion banks short position has been bisected and dissected...here is what the 14 non-U.S. banks did in Comex silver futures contracts since the December report. They moved from a net short position of 1,204 contracts in the December report, to a net long position of 1,259 contracts in the January report...a swing of 2,463 contracts to the long side.

The '8 or less' traders, led by JPMorgan, have a short-side corner on the Comex futures market in silver...and JPMorgan appears to be trapped on the short side with what remains of its once gargantuan 40,000+ contract short position. One has to wonder how many other of the 'big 8' short holders are in the same boat.

In gold, it was very straightforward. The January Bank Participation Report showed that 4 U.S. bullion banks were net short 79,926 Comex gold futures contracts...a decrease of 21,093 contracts since the December report. The 20 non-U.S. banks that hold Comex futures contracts in gold are also net short the market. In their case it's 31,102 contracts...which is an 8,439 contract improvement since the December BPR. Based on the price action during December, there are no surprises here.

The short position in gold, although bad enough in its own right, is not even on the same planet as silver. In gold the '8 or less' commercial traders are short 105.2% of the total Commercial net short position. In silver, these same '8 or less' traders are short 234.8% of the Commercial net short position. The 2 U.S. bullion banks mentioned in the BPR...JPMorgan and HSBC...hold 99.0% of the Commercial net short position all by themselves! That's concentration!

This is what the CFTC can see as well...but won't raise a finger to stop it. And the silver companies that you own shares in won't say a word, either.

Here's a real scary chart that Australian reader Wesley Legrand sent my way yesterday. It tells you all you need to know about what would happen if any or all of the PIIGS defaulted on their debt...or even a portion of it. I suggest you use the 'click to enlarge' feature...and study this chart carefully.

(Click on image to enlarge)

I have a fair number of stories today, of which quite a few are ones that I've been saving all week for this Saturday column. I hope you can find the time over the weekend to read them all.

One has to wonder if JPMorgan and the other big traders are ever going to get out of this silver corner that they appear to have painted themselves into.

Was George Soros right to buy gold? Whenever You See Gold Trading Below Its 200-Day Moving Average, Consider it a Buy Signal! Nigel Farage: Gold to See Its Biggest Spike in 2012.

¤ Critical Reads

S.E.C. Changes Policy on Firms' Admission of Guilt

The Securities and Exchange Commission, in a fundamental policy shift, said Friday that it would no longer allow defendants to say they neither admit nor deny civil fraud or insider trading charges when, at the same time, they admit to or have been convicted of criminal violations.

The change is the first time that the S.E.C. has stepped back from its longstanding practice of allowing companies to settle fraud charges by paying a fine without admitting wrongdoing. The new policy will also apply to cases where a company or an individual enters an agreement with criminal authorities to defer prosecution or to not be prosecuted as part of a settlement.

Robert Khuzami, the director of enforcement at the S.E.C., said the agency would continue to use the "neither admit nor deny" settlement process when the agency alone reached a deal with a company in a case of civil securities law violations. Those types of cases make up a large majority of S.E.C. settlements.

At least it's a step in the right direction...but not far enough to suit me. This story showed up in The New York Times on Friday...and I thank reader Phil Barlett for sending it. The link is here.

View full GSD edition

Beware: Corporate Psychopaths Still Occupy Positions of Power

Over the years I've met my fair share of monsters – rogue individuals, for the most part. But as regulation in the UK and the US has loosened its restraints, the monsters have proliferated.

In a paper recently published in the Journal of Business Ethics entitled "The Corporate Psychopaths: Theory of the Global Financial Crisis", Clive R. Boddy identifies these people as psychopaths.

"They are," he says, "simply the 1 per cent of people who have no conscience or empathy." And he argues: "Psychopaths, rising to key senior positions within modern financial corporations, where they are able to influence the moral climate of the whole organisation and yield considerable power, have largely caused the [banking] crisis'.

This story was posted in The Independent over in the U.K. on December 31st...and is reprinted over at the readersupportednews.org website. I thank Casey Research's own Doug Hornig for bringing this must read article to our attention...and the link is here.

View full GSD edition

Did Psychopaths Take Over Wall Street Asylum?: William D. Cohan

It took a relatively obscure former British academic to propagate a theory of the financial crisis that would confirm what many people suspected all along: The "corporate psychopaths" at the helm of our financial institutions are to blame.

Clive R. Boddy, most recently a professor at the Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University, says psychopaths are the 1 percent of "people who, perhaps due to physical factors to do with abnormal brain connectivity and chemistry" lack a "conscience, have few emotions and display an inability to have any feelings, sympathy or empathy for other people."

As a result, Boddy argues in a recent issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, such people are "extraordinarily cold, much more calculating and ruthless towards others than most people are and therefore a menace to the companies they work for and to society."

It's obvious that Bloomberg columnist William D. Cohan read the same report...and here's his take. It's the same, but it's also very different...and it's a must read as well. I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for sending this along...and the link to this January 2nd Bloomberg story is here.

View full GSD edition

&l

Continuing the analysis on the dollar [Part II] - Scott Pluschau

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 12:32 AM PST

Continuing the analysis on the dollar [Part II] - Scott Pluschau

Dollar futures hit a new 52-week high on Friday. Prior high was on January 10th, 2011, at 81.635. Today's high tick was 81.72, and it closed at 81.62.

There didn't appear to be many buy stops being hit or any significant increase in new demand afterward. Price actually pulled back and closed beneath the prior 52 week high. Right now from an auction market perspective it appears to me the shorts have very strong hands.

Tanzanian police foil $30m 'Great Plane Robbery' gold heist

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 12:32 AM PST

Tanzanian police foil $30m 'Great Plane Robbery' gold heist

In the latest security incident to hit the country's miners, five masked men raided an airstrip owned by South African group AngloGold Ashanti.

The heavily-armed men emerged from a nearby forest and attempted to steal 587 kilogrammes of gold bars from an aeroplane at the group's Geita mine, Reuters reported.

"Incidents such as these are usually carried out by a syndicate and also involve somebody from the inside who told the robbers that a plane usually flies from the airstrip every Thursday with gold bars," Deusdedit Nsimeki, Mwanza's regional crimes officer, said.

Nigel Farage: Gold to See Its Biggest Spike in 2012

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 12:32 AM PST

Nigel Farage: Gold to See Its Biggest Spike in 2012

Eric King sent me this Nigel Farage blog yesterday afternoon. It's posted over at the King World News website...and the link is here.

Whenever You See Gold Trading Below Its 200-Day Moving Average, Consider it a Buy Signal!

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 12:32 AM PST

Whenever You See Gold Trading Below Its 200-Day Moving Average, Consider it a Buy Signal!

During the 12 year history of this bull market in gold, only about 5% of the time did we see gold trading below its 200-day MA, and each time it turned out to be a prime buying opportunity.

The last time gold traded below its 200DMA was during the autumn of 2008. As soon as the price climbed back above the 200DMA, it rose from $900 to $1,900. The fundamentals for gold are bullish enough for a repeat performance. Just make sure you are buying gold and not a 'paper or digital substitute' for gold.

Was George Soros right to buy gold?

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 12:32 AM PST

Was George Soros right to buy gold?

Legendary investor George Soros was a major buyer of gold late in 2011. Even though gold closed the year at a six-month low, Soros and other gold bulls such as Steve Cohen of SAC Capital will be rewarded if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke launches into a third round of quantitative easing.

When this happens, all dollar-denominated commodities, including oil, United States Oil, and silver, iShares Silver Trust will rise with gold, just as happened with the last quantitative easing campaign in 2010.

We Can Smell Bank Holidays And Bank Runs Coming In Europe

Posted: 06 Jan 2012 08:01 PM PST

Trader Tracks Situational Alert Saturday, 12-24-11 -Christmas Eve at 740am PST: -Traderrog "We have received a report of unusual banking activity. Banking screens on 138 different currencies are showing 00.000. Some rate fluctuations are beginning to appear. There have been no answers on this activity but banks have been notified to expect a large change in currency rates." (Un-named to protect a source).

In our view, what is happening is a massive devaluation in probably the Euro Currency relative to the values versus individual nations. The ECB loaned over $600 Billion (produced out of thin air with no collateral) last week to European Central Bank Member Nations. Ed: In later news we learned the Federal Reserve covered).

We think this next step is to re-configure the values of the Euro within each member country. Obviously the little broken ones like Greece, Portugal and Ireland will be de-valued MORE, relative to Germany and France. Last report we got said the consortium of countries amounted to 27 total. The B.I.S., the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland is the bankers' bank. The BIS is very secret about their work and activities. They are probably the orchestra leader in this event.

We also noticed later Friday that the ECB is taking a $40 Million dollar lease in a New York City Building. Are they moving the whole headquarters from Brussels, or is this a newer and bigger expansion of the ECB? I think it's an expansion and the IMF is in charge for sure. The IMF is gathering cash from member nations to cover their activities in propping-up Europe and who knows who else. This is all part of the grand scheme moving toward a One World Government and One World Currency.

In our view, when the credit and bond markets break-down, the global Super-Crash is underway in an expansion of Greater Depression II. Read your history from 1900 to 1918. This is being exactly replicated from 2000 to 2020. The Panic of 1908 was repeated in our Panic of 2008. The bigger world war begins on schedule from 2013-2014 to 2018. this matches the time line of World War I. The war is instigated to promote full employment. We think the gold and silver rally can peak in 2017 but perhaps extend all the way to 2024.

After Obama is re-elected next year, we forecast a larger expansion of demonstrations not only throughout the world, but in major cities in the USA. The calls for impeachment will reach new, screamingly high levels after the

dirtiest political campaign in history. There will be lawsuits and re-calls with lots of voter fixing and tampering. We think Romney is the GOP candidate and he will not have one chance in a one million to be elected.

Someone has filed a $1 Trillion Dollar lawsuit in this mess and there is a lock-down on information relative to the suit and to the impending (we think) devaluation. It is obvious to us that this is being done over the Christmas holiday so markets cannot react as they are closed. Many will not open until next Tuesday after the designated Monday, Christmas holiday in the USA.

If my prognosis is correct, this could be a real market mover and perhaps a real market shocker. If I am correct in my surmising what these people are doing, precious metals might rally in a vicious snap-back valuation on fear and security. Gold and silver are being technically pressured to the high side anyway. If this event proves to be true, hang on to your hat. I would not be trading anything but watching first to see what markets do in Asia on Monday evening on Bloomberg in America. –Traderrog (Ed: After the event dollar rose and Euro fell selling precious metals.

The Federal Reserve Apparently Was A Back-Up For European Central Bank's Funding Credits.

Check out the two following links from our friends at GATA for more information. We did forecast a move by these folks on the Christmas holiday and it seems we were correct. The ECB by the charter is not allowed to extend credit, or make loans to member nations. They did it anyway using over $600 Billion from American taxpayers. In reality, this is just a drop in the bucket. One un-verified report said the Federal Reserve of the United States donated, gave, extended credits, or bought paper to the tune of $16 Trillion for all loans to Eastern and Western Europe from TARP in 2008 going forward to the date of the Bloomberg litigation. Bloomber,g through a lawsuit, was able to pry open the Federal Reserves records. They have posted a list of foreign loans by countries with the amounts. During the 2008 events we think the money was sent from the Federal Reserve to cover the bad mortgage loan derivatives sold by NYC banks. Otherwise the Europeans would go to court and the mess would be exposed creating a disaster. Go to Bloomberg.net to review the lists.

http://www.gata.org/node/10825

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204464404577118682763082876.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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

Whenever You See Gold Trading Below Its 200 Day Moving Average, Consider it a Buy Signal!

Posted: 06 Jan 2012 05:59 PM PST

The Nature And Sources Of Interest

Posted: 06 Jan 2012 04:00 PM PST

Gold University

Wolf Richter: “German Success Recipe” or Blip?

Posted: 06 Jan 2012 03:45 PM PST

By Wolf Richter, San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Cross posted from Testosterone Pit.

Despite the Eurozone debt crisis, the German economy has been on a roll, with unemployment at a 20-year low. Exports surpassed €1 trillion for the first time ever. The Federation of Wholesale and Foreign Trade even issued a card to commemorate the moment. For the year, exports rose 12%. In 2012—based on demand from Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe—exports are expected to grow 6% to €1.139 trillion—when GDP is only €2.37 trillion ($3.1 trillion)!

But during the financial crisis, export orders fell off a cliff, causing GDP to plunge 2.1% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and a horrid 3.8% in the first quarter of 2009. Annualized, those two quarters printed a double-digit decline in GDP. The worst two quarters in the history of the Federal Republic. The German economy lives and dies by its exports.

But the recovery was steep and enormous. So it's perhaps just natural that gloating would infect the German media when, from their perch of success, they look at the economic mayhem in other parts of Europe. Even the Handelsblatt falls prey to it from time to time. I bookmarked its October 17 article, The German Success Recipe Is Called Industriousness and Boredom, because it was just too much. Now the first shadows have appeared, and the "German success recipe," despite its strengths, might turn out to be a blip.

Throughout the 90s, following its reunification, Germany was the "sick man of Europe," marked by growing unemployment, stagnation, and lacking innovation. The dotcom euphoria bypassed it. A new income tax to fund the rebuilding of East Germany didn't help. Wages came under pressure. Industry restructured. But rather than venture into the "new economy," companies specialized in unglamorous but profitable niche markets, focused on high-quality manufacturing, got rid of unprofitable operations, and largely avoided growth through acquisition. Revenues barely budged, hence the stagnation. But it did create a modern export-oriented industrial foundation with some unique features.

Federal and state agencies support the international endeavors not only of coddled multinationals like Siemens and VW but also of family-owned mid-size enterprises that form the core of German industry. For example, the Chamber of Commerce, a federal agency, has branches all over the world to support German companies in doing business overseas. It's all part of "Deutschland AG."

The capital structure of most companies is conservative. With significant amounts of equity, returns on equity might not be stellar. But the fact that balance sheets weren't leveraged to the hilt paid off during the financial crisis when the historic order collapse didn't cascade from an operational fiasco to a financial fiasco.

Quarter-to-quarter thinking (short-term-itis) is less prevalent among German managers, particularly of mid-size companies that are often closely held and can afford strategies that don't immediately translate into upticks of their stock price.

While companies might not be able to lay off employees easily, they can cut their pay in half and reduce their hours. The government makes up half of the cut. Thus, employees get a 25% cut in pay, instead of being laid off. The government doesn't have to pay unemployment compensation. Disruptions, morale problems, and dislocations that result from layoffs are mostly avoided. The company remains fully staffed with experienced people whose technical skills are up to date. As orders come in, hours and pay can be ratcheted up as needed without the expense and delays of having to hire and train new people.

So when the trillions that central banks printed during the financial crisis sloshed around the world and created demand in China and other developing nations—and eventually in the US and Europe—German companies were ready. Thus the miracle-like recovery from the abyss of the first quarter of 2009.

But now factory orders are plunging again—4.8% in November (reported January 6), nearly wiping out October's surge of 5%. In September, they'd fallen 4.3%. In August, they were down 1.4%. In July, the were down 2.8%. In November, domestic orders eased 1.1%, orders from the Eurozone declined 4.1%, and ominously, orders from countries outside the Eurozone plummeted 10.3%.

Clearly, the "German success recipe" will be tested in 2012. If there are more declines in export orders, GDP will take a significant hit, even if the Eurozone makes it through the year intact. Which is by no means certain. Greece is already teetering after five years of recession and 17.7% unemployment. Troika inspectors are on their way … to demand yet more cuts. And the Prime Minister threatened everybody with the nuclear option. For more on the whole debacle, read…. Greece's Extortion Racket Is Maxed Out.

By the Numbers for the Week Ending January 6

Posted: 06 Jan 2012 01:44 PM PST

HOUSTON -- Just below is this week's closing table followed by the CFTC disaggregated commitments of traders (DCOT) recap table for the week ending January 6, 2012.

If the images are too small click on them for a larger version.

Vultures, (Got Gold Report Subscribers) please note that updates to our linked technical charts, including our comments about the COT reports and the week's technical changes, should be completed by the usual time on Sunday (18:00 ET), January 8.

Please also note a revised stop level for our new trade in the linked silver chart.

As a reminder, the linked charts for gold, silver, mining shares indexes and important ratios are located in the subscriber pages. In addition Vultures have access anytime to all 35 of our Vulture Bargain (VB) and Vulture Bargain Candidates of Interest (VBCI) tracking charts – the small resource-related companies that we attempt to game here at Got Gold Report. Look for new commentary often as we are making frequent notations in the tracking charts during this fantastic, cascade event, negative liquidity aftermath and post tax loss selling super bargain hunting environment.

Remember that the linked charts on the subscriber pages are always the first place to look for new commentary at GGR. In the future we intend to rely more on the charts to communicate, especially when it comes to our own trades. Members please also note the addition of one new Vulture Bargain Company of Interest (VBCI) as noted by email on Thursday.

Continued…

Gold and Silver Disaggregated COT Report (DCOT)

In the DCOT table below a net short position shows as a negative figure in red. A net long position shows in black. In the Change column, a negative number indicates either an increase to an existing net short position or a reduction of a net long position. A black figure in the Change column indicates an increase to an existing long position or a reduction of an existing net short position. The way to think of it is that black figures in the Change column are traders getting "longer" and red figures are traders getting less long or shorter.

All of the trader's positions are calculated net of spreading contracts as of the Tuesday disaggregated COT report.

(DCOT Table for Friday, January 6, 2012, for data as of the close on Tuesday, January 3. Source CFTC for COT data, Cash Market for gold and silver.)

*** We will have more in the linked technical charts for Vultures by Sunday evening.***

SGS: Why I Am Paranoid Most Times

Posted: 06 Jan 2012 01:30 PM PST

from SGS:
I have been approached several times to start new ventures throughout the PM community and each time, I turn it down. This is most likely the reason why I never do interviews or do the interviewing (required telephone exchanges), and money exchanges in regards to the sales of bullion. Its futile, read below…this gives me hope that we may be winning the battle.

The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage "fake people" on social media sites. Private security firms employeed by the government have used the accounts to create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues.

I think we all need to be conscious of the fact that this is going on, and it's contributing to the battle we're fighting with people who have been led to believe that Ron's foreign policy is dangerous – that is what is being spread. Here's the rest of the article:

The contract calls for the development of "Persona Management Software" which would help the user create and manage a variety of distinct fake profiles online. The job listing was discussed in recently leaked emails from the private security firm HBGary after an attack by internet activist last week.

Continue reading @ silvergoldsilver.com

Silver Confirms the Bullish Outlook for Precious Metals

Posted: 06 Jan 2012 12:27 PM PST

Based on the January 6th, 2012 Premium Update. Visit our archives for more gold & silver analysis.

The new year started off with a bang with precious metals out-shining the competition. Is this a harbinger of things to come? We think so and we are not alone. Forecasts for gold for 2012 include a price per ounce of $2,200 by Morgan Stanley, $2,050 by UBS, and $2,000 by Barclays.

The year 2011, for other than gold investors, has been a disappointment, more like a train wreck. Growth has been paltry, unemployment remained high, sovereign debt in the stratosphere. The U.S. political system has been dysfunctional unable to make easy decisions, never mind the hard ones. There was no housing rebound and the eurozone looked like it was a house of cards. But look on the bright side. Despite a prophecy by Harold Camping, the world did not end on May 21.

There was also some other good news. There was no double dip in 2011. Osama bin Laden was "laid to rest in a solemn ceremony concluding upon impact with the Indian Ocean at a terminal velocity of 125 miles per hour," (at least that's the official version) in the words of Dave Barry, humor columnist for The Miami Herald. Moammar Gadhafi and other dictators also suffered major setbacks (to put it mildly.)

There are some issues hanging over the economy in 2012 that will determine if the upcoming year will also be a disappointment.

In 2011, American politics was silly undermining confidence in ways that damaged economic prospects. There was the April battle over spending that nearly shut down the government and would have had a devastating effect on the ability of Congress to continue spending insanely more money than it actually has. The December standoff was over whether to continue a cut in the payroll tax that both parties agreed to in principle. But most damaging was the summer brinkmanship when many House Republicans threatened to block an increase in the debt ceiling — which would have meant a default on U.S. debt — unless they got their way on major spending cuts. The sides hammered out an agreement under which the government will continue to spend tons more money than it has while a super committee will devise a plan to solve this problem once and for all. This committee fell short of its goals. Perhaps in 2012 we will see "a Super Duper Committee." Even after a deal was struck, Standard & Poor's cut the U.S. government's credit rating, blaming the downgrade on the reduced "effectiveness, stability and predictability" of American policymaking.

Stay tuned. This year's election is going to be a cliffhanger. Obama has going for him the lackluster Republican lineup. He may actually win. But with a razor thin mandate and a Republican-controlled Congress, Obama in his second term will not have much room to maneuver. With the economy in such a fragile condition, it would be best, whatever the outcome of the November election, that the result be decisive and unifying. Meanwhile, a move toward a libertarian approach sill appears unlikely.

To see what is likely to happen in the precious metals market in the nearest future, let's begin the technical part with the analysis of silver (charts courtesy by http://stockcharts.com.)

In the very long term chart for silver (if you're reading this essay at www.sunshineprofits.com, you may click on the above chart to enlarge it), we see that silver has bottomed once again. If the nearest resistance level is broken, a significant rally is possible. RSI levels support the significant rally theory beginning now.

This is in tune with our previous comments on gold, published in our essay on the possible bottom in precious metals:

The fact is that "breakdowns" similar to the one we're seeing just now have been (…) followed by the final bottom of the consolidation (…), which was in turn was followed by a strong rally. In these cases, lower prices were never seen thereafter. Consequently, from both fundamental and technical perspectives, gold remains in a bull market, and what we're seeing right now may be the best buying opportunity that we'll see in the coming years.

On top of that, there is more to read from the very-long term silver charts.

In this second very long-term chart for silver, we see that the cyclical turning point worked perfectly as prices reversed sharply right at that point and then began to rise. These moves further increase the odds that we have seen a major bottom and it could very well be years before silver's price is as low as it has been recently (or we may never see silver price as low as we just did).

This is by no means a sure bet, but twice previously, when silver bottomed at cyclical turning points in 2004 and 2010, we have seen an ultimate low – lower prices never followed. The long-term charts suggest that at least a medium-term rally is underway at this time.

Looking at silver's short-term chart, the situation is a bit less clear. A cyclical turning point is close at hand and it is not yet clear whether we will see a bottom or a top. Neither appears to invalidate the points made previously since long-term implications are more important and carry more weight than those obtained from short-term charts. For example, we could see a small pause (a local top and then a local bottom) within a rally close to the end of the month.

When silver finally breaks above the declining resistance line (gray) and the 50-day moving average, much clearer signals will emerge. The outlook based on this chart appears bullish at this time but another week or two seems to be needed to tell the whole story.

Summing up, the situation in silver appears to be very bullish at this time based on the long-term indicators. Overall, the situation appears to be quite bullish since long-term indicators carry more weight than short-term signals.

To make sure that you are notified once the new features are implemented, and get immediate access to my free thoughts on the market, including information not available publicly, we urge you to sign up for our free e-mail list. Gold & Silver Investors should definitely join us today and additionally get free, 7-day access to the Premium Sections on our website, including valuable tools and unique charts. It's free and you may unsubscribe at any time.

Thank you for reading. Have a great and profitable week!

P. Radomski
Editor
www.SunshineProfits.com

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All essays, research and information found above represent analyses and opinions of Mr. Radomski and Sunshine Profits' associates only. As such, it may prove wrong and be a subject to change without notice. Opinions and analyses were based on data available to authors of respective essays at the time of writing. Although the information provided above is based on careful research and sources that are believed to be accurate, Mr. Radomski and his associates do not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the data or information reported. The opinions published above belong to Mr. Radomski or respective associates and are neither an offer nor a recommendation to purchase or sell securities. Mr. Radomski is not a Registered Securities Advisor. Mr. Radomski does not recommend services, products, business or investment in any company mentioned in any of his essays or reports. Materials published above have been prepared for your private use and their sole purpose is to educate readers about various investments.

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Bob Chapman - Discount Gold & Silver Trading 06 January 2012

Posted: 06 Jan 2012 12:15 PM PST

Bob Chapman - Discount Gold & Silver Trading 06 January 2012 : Bob Chapman...

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Mystery 'gold ingots' found on Paris train are fake

Posted: 06 Jan 2012 10:51 AM PST

Twenty "gold" bars found in a case on a train near Paris last week have been found to be fake.

A suspect package on board an RER train at Massy-Palaiseau station was examined by the bomb squad and found to contain what seemed to be 20kg (44lb) of gold.

French police have now established that the bars are made of a base metal - with a thin coating of gold.

The ingots would have been worth around 800,000 euros ($1m; £670,000) if they had been genuine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16392922

Friday ETF Roundup: UNG Surges, VXX Tanks Despite Market Woes

Posted: 06 Jan 2012 09:19 AM PST

By Jarred Cummans:

Stocks opened the day with surprising losses given the positive jobs report that hit in the wee hours of the morning. The Dow surrendered 56 points while the S&P 500 lost 0.3%. Both oil and gold finished out relatively flat while the Nasdaq was one of the few winners among major benchmarks. One of the biggest surprises on the day came from the EUR/USD exchange rate which has now sunk to 1.272, levels not seen for quite some time. It seems that investors are losing confidence in the euro by the day and the brief period of relative silence from our neighbors across the pond seems to have spooked traders.

Today's unemployment report was stellar by most accounts. Overall unemployment dipped to 8.5% with 200,000 jobs added in December. Though the hefty gains in hiring were not met with strong markets, it still proves that the economy has been making

Complete Story »

Gold Up 5% on Week in Euros as “Recession Data” Hit Europe, US “Can’t Decouple” from Eurozone Crisis Despite Positive Jobs News

Posted: 06 Jan 2012 09:11 AM PST

Friday 6 January 2012, 09:00 EST

Gold Up 5% on Week in Euros as "Recession Data" Hit Europe, US "Can't Decouple" from Eurozone Crisis Despite Positive Jobs News

THE DOLLAR cost of buying gold hovered around $1620 an ounce Friday morning London time – becoming a bit more volatile following the release of US employment data but failing to establish a definite direction – while stocks and commodities edged higher.

Silver prices meantime eased around lunchtime, hitting $29.15 per ounce.

On currency markets the Dollar rallied – pushing the Euro down further – after the nonfarm payrolls release showed the US economy added 200,000 private sector non-agricultural jobs in December.

The US unemployment rate fell from 8.7% in November (revised up today from 8.6%) to 8.5%.

From its high above $1.30 on Tuesday, the Euro meantime has since fallen 2.5% against the Dollar.

By Friday lunchtime the price of buying gold in Euros – which touched a 4-week high of €40994 per kilo (€1275 per ounce) looked set for a weekly gain of over 5%.

The Dollar cost of buying gold meantime was headed for a weekly gain of around 3.6%.

"A close above the 200 day moving average at $1632 is needed to shift the market [for buying gold] to Neutral from Bearish," reckons Russell Browne, technical analyst at bullion bank Scotia Mocatta.

"While gold is pushing towards its 200 day moving average at $1633, we are not convinced that it can sustain a break above this level yet," adds Standard Bank commodities strategist Walter de Wet.

"Liquidity remains locked up as the European interbank market continues to malfunction…in the physical market, we continue to see steady buying of gold. But this demand is more likely to provide support for gold on dips below $1600 rather than push it substantially higher."

Friday's Asian trade saw demand for buying gold in physical form, according to one Shanghai trader.

"Liquidity is back in the market," said the trader.

"With the Europe outlook still grim, investors would prefer to put their dollars in some safety assets, such as gold."

In the US, however, the volume of gold to held to back shares in the world's largest gold ETF, the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), has not changed since before Christmas.

This contrasts with the world's biggest silver ETF, the iShares Silver Trust (SLV), where steady outflows since the middle of last month has seen the volume of silver bullion held fall to its lowest level since September 2010.

"We expect silver demand to slow during [2012]," says the latest precious metals note from French bank Natixis, citing "reduced investment demand alongside the current weakness in global industrial demand."

"There have been good data out of the US," said Jeremy Friesen, Hon Kong-based commodity strategist at Societe Generale, speaking ahead of today's nonfarm payrolls release.

"But ultimately the US can't decouple from the European crisis…there are going to be enough reasons to be worried about global growth and the financial system in the next quarter or two, and gold should benefit from that."

German factory orders fell 4.8% between October and November last year, Bundesbank figures published this morning show.

Retail sales for the 17-nation Eurozone as a whole meantime fell 2.5% in the year to November – compared to a 0.7% y-o-y drop to October – according to official European Union data, while the European Commission's economic confidence indicator hit its lowest level in over two years last month.

"This data has recession written all over it," says Martin van Vliet, Eurozone economist at Dutch bank ING.

A report in French newspaper Les Echos suggests the governments of France, Belgium and Luxembourg are considering fully nationalizing Dexia. The three governments pledged last October to guarantee for a decade €90 billion of the bank's loans, nationalizing its Belgian division.

In Switzerland meantime Phillip Hildebrand, head of the Swiss National Bank – which last year pegged the Swiss Franc to the Euro – has refused to resign after it emerged that his wife bought US Dollars three weeks before the peg was announced.

Here in the UK – where the Pound this morning hit a 15-month high against the Euro – oil company Shell has announced it will close its final salary pension scheme, the last FTSE 100-listed company to do so.

The Sterling price of buying gold hit £1052 per ounce Friday lunchtime in London – 4.6% up on the start of the week.

Hungary's leader Viktor Orban has expressed support for central bank governor Andras Simor as the government prepares to renew negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union over a possible bailout. The IMF and EU last month walked away from negotiations after Orban's government refused to repeal new legislation seen as threatening the central bank's independence.

Ben Traynor
BullionVault

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Editor of Gold News, the analysis and investment research site from world-leading gold ownership service BullionVault, Ben Traynor was formerly editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the UK's longest-running investment letter. A Cambridge economics graduate, he is a professional writer and editor with a specialist interest in monetary economics.

(c) BullionVault 2011

Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.

Central Banks Go Bonkers

Posted: 06 Jan 2012 09:00 AM PST

This week, a certain joke became a painful reality.

Heaven and Hell

Heaven Is Where:		Hell is Where:
The French are the chefs		The British are the chefs
The Italians are the lovers		The Swiss are the lovers
The British are the police		The French are the mechanics
The Germans are the mechanics		The Italians make everything run on time
And the Swiss make everything run on time		And the Germans are the police

So that was the joke. Now here is the reality brought to you by a reshuffle at the European Central Bank:

Praet, 62, will be the first non-German to hold the role [of being in charge of the bank's economics division] since the ECB was founded in 1998 and was a specialist in financial regulation at the Belgian central bank before joining the ECB's Executive Board in June. Germany's Joerg Asmussen will be responsible for international relations. France's Benoit Coeure, another candidate for the economics job, will be in charge of market operations from March.

So we have an Italian in charge. A Belgian regulator running the economics division. A German in charge of international relations. And there's a French henchman doing the dirty work. What a shambles. Perhaps even worse than Nero, Bonaparte and Hitler walking into an economic union.

Over at the US central bank, the Fed, things aren't much better. Zerohedge.com reckons the annual rotation of voting committee members has left the inflationists in charge.

Here's how it works.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets interest rates, is made up of permanent members and rotating members. Of the rotating members, the outgoing ones are primarily 'hawkish', meaning they fear inflation. The incoming ones are 'doveish', meaning they fear deflation. That's a simplification of their views, but it's based on their voting records on interest rates. The hawks are more likely to favour higher rates to keep inflation in check. The doves prefer lower rates to prevent deflation. And when rates can't go lower, the doves favour money printing.

The point you need to take away from all this is that the ECB just got even more dysfunctional. And the Fed just got uncomfortably functional. There will be far less resistance to central bank intervention in the US. And there will be confusion in Europe.

This is the opposite of what mainstream economists and financiers want. They want a stable market. That's why central banks exist, after all. Financial markets need clarity in Europe and a steady hand in the US. It seems they will get neither over the next 12 months.

The Cacophony of Control

To free market believers, the idea that the composition of central bank boards should have such an impact on the global economy is disgusting. For all sorts of reasons.

For example, it's supposed to be the central banks' job to stabilise the economy. Stabilising inflation, unemployment and growth. Of course, it's common sense that artificial and imposed stability has a habit of blowing up.

We're not sure if it's true, but there is a story about some biologists who set up the perfect environment for growing trees in a giant biosphere dome. They wanted to test how fast they could make the trees grow. After the experiment, the biosphere was removed and all the trees fell over. After a while, the biologists worked out it is the constant buffeting of wind that makes trees strong.

The world's banks have been protected by their central banks for a long time now. Their ability to withstand the winds of economic life is compromised. Without central banks to keep them on the financial life support of incredibly low interest rates, banks would fail.

Looking closer to home, the Reserve Bank of Australia has been getting some stick too. A family friend visited during Christmas and let fly: 'I reckon Glenn Stevens is a total ... ... How can he possibly know what the interest rate should be? And does he have any idea what sort of pain he causes when he increases rates? No, he lives in his ivory tower and just looks at data.'

This is just another problem with central planners. They set themselves up to be blamed for things that go wrong. That's why so many of them end up as tyrants feeding off dependents. They have to suppress dissent. If people only had themselves to blame, then they might actually change their behaviour and stop blaming others (rightfully or not).

What is it about central bankers in particular that earns them a spot in today's Weekend Daily Reckoning? Well, central bankers meddle with money. That means they meddle with the medium of exchange used in just about all transactions in our economy.

When government interferes in a particular part of the economy, most economists have no trouble spotting the problems they cause. Shortages, surpluses, barriers to entry, misallocation of resources and the rest. For some reason many free market believers think money is somehow different and that government meddling with money is a good thing.

Monetary Meddlomaniacs

Of course, they're wrong. By instructing their central banks to target things like inflation, unemployment and growth, governments cause those very problems we just mentioned. Surpluses, shortages of money, barriers to entry, and poor lending decisions.

Let's take a quick look at how those problems translate in to reality.

Ben Bernanke and Milton Friedman both studied the Great Depression and blamed its severity on the contraction of the money supply by the Federal Reserve. So that's what a shortage of cash does. A surplus of cash gives you a 2001-2007 style boom. The fact that it was a gigantic bubble is how you know that it was a phoney surplus of cash and not a true economic boom. Another surplus or shortage caused by central bank meddling can be employment levels , such as the high unemployment during the Great Depression or artificially low unemployment during the boom years of a credit bubble.

Barriers to entry make it difficult to enter an industry. For drug companies this may include laws about having to test drugs very carefully before you selling them. In the world of finance, setting up a new bank is very hard, particularly when you are the opposite of a "too big to fail" - too small to be safe means depositors won't like you very much. By being a lender and rescuer of last resort to big banks, the Fed makes life difficult for smaller ones.

Examples of misallocation of capital include subprime lending and the housing boom generally.

Central banks cause all this by interfering in the market of money and debt. Instead of allowing savers and borrowers of money to match up according to demand and supply, the central bankers predetermine the price - the interest rate - they think is 'right'. They then step in to make up the surplus or shortage between the savers and borrowers at that price.

If they set the interest rate too high, there will be too many savers and not enough borrowers. An interest rate too low will bring too many borrowers and not enough savers. The central bank either pumps in or siphons off money to make up the difference.

Because the amount of borrowing is no longer matched by the amount of saving, the economy is fooled into making mistakes. Investments are made without the real savings to back them.

By accepting that manipulation always causes misallocation you begin to spot disasters in the making like the US housing bubble or the faltering Chinese economy. Just follow the manipulation and you fill find the misallocation.

If you think this kind of thing isn't a (morbidly) amusing topic to think about, consider this typical example of disastrous government interference:

More than 2000 birds have died on Macquarie Island since the Australian federal government began a scheme to cull rabbits, cats, rats and mice.
The Federal Environment Department's heritage and wildlife division told a Senate estimates hearing today that 2190 birds had died since the eradication program began last year.
Department officials said the birds had died after feeding off the corpses of poisoned animals and not from eating the pellets themselves.
"This is a complete debacle which just goes from bad to worse," ... "The collateral damage seems worse than the problem the government was seeking to eradicate."

Do you trust this bunch to run your economy?

Until next week,

Nickolai Hubble.
The Daily Reckoning Weekend Edition