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Can a monetary "deflation" happen in a world of floating exchange rates and no gold standard?
African Unrest Should Worry Canadian Miners
Dendreon Out To Prove The Powerhouse Potential Of Provenge
All The World's Gold - info & graphics
High Dividend Stocks With Superior Long-Term Return Potential
The Staggering Scale of Open-Pit Gold Mining
Silver’s Average Annual Price For 2011 A Record High
December Retail Sales: A Quick Review
Gold Lease Rate At Bull Market Low
Why Rising Debt Will Lead to $10,000 Gold
LISTEN: Gold & Silver Update
UBS’s Dire Prediction
90% of Dutch Gold Reserve Is Held Abroad
Forbidden Research
Fake Silver Ingot Warning - Video
Tom Ferguson: The Devil and Rick Santorum – Dilemmas of a Holy Owned Subsidiary
Keiser: How To Kill A Paper Bug (with David Morgan)
LISTEN: Interview with DollarVigilante Jeff Berwick
Anyone Know anything about Silver Sculptures
Silver mining in South Australia

Can a monetary "deflation" happen in a world of floating exchange rates and no gold standard?

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 05:42 AM PST

Itulip

African Unrest Should Worry Canadian Miners

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 05:13 AM PST

By Streetwise Blog:

By Tim Kiladze

Everyone knows that many African countries aren't the safest places to operate, but recent unrest in a select few should worry some Canadian miners.

Chiefly, operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia are under the spotlight, and problems in these countries could spell trouble because they are mineral rich and home to some of Africa's most promising mining projects.

Last year Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) shelled out $7.3-billion to buy Equinox Minerals and its big Lumwana project in Zambia, while Lundin Mining's stake in the Tenke Fungurume copper mine in the DRC was the subject of a lengthy takeover saga that ultimately yielded no buyer.

In the DRC, nationalization is a pressing issue, and First Quantum Minerals Ltd. (FQVLF.PK) has been a major victim. Since 2009 the government has attempted to claim ownership over two of First Quantum's assets, the Kolwezi and Frontier projects, forcing

Complete Story »

Dendreon Out To Prove The Powerhouse Potential Of Provenge

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 05:08 AM PST

By VFC:

The dog days might be done for Dendreon (DNDN).

Dendreon's share price collapsed last summer when it became apparent that sales numbers were lagging for Provenge - Dendreon's milestone immunotherapeutic treatment for prostate cancer that made history when it was approved by the FDA in May of 2010 - and many all but wrote the company off as new competition was able to gain a foothold in the market while massive restructuring got underway at Dendreon HQ.

The tide may have turned, however, both in terms of Provenge sales numbers and in a trend reversal for the DNDN share price. As noted in this week's 'Weekly Stock Watch', DNDN shares tore through the twelve dollar mark last week on rebounding sales numbers for Provenge.

Revenue of over eighty million dollars was reported for the quarter, marking a full 25% increase over the previous quarter. The full year 2011 revenue came

Complete Story »

All The World's Gold - info & graphics

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 04:36 AM PST

http://www.numbersleuth.org/worlds-gold/

FYI a collection of useful info on the world's gold - charts, distribution, yearly price, yearly production, production by country, etc.

h/t to 321gold.com:love30:

R.:smile:

High Dividend Stocks With Superior Long-Term Return Potential

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 04:17 AM PST

By Insider Monkey:

With the way the economy is going, saving is a thing of the past. Consumers are lucky to find banks that are willing to pay more than 2% interest on a savings account and T-bills are even less. Given that inflation is higher than that, it essentially pays consumers to spend their money now – in other words, using traditional, conservative investments, a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow.

This situation leaves investors with two options: Start buying everything in bulk to get the most "bang for the buck" or turn to dividend-yielding stocks. Well chosen equities can have better risk/return characteristics than saving money in a bank or investing in a bond. While of course there is always some risk, there is also the promise of a much better return. Not only is the dividend yield of many stocks higher than what banks are offering for

Complete Story »

The Staggering Scale of Open-Pit Gold Mining

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 04:17 AM PST

Silver’s Average Annual Price For 2011 A Record High

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 04:00 AM PST

Perth ming Blog

December Retail Sales: A Quick Review

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 03:44 AM PST

This week we received monthly sales figures from a number of key outlets and the results were very interesting… The overall level of holiday sales were below 2010 levels but more importantly, there were significant differences between the types of retailers that did well or fell behind.

Last week we laid out five themes for the coming year. One of the key issues that we outlined was an adjustment by retailers to account for the disappearance of the middle class in the US.

Consumers today are likely to fall into a binomial model with one of two extremes. Either they are healthy spenders with stable jobs and plenty of discretionary spending power, or they are struggling to keep it in the road and looking for deep value every time they pull out their debit card.

The mixed results this week show that retailers are in fact seeing this dynamic in play and scrambling to adjust to the new consumer environment. For the most part, retailers catering to the middle class saw disappointing results while chains that are focused on offering deeply discounted merchandise saw gains. The luxury retail environment may be particularly challenging as a number of mid-tier retailers attempt to "trade up" to compete with the higher class retailers.

From a trading standpoint, it's important to begin building a list of expected winners and losers in this environment – and then scanning the charts on a daily basis for entry points with good reward-to-risk dynamics. It's still a difficult period to buy breakouts or short breakdowns.

The market is still showing too many "reversion to the mean" tendencies. But isolating names that have already broken out of patterns, and then entering after a pullback or consolidation offers two advantages:

It creates an entry point that triggers on the second move – when a bullish stock follows through on a breakout, or the opposite for a bearish breakdown. This second move is more likely to continue in the direction of the trend, resulting in a higher probability trade.

It creates a more definitive risk point. If a stock breaks to a new high, consolidates for 5 trading sessions, and then continues higher; a trader can reasonably expect the low of the consolidation to be a significant technical barrier. In this case, a long position can be entered with a relatively tight stop – giving the entire trade a better "R" – or reward-to-risk probability.

Let's take a look at a few of the retail stocks that are setting up on either side of the ledger:

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Falling Behind…

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) was one of the primary disappointments on Thursday when the sales figures rolled in. For both November and December, AEO said same store sales were up 12% over the same period last year. So far so good…

But the company cut profit expectations for the quarter (which ends Jan 31), due to heavy promotions in the two weeks leading up to Christmas. Management said competition was particularly intense, so the discounts were necessary to keep inventory moving.

The stock gapped down well over 10% on Thursday and while the stock finished the day at the high end of its range, the technical damage was still significant. AEO is now well below the key 50-day EMA, and investors are losing confidence as analysts revise their earnings models lower.

Before the sales figures were announced, AEO was approaching the 2011 high and sentiment appeared to be quite bullish. Considering the dramatic shift, it will likely take time for institutional holders to adjust their positions and for many to liquidate their holdings. A 3-5 day pause followed by a new leg lower would be an attractive shorting pattern – depending on the bullish or bearish action in the broad market.

Kohl's Corp. (KSS) is another good example of a "middle-of-the-road" retailer that is floundering in this environment. The company announced a 0.1% decline in same-store-sales, which was significantly below the positive expectations of 2.2%. Kohl's lowered fourth quarter profit forecasts by about 10% and the stock continued to slide.

The casual retailer occupies an extremely difficult are of the market right now. The company offers "quality" products at an "affordable price." The majority of sales come from apparel and accessories – and the "quality" market for these products is shrinking fairly quickly.

From the perspective of the deep discount shopper, Kohl's products are a bit too pricey. Sure, the clothes may look a little better – and they may offer a better value if they last longer. But when consumers are struggling to make the mortgage or rent payment and keep food on the table, true "value" means whatever I can buy at the cheapest price right now.

KSS investors have had a difficult holiday season with the stock dropping 17% from the November highs. Analysts are still projecting earnings growth for the company over the next year, but confidence is declining – and it's difficult to justify any premium price for this middle-of-the-road retailer.

Watch for KSS to consolidate, and consider rolling out short positions any time the stock approaches the 50 EMA or a previous swing high.

Relative Strength…

On the positive side of the ledger, we have both the deep discount boxes – along with a handful of luxury retailers that are executing their strategy extremely well…

Ross Stores (ROST) hit a new all-time high Thursday after the company reported December same store sales increased by 9% over last year. This was significantly higher than the 4% analysts were expecting.

Management increased earnings guidance for the fourth quarter (ending January 31) and analysts have subsequently increased their expectations for the year ahead.

Ross stores has been able to successfully market its "Dress for Less" concept – offering identical clothing at 75% less than typical department store price tags. The concept has helped to drive higher traffic and exceptional revenue growth – and the company has kept costs to a minimum in order to keep margins healthy.

From a trading standpoint, it's difficult to jump into ROST right now. The stock is trading at a relatively high multiple for the industry right now (16 times fiscal 2013 expectations), and with ROST hitting a new high, it's difficult to find a reasonable risk point for any new entry.

Keep the stock on your watch list, because a pullback to the 50 EMA could offer a great buying spot with a reasonable risk point. In November, the stock pulled back to $42 – right at the key moving average line – before vaulting 20% in a month. This is the type of move that allows for high "R" trades, with profits many multiples above the amount of capital initially at risk.

Other deep discounters to keep on the radar list include TJX Companies (TJX), Dollar General Corp. (DG), and Dollar Tree Inc. (DLTR).

On the luxury retail side, Coach Inc. (COH) is setting up an interesting pattern. The stock has been setting up a wedge consolidation since early November, and the company continues to have success selling its premium handbags and accessories to affluent customers around the world.

COH is trading with a relatively high multiple (15.73 times expected earnings for June 2013 fiscal year), but that multiple can be justified by Coach's reliable growth. Ironically, while some consumers are struggling to keep the home fires lit, wealthy consumers are often concerned with "keeping up appearances" – making sure their peers don't suspect financial hardship.

Since Coach has a truly international presence, they are more diversified than many US or European-based retailers. A growing affluent community in Asia helps to drive demand for luxury goods, and Coach is taking advantage of this new consumer segment.

Friday's action pushed COH above recent consolidation and may offer an exceptional buy point. Considering the way global stocks held up relatively well (despite a new low in the euro last week), stepping into a long position here may be a great trade opportunity.

The differentiation between different retailers makes it difficult to trade this sector from a broad perspective (using XRT or RTH as retail proxies), but it offers tremendous opportunities when looking at individual retailers. I'll be keeping a watch list dedicated to a wide assortment of retailers this quarter. The key is to do the homework before the action breaks – so execution can be efficient and seamless.

Trade 'em well!
MM

Gold Lease Rate At Bull Market Low

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 03:39 AM PST

6 Month Gold Lease Rate Plunges to Bull Market Low

from SilverDoctors.com:

In September and December, plunging gold lease rates foresaw big smashes in gold and silver. While gold's 1 month and 3 month lease rates have yet to turn down again, the 12 month and particularly 6 month lease rates have suddenly fallen straight off a cliff.

Gold's 6 month lease rate has plunged Friday from +0.2% to -0.6%, a massive and unprecedented drop, bring the 6 month rate to its lowest of the entire gold bull market!!

Certainly an imminent debt default of a Euro member such as Greece or Italy could be big enough to cause a movement of this magnitude, likewise an imminent default of a major exchange such as the LBMA or COMEX would be enough to cause a plunge in rates of this order.

*Update: As of Sunday morning the plunge in the 6 month and 12 month lease rates have been removed from kitco's charts. So was this simply a data entry error on Friday by Kitco that they merely fixed on Sunday morning?

Read More @ MarketUpdate.nl

Forbidden Research

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 04:00 PM PST

Gold University

Fake Silver Ingot Warning - Video

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 03:22 PM PST

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgjGJtcgfuA

There are currently many fake gold and silver ingots and coins being sold out of China. Many of these items are made to a high quality and are hard to tell from the original for those not familiar with the original items. Below is a list of some of the current fake types available.

Some currently faked silver ingots:

1 ounce Sunshine Mint

1 ounce Scotsdale

1 ounce Pan American

American Prospector

Tom Ferguson: The Devil and Rick Santorum – Dilemmas of a Holy Owned Subsidiary

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 03:20 PM PST

By Thomas Ferguson, Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the author of many books and articles, including Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems. Cross posted from Alternet

The father of the Investment Theory of Politics reveals what pundits miss in the GOP's failure to lead its own electorate and its evangelical problem.

Election night in Iowa was a heavenly moment for Rick Santorum. As he marveled over the late breaking tidal wave of support that in just weeks had swept him from nowhere into a virtual tie with Mitt Romney for first place in the state's Republican caucuses, the former Pennsylvania Senator gushed to supporters about the secret of his campaign's success: "I've survived the challenges so far by the daily grace that comes from God. . . . I offer a public thanks to God.''

But it was not God who saved Rick Santorum. He survived Iowa rather like a blind mole rat might someday outlive a nuclear exchange – by simply burrowing underground while Romney's Super Pac incinerated Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, and while Perry tried to demolish Ron Paul, whom he considered a more dangerous rival. In a state where 60% of those attending the 2008 GOP caucuses described themselves as "born again" or evangelicals, Santorum was the only ultra-conservative left for resigned evangelical leaders to swing behind.

Now, as the wall of Super Money comes down on him like a ton of gold bricks, Santorum is likely fated, like Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Perry himself, to flame out after a brief moment of glory and go back to working with the energy and health care enterprises that helped make him a millionaire after leaving the Senate.

But this leaves a larger question: Why does this curious "shooting star" pattern of flare ups and flame outs distinguish the quest of hopefuls for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination? The answer lies in the party's tricky long-term strategy to steer ordinary voters into focusing on wedge issues rather than the economic policies. The party establishment wants Romney, but its voters have been so thoroughly trained to focus on gays and abortion that they cannot sit still behind a candidate who concentrates on business and economic growth.

A Party Built for the 1 Percent

Beginning in the Nixon era, and then with ever greater determination and force after Reagan, GOP leaders have carefully built out a very special party structure. But at what should by all rights be a moment of easy triumph, thanks to the combination of the Great Recession and the Obama administration's repeated economic policy blunders, the GOP is on the verge of chaos. The carefully elaborated structure of primaries, group appeals, and elaborately layered leadership structures is coming apart. Republican leaders now find themselves superlatively prepared to fight exactly the wrong war.

Their dilemma is easy to understand, if one tears oneself away from media talking heads and the endless election chatter that now fills the US press. As perhaps most painstakingly documented by Larry Bartels, in his 'Unequal Democracy,' Republican policies are stunningly orientated toward making the richest Americans richer and they have consistently done exactly that, by comparison with Democratic regimes.

This is not to say the Democrats do not also cater to segments of the rich – Bartels, like nearly everyone else writing about American politics, jumped too quickly to the conclusion that the partisan differences he detected followed immediately from the direct influence of mass constituencies rather than the choices different blocs of investors made as they appealed to different segments of the electorate while competing to control the parties. But as far as it goes, his point is true and important.

To summarize and retranslate into the language of my investment theory of political parties: Republicans historically secure the incomes of upper income Americans, whatever else they do. By contrast, Democrats typically compete by offering something – and these days, not much at all – to more of the 99%, even as they go whole hog for financial deregulation amid a raft of money from Vampire Squids, telecom monopolists, and other dark forces.

Republican leaders from Nixon, through Reagan, Gingrich, and the Bushes all understood their situation. They knew that to win consistently, they needed to do two things. First, they had to discourage as many poorer Americans from voting as possible. A succession of Republican administrations, sometimes abetted by conservative Democrats, have worked overtime at this. Once centered on punitive registration requirements, such efforts nowadays focus more on state measures to curtail early voting and, especially, add demands for photo ids.

No less important were the implications for GOP campaigns and political rhetoric. Once GOP leaders got past bromides about encouraging economic growth, to have any chance of appealing to the normal Americans their policies were first to squeeze, and over a generation, to impoverish, the party needed to change the subject from economics when campaigning. Fast.

Wedge Issues: the Weapon That Backfired

Thus it was that Republican leaders tried out one wedge issue after another, looking for anything that would stick. Nixon, Helms, and nearly the whole party played the race card for a long time; some still do. In the eighties, conservative Republicans built alliances with evangelicals and attacked gays. Many also attacked immigrants, while, of course, virtually everyone talked up defense, national security, and guns 24/7. After 9/11, with much help from Fox News and the other networks, they kept Americans on high alert for low reasons, to the point that Republicans in Oklahoma and other states sometimes run against the threat of Islamic law with a straight face. The party also looked with benign neglect at the rise of a libertarian right, though Ron Paul's current challenge is a bit more than the party establishment, which lives and dies by the Federal Reserve and the Department of Defense, bargained for.

This brings us to the conflicts that are now chewing up the GOP. Most Americans, if they think about electorates at all, probably think of the American voting universe as a natural fact, akin to the tides or the moon. But as Walter Dean Burnham and I have never stopped emphasizing, that is not true. Electorates are like Japanese gardens. They have to be cultivated over long periods if they are to flourish. A host of rules, institutional practices, and careful appeals mobilize some blocs and demobilize others, including decisions about where to spend money to encourage turnout or make sure enough voting machines are available.

In 2012, history has dealt the GOP a hand it hadn't counted on. The Democrats should be hopelessly vulnerable on the economy just now. The Obama administration's failure to stimulate the economy sufficiently and address the mortgage problem, along with its single-minded focus on rescuing the financial sector, has left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Americans on both the left and the right. The opportunity for the Republicans is so huge that that the GOP establishment can almost taste it. As Haley Barbour, a former chair of the Republican National Committee who is also one of the most closely connected of all Republican leaders to big business observed recently, "If the 2012 election is about President Obama's policies and the negative results of those policies, he won't be reelected; so if I were campaigning, I'd talk about how his policies have made economic growth and job creation harder."

So the party establishment rallied quickly behind Mitt Romney, though he is the first choice of comparatively few and mistrusted still by many.

The establishment's problem, however, is that the electorate it so laboriously built over the last generation still has all those wedge issues on their minds. This doesn't mean they don't think also about economic issues – the Iowa polls, for example, show plainly that they do. But many GOP voters are in the party now because of the earlier recruiting efforts and habits that reflected their other deep interests. They aren't going away. Nor are they going to stop caring about those issues, whether the GOP establishment likes it or not.

So the Republican leaders have a problem. A huge percentage – in Iowa it was three quarters – of the electorate that it presides over doesn't want to follow its lead. In 1953, after riots broke out in the self-styled worker's paradise of East Germany, Bertolt Brecht famously suggested that the government should dissolve the people and go find another one. That prospect is not open to the GOP establishment. It will need them in the general election, especially if the economy were to improve. So all it can do right now is to unroll its mighty bankroll and bulldoze through its opponents, hoping that none of those being squashed defects to some third party.

But it might just take divine intervention to make this strategy work.

Keiser: How To Kill A Paper Bug (with David Morgan)

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 11:36 AM PST

In this episode we discuss Brits using payday loans to pay off interest only mortgages while Greeks bury their cash for fear of being Gaddafi'd by the banksters. In the second half of the show, Max talks to David Morgan of Silver-Investor.com about silver, Sprott and bonds.

~TVR

LISTEN: Interview with DollarVigilante Jeff Berwick

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 11:27 AM PST

In another solid interview Sean from SGTReport interviews Jeff Berwick of DollarVigilante.

from SGT:
SGT talks to Jeff Berwick of DollarVigilante.com about gold, silver, liberty, anarchy, the fascist State and the need for a second passport. Thanks for listening & for sharing.

Part One

Part Two

~TVR

Anyone Know anything about Silver Sculptures

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 10:58 AM PST

I was at a local antique mall today, and while looking around in one booth I came across what looked to me like a cartoonish sculpture of Carter, Bagen, and Sadat..The sculpture was a bust sculpture of each side by side, on a black marble base..Didn't think much till I looked on the back and cast into Carter's shoulder was the Artist signature and 3oz's solid .925 sterling silver..the asking price is $85.00 I held off for now, till I could do some research on-line to try and findout more about it...so far I havent been able to findout anything on line..so thought I would ask..

Silver mining in South Australia

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 09:01 AM PST

South Australia