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- The World Bank Proposes Tough Medicine For China
- Greek credit default swaps triggered/Gold and silver reverse after jobs release/USA trade deficit increases.
- The Warlord and the Basketball Star: A Story of Congo's Corrupt Gold Trade
- Time to Accumulate Gold and Silver: Jeff Clark, Casey Research
- Peter Brimelow: Gold Bugs Digging Out, Again
- Two King World News Blog Posts about Gold
- Gold Bulls Strengthen as Wagers Hit $131 Billion
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Metals Bears Stuffed - ISDA Declares Credit Event
- LISTEN: “There Is A Hole In The Bucket”
- Germany Tired of Bail-Outs
- By the Numbers for the Week Ending March 9
- Gold and Silver Down on Week, Stocks and Dollar Rally Following Nonfarms Release, Chinese Inflation News “Could See Boost for Gold’s Value”
- Australian Gold Confiscation
- Freeport-McMoRan: A Potential Buy For 2012
- Why Warren Buffett is Wrong About Gold
- Friday ETF Roundup: IWO Soars On Small-Cap Strength, VXX Falters
- LISTEN: Interview with “Gold Timer” Julian Phillips
- Robert Mish: “Nowhere Near A Gold Bubble”
- Bob Chapman - Financial Survival - 09 March 2012
- Greece Has Defaulted – Which Country In Europe Is Next?
- One of the Most Overlooked Aspects of the Financial Crisis
- Why Owning Gold Is Twice As Profitable As Stealing It
- Gold and Silver Disaggregated COT Report (DCOT) for March 9
- Silver: Mind The Performance Gap Vs. Stocks
- Freeport-McMoRan: Indonesia Troubles Will Weigh On Stock
- Gold and Silver Financial Review With Bob Chapman - Gold Radio Cafe - 08 March 2012
- Today’s Winners and Losers
- Today In Commodities: Bogus Jobs Number
- Bob Chapman highly recommends the Gold miner Pretium PVG
- Casey Research: It's still a great time to accumulate gold and silver
| The World Bank Proposes Tough Medicine For China Posted: 10 Mar 2012 03:53 AM PST By Michael Pettis: Contrary to some recent research reports cited in the press I do not think we have seen any substantial rebalancing of the economy towards consumption in 2011. This is largely an argument being made by economists who did not see why Chinese consumption repression was all along at the heart of the growth model. These economists are now too quick, I think, to hail evidence of a surge in consumption, but I find the evidence very weak and more importantly I am convinced that there cannot be a sustainable surge in consumption as long as the investment-driven growth model is maintained and as long as debt continues to rise unsustainably. And as for debt, it is still rising quickly. As regular readers know I have always argued that the rise in Chinese debt, as bad as it is, was not going to lead to a banking collapse or any other Complete Story » |
| Posted: 10 Mar 2012 12:36 AM PST |
| The Warlord and the Basketball Star: A Story of Congo's Corrupt Gold Trade Posted: 09 Mar 2012 11:29 PM PST ¤ Yesterday in Gold and SilverNot much happened during the Far East trading day on Friday. The five bucks that gold did gain during their business day evaporated shortly after the London open...and the gold price proceeded to hug the $1,700 spot price mark right up until precisely 8:30 a.m. in New York. Then the jobs numbers were posted and...as happens more often than not...down went the gold price. After getting sold off about twenty-five bucks in thirty-five minutes, gold rallied a hair into the London p.m. fix at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time. Then a short-covering rally of some note appeared out of nowhere...and thirty-five minutes later, gold was above $1,710 spot...where it spent most of the rest of Friday's New York session. Gold closed at $1,713.50 spot...up $14.00 on the day. Net volume was pretty impressive...in the area of 181,000 contracts. The New York high was $1,716.90 spot...and the low was $1,675.80 spot...a forty-one dollar price range.
Silver gained a bit for the first two hours of Far East trading...and then slowly sold off until shortly before 9:00 a.m. in London...the same London low as gold. From there it rose slowly...making it almost back to the $34 price level by 8:30 a.m. in New York. Thirty-five minutes after the jobs report came out, silver was down about eighty cents...and from that 9:05 a.m. low, silver gained back over a dollar by 10:35 a.m. Silver, like gold, traded sideways from there. Silver closed at $34.32 spot...up 44 cents. Net volume was pretty chunky at 47,000 contracts and, like gold, a large percentage of the volume would have been of the HFT variety.
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, the dollar index low [79.06] came about 3:10 p.m., during the New York trading session on Thursday afternoon. From there, it developed an upward bias that increased in strength starting shortly before midnight on Thursday night...and by 7:30 a.m. Eastern time on Friday morning, the dollar index was up a bit over 30 basis points off that low. Then away it went to the upside...and by 11:30 a.m. in New York, the dollar index had tacked on another 65 basis points...reaching its 80.50 high. From there it traded down a hair into the close of electronic trading at 5:15 p.m. Eastern time. Here's the three-day dollar index chart to put the entire rally into perspective.
The gold stocks pretty much mirrored the price action in the metal itself...with the 10:35 a.m. peak equities/gold price the standout feature on the HUI chart below. From there it traded sideways until shortly after lunch in New York...and then got slowly sold off to unchanged by the close of trading at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. The HUI actually did finish up 0.10%...but that's basically unchanged to me.
There's no silver equivalent to the HUI...but I would think that the if Nick Laird's Silver Sentiment Index was a live chart, it would have been pretty much a mirror image of the HUI. The silver stocks did marginally better...and Nick's SSI chart was up 0.70% on Friday.
The CME's Daily Delivery Report was a bit more interesting...as 80 gold and 113 silver contracts were posted for delivery on Tuesday. As has been the case for months now, Jefferies was the short/issuer of all 113 silver contracts...and JPMorgan was the biggest long/stopper with 87 contracts...16 contracts in its client account and 71 contracts in its proprietary [in-house] trading account. The link to the Issuers and Stoppers Report is here. And, for the second day running, there were no reported changes in either GLD or SLV. The US Mint had another small sales report. They sold 2,500 ounces of gold eagles and 50,000 silver eagles. Month-to-date the mint has sold 19,000 ounces of gold eagles....12,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...and 745,000 silver eagles. The Comex-approved depositories reported receiving 596,899 troy ounces of silver...all of into Brink's, Inc...and they shipped out 135,393 ounces. That action is linked here. Well, I was expecting a terrific Commitment of Traders Report...and it was beyond even my expectations. In silver, the Commercial net short position declined by an incredible 8,797 contracts, or 44.0 million ounces. That's the second-largest weekly decline that I can remember...so you can see that "da boyz" were serious. In gold, the Commercial net short position declined by an eye-watering 45,1431 contracts...or 4.51 million ounces of gold. These are huge improvements, to be sure, but we're still miles away from the absolute lows of late December...and JPMorgan et al. would have to pull off another drive-by shooting of absolute biblical proportions to get their short positions back to where they were back then. Can they do it...or will they do it? I don't know, but I'd put nothing past them. This week's COT report puts silver back in the mostly bullish camp I would think...and gold back at neutral at best, so prices could still go either way. I only had a brief moment to discuss anything with Ted Butler yesterday...and I look forward to his weekend report to his paying subscribers with great interest when he posts it on his website later today. He goes much deeper into the COT than any other commentator on the Internet, as he uses the disaggregated report instead of the long form report that I and everyone else uses...so he sees far more detail of what's going on. I'll steal what I can for my Tuesday column. As for the monthly Bank Participation Report...which is compiled from the same data as Tuesday's COT data above...the four largest US bullion banks increased their net short positions in silver by 2,825 contracts from February to March...and that's after the big smash-down that began on February 29. One can only imagine how big that number would have been if the big engineered price decline hadn't occurred. As of the Tuesday cutoff, these four US banks are currently net short 23,665 Comex futures contracts...118.3 million ounces. I'd guess that 90% of those are held by JPMorgan all by itself. These contracts represent 26.4% of the entire Comex futures market in silver, once all the market-neutral spread trades are removed. That's called a concentrated short position by anyone's standards. As for the "Non-US" banks...there are fourteen of them...and they hold a net short position in silver of 2,573 Comex contracts in total...less than 200 contracts each. I'd guess that more than 50% of that net short position is held by only two or three non-US banks...so the short positions of the rest are immaterial. But the take-away from this is that the market manipulation in silver is "Made in the USA." In gold, it was quite a bit different. Five US banks are net short 92,052 Comex gold futures contracts...9.2 million ounces...and that's down about 12,700 contracts from what they held in February. But between the four of them, they still hold a net short position of 22.5% of the entire Comex futures market in gold. There are currently nineteen Non-US banks holding Comex futures contracts. Between all nineteen of them, they increased their net short position by about 500 contracts between the February and March reports. That's barely a rounding error. Currently, these nineteen banks are net short 36,257 Comex gold contracts...which is 3.63 million ounces of the stuff...just under 2,000 Comex futures contracts apiece. But, like silver, I'd bet that over 50% of those 36,257 contracts are held by three or four foreign banks...and the rest are immaterial. You have to ask yourself this question: Since these banks neither produce nor consume these two precious metals, what are they doing in the Commercial category of the COT report at all, either long or short? They should be in the Non-Commercial category with the rest of the price speculators. Reader Scott Pluschau has a few paragraphs about yesterday's COT report...along with a report about the mega-short position in the US dollar. His blog is definitely worth a look...and the link is here. Here's a little eye candy that Florida reader Donna Badach sent me yesterday. I've posted a photo of this gold bar before, but it's always worth a second look. It apparently weighs 485 pounds...and is worth about $12.8 million...and currently sits in a gold museum in Taiwan. This photo was posted over at the Wealth Daily website yesterday.
Since it's the weekend, I have a lot of reading for you...and I hope you can find the time for all of it over the next couple of days. Quite a few of the stories have to do with the Greek bond debacle. As I've said before, this is the Anglo/American precious metals price management scheme laid bare for all that care to see it. Peter Brimelow: Gold bugs digging out, again. Gold Bulls Strengthen as Wagers Hit $131 Billion. Time to Accumulate Gold and Silver: Jeff Clark, Casey Research. ¤ Critical ReadsSubscribeFinancial Regulators "Paralyzed" by Threat of Wall Street LawsuitsSome US regulators are "paralyzed" by the threat of lawsuits from Wall Street firms seeking to slow or stop the rollout of rules that would crimp their bottom line, a top U.S. official said on Thursday. Bart Chilton, a Democratic commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said if regulators live in fear of a lawsuit alleging they failed to consider sufficiently the costs and benefits of a rule, rulemaking slows or halts and opponents have succeeded. Regulators, already months behind in implementing rules from the Dodd-Frank financial reform law passed in 2010, are bracing for additional legal challenges as more regulations are completed. Insufficient or flawed analysis of the costs of a rule versus the benefits to the public or industry likely will be a reason cited in lawsuits seeking to overturn the measures. This Reuters story was posted over at The Huffington Post website on Thursday...and I thank Florida reader Donna Badach for sharing it with us. The link is here.  Gas Prices Now a Big Factor in Presidential ElectionIt might be one of the biggest issues in the upcoming presidential election. Last night, CBS News exit polls found 77 percent of those voting in seven Super Tuesday states say rising gas prices were an important factor in their vote. The poll reflects growing consumer anxiety as gas prices have risen nearly 50 cents a gallon in just over two months. Consumers have been telling us they are cutting corners because for most driving is a necessity. This story was filed from Minneapolis yesterday...and was posted over at the minnesota.cbslocal.com website...and I borrowed it from yesterday's King Report. The link is here.  US Trade Gap Widens Sharply in JanuaryThe US trade deficit widened sharply in January, driven higher by record imports of autos, capital goods and food, government data showed Friday. The trade gap expanded 4.3% in January to $52.6 billion from $50.4 billion in December, the Commerce Department said. This is the largest monthly differential between imports and exports since October 2008 and came in much bigger than had been expected. This story was posted over at the marketwatch.com website yesterday...and I thank Florida reader Donna Badach for sending along her second contribution to today's column. The link is here.  Now, Sterilized QE?"By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose." Do the Keynesians ever deeply, seriously contemplate perhaps Keynes' greatest and certainly most pertinent monetary insight? Doug Noland's Credit Bubble Bulletin is a must read for me every Friday...and this week's commentary was certainly no exception. It's posted over at the prudentbear.com website...and the link is here. I thank reader U.D. for sending to me this week.  The Crash of 1929: The American ExperienceThis most excellent PBS documentary was sent to me by reader "David in California" earlier this week...and it's certainly classified as weekend viewing material, as the video runs just under an hour. It's posted over at the pbs.org website out of WGBH in Boston. It's well worth your time...and the link is here. |
| Time to Accumulate Gold and Silver: Jeff Clark, Casey Research Posted: 09 Mar 2012 11:29 PM PST  If 10% of your total investable assets (i.e., excluding equity in your primary residence) aren't held in various forms of gold and silver, we at Casey Research think your portfolio is at risk. After speaking at the Cambridge House conference last month and talking with many attendees, I came away convinced that most investors fall into one of two categories: those that hold an abundance of gold and silver (which tends to be physical forms only), and those with little or none. While both groups need to diversify, I'm a little more concerned about the second group. Here's why. |
| Peter Brimelow: Gold Bugs Digging Out, Again Posted: 09 Mar 2012 11:29 PM PST  Last week was heartbreaking for the gold bugs, not for the first time. But they're digging out again. A week ago, on February 28, gold, gold shares, and silver all saw 2012 highs and appeared to be headed for dramatic chart breakouts. But sudden, ferocious selling on Wednesday completely reversed this pleasant picture. CME April gold settling down $77.10, or 4.3%, and NYSE Arca Gold BUGS down 3.41%. Such an abrupt and decisive shock did more than raise eyebrows. The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee's Daily Dispatches email service (which has developed into an invaluable supplier of key stories on gold) was in its element. |
| Two King World News Blog Posts about Gold Posted: 09 Mar 2012 11:29 PM PST  First Eagle's gold guy, Jean-Marie Eveillard, told King World News yesterday that gold is very much undervalued amid the worldwide money printing and financial turmoil. His comments would be even more interesting if he mused about how this undervaluation has come about and how it is sustained. Oh, well... The link to the KWN post, headlined All Hell May Break Loose & Gold is Way Undervalued is here. |
| Gold Bulls Strengthen as Wagers Hit $131 Billion Posted: 09 Mar 2012 11:29 PM PST  Gold traders are the most bullish in four months after investors accumulated more metal than ever and hedge funds raised bets on gains to a five-month high. Sixteen of 23 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to gain next week and one was neutral, the highest proportion since November 11. Investors increased their holdings in exchange-traded products backed by bullion for seven consecutive weeks and now hold 2,407 metric tons valued at $131 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show. |
| Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Metals Bears Stuffed - ISDA Declares Credit Event Posted: 09 Mar 2012 10:12 PM PST |
| LISTEN: “There Is A Hole In The Bucket” Posted: 09 Mar 2012 09:59 PM PST
Contact: david@thevictoryreport.org ~TVR This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 09 Mar 2012 08:46 PM PST "German Showdown With IMF Looms As Bundestag Blocks Rescue Funds." "Germany's ruling parties are to introduce a resolution in parliament blocking any further boost to the EU's bail-out machinery, vastly complicating Greece's rescue package and risking a major clash with the International Monetary Fund." Ed: Parliament passed bailout. "European solidarity is not an end in itself and should not be a one-way street. Germany's engagement has reached it limits," said the text, drafted by Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats and Free Democrat (FDP) allies. Germany itself faces strict austerity to comply with the national debt brake," said the declaration, which will go to the Bundestag next week. Lawmakers said there is no scope to boost the EU's "firewall" to €750bn, either by increasing the new European Stability Mechanism (ESM), or by running it together with the old bail-out fund (EFSF). The tough stance reflects popular disgust in Germany at escalating demands. Bowing to pressure, Chancellor Merkel's office said an increase in the ESM was "not necessary" since Italian and Spanish bond markets have recovered. Germany is now on a collision course with world powers, the IMF and even key allies in Europe's AAA-core. The Netherlands and Finland are willing to boost the EU firewall to €750bn. The IMF has hinted it may cut its share of Greece's €130bn (£110bn) package and warned that its members will not commit $500bn (£318bn) more in funds to ringfence Italy and Spain unless Europe beefs up its rescue scheme." Germany Fights Tooth And Nail To Block Any More Handouts To Neighbors. In our view, most of their current promises are just a pile of maybes and will not be paid. When the global bond disruptions hit with a cascading waterfall, Germany will stop any and all promised payments outside of Germany unless they are indirectly benefiting Germany. We wonder what the UN's subsidiary, the IMF will do to the German bond market if no German cooperation is forthcoming. "Make That An Offer They Can't Refuse." Probably, the best German answer-response is a massive stall not getting a referendum done in time before the IMF and their gang-cabal has to finally jump-in and toss southern Europe a huge bailout life raft. "Greece Should Default And Exit Euro" -Louise Armitstead 2-23-12 The Telegraph "European and Greek leaders have heralded their €130bn bail-out agreement as a momentous victory. Two days later, few others seem to think so." "Washington's Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has just published a note comprehensively kicking the Greek rescue plan – and the international leaders driving it. The note is called "More Pain, No Gain for Greece: Is the Euro Worth the Costs of Pro-Cyclical Fiscal Policy and Internal Devaluation?" but the authors' answer is clear: Greece would be far better off defaulting and quitting the Euro." "Unlike the troika's messy efforts, the CEPR's arguments are clear and compelling. Greece has already suffered among the worst losses of output from financial crises in the 20th and 21st centuries, says the CEPR. Even if the economy starts to recover, Greece will have lost 15.8% of GDP since its peak." "Greece is paying crippling interest rates of 6.8% of GDP – one of the highest rates in the world. In the eurozone, only two are above 4% – Italy and Portugal. It seems unlikely that the bailout will bring the interest payments down. It's getting worse. The CEPR says: "The economy continues shrinking and this makes it even more difficult to make revenue targets. The IMF has consistently underestimated the loss of GDP for Greece, lowering its projections by a huge 6.9% since its First Review of the Stand-By Arrangement in September 2010." We say the faster Euroland breaks-up and flushes all the bad debts and their Masters, The Crooked Bankers, the faster Europe will heal and return to a better future. The banks, central banks and all of their minions and hangers-on are only in the game to STRIP EUROLAND ASSETS AND STEAL ALL THEIR GOLD. This started 300 years ago with the Rothchild's and other controlling banks in Europe migrating to the USA and other countries like Bubonic Plague. We learned this past weekend, the US Federal Reserve is up for renewal on a 100-year contract scheduled to expire August, 2013. Wouldn't that be nice if there was no renewal and America could cast off her economic banker chains for good.
        This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| By the Numbers for the Week Ending March 9 Posted: 09 Mar 2012 03:07 PM PST HOUSTON -- Just below is this week's closing table. If the image is too small click on it for a larger version. That is all for now, but there is more to come. |
| Posted: 09 Mar 2012 11:05 AM PST
Gold and Silver Down on Week, Stocks and Dollar Rally Following Nonfarms Release, Chinese Inflation News "Could See Boost for Gold's Value" SPOT MARKET gold prices fell by over $20 an ounce within one hour Friday lunchtime in London, while stock markets rallied along with the Dollar immediately following the release of monthly US jobs data. Dollar gold prices fell over 1% to below $1680 per ounce, while silver prices fell to $33.25 per ounce, while other commodities were relatively flat on the day. Government bond prices meantime fell along with the Euro Friday morning, after news on Thursday night that Greece's bond swap should go ahead successfully. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics nonfarm payrolls report revealed Friday that the American economy added 227,000 non-agricultural private sector jobs last month, compared to the analysts' consensus expectation of around 210,000. The US unemployment rate remained static at 8.3%. Heading into the weekend, Dollar gold prices were down 1.9% on the week by Friday lunchtime, while silver was down 4.5%. "It's difficult to see what would make gold push higher," said Citigroup metals research analyst David Wilson Friday, speaking ahead of the nonfarms release. "[It] seems odd because you would want to be buying gold if Europe is still a big risk and the US isn't but that is not how it's been trading." Greece secured the biggest sovereign debt restructuring in history last night, after more than 95% of its private sector creditors agreed to a bond swap deal that will see them lose 70-75% on their Greek debt holdings. Private creditors who did not agree are expected to be compelled to comply with the deal after Athens confirmed it plans to activate retroactively inserted collective action clauses (CACs). The International Swaps and Derivatives Association's Determinations Committee was meeting Friday lunchtime to decide whether the bond swap, with its CACs, constitutes a credit event, and therefore whether credit default swaps bought as a hedge against Greek bond default should pay out. "It almost now certainly going to trigger CDS," said Nick Stamenkovic, Edinburgh-based bond strategist at RIA Capital Markets, speaking before the ISDA meeting. "If this doesn't trigger it, nothing will." The bond swap should ensure Greece receives its €130 billion second bailout and avoid default when it has to pay maturing bonds on March 20. Elsewhere in Europe, Spanish unions on Friday voted for a general strike to be held March 29, after negotiations with government on labor reform failed to find a compromise. Spain's government was negotiating to make it easier to fire workers and harder to link salary increases to inflation. Germany's largest bank Deutsche Bank borrowed up to €10 billion from the European Central Bank at last week's three year longer term refinancing operation (LTRO), Reuters reported Friday. The bank reportedly used the funds for its operations in Spain and Italy. "It is essential for banks to strengthen their resilience further," said ECB president Mario Draghi Thursday, speaking to reporters after the ECB's Governing Council had announced its decision to hold Eurozone interest rates at a record low of 1%. "The soundness of banks' balance sheets will be a key factor in facilitating an appropriate provision of credit to the economy." At the press conference, Draghi "adopted a significantly less dovish tone [on inflation]" says Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg bank in London. "[Draghi dropped] anything that could hint at any additional non-standard measure or a further rate cut to come." "Further rate cuts seem to be off the table," agrees Carsten Brzeski, Brussels-based senior economist at ING Group. "[However], the new anti-inflation rhetoric is probably rather lip service to soothe the Bundesbank than a serious intention to hike rates anytime soon." Over in China, the world's biggest gold consumer in the last quarter of 2011, consumer price inflation fell to 3.2% last month – down from 4.5% in January – according to official figures published. "A lower headline inflation number means that the central bank can continue to be very accommodative, which means printing more money," reckons Jeremy Friesen, Hong Kong-based commodity strategist at Societe Generale. "The more money it prints versus the gold out there, the more it should raise the value of gold versus that money." "I believe inflation will again pick up in the second half, because of the monetary easing the Chinese government will adopt now," adds Shen Jianguang, chief economist for Greater China at Mizuho Securities Asia, who also cited recent wage rises in China. China's central bank last month cut its reserve requirement ratio, which dictates how much money banks have to hold as a proportion of their assets. "I don't think there's any room for cutting interest rates for China this year," Shen says. "Last cycle they hiked RRR twelve times, but they only hiked interest rates five times." Elsewhere in China, industrial production growth slowed to an annual rate of 11.4% last month – down from 12.8% in January – while annual retail sales growth dropped from 18.1% to 14.7% over the same period, official data show. Earlier this week, data from Hong Kong's government revealed that Chinese gold imports from Hong Kong dropped by 15% between December and January. Ben Traynor Gold value calculator | Buy gold online at live prices 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.
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| Posted: 09 Mar 2012 11:00 AM PST |
| Freeport-McMoRan: A Potential Buy For 2012 Posted: 09 Mar 2012 10:21 AM PST By Vatalyst: Many people have prospered through investing in mining and exploration. Mining stocks have earned a reputation as speculative. However, they have the ability to combine solid growth with attractive dividends. For that reason, I will look at Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) to see if this multi-metal conglomerate offers a better investment than competitors like gold specialist Newmont Mining (NEM) and a copper producer like Southern Copper (SCCO). Freeport-McMoRan is a perfect example of the risks and rewards that engulf the mining industry in many parts of the world. With large operations (like its Grasberg mine in Indonesia) found in some of the more unstable countries in the world and the relentless danger of cave-ins, this is not a business without risks. That said, Freeport-McMoRan is managing its risks and posting some big earnings. While the stock dropped almost 19% over the past 12 months, the company's 2011 earnings were up over 9% Complete Story » |
| Why Warren Buffett is Wrong About Gold Posted: 09 Mar 2012 10:17 AM PST By Russ Koesterich: No investment topic elicits as divergent, impassioned and occasionally violent opinions as gold. Many investors will readily admit to having no strong views on stocks, bonds or real estate, but gold almost always elicits an opinion. One of the more vocal and visible proponents of the anti-gold view is Warren Buffett, who recently reiterated his long held view that gold does not belong in an investment portfolio as it produces no income and has no intrinsic value. With all due respect to Mr. Buffett, this argument ignores two crucial facts: Gold helps to diversify a portfolio and, if only by an historical fluke, it is a recognized store of value. Diversification is the only "free lunch" available in finance. It is the cosmic loophole to the otherwise unavoidable truism that to produce higher returns you need to take on additional risk. By combining assets that are uncorrelated, i.e. move in Complete Story » |
| Friday ETF Roundup: IWO Soars On Small-Cap Strength, VXX Falters Posted: 09 Mar 2012 10:09 AM PST By Jarred Cummans: Stocks were able to climb out of their hole to finish out the week in positive territory, despite abysmal markets mid-way through the week. The S&P 500 was able to tack on 0.4% on the day while the Dow was able to make mild gains to erase its near 200 point nosedive on Tuesday. Today's gains were spurned by strong jobs data, as this is the third consecutive month that has seen significant jobs growth. Though gold looked like it was in for another nasty trading day, the precious metal was able to pull out of its tailspin and finish the day up $15/oz. Gold was one of the worst-hit assets on the week, allowing bargain hunters to take advantage of its low prices, subsequently giving momentum to the commodity. Crude oil also had a busy week, dropping as low as $104.5/barrel but still finishing out the week on a Complete Story » |
| LISTEN: Interview with “Gold Timer” Julian Phillips Posted: 09 Mar 2012 09:43 AM PST One of the oldest gold traders around Julian D.W. Phillips has seen it all and this week he talks with Kerry Lutz. from KerryLutz.com: Julian D.W. Phillips of GoldForecaster.com and SilverForecaster.com acclaim has a long memory. He's been actively involved and profitting from world financial and metal markets since 1971. He's one of a few who has vivid memories of the last gold bull market and subsequent gold bear market. Being an international financier, he has a unique perspective that many Americans and Westerners will find disquieting.With talk of gold confiscation in the air, Julian believes the US Government might want your gold because they will need it to pay back Germany and other allies. The US has been storing their gold in New York and other places for many years. There are legitimate questions as to whether they will be able to return that gold, if so demanded. If the answer is no, then at that point, gold will take off to the moon, and there will be serious repercussions. Since there is no transparency on the issue of US gold holdings, we are all left to speculate. But, one must wonder why the Fed refuses to end the rumor mongering once and for all. And yes Virginia, gold really is money, now and forever. Much more @ KerryLutz.com and GoldForecaster.com. |
| Robert Mish: “Nowhere Near A Gold Bubble” Posted: 09 Mar 2012 09:42 AM PST Robert Mish has been a precious metals dealer for nearly 50 years and knows what a gold bubble mania looks like. We are nowhere near that stage, in his opinion. Instead, he sees a US populace largely unappreciative of holding precious metal as a store of wealth, and engaged in a slow process of dis-hording their gold and silver to eager foreign buyers who are more than happy to take the bullion back to their shores. In terms of where we are on the gold mania spectrum, he sees us at a "2″ out of 10. from ChrisMartensondotcom: But he foresees a very rude awakening ahead as the populace eventually wakes up to the increasing damage our over-debted global economy is doing to the purchasing power of world currencies. Because when the general investor finally realizes the protection the precious metals offer against currency debasement, much of the retail supply will already be out of the system in very tight hands, and largely overseas. Moreover, when supply gets tight, there will be more challenges to obtaining physical bullion during a buying mania than there were during the last one in 1980. There are many fewer local sources to exchange bullion these days as much of that business is now transacted by online vendors dependent mail delivery to ship product, which are more vulnerable to supply chain disruptions. And be sure you're aware of how the form you hold your bullion in will affect the price you get during a buying frenzy, when refining capacity is overwhelmed. You may find you gold or silver sells at a hefty discount because it's not in a preferred format for trade. ~TVR |
| Bob Chapman - Financial Survival - 09 March 2012 Posted: 09 Mar 2012 09:37 AM PST Bob Chapman - Discount Gold and Silver Trading - 09 March 2012 : Gold and... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my blog http://www.bobchapman.blogspot.com for the full Story ]] This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Greece Has Defaulted – Which Country In Europe Is Next? Posted: 09 Mar 2012 09:06 AM PST 
The "restructuring deal" was approved by approximately 84 percent of all Greek bondholders, but the key to triggering the payouts on the credit-default swaps was the fact that Greece decided to activate the "collective action clauses" which had been retroactively inserted into these bonds. These collective action clauses force most of the rest of the bondholders to go along with this restructuring deal. A recent article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard explained why so many people were upset about these "collective action clauses"....
If a government can go in and retroactively change the terms of a bond just before it is ready to default, then why should private investors invest in them? That is a very good question. But for now the buck has been passed on to those that issued the credit-default swaps. As mentioned above, the ISDA says that there are approximately $3.2 billion in Greek credit-default swaps that will need to be paid out. However, that number assumes that a lot of hedges and offsetting swaps cancel each other out. When you just look at the raw total of swaps outstanding, the number is much, much higher. The following is from a recent article in The Huffington Post....
Yes, indeed. We will find out very soon. If some counterparties are unable to pay we could soon see some big problems cascade through the financial system. But even with this new restructuring deal with private investors, Greece is still in really bad shape. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters recently that it "would be a big mistake to think we are out of the woods". Even with this new deal, Greek debt is still projected to be only reduced to 120 percent of GDP by the year 2020. And that number relies on projections that are almost unbelievably optimistic. In addition, there are still a whole host of very strict conditions that the Greek government must meet in order to continue getting bailout money. Also, the upcoming Greek elections in just a few weeks could bring this entire process to an end in just a single day. So the crisis in Greece is a long way from over. The Greek economy has been in recession for five years in a row and it continues to shrink at a frightening pace. Greek GDP was 7.5 percent smaller during the 4th quarter of 2011 than it was during the 4th quarter of 2010. Unemployment in Greece also continues to get worse. The average unemployment rate in Greece in 2010 was 12.5 percent. During 2011, the average unemployment rate was 17.3 percent, and in December the unemployment rate in Greece was 21.0 percent. Young people are getting hit the hardest. The youth unemployment rate in Greece is up to an all-time record of 51.1 percent. The suicide rate in Greece is also at an all-time record high. Unfortunately, there is no light at the end of the tunnel for Greece at this point. The latest round of austerity measures that are now being implemented will slow the economy down even more. Sadly, several other countries in Europe are going down the exact same road that Greece has gone. Investors all over the globe are wondering which one will be the "next Greece". Some believe that it will be Portugal. The following is from a recent article in The Telegraph....
Right now, the combination of all public and private debt in Portugal comes to a grand total of 360 percent of GDP. In Greece, the combined total of all public and private debt is about 100 percentage points less than that. So yes, Portugal is heading for a world of hurt. The following is more about Portugal from the recent Telegraph article mentioned above....
So why should anyone invest in Portuguese debt at this point? Or Italian debt? Or Spanish debt? Or any European debt at all? The truth is that the European financial system is a house of cards that could come crashing down at any time. German economist Hans-Werner Sinn is even convinced that the European Central Bank itself could collapse. There is a Der Spiegel article that everyone out there should read. It is entitled "Euro-Zone Central Bank System Massively Imbalanced". It is quite technical, but if this German economist is correct, the implications are staggering. The following is from the first paragraph of the article....
So no, the European debt crisis is not over. It is just getting warmed up. Get ready for a wild ride.
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| One of the Most Overlooked Aspects of the Financial Crisis Posted: 09 Mar 2012 09:01 AM PST An engineer, a biologist and an economist are washed ashore on a desert island. After a few days without food they are starving. Eventually, they stumble on a can of beans on the beach. They spend a few minutes considering how they might feed themselves. The engineer is the first to speak: "We could hit the can with a rock until it opens." The biologist counters, "We could suspend the can in a seawater solution and wait for erosion to work its magic." The economist is last to contribute: "Let's just assume we have a can-opener." OK, so it's not the funniest joke in the universe. But it has the ring of truth. For example, one colossal presumption of mainstream economic theory holds that the economic mean reverts to some form of stable equilibrium; all that is required from our enlightened monetary leaders, we are told, is a gentle nudge of this policy lever or that, and the path back to stability is assured. But what if the presumption is fundamentally wrong at its core? What if the economy is never destined to reach a stable equilibrium- a state in any case analogous in its cold sterility to the dynamism of air molecules in a perfect vacuum? Judging by recent market action (on the part of equities and euro zone government bond yields), investors would appear to believe that the euro zone debt crisis has been largely resolved. The market's supposed saviour has been the European Central Bank, benignly tipping half a trillion euros of liquidity onto the continent's banks. More pertinently, a crisis of overmuch credit provision seems to have been resolved through the medium of... more credit provision. Computer scientists coined the phrase "garbage in, garbage out" to describe the vulnerability of computers to process meaningless input data and produce comparably meaningless output. One could draw similar conclusions about the modern financial system and all the economic garbage going into it. It was Nobel laureate William Sharpe, for example, who devised the capital asset pricing model in the 1970s in an attempt to establish the sort of risks that can be reduced by diversification. But the CAPM (as it became known) also contains a number of assumptions about financial markets that can variously be described as either quaint or ridiculous, including:
Clearly the natural world we actually inhabit simply does not behave according to the sort of models that economists use. In "The Origin of Wealth," Eric Beinhocker makes a convincing case that the rot set in to field of economics when serial French loser Leon Walras, having failed as engineer, novelist, journalist and banker, set his mind to this exciting new discipline. Beinhocker writes: "Prior to Walras, economics was not a mathematical field. Walras and his compatriots were convinced that if the equations of differential calculus could capture the motions of planets and atoms in the universe, these same mathematical techniques could also capture the motion of human minds in the economy." And so erroneous, inappropriate, and flawed models were lifted wholesale from the world of physics, and made to fit, somehow, jammed and crammed, no matter what pieces broke or flew off, into the unstable and probably unforecastably wild world of the economy. This matters. And it may be one of the most overlooked aspects of the financial crisis: widely accepted economic wisdom may be fundamentally inappropriate in "the real economy", and the scope for potential losses in "the real economy" driven by such fundamentally inappropriate economic wisdom is almost infinite. Regards, Tim Price This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in Sovereign Man: Notes From the Field From the Archives... Carry Trade Currencies and the World's Most Expensive Cities Why the ECB and the Fed Have China Laughing Burma's Economy: The Next Big Story in Asia Anatabloc - A Game-Changer in Medical Treatment How Australian Banks Use Covered Bonds to Play a Dangerous Game |
| Why Owning Gold Is Twice As Profitable As Stealing It Posted: 09 Mar 2012 09:00 AM PST Your editor went to a university financed by and named after Alan Bond. And received a scholarship from an infamous investment bank to do it. That makes us uniquely qualified, unqualified and disqualified from discussing the matter plastered all over Australian TV lately - the 'Great Mint Swindle'. This new TV show is about 'the most daring heist Australia has ever seen', according to the ad. The story goes that three brothers manufactured a (fake) gold nugget and then fooled Alan Bond into paying more than double the true value for it. The nugget was known as 'the Yellow Rose of Texas', presumably because they claimed to have found the nugget near the Queensland town of Texas, where (although it has no bearing on this story) your editor nearly froze to death on a camping trip. Anyway, the three brothers then got framed for a robbery of the Perth Mint as well - a robbery of 68 kg of gold in the form of 49 gold bars. Now, according to Wikipedia, the value of the gold at the time of the mint swindle was $653,000. Not a bad heist. $653,000 in today's money, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia's surprisingly user-friendly inflation calculator, is $2.02 million - a difference of $1,367,000. And so we ask you, dear reader, which is the bigger heist? Stealing $653,000 worth of gold, or stealing $1,367,000 worth of purchasing power? It sounds to me like the inflationist RBA managed to rip off whoever stole the gold twice as much as the thieves managed to rip off the Perth Mint. (And nine times as much as the three brothers managed to rip off Alan Bond.) Unless the Perth Mint thieves didn't actually sell their gold for cash. Perhaps they held on to it because they were aware of the 'Great Inflation Swindle'. Unfortunately, Channel 9 turned down the opportunity to air a TV show about the 200% inflation that has occurred since the robbery their new TV show is about. Perhaps because it's boring. Perhaps because we know who the culprits are already. Back to that in the moment. So what would have happened to the thieves who stole the 68 kg of gold from the Perth Mint if they hadn't sold their gold because they knew the inflation thieves were out to get them? Their profit on the gold would have been double the value of the gold they actually stole in 1982. That's right, owning gold is more profitable than stealing it. The 49 stolen gold bars would be worth more than $3.5 million based on Wednesday's Perth Mint prices. That's a gain of more than $2,847,000. A 436% return in the face of 209% inflation. We don't know what happened to the 49 gold bars, so we don't know if the thieves ended up with a losing proposition because of inflation. But one thing is clear. Whoever does have the gold is sitting pretty, even if they paid the market price for it. The Greater Swindle So what's going on when $1,367,000 of purchasing power can be stolen without anyone going to jail, while three brothers who supposedly didn't steal gold, just fooled Alan Bond, are sentenced to more than 10 years each? Well, the 'Great Inflation Swindle' is taking place out in the open. It's sanctioned by the Commonwealth Government of Australia and its agent the Reserve Bank. Between the two of them, Julia Gillard and Glenn Stevens are silently in the night sapping a few per cent of your savings out of your bank account. Last year it was about 3%. According to the RBA's Inflation Calculator, it's been an average of 5.6% since 1966. That adds up to a heck of a lot over time. But how is Julia Gillard implicated in the Great Inflation Swindle? Well, the way the RBA injects more money into the economy is by buying government bonds. In an indirect way (via their friends, the banks) the government gets the freshly printed money. That means they get to spend it at prices which haven't adjusted to the new money. It's the same free lunch counterfeiters get. The only difference is that the government and the RBA are allowed to do it. Of course, Julia and Glenn aren't actually robbing banks in the middle of the night. They need the banks on their side to pass on the RBA's cash. The banks are the middleman. What's actually happening is that the inflation tax is making itself known to you and me in higher prices. We have to pay the prices that have adjusted to the levels of inflation instigated by the central banks. The Greatest Swindle It's quite impressive to get away with theft of 5.6% of every single dollar held by the public year after year. But that's nothing compared to what certain dodgy participants in the gold market get up to. You see, physical gold is only a tiny portion of what passes for gold in the financial world. Nobody has accurate figures, but there is a heist going on in the gold market that would make the great mint swindlers blush. Unless they've become investment bankers themselves. In the gold market, people can buy and sell gold without the gold they are buying and selling actually being real. The idea is that (almost) everything is settled in cash, not physical gold. People who want the physical gold use the cash from the paper gold market to buy the physical gold. Here is a simplified example. You buy a 'gold future' today for June delivery. Rather than taking delivery in June, what you do is use the profit or loss on the future to offset the change in the price of gold when you actually buy the physical stuff itself from somewhere else. If the gold price goes up between now and June, the gold future should have paid you enough cash in settlement to offset this increase. In effect, you are buying the gold at a fixed price. The profit, or loss on the futures contract offsets any change in price. If the price of gold falls by the time you get to actually buying the physical stuff, the future would have created a loss, leaving you in the net position of paying a higher price for gold. The problem with all this is that someone can profitably trade gold futures without ever having anything to do with physical gold. This activity has grown so large that the physical price of gold is dominated by futures (and other derivatives) trading, by people who never intend to have anything to do with physical gold. They can now move the price of gold simply by entering the futures market with big buy or sell orders. And the big investment banks seem to have a habit of selling them in vast amounts. This has the same effect as selling vast amounts of physical gold - it reduces the price. If that kind of manipulation isn't bad enough, consider that central banks add fuel to the fire by leasing the vast amounts of gold they hold to people who trade these futures. People selling gold through futures do have to have some gold on their books to appease regulators and clearing houses. This is a rather piddling effort to include at least some physical gold in the futures market. The central banks supply the futures trades with gold in a loan agreement, further fuelling the fire by allowing them to create even bigger selling positions. Neither the central bank nor the investment bank selling the gold futures ever intend to sell actual gold. They just intend to make money on a falling gold price. And the price is falling because of the size of the futures sell order completely overwhelming the buyers and the tiny physical market. Of course, it's no coincidence that central banks are involved in all this. They want to hide the inflation they create, and the gold price is the giveaway that it's more than government statistics say. They are quite happy to suppress the price. So when you look at the gold price and the gold market, remember that many of the main participants in that market manufacture fake gold all the time, just like the three brothers did with Alan Bond. And this depresses prices. Is Now the Time? There are rumours of a fully backed gold futures exchange in the making. The idea being that if you hold a position in this particular futures market, the gold must exist to back up the contract. In fact, specific pieces of gold must be specifically allocated to the contract. If this comes off, investors in gold futures will have to ask themselves whether they want to trade on exchanges with very small amounts of real gold behind each contract, or the same amount of real gold as the futures contract stipulates. Hopefully, investors will turn to the fully gold backed futures, creating vast amounts of gold demand which currently doesn't exist. That could send gold prices soaring very rapidly. Gold investors aren't supposed to be big on timing or trading their investment. It's a buy and hold argument. But a revelation in the futures market could be what really lights a fire under the gold price. If the rumour is true and this futures exchange makes it off the ground, gold could very quickly go through the roof. Have you got any? Until next week, Nickolai Hubble. ALSO THIS WEEK in The Daily Reckoning Australia... What if Growth Markets Like China - Don't Grow? Big economies with billions of people are complex systems. Individuals make trillions of decisions. No one person - or no National Development and Reform Commission with a 12th five-year plan - possesses enough knowledge to make a plan that survives its first contact with economic reality. China's central planners can try all they like to make structural reforms. If they proceed in the belief that the economy is a machine they can operate, they'll blow the whole thing up. The Folly of Intellectuals We are at an incredible historic juncture. The world is, once again, realizing it has been duped by fast-talking political scam artists. This is not a new story. In fact, we've actually gotten off pretty easy this time. By necessity, market-killing programs will be cut back, freeing investors and innovators to create wealth once again. This liberation of capital will come just as the greatest scientific revolution in history swings into high gear, delivering extended healthy life spans and new levels of wealth. I know it doesn't always feel like it, but these are wonderful, extraordinary times. The New Dynamic in Global Oil Demand The bottom line is to expect higher oil prices over the next few years, and higher pump prices as well. Sure, we'll see oil prices rise and fall, because nothing goes up in price forever (except for the cost of medical care and college educations in the US, perhaps).But you had better get used to living with oil price volatility and prepare to live your life accordingly. And invest accordingly. A Greek Default, the CDS Market and the End of the World The banks that wrote CDS insurance don't want to have to pay each other or anyone else. They'd rather hide behind the voluntary swap and get on with pretending Greece will survive. But, by the ECB essentially screwing private bondholders by unilaterally taking a "senior" creditor position and by forcing collective action clauses on bondholders that never imagined buying bonds that had such clauses (they didn't when they bought them), the whole swap deal has created a hole in what constitutes a credit event. Underestimating the Black Swans and Fat Tails of the Chinese Economy Our thesis is that a centrally planned economy will always run into trouble. The law of unintended consequences is iron clad. A hard landing in China is routinely dismissed by the mainstream as a low probability event...largely because China's planners 'won't let it happen'. But black swans and fat tails (i.e, a China hard landing) arise precisely because people underestimate the probability of their occurrence. And in financial markets, that means no one is positioned for such an outcome. Similar Posts: |
| Gold and Silver Disaggregated COT Report (DCOT) for March 9 Posted: 09 Mar 2012 08:59 AM PST HOUSTON -- This week's Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) disaggregated commitments of traders (DCOT) report shows a remarkable amount of short covering by traders who are normally considered traditional hedgers – in both gold and silver futures. 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.
We note that in a week where gold was hammered for more than $100 and silver almost $4.00 that the traders normally associated with the sell or hedging side of the paper metals markets were very strong net buyers. Indeed, the traders the CFTC classes as Producer, Merchant, Processor or User (PMs), the category that includes the largest gold dealers and bullion banks, used the drop in the price of gold to cover or offset a whopping 32,677 futures contracts (16.2%,equivalent to 3,267,700 ounces). That is the largest "hedger get-out" of gold futures short bets by the PMs since August 12, 2008 when they covered or offset a giant 42,638 net short contracts in one week then. Clearly the Big Hedgers of the COMEX took advantage of the harsh sell down for the metals to "get smaller" in their net short positioning – a lot smaller. 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 evening (around 18:00 ET). 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 30-something 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. Continue to look for new commentary often. |
| Silver: Mind The Performance Gap Vs. Stocks Posted: 09 Mar 2012 08:59 AM PST By Eric Parnell: Silver has some catching up to do. A notable development during the current round of monetary stimulus is how silver has trailed stocks (SPY). Given that we remain in an environment where global central banks are intent on continuously providing aggressive monetary support, silver stands to benefit from its position as hard asset protection against currency debasement. Thus, it is likely only a matter of time before silver begins catching up. For the purposes of this analysis, I will focus on the iShares Silver Trust (SLV). However, the same price principles apply to the ETFS Physical Silver Shares (SIVR), the PowerShares DB Silver ETF (DBS) and the UBS E-TRACS CMCI Silver Total Return (USV). The following is a price chart of stocks versus silver during the most recent monetary stimulus phase. While they initially tracked each other closely, Stocks eventually entered into a melty drift higher while silver entered a Complete Story » |
| Freeport-McMoRan: Indonesia Troubles Will Weigh On Stock Posted: 09 Mar 2012 08:56 AM PST By John Mylant: Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc (FCX) mines, smelts and refines copper, gold and molybdenum. One of the challenges it faces soon is with its operations in Indonesia. The government made an announcement that within 10 years of production, domestic ownership in the stock must be at 51%. This is intended by the government to take more profit out of the mines in the country owned by foreign companies. It just so happens that Indonesia is conveniently in the process of renegotiating existing royalty contracts with major foreign investors -- Freeport is one of them. Deputy Foreign Minister Widjajono Partowidagdo came out publically and says it is not specifically aimed at FCX. This is not the only complications that Freeport is facing in the country. The Grasberg mine in Indonesia recently had violent clashes between union and non-union workers to the level that the mine had to be closed down for Complete Story » |
| Gold and Silver Financial Review With Bob Chapman - Gold Radio Cafe - 08 March 2012 Posted: 09 Mar 2012 08:43 AM PST Gold and Silver Financial Review With Bob Chapman - Gold Radio Cafe - 08 March... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my blog http://www.bobchapman.blogspot.com for the full Story ]] This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 09 Mar 2012 08:29 AM PST GDX fell by -0.13% while GDXJ fell by -0.96% and SIL gained by 0.04% Here are today's best performing Silver and Gold stocks:
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| Today In Commodities: Bogus Jobs Number Posted: 09 Mar 2012 08:26 AM PST By Matthew Bradbard: NFP was obviously a positive influence today, but the worst behind us ... not, in my opinion. Just kicking the can down the road. After all the noise Crude is set to finish 75 cents higher on the week. The fact that prices are back over the 9 day MA is mildly bullish but with a strengthening dollar I still think that the inverse correlation comes back to roost. My stance is we see prices break in the coming weeks. I will change my mind if stocks advance to new highs or things heat up further in the Middle East. Recognize that the tail is wagging the dog here as the products are contributing to the gains the Crude. Natural gas managed a positive close today but still ends the week lower by 5%. Wait for a bottom; do not try to pick it as I am still not ruling Complete Story » |
| Bob Chapman highly recommends the Gold miner Pretium PVG Posted: 09 Mar 2012 07:34 AM PST Bob Chapman highly recommends the Gold miner Pretium PVG Bob Chapman... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my blog http://www.bobchapman.blogspot.com for the full Story ]] This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Casey Research: It's still a great time to accumulate gold and silver Posted: 09 Mar 2012 07:31 AM PST From Jeff Clark, Senior Precious Metals Analyst, Casey Research: Do you own enough gold and silver for what lies ahead? If 10% of your total investable assets (i.e., excluding equity in your primary residence) aren't held in various forms of gold and silver, we at Casey Research think your portfolio is at risk. After speaking at the Cambridge House conference last month and talking with many attendees, I came away convinced that most investors fall into one of two categories: those that hold an abundance of gold and silver (which tends to be physical forms only), and those with little or none. While both groups need to diversify, I'm a little more concerned about the second group. Here's why. Regardless of what you think will happen over the remainder of this decade, one thing seems virtually certain: the value of paper money will be affected, perhaps dramatically. Even if the economy slips into deflation, the deflation wouldn't last long. A panicked Fed would print to the max and set off a wild rise in prices. This is why we're convinced currency dilution will not only continue but accelerate. Let's take a look at what's happened so far with the value of our currency vs. gold, after accounting for the loss in purchasing power... Read full article... More on precious metals: Morgan Stanley: "Stay long gold" Top strategist Williams: The No. 1 reason to own gold today Why you should prepare for extreme volatility in gold and silver |
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