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Friday, April 6, 2012

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The Who, How & Why of Silver Price Manipulation

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 03:28 AM PDT

No one knows the machinations of the day-to-day silver price better than Ted Butler. So naturally, that's whom I turned to for an in-depth perspective on what's really going on with the silver price. As usual, Ted tells it like it is.

Indian Gold Taxes Hurt Culture

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 02:38 AM PDT

from GoldMoney.com:

The Indian government's recent decision to significantly raise taxes on gold imports is being subject to increasing criticism from members of parliament, investors and dealers, with some describing the measures as an attack on traditional Indian culture. Many dealers are afraid that their businesses will suffer significant losses, and have been on strike since mid March. The government hopes that the new taxes will reduce the country's current account deficit and help strengthen the Indian rupee.

As stated in a letter from parliamentarian Shantaram Naik to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Indian weeding season plays an important role in India's traditional culture. But a wedding season without gifts in the form of gold jewellery and ornaments is inconceivable to many Indians – the jewellery sector being an important cultural and economic bulwark for the nation. Drastic rises in gold import taxes will not only hurt numerous Indian gold and jewellery dealers, but will also negatively affect the wedding intentions of many Indians. In recent weeks hundreds of thousands of jewellery dealers have been protesting against the 4% raise in gold import taxes.

Keep on reading @ GoldMoney.com

Greg Hunter: Weekly Wrap Up

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 02:36 AM PDT

President Obama attacked the Supreme Court, this week, over his health care bill. The nation's highest court is deciding if a law, known as "Obama Care," is constitutional.

from usawatchdog:

It would force all Americans to buy insurance under threat of fine or penalty. The President said that he hoped the court would not overturn the law. The President could not imagine the court would rule against him and opined, "And I'd just remind conservative commentators that for years what we've heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint — that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law." Hard to believe that President Obama, a Constitutional Law professor, doesn't understand a little something called "Separation of Powers"? He does. I think the Supreme Court will rule the "Obama Care" law is unconstitutional this summer, and the President wants to set up another wedge issue for the fall election. In the Middle East, Iran stated it is sticking to its "nuclear path." Super powers of the world meet with Iran, next week, in Turkey to try to avoid war. Israel has a new enemy and it is Egypt. A rocket was fired this week from the Sinai desert, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now calls the area a "Terror Zone." In Syria, The Russians are warning the west not to arm the rebels there. Nearly 10,000 Syrians have been killed in the last year of civil war. South Carolina became the second state in the union to declare gold and silver to be money. Twelve more states are following in the footsteps of Utah and South Carolina in a move to allow gold and silver as a form of payment. Finally, I want to end with the comments made this week by billionaire Hugo Salinas-Price. He made his fortune in Mexican retail and said about the world's financial system, ". . . this whole scheme of paper is unworkable, then the world is going to go down in flames. The only thing that would last will be people's savings of gold and silver." When billionaires start talking about the world going down in "flames" and touting gold and silver—look out! All these stories and much more analysis are coming from Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.

~TVR

George Smith: On The Money – A Dime a Gallon

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 02:34 AM PDT

An economic commentary on Ron Paul's claim that a silver dime would buy a gallon of gas today.

from gfs543:

~TVR

WATCH: Wanted Terrorist Holds Press Conference

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 02:30 AM PDT

Terrorist With $10 Million Dollar Bounty Holds Press Conference Mocking U.S.

from MoxNewsDotCom:

~TVR

Anything Is Better Than Gold

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 02:17 AM PDT

from thedailybell.com:

'Buy oil, not gold' … Oil is a better bet for investors than gold, a leading fund manager has said. The gold price peaked at about $1,900 in August last year, but is currently at about $1,625…Trevor Greetham, portfolio manager of Fidelity's multi-asset funds, said gold did better when the dollar was weak and global growth was slowing. "A US-led global upswing could see neither condition hold true," he added. Gold was also becoming less attractive within the commodity asset class, Mr Greetham added. He said oil was "a much better hedge against geopolitical shocks", particularly when there were tensions in the Middle East. – UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: Gold … You can't eat it.

Free-Market Analysis: We have been covering an upsurge in articles about the "gold bubble" of late. We checked online at Google and in the last 24 hours there have been over 200 articles including the words "gold bubble."

Surprisingly, many of the articles are anti-gold bubble – as in the sense that one doesn't yet exist.

Keep on reading @ thedailybell.com

Three Corporate Myths that Threaten the Wealth of the Nation

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 02:13 AM PDT

By William Lazonick, professor of economics and director of the UMass Center for Industrial Competitiveness, Ken Jacobson, a journalist covering business, economics and technology, and Lynn Parramore, a contributing editor at Alternet . Cross posted from Alternet

The wealth of the American nation depends on the productive power of our major business corporations. In 2008 there were 981 companies in the United States with 10,000 or more employees. Although they were less than two percent of all U.S. firms, they employed 27 percent of the labor force and accounted for 31 percent of all payrolls. Literally millions of smaller businesses depend, directly or indirectly, on the productivity of these big businesses and the disposable incomes of their employees.

When the executives who control big-business investment decisions place a high priority on innovation and job creation, then we all have a chance for a prosperous tomorrow. Unfortunately, over the past few decades, the top executives of our major corporations have turned the productive power of the people into massive and concentrated financial wealth for themselves. Indeed the very emergence of “the 1%” is largely the result of this usurpation of corporate power. And executives’ use of this power to benefit themselves often undermines investment in innovation and job creation.

These corporations do not belong to them. They belong to us. We need to confront some powerful myths of corporate governance as part of a movement to make corporations work for the 99%. To start, we have to recognize these corporations for what they are not.

• They are not “private enterprise.”
• They should not be run to “maximize shareholder value.”
• The mega-millions in remuneration paid to top corporate executives are not determined by the “market forces” of supply and demand.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these myths.

1. Public corporations are not private enterprise.

Here’s something you’ll rarely hear stated by today’s politicians and pundits: Publicly listed and traded corporations are not private enterprise. As documented by the pre-eminent business historian Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., in a book aptly called The Visible Hand, about 100 years ago the managerial revolution in American business placed salaried managers in charge of running the nation’s largest and most productive business corporations.

This was a peaceful revolution in which a generation of owner-entrepreneurs who had founded these companies some decades earlier used initial public offerings on the New York Stock Exchange to sell their ownership stakes to the public, leaving decision-making power in the hands of salaried managers. In effect, these corporate employees, and the boards of directors whom they selected, became trustees of the immense productive power that these corporations had accumulated.

Even when founders of companies that evolve into major public corporations become their CEOs, they generally occupy the top positions as corporate employees, not owners. For example, when the late Steve Jobs returned to Apple Computer in 1997, 11 years after being denied the CEO position of the company he had founded, his ascent to the top position was as a manager, not on owner. When a company founder like Larry Page of Google gives up private ownership by publicly selling shares, he may become CEO of the new corporation, but he is occupying this position as a hired hand, not as a private entrepreneur.

In other words, private owners make choices to transform a private enterprise into a public company that then needs to be regulated as such. There are other choices that could have been made. When the retiring owner of a private company wants to pass on control over a prosperous company to his or her employees, an alternative to the public corporation is to establish an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP. There are many successful companies in the U.S. that are not public corporations precisely because they are under the collective ownership of their employees.

It is also possible for some investors to agglomerate sufficient shares to take a public company private (Mitt Romney made his millions doing just that), but that only emphasizes the point: public corporations are not private enterprise. We regulate public corporations far more stringently than private businesses precisely because they are publicly held. And as U.S. citizens, how we regulate public corporations (or even private businesses, for that matter) is up to us.

2. Corporations should be run to benefit everyone who contributes to their success – not just shareholders.

It's a myth that corporations have a legal duty to maximize profits to shareholders at the expense of everyone else. Historically, the executives and directors of U.S. public corporations understood that they had a responsibility to other constituencies – customers, employees, suppliers, creditors, the communities in which they operate, and the nation.

Today, however, the dominant ideology is that a corporation should “maximize shareholder value.” At the most basic level, the rationale for this ideology is that shareholders own the company’s assets, and therefore have exclusive claim on its profits. A more sophisticated argument is that that among all stakeholders in the business corporation only shareholders bear the risk of getting a positive return from the firm, while all other participants receive guaranteed returns for their productive contributions. If society wants risk-bearing, so the argument goes, firms need to return value to shareholders.

This argument sounds logical – until you question its fundamental assumption. Innovation, defined as the process that generates goods or services that are higher quality and/or lower cost than those previously available, is an inherently uncertain process. Anyone who invests their labor or their capital in the innovation process is taking a risk that the investment may not generate a higher quality, lower cost product. Once you understand the collective and cumulative character of the innovation process, you can easily see that the assumption that shareholders are the only participants in the business enterprise who make investments in productive resources without a guaranteed return is just plain false. In an innovative economy, workers and taxpayers habitually make these risky investments.

How do workers make these risky investments? As is generally recognized by employers who declare that “our most important assets are our human assets”, the key to successful innovation is the extra time and effort, above and beyond the strict requirements of the job, that employees expend interacting with others to confront and solve problems in transforming technologies and accessing markets. Anyone who has spent time in a workplace knows the difference between workers who just punch the clock to collect their pay from day to day and workers who use their paid employment as a platform for the expenditure of creative and collective effort as part of a process of building their careers.

As members of the firm, these forward-looking workers bear the risk that their extra expenditures of time and effort will not yield the gains to innovative enterprise from which they can be rewarded. If, however, the innovation process does generate profits, workers, as risk-bearers, have a claim to a share in the forms of promotions, higher earnings and benefits. Instead, shareholder-value ideology is often used as a rationale for laying off workers whose hard and creative work has contributed to the company’s success. That’s grossly unfair.

Taxpayers also invest in the innovation process without a guaranteed return. Through government agencies, taxpayers fund infrastructural investments that, given their cost and the uncertainty of returns, business enterprises would not have made on their own. It is impossible to explain U.S. leadership in information technology and biotechnology without recognizing the role of government in making investments to develop new knowledge and facilitate its diffusion. As one example, the current annual budget of the National Institutes of Health (http://www.nih.gov/about/budget.htm) is about $31 billion, twice in real terms its level in the early 1990s. Without this government expenditure on research, year in and year out, we would not have a medicinal drug industry. Yet shareholder-value ideology is often used to justify low taxes that deny taxpayers a return on these investments.

So shareholder-value ideology provides a flawed rationale for excluding workers and taxpayers from sharing in the gains of innovative enterprise. To turn this ideology on its head, what risk-bearing role do public shareholders play in the innovation process? Do they confront uncertainty by strategically allocating resources to innovative investments? No. As portfolio investors, they diversify their financial holdings across the outstanding shares of existing firms to minimize risk.
They do so, moreover, with limited liability, which means that they are under no legal obligation to make further investments of “good” money to support previous investments that have gone bad. Even for these previous investments, the existence of a highly liquid stock market enables public shareholders to cut their losses instantaneously by selling their shares – what has long been called the “Wall Street walk”.

3. Executive compensation is a rigged game, not the result of the laws of supply and demand.

You often hear that stratospheric executive pay is the result of some inexorable law of supply and demand. If we don’t give top executives their multimillion dollar compensation, they won’t be willing to come to work and do their jobs. They are supposedly the bearers of “scarce talent” that demands a high price in the market place. Even Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration and a critic of U.S. income inequality, has justified the explosion in executive pay, arguing that intense competition makes it much more difficult than it used to be to find the talent who can manage a large corporation (Supercapitalism, 2008, pp 105-114).

That is not what determines executive pay. Here is how it works: Top executives select other top executives to sit on “their” boards of directors. These directors hire compensation consultants to recommend an executive pay package, which consists of salary, bonus, incentive pay, retirement benefits, and all manner of other perks. The consultants look at what top executives at other major corporations are getting, and say that, well, this executive should get more or less the same. Since the directors are mostly these very same “other executives”, they have no interest in objecting – and if any of them were to do so, they would find that they are no longer being invited to sit on corporate boards.

Meanwhile, given the preponderance of stock-based compensation (especially stock options) in executive pay, whenever there is speculative boom in the stock market, top executives of the companies with most rapidly rising stock prices make out like bandits. The higher compensation levels then create a “new normal” for executive pay that, via the compensation consultants and compliant directors, ratchets up the pay of all the top dogs. And, when the stock market is less speculative, these corporate executives do massive stock buybacks to push stock prices up.

What we have here is not “market forces” at work but an exclusive club that promotes the interests of the 0.1%. All too often executives allocate corporate resources to benefit themselves rather than to invest in innovation and job creation. It is time that the 99% see through the ideology, break up the club, and get the U.S. economy back on track.

Corporate power for the people!

Business corporations exist as part of the collective and cumulative development of our economy. The investments in innovation and job creation that these corporations make or decline to make are key to our future prosperity. Public shareholders, the supposed owners of these corporations, are in general only willing to hold shares in a company because of the ease with which they can terminate this relation by selling their shares on the stock market. Yet, almost unanimously, corporate executives proclaim that they run their companies for the sake of shareholders. In fact, their personal coffers pumped up with stock-based compensation, our business “leaders” have increasingly run the corporations for themselves.

The real corporate investors are taxpayers and workers. Through government agencies at federal, state, and local levels, taxpayers supply business corporations with educated labor and physical infrastructure. Through their interaction in business organizations, workers expend the time and effort that can generate innovative products. In the name of shareholder value, however, taxpayers and workers have been losing out. It’s time to confront the myths of “private enterprise”, “shareholder value”, and “market-determined executive compensation” with arguments about how the innovation process actually works with sustainable prosperity as the result.

What will it take to build a movement that can make the business corporation work for the 99%?

We have to elect politicians who will take on corporate power rather than shill for corporate power-brokers. We have to support labor leaders who recognize that gaining a voice in corporate governance is the only way to ensure that corporations will invest in workers and create good jobs. We need teachers at all levels of the education system who understand what business corporations are and what they are not. We need the responsible media to escape from the grip of corporate control. And we have to put in place business executives who represent the interests of civil society rather than those of an elite egotistical club.

Getting Involved

- April 25: National Day of Action Against Student Debt

On April 25th, the total amount of student loan debt in the U.S. is due to top 1 trillion dollars. This staggering economic milestone marks a momentous victory for Wall Street and the 1% against two generations of students and families. A day of action will target big banks and student lenders, as well as increasingly corporatized universities.

-May 1st: May Day

Recognized worldwide as International Workers’ Day, May 1st marks the Haymarket Massacre of 1886 in Chicago, where workers were fighting for the eight hour workday. Look for rallies and gatherings across the country that will draw attention to the needs and concerns of workers.

-Move Your Money

The Move Your Money campaign was launched in 2010 to take on the power of the megabanks that helped cause the financial crisis and continue to wreak havoc on our economy. Numerous ongoing actions around the country are calling attention to the need for fairness and accountability in the banking industry (read about the latest: "Move Your Money" Goes Nationwide As Cities Pull Their Money”)

-Occupy Wall Street

The leaderless resistance movement continues to take on the greed and corruption of the 1%, including a recent day of action for public transit workers. Check the website for gatherings and actions in your community.

Turning Paper Into Metal? Fat Chance!

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 01:26 AM PDT

The abbreviated trading week finished with a larger-than-two-percent value loss in gold and with not much fresh taking of major positions by market participants in the precious metals complex.

Ron Paul answers a question on the Gold Standard

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 01:02 AM PDT

Gold The Universal Panacea

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 12:49 AM PDT

from mineweb.com:

All of a sudden, everyone's talking about financial repression – the capture and torture of domestic savers with below-inflation rates of interest, so that banking and government debt shrinks in real terms.

"Such policies," explains economic historian and author Carmen Reinhart for Bloomberg, "usually involve a strong connection between the government, the central bank and the financial sector." Check.

Given the post-war size of our debts, she goes on, "financial repression…with its dual aims of keeping interest rates low and creating or maintaining captive domestic audiences… will likely be with us for a long time." Check.

"[It's] equivalent to a tax on bondholders and, more generally, savers." Check.

Keep on reading @ mineweb.com

A Golden Idea

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 12:47 AM PDT

from jsmineset.com:

Dear Friends,

What we need is the second coming of a determined trader so convinced of his/her opinion and feel for the market that taking on the gold banks would seem like a divine calling.

The same stuff we see today went on in the great gold bull market of the 1970s. Then I was a kid in my mid 30s with more guts than is usually good for ones financial health.

I watched the gold dealer's brokers, then of Phillips Brothers and J. Aron, running the living hell out of the gold gang with the locals jumping on the bandwagon the moment the dealers showed their selling interest. I also saw the same quietly covering by the brokers for the dealers taking back their sells after they had bullied the market lower, exactly like the Goldmans and their pals do today.

The difference between today and then was there is no one with cajones that are big and well financed enough to say enough and take them on for mega profits. I learned from the dealers and used UBS and DB to do my largest buying.

I fought them at key technical points only. The second time gold tried to come up through the $400 level I was long 19,000 contracts. I had run the locals every evening for two weeks making their shorting a losing proposition.

Keep on reading @ jsmineset.com

Risk-Off: Equity Futures Slide

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 12:32 AM PDT

from ZeroHedge.com:

Risk-Off. Treasury yields dropped around 12bps across the curve from pre-NFP as the 10Y yield drops the most in 5 months. Equity futures are down the most in a month (20pts off pre-NFP levels) and testing lows as they catch up to credit weakness. IG credit is testing 100bps for the first time in over 2 months and HY credit is back over 600bps – its widest in 3 months. Gold has popped $10 or so to over $1640 and it appears we have a new FX regime with USD weakness implying market weakness as JPY strength (on repatriation and carry unwinds back to one-month highs) is the most impressive (and AUD weakness for same reason). EURUSD is leaking higher as is swissy, as the EUR-USD swap spread model converges on EURUSD's fair-value. Of course markets are thin, but ES (the S&P 500 e-mini futures) is trading relatively actively and testing lows once again as they close – not pretty at all as ES ends the week with the heaviest 3-day loss in four months (perhaps notably ending at 2011′s May high print level).

Keep on reading @ ZeroHedge.com

The Rocky Road Paved with Gold

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 12:26 AM PDT

from theprospectorsite.com:

The question came from a nervous, but honest, reader. He said, "How can you comfortably talk about gold (and silver) when volatility has taken over the market?" My reply, "I honestly pay little attention to dips or spikes (other than to find idle cash in hopes of trading for more silver or gold). This is a long-term game plan and, like all games, no one wins while still in motion."
I refuse to allow short-term volatility undermine my long-term plan. Folks, please listen. Nothing has changed. The same plan to toss trillions (currency) at debt laden problems is still the worldwide plan. Why would PM turbulence disrupt a well thought-out preservation plan? Don't let nerves override prudence!

I want to say something else before we dive into this temporary PM (precious metal) disruption. The reason I provide comments and questions from readers like you are for two reasons. One, I want you to know others have the same concerns, same PM insecurities, and same uneasiness each time PM dips. Lastly, I want you to develop PM confidence by continued PM education and understanding. No sales pitch, no angle and no bait-n-switch.

Keep on reading @ theprospectorsite.com

MIT: Global Economic Collapse by 2030

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 12:00 AM PDT

from theburningplatform.com:

Seems everyone's getting in the doomsday-prediction business. That's not all that unusual in Fourth Turnings; in the 1930′s, "tent revivals" were all the rage, and radio preachers gained notoriety with their apocalyptic predictions based on the moral decay of the Roaring '20s and Prohibition.

Today, we have people using the Mayan calendar, Harold Camping's Rapture calculations and any number of extraterrestial events to predict the end times, as well as global resource depletion and "climate shift" science. The bright minds at MIT have taken it a step further and have built a computer model to simulate when they believe it will happen. Their simulation points to no later 2030.

Whether any of these are based on fact or faith (or both) doesn't matter. What matters is that society's belief that something is terribly wrong and needs to be fixed will eventually create action. We all know, intuitively, that civilization is operating at unsustainable levels and cannot continue this way much longer.

Keep on reading @ theburningplatform.com

Gold Chart Will Hold Fast

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 11:57 PM PDT

from peterlbrandt.com:

There is a tendency toward symmetry and balance in the best chart patterns
In the case of H&S patterns, symmetrical balance would be found in the duration and height of the shoulders.

The current right shoulder low is approximately 13 weeks from the low of the head. The left shoulder low was 13 weeks from the low of the head. With the exception of the Sept. 26 "wash-out" low the right and left shoulder have approximately the same height.

Now, a word on Silver. Back in late April/early May I was lucky enough to call the top of Silver within a day and $1. My all was based on the fact that the trading volume of $SI_F and $SLV in one week was equal to eight years of supply. Big slugs of volume means that supply or demand is exerting domination. That the late April 2011 volume represented dominant supply was a no-brainer. I called the top a BUBBLE as it was happening — a call that earned me wrath by many of the irrational Silver bulls who still think the Gold/Silver ration should be at 15 to 1 because it was so declared by a Spanish king in the 16th century.

Keep on reading @ peterlbrandt.com

MIT Research Team Predicts Global Economic Collapse and Precipitous Population Decline

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 11:47 PM PDT

shtfplan

April 5, 1961 Us foreign exchange operations : needs and methods

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 10:30 PM PDT

History of Gold

American Capital Agency Corp.: An Attractive REIT For 2012

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 10:11 PM PDT

By Stock Croc:

Good news for residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) REITs and those of us who love them. Just passed into law on April 4, 2012 when signed by President Obama, the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act is meant to address insider trading by members of Congress - rather ridiculous that this had to become an issue in the first place, but that is precisely why the law was needed once we discovered that nearly everyone with power has a body buried somewhere. The part I'm expressing gratitude for in this article is a bipartisan amendment that prohibits the executives of the federal institutions of US government-backed mortgages - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - from any more multi-million dollar bonuses, at least as long as these companies stay in conservatorships of the federal government. If you remember being furious earlier this year (I know I was), it seems that in


Complete Story »

Is It Safe to Start Buying Gold Stocks Yet?

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 09:59 PM PDT

In order to work off the bullish sentiment that was at parabolic extremes, gold is required to spend a reasonable amount of time in relation to the prior 34-month move to wash out the sentiment and create a strong pivot bottom.

Ty Andros: QE is Ongoing

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 09:53 PM PDT

Gold got slammed-down again, so Ty and I discuss the velocity of money, and the rapid rate at which it continues to fall.

From KerryLutz.com:

Ty Andros, of Traderview andTedbits, joins us for a precious metals crash report. Gold got slammed-down again, so Ty and I discuss the velocity of money, and the rapid rate at which it continues to fall. The central banks are continuing to print money, but they are actively buying in the futures exchanges. The Chinese have made an art of buying pullbacks, and the US is desperate to mask the monetization of debt. The Federal Reserve has been buying 60%to 90% of all the 10 and 30 year variety treasures, and Bernanke is now saying that gold is not money. Don't be fooled; gold is money! Precious metals have always had and will always have intrinsic value. Hold onto your physical metals because the central banks are trying to buy, buy, buy! YOU should take a page from the Feds book and buy, buy, buy physical holdings of precious metals too!

Much more @ KerryLutz.com or @ 347.460.LUTZ

5 Alluring Long Candidates: Lorillard Is Our Top Choice

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 09:51 PM PDT

By Sol Palha:

"The wicked work harder to preach hell than the righteous do to get to heaven."

American Proverb

Lorillard, Inc. (LO), founded in 1760 manufacturers and sells cigarettes in the United States; Newport, Kent, True, Old gold and Maverick are some of its top selling brands. Its products are primarily sold to wholesale distributors; these wholesale distributors service chain stores, retail outlets, government agencies (U.S. Armed forces), etc. We like Lorillard for the following reasons:

It approved a 19% increase in its quarterly dividend from $1.30-$1.55 per share.

Earnings per share are projected to increase from $7.88 in 2011, to $8.92 in 2012 to $9.87 in 2013.

It continues to gain market share in a declining industry. Newport is the largest menthol brand in the US. Its domestic market share climbed 0.8 points and now stands at 14% in the 4th quarter. For 2011, its share soared to 14.1%. Its brand


Complete Story »

Marc Faber: “There Will Be More QE”

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 09:45 PM PDT

Dr. Faber believes shorting the markets can be a risky proposition when the global central banks will print money at the drop of a hat.

From Jim Puplava and Financial Sense:

Marc Faber : Inflation will come first, then eventually deflation.

Jim welcomes back Dr. Marc Faber of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report this week. Dr. Faber believes shorting the markets can be a risky proposition when the global central banks will print money at the drop of a hat. He believes it is very important to stay diversified in this environment. Dr. Faber recommends dividend-paying stocks, gold, emerging market stocks and real estate.

Much More @ FinancialSense.com 

Gold Losing Its Luster? A Short-Term Bearish Options Trade

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 09:26 PM PDT

By John R. Conway:

I always have found gold and other precious metals attractive. When I was younger, my grandfather was an avid coin collector and because of him I have always had an interest for gold and silver. I enjoy going out to auctions and garage sales and snapping up the chance to buy gold and silver coins; or jewelry for cheap prices. For now, collecting gold and silver is a hobby that hopefully I can pass down to my children. I hope it can be a collection that can grow in value over time.

The allure of gold is something that I have always been attracted to, but when trading gold in paper terms I don't find gold sexy in the short-term. One way to play gold is through the SPDR Gold Shares ETF GLD. The GLD seeks to reflect the performance of the price of gold bullion and the GLD is


Complete Story »

One of the 'Masters' of the Universe Gets a Market Manipulation Question on CNBC

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 09:07 PM PDT

¤ Yesterday in Gold and Silver

As expected, it was a pretty quiet day price wise...and gold spent the entire 24-hour period in a ten dollar price range...and closed on Thursday at $1,631.30 spot..up $10.90 on the day.

Net volume was surprisingly high at 123,000 contracts...but Ted Butler said a lot of that volume was probably carry-over from the prior two days, as the last of the leverage longs dumped their positions into the waiting arms of JPMorgan et al.

The silver price action was a little more interesting, but only just...and once the London gold fix was in around 10:00 a.m. Eastern time...silver traded basically sideways from there into the close of electronic trading.

Silver closed at $31.74 spot...up 38 cents on the day.  Net volume was slightly elevated at around 31,000 contracts.

The dollar index hit its nadir about 7:30 a.m. in London...and its zenith at 9:20 a.m. in New York. But most of the gains were in by 11:00 a.m. British Summer Time...which was 6:00 a.m. Eastern.  From there it pretty much traded sideways, except for the 9:20 a.m. high tick.  The dollar index close up about 35 basis points...and finished 6 basis points above the 80.00 mark.

The gold stocks opened in slightly positive territory, but couldn't even hold those gains.  The low for the day was in just minutes before 2:00 p.m. Eastern time...and then gained back a percent of their losses by the close of the equity markets.

It wouldn't surprise me if the gold mutual funds were being forced to sell into Thursday's market because of redemptions...so I don't read any nefarious things into yesterday's stock price action despite the fact that the physical metal finished in the black.  The HUI turned in another losing day, down 0.94%.

The large cap silver producers didn't do particularly well yesterday, either...and probably for the same reason as the gold stocks.  Nick Laird's Silver Sentiment Index closed down another 2.00%.

(Click on image to enlarge)

The CME's Daily Delivery Report showed that 6 gold and only 2 silver contracts were posted for delivery next Tuesday.  Nothing to see here.

The GLD ETF showed no change yesterday...and despite the $60 hit on Tuesday and Wednesday, has been unchanged since March 27th.  But the surprise was in SLV.  I was expecting the worst, but the report showed that 1,456,557 troy ounces of silver were added by an authorized participant.  Go figure!

And, for the second day in a row, there was no sales report from the U.S. Mint.

Over at the Comex-approved warehouses on Wednesday, they reported receiving 1,383,434 troy ounces of silver...and shipped only 52,371 ounces out the door.  The link to that action is here.

I have the usual number of stories today, so I hope you have the time to at least read the parts I've cut and paste from each.

As of yesterday's close, the gold price was about $60 under its 200-day moving average...and the silver price was about $3.00 under its.
Investor Alert - Managing Expectations: Why Gold Should Thrive. Zero Hedge cites gold as part of currency market manipulation. Are gold and silver bulls clutching at straws?

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The Second Foreclosure Tsunami Is Coming, And Is About To Kill Any Hopes Of A "Housing Bottom"

In what appears to be surprising news for some, Reuters has an article titled "Americans brace for next foreclosure wave" whose key premise is that "a painful part two of the [housing] slump looks set to unfold: Many more U.S. homeowners face the prospect of losing their homes this year as banks pick up the pace of foreclosures." Thank the robo-settlement, where in exchange for a few wrist slaps, contract law was thoroughly trampled by America's attorneys general, but far more importantly to the country's crony capitalist system, the foreclosure pipeline was once again unclogged, and whether one does or does not have a legal title on a given house, the banks are now fully in their right to foreclose on it.

What this means also is that America's record shadow housing inventory, which is far greater than any fabricated number the NAR reports on a monthly basis, is about to get unleashed on buyers, shifting the supply curve much further to the right, as up to 9 million new properties slowly but surely appear on the market.

Well, there are no surprises here, at least not for me.  This zerohege.com piece is rather long, but if you have any interest in the U.S. housing situation, this is a must read.  I thank Phil Barlett for providing today's first story...and the link is here.

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Food inflation seen back on the table as prices rise

World food prices are likely to rise for a third successive month in March, and could gain further beyond that, with expensive oil and chronically low stocks of some key grains putting food inflation firmly back on the economic agenda.

Food prices grabbed world policy makers' attention after hitting record highs in February 2011 and stoking protests connected to the Arab Spring wave of civil unrest in some north Africa and middle eastern countries.

Prices later receded, but an upturn which began in January, initially seen as a pause in the overall downtrend, has persisted.

This Reuters piece was filed from Milan yesterday...and I thank reader Bob Fitzwilson for sharing it with us.  It's definitely worth reading...and the link is here.

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Richard Russell: 'There Is An Ominous Something Out There Waiting To Materialize'

The author of the Dow Theory Letters, Russell writes on King World News that the "big money" — shorthand for savvy investors — do not like what they're seeing in the market.

"My guess is that this is the big money that has been holding off as long as it decently can -- and then dumping their goods just before the close.  I don't think the big money likes this market, and I think they have been slowly exiting this market, as quietly as they can."

Russell is convinced something terrible is on the horizon for the markets. What it is ain't exactly clear — a European depression? More bad housing news? Whatever it is, it's time to plan for the worst.

This story was posted over at the businessinsider.com website yesterday...and it's Roy Stephens first offering of the day.  The link is here.

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Egan-Jones Cuts US Credit Rating to 'AA,' Citing Debt

Rating firm Egan-Jones cuts its credit rating on the U.S. government to "AA" from "AA+" with a negative watch, citing a lack of progress in cutting the mounting federal debt.

"When debt-to-GDP  exceeds 100 percent, a country's financial flexibility becomes increasingly strained," Managing Director Sean Egan wrote in his report on the downgrade. "For the first time since World War II, U.S. debt exceeds 100 percent."

Let's call a spade a shovel.  All sovereign debt...including that of the U.S.A...should be rated as junk, as it will never be paid back.  If it ever is, it will be in currency that's worth only a tiny fraction of its present purchasing power.  This CNBC story from yesterday was sent to me by West Virginia reader Elliot Simon...and the link is here.

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Europe's poignant wake-up call: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

For those who missed the story, a 77-year old retired pharmacist – Dimitris Christoulas – has shot himself to death in front of the Greek Parliament in Syntagma Square, protesting the degradation of his country.

It is a call to arms, a poignant moment in Europe's unfolding drama, reminiscent of the Buddhist self-immolations of south-east Asia that so captured world attention.

It is loose talk to compare the democratic, well-intentioned Germany of 2012 with the rabble of gangsters who hijacked the Weimar state in 1933. Germany's Angela Merkel too is doing what she thinks to be the best for both her country and for Europe (and which I think is deeply misguided, especially for Germany itself)

But the event has happened, and such events have consequences.

This short piece, posted in The Telegraph yesterday, is worth reading...and I thank Roy Stephens for bringing it to my attention.  The link is here.

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Austerity may not be Portugal's best option, warns IMF

The IMF quoted its new mission chief for Portugal, Abebe Selassie, as saying that "the main risk is that the recession turns out deeper than projected", partly due to a mild recession in the eurozone, where Portugal sells most of its products.

"In that case, we think that chasing after fixed nominal deficit targets may not be the best policy," Selassie said.

Still, Selassie made clear that Portugal could not afford to miss any targets due to policy slippages as that would damage the programme's credibility. Right now, he said, this year's targets of 4.5pc of GDP deficit "remains within reach".

Without doubt the recession in Portugal will turn out to be much worse than forecast...and equally without doubt, Portugal will be looking for another bailout within the next twelve months.  This story was posted in The Telegraph yesterday...and is another Roy Stephens offering.  The link is here.

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Botella's Battle: Madrid's Mayor Chips Away at Debt and Tradition

Spain is frantically trying to reduce its debts. While conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is doing so at the national level, Ana Botella is slashing away at spending in Madrid, Spain's most heavily indebted city. In the process, the mayor is blazing her own path.

Ana Botella, 58, the wife of former conservative Prime Minister José María Aznar, has been Madrid's mayor since the end of December. Before that, she had served eight years as a city councilor, initially for family and social affairs and, most recently, for transportation and the environment. Rather than being elected to the office, Botella inherited it from her predecessor after he was brought into the administration of Mariano Rajoy, a fellow party member who became Spain's prime minister in November.

Botella inherited not only the office with the best view, a room larger than the Oval Office in Washington, in a 1917 palace that was converted into the city hall at a cost of €500 million, but also the services of a butler whose sole duty is to serve coffee to her and her guests. But she has also inherited close to €6.4 billion in debts.

This story was posted over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and is also courtesy of Roy Stephens.  The link is here.

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Europe and the Law of Sticky Wages (technical) - Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Employers are loathe to cut to nominal wages because this "can reduce morale and prompt resistance even in difficult economic times (Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler 1986)".

So how on earth is this going to play out across Europe's Arc of Depression, with Franco-era labour laws still only partially reformed in Spain, and Mario Monti struggling to push through reform of Article 18 of the labour code?

Portugal, Italy, and Spain need an "internal devaluation" of around 20pc to claw back competitiveness within EMU. This means draconian wage cuts for year after year.

This rather timely Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering was posted in The Telegraph yesterday evening...and is a must read in my opinion.  I thank Roy Stephens for this story...and the link is here.

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Confusion at the Pumps: Big Oil's Strategy for Jacking Up Gas Prices

Prices at German gas pumps oscillate wildly, sometimes changing several times a day. The rises and falls are far from random, however. Studies and market observers say it is an attempt by big oil to ratchet up the cost of a fill-up as high as possible.

It's Easter weekend and, if all goes as usual, motorists will be hopping mad during the holiday. Their frustration will boil over when the needle reaches the red zone and they pull into the nearest filling station: first at the pump, then at the cash register.

That's where they'll note with dismay that the oil companies never tire of playing the same old game in the run-up to Easter. As in previous years, gas prices soared in the days leading up to the Friday before Easter -- just when millions of Germans head off on vacation.

If Americans think they're paying a lot for gas at the pumps...the price is about double that in Germany.  This 3-page essay is posted over at spiegel.de...and is well worth your time, if you have it.  I thank Roy once again for sending it our way...and the link is here.

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Investor Alert - Managing Expectations: Why Gold Should Thrive

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 09:07 PM PDT

Investor Alert - Managing Expectations: Why Gold Should Thrive

Frank Holmes, the CEO and Chief Investment Officer at U.S. Global Investors, posted this fairly long piece on their website yesterday.  It contains lots of excellent charts...and is well worth reading.  The story is posted at usfunds.com...and I thank Elliot Simon for his second offering in today's column.  The link is here.

Zero Hedge cites gold as part of currency market manipulation

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 09:07 PM PDT

Zero Hedge cites gold as part of currency market manipulation

In an article posted on the Zero Hedge website yesterday, they cite gold market manipulation in its commentary headlined "Meet the People Bringing You Currency Manipulation on a Daily Basis".

I plucked this story posted from a GATA release...and the link is here.

Lawrence Williams: Are gold and silver bulls clutching at straws?

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 09:07 PM PDT

Lawrence Williams: Are gold and silver bulls clutching at straws?

In a story posted over at mineweb.com.za yesterday, Lawrence Williams asks whether gold and silver investors are "clutching at straws"...but acknowledges the likelihood of market manipulation by central banks and big investment houses as well as naked short positions in the monetary metals.

I borrowed the above introductory paragraph from a GATA release...and the link to this rather long must read MineWeb article is here.

Three King World News Blogs

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 09:07 PM PDT

Three King World News Blogs

The first is from Richard Russell...and is the one referenced in the businessinsider.com story that I posted further up.  The KWN headlined reads..."Richard Russell: Europe Headed into Massive Collapse".  The second is by Jean-Marie Eveillard, who oversees $50 billion at First Eagle Funds.  It bears the title..."Massive Government Debt Underpinning Gold Market".  And lastly is this blog whose headline reads "read more

With Gold Prices Falling, We’ll Take the Odds

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 08:55 PM PDT

US Scores Own Goal on Gold

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 06:15 PM PDT

We noticed a few weeks ago Iran was shut out of Swift, the global payments system. We may assume this happened after America had put pressure on this private Belgian company.
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