Gold World News Flash |
- GoldSeek.com Radio Gold Nugget: John Williams & Chris Waltzek
- Hedge funds re-evaluate gold’s potential
- Hold on for eurobonds, JP Morgan and euro money printing to boost gold and silver prices
- PBS Frontline: MF Global's Six Billion Dollar Bet
- 2%... 1%... FLAT... DOWN HARD / BF: Stinking Up The Place
- Gold Has ‘Significant Upside’ from Euro Debt & Fiscal Crisis
- Another Hike for Gold
- Unspeakable Horror: Thai police arrest British man with suitcase full of gold plated, roasted babies
- John Embry - Banks Are Loaning Out “Allocated” Gold
- Silver Update 5/22/12 Euro Gold
- Ron Paul 2012 - The Shocking Truth About YOUR Money Revealed
- A Silver Primer
- NYT: Lyme Disease to Blame for JPM’s CIO Derivatives Losses
- “Nuclear-free Japan:” Figment of the Imagination
- Gold and Silver Are the Answer in the Long-Term
- On Growing Tensions, Spreading Global Downturn And A Dead-End Greek Resolution
- The Gold Price Lost $12.10 Closing Comex $1,576.30
- Comparing Gold's Current Crash to the One in 2008
- Adam Fleming and James Turk on Precious Metals and Mining
- Don Coxe – ‘Gold Super-cycle Has a Long Way to Go’
- Manipulating the World Economy Or Just Understanding How It Really Functions.
- Don Coxe: Commodity boom has far to run, mining shares sharply discounted
- Will China Make the Yuan a Gold-Backed Currency?
- Big Oil's Cost-Revenue Tightrope
- More Upside for Gold...or Gold Miners?
- "Retroactive Market Conditions": Nasdaq Says Would Have Called Off FaceBook IPO If It Knew Then What It Knows Now
- Exponential Growth
- The Real Price of Gold Holds the Cards for Gold and Gold Shares
- Gold Miner Requirement - U.S.$3,000 Gold Price...
| GoldSeek.com Radio Gold Nugget: John Williams & Chris Waltzek Posted: 23 May 2012 03:00 AM PDT GoldSeek.com Radio Gold Nugget: John Williams & Chris Waltzek
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| Hedge funds re-evaluate gold’s potential Posted: 22 May 2012 07:01 PM PDT Gold's biggest problem since February has been one of relative weakness. This weakness in turn has kept the market-moving hedge fund players away from gold. But as we'll see in the latest commentary, that may be about to change. In late February when the gold price rallied sharply to its highest level of the year at $1,793 it looked, on the surface, like gold was finally about to break out of its holding pattern since last September when the metal took a sharp dive. The February rally proved to be a "head fake" however. The yellow metal took another plunge within days of making its late February high at $1,793 and fell to a low of $1,538 on May 16.
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| Hold on for eurobonds, JP Morgan and euro money printing to boost gold and silver prices Posted: 22 May 2012 06:57 PM PDT The pessimism in the precious metals market just has to be at something of a high point. And yet there is an obvious point of release on the horizon. Greece runs out of cash in six weeks' time and that will finally force the eurozone to do the necessary and print money again.
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| PBS Frontline: MF Global's Six Billion Dollar Bet Posted: 22 May 2012 06:40 PM PDT
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| 2%... 1%... FLAT... DOWN HARD / BF: Stinking Up The Place Posted: 22 May 2012 06:30 PM PDT Sometimes I feel like Sherlock Holmes, and at other times like Chief Inspector Clouseau on his bad days. Today, it is the latter. My first instinct yesterday that the bizarre, singular weakness in silver was a signal by The Gold Cartel that gold would be under pressure in the very near future(Just what Andrew Maguire explained to the CFTC more than two years ago). But then, with the late action and strength in the shares, I went the other way … that the share strength was the real signal for the day and that The Gold Cartel changed their very short term game plan.
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| Gold Has ‘Significant Upside’ from Euro Debt & Fiscal Crisis Posted: 22 May 2012 06:04 PM PDT Bullion Vault
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| Posted: 22 May 2012 05:59 PM PDT The Gold Speculator
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| Unspeakable Horror: Thai police arrest British man with suitcase full of gold plated, roasted babies Posted: 22 May 2012 05:29 PM PDT Spiritual warfare on planet earth: Paul Sims, Dailymail.co.uk
Hok Kuen Chow, 28, a Briton born in Hong Kong of Taiwanese parents, was held in the city's Yaowarat area after police received a tip-off. He is suspected of trying to smuggle the foetuses – from two to seven months – back to Taiwan to sell to wealthy customers online. Chow has reportedly admitted buying the bodies, which had been roasted dry and painted in gold leaf, for 200,000 baht (£4,040). Back in Taiwan he could have sold them for six times that amount to rich clients who believe the foetuses will bring them good fortune. 'The bodies are between the ages of two and seven months,' said Wiwat Kumchumnan, of the police's children and women protection unit.
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| John Embry - Banks Are Loaning Out “Allocated” Gold Posted: 22 May 2012 05:11 PM PDT  Today John Embry told King World News that customers holding "allocated" gold inside certain banking institutions have had their gold "loaned out." Embry, who is Chief Investment Strategist of the $10 billion strong Sprott Asset Management, also told KWN, "Many of these customers will wake up one day and realize they entrusted their gold to the wrong people." But first, here is what Embry had to say about what is happening in Europe and how it is impacting gold: "The pressure will be on the Germans today to fall off the austerity kick. The only alternative will seem to be that Germany will have to leave the euro and they are really not in a position to do that. The solution to keep the thing together is going to be more and more money creation and this is extraordinarily bullish for gold."
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Silver Update 5/22/12 Euro Gold Posted: 22 May 2012 04:46 PM PDT |
| Ron Paul 2012 - The Shocking Truth About YOUR Money Revealed Posted: 22 May 2012 04:40 PM PDT  Ron Paul 2012 - The Shocking Truth About YOUR Money Revealed In this video - Ron Paul the only Honest Politician - Why Ron Paul has exposed the Bankers and Corporations - What you can DO about the Giant Economic Collapse. Read more..... 
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 22 May 2012 03:36 PM PDT by Chris Dumont, Investopedia:
SEE: A Beginner's Guide To Precious Metals Price Drivers
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| NYT: Lyme Disease to Blame for JPM’s CIO Derivatives Losses Posted: 22 May 2012 03:05 PM PDT from Silver Doctors:
So let's get this straight. The New York Times would like its readers to believe that JP Morgan only lost
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| “Nuclear-free Japan:” Figment of the Imagination Posted: 22 May 2012 02:49 PM PDT Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com Nuclear power is galvanizing Japan, stirring up public discussions and outright dissent with demonstrations and all, a rare occurrence in Japan. It has divided the country in two: those who want nuclear power generation to resume so that a stranglehold can be lifted from the economy, and those who want a “nuclear-free” Japan. Japan’s power nightmare wasn’t triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that resulted in the meltdowns at Fukushima Number One; power companies could have worked around the vacuum left behind by the four defunct reactors. But it was triggered by the Japanese people who finally had had enough. Nuclear contamination in unexpected areas, scandals of collusion between regulators and the omnipotent nuclear power industry, mounting evidence of negligence and even malfeasance, and a history of cover-ups have turned many Japanese against the nuclear power industry and its regulators. Read.... A Revolt, the Quiet Japanese Way. As a result, each time one of the remaining 50 reactors was taken off line for scheduled maintenance, local opposition prevented power companies from bringing it back on line. Until March 11, 2011, nuclear power produced 30% of Japan’s electricity. By the evening of May 5 this year, it was zero. “Nuclear-free” Japan had arrived. And so had an energy vacuum: during the demand peak this summer, Kansai, the Osaka area that is heavily dependent on nuclear power, is expected to be 15% short on electricity. Other service areas are impacted as well, but less so. The government issued “voluntary” power saving targets to cover the shortfalls. If insufficient, rolling blackouts will be the next step. Companies are preparing. Power interruptions, rolling blackouts, and even “voluntary” power saving targets would strain resources and cause cascading problems in supply chains. Some companies are relocating production to less affected areas in Japan or to other countries. They will curtail the use of air conditioning while allowing Hawaiian shirts instead of the salaryman garb of suit and tie. Large manufacturers are increasing their own power generation capacity—at a price. TEPCO, the owner of Fukushima Number One, is being nationalized at taxpayer expense (the government may end up owning 76% of the voting rights), and it’s trying to push through a 17% rate hike for its corporate customers. As power generation has switched to natural gas, prices for imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), Japan’s only source, have jumped—causing nine out of Japan’s ten mega-utilities to spill red ink. This is going to be one heck of an expensive summer! Under heavy pressure from the nuclear industry and Japan Inc. to get nuclear power back into the mix, the government has tried to overcome opposition with reactor “stress tests” and other shenanigans. And it has approved the restart of reactors number 3 and 4 of the nuclear plant in the city of Oi, Fukui Prefecture; they’d passed the “stress test” with flying colors. But the people failed to bite. Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, a popular youngish politician, along with Fukui Governor Issei Nishikawa, Oi Mayor Shinobu Tokioka, and a number of other municipal officials came out against restarting the reactors. And Hashimoto pronounced in the national media what so many had already lamented, that the central government had no way of guaranteeing the safety of the reactors; and he called for the creation of a nuclear regulatory agency that would be truly independent of government and industry alike. The government, the nuclear industry, and Japan Inc. will continue to push their agenda to get the 50 still functional reactors back on line, one after the other, even if they sit on top of a major fault or are at the end of their design life. But those who strive for a “nuclear-free” Japan feel emboldened by their victory of sorts, and they’re unlikely to lie down. For a deeply cynical series of images, check out.... Nuclear Contamination as Seen by Japanese Humor. Yet there cannot be a “nuclear-free” Japan. Not for a generation or two. Japan might succeed in weaning itself off nuclear power in record time, perhaps even this summer, through a mix of conservation, innovative technologies to wring power consumption out of production processes, and increased power generation from fossil fuels. And it might be able to add with record speed solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal power generation to its energy portfolio. Given the confiscatory prices Japan has to pay for natural gas ($15 per million Btu and up), renewables are an economic option. But what Japan won’t be able to do quickly is to decommission and get rid of its nuclear power plants. It will take decades and many billions of dollars to decommission each plant. During that time, the plant will not generate electricity but will turn into a bottomless, radioactive money pit. While smaller reactors have been decommissioned, no one has yet fully decommissioned a large commercial reactor. The strategy has been to renew the licenses when they expire. The easy way out. For a time. And even after reactors are decommissioned, they remain in the landscape as contaminated concrete hulks. Nuclear power is expensive even if only the first part of its lifecycle—construction and power generation—are included. No power company can afford at current electricity rates to decommission its reactors. So the plan is to hand these expenses to the next generation. Japan’s nuclear dilemma is not unique. Germany already made the decision to exit nuclear power, but in a methodical fashion so that alternative power generation can be brought on line. All countries with nuclear power plants will eventually have to deal with the costs of decommissioning them. And if Japan gets on the forefront, it might develop unique technologies and become the leader, as it has done so often, in a nascent industry. Meanwhile, whether its nuclear plants are generating power or not, they will remain nuclear facilities with all inherent risks and future expenses. Japanese still reminisce about the bubble that blew up in 1989 when the Nikkei almost hit 40,000 and when the sky-high prices of real estate could only go up further. The slide down to reality was brutal, and a lot of people lost their shirts. But there has been one investment that has worked out phenomenally well for the otherwise hapless Japanese investor: Gold. Until now. Read.... The Japanese Are Dumping Their Gold. But maybe these housewives or whoever they were got the timing wrong, once again. Some investors think so. Read.... “This Is the Bottom for Gold”- John Hathaway.
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| Gold and Silver Are the Answer in the Long-Term Posted: 22 May 2012 02:24 PM PDT Long time readers know that I have been and remain bullish on gold and gold stocks in the longer-term. However, the reasons why I believe gold and silver will perform well in the longer-term are a bit different than ...
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| On Growing Tensions, Spreading Global Downturn And A Dead-End Greek Resolution Posted: 22 May 2012 01:33 PM PDT Just when one thought it was safe to come out of hiding from under the school desk after the latest nuclear bomb drill (because Europe once again plans on recycling the Euro bond gambit - just like it did in 2011 - so all shall be well), here comes David Rosenberg carrying the launch codes, and setting off the mushroom cloud. From Gluskin Sheff Growing Tensions Anti-austerity demonstrations in Frankurt. Massive emigration out of Spain. Student bombings in Italy. Suicides in Greece, along with a run on the banks. Camp David discord with Germany. Unusual nuclear war talk out of Russia. The euro area fiscal and banking crisis is taking on a certain destabilizing geopolitical tone. One reason why gold — as a hedge against instability — is starting to stage a comeback. After touching a four-month low last week and moving into official correction mode of a 20% decline from the highs, the yellow metal then went off and enjoyed its best day since January on Thursday and posted a nice follow-through to finish off the week. Spreading Global Downturn Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, the Netherlands and Brazil are now facing economic contraction (Brazil is the world's seventh largest economy and despite a huge 350 basis point rate cut from the central bank, the country has suffered three straight months of declining economic activity). France is stagnating. China is slowing down rapidly. The only two countries I see that have managed to surprise to the upside are Germany and Japan (the latter just saw the government actually raise its assessment of the economy). Beyond Greece, two areas of concern are clearly Spain's woefully undercapitalized banking system where bad debt ratios have hit all-time highs (the banks received a Moody's downgrade late last week too), and China's property market which continues to deflate — average prices in 70 major cities fell in April for the second month in a row (-1.2% YoY versus -0.7% in March ... maybe this is one of those events that we're supposed to assume will somehow stay contained). On a MoM sequential basis, prices declined 0.3% and have fallen now for seven consecutive months (Chinese policymakers over the weekend verbally hinted of a coming round of additional monetary stimulus along with a fiscal boost ... and the market bulls desperately needed to hear that). It's not just the economies, either, but also stock markets. The likes of Greece, Spain, Italy, Russia, Brazil and even Canada have seen corrections of 20% or more from the cycle highs. The U.K. FTSE has corrected more than 10%. As the Financial Times reports, euro area banking stocks are actually lower now than they were at the panic troughs after Lehman collapsed nearly four years ago. The S&P 500 has given up two-thirds of its 2012 gains and is now below its level of a year ago. The VIX index is at a new high for the year and copper touched a four-month low to finish off last week. The FX market is consistent with this downbeat global growth assessment, underscored by the Aussie slipping to its lowest level since November and the NZ kiwi sliding to its lowest level since December. The winners have generally been the more defensive units — like the U.S. dollar, the yen, and sterling as well. Greece is the Word Well, look at the bright side. At least we'll know whether Greece decides to stay or go within the next month since the second-round election in June is being widely viewed as a referendum on continued euro area membership. Incredibly, the polls show that 80% of Greek citizens want to stay in. The problem is that they also want more bailout money with fewer stipulations. What was considered unthinkable just a few months ago is apparently an event that now seems inevitable. The editorial in the current Economist runs with The Greek Run: It is Not a Good Idea for Greece to Leave the Euro, But it is Time to Prepare For its Departure. The weekend WSJ went with this on page All — Europe Weighs Exit Scenario. There's even a new name being bandied about over this departure prospect — a "Grexit". Surreal. All the more so since the Maastricht Treaty contained no provisions on any exit — there are no ground rules! There are no clear winners from a Greek exit unless you are long confusion, turmoil and uncertainty. The country faces a depression no matter what it does or doesn't do — though reclaiming control over its currency and monetary policy could end up having long-run competitive benefits. The country would likely need a 30-40% devaluation to put its economy on a more competitive footing. The financial disruption, based on many estimates I have seen, would cost Europe something in the order of 2-2.5% of lost output. Greek's total public and private external liabilities amount to $540 billion U.S. dollars — the ECB, the IMF, banks and a swath of other foreign creditors would suffer deep losses.
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| The Gold Price Lost $12.10 Closing Comex $1,576.30 Posted: 22 May 2012 01:31 PM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1,576.30 Change : -12.10 or -0.8% Silver Price Close Today : 28.16 Change : -.14 or -0.5% Platinum Price Close Today : 1,456.40 Change : -3.10 or -0.2% Palladium Price Close Today : 615.30 Change : 4.80 or 0.8% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 55.98 Change : -0.15 or 1.00% Dow Industrial : 12,504.48 Change : 135.10 or 1.1% US Dollar Index : 80.94 Change : -0.14 or -0.2% Franklin will be away until June 4th and wont be publishing commentary until that time. Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com 1-888-218-9226 10:00am-5:00pm CST, Monday-Friday © 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down. WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned: Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures. NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps. NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced. NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt. What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands. One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't. 
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| Comparing Gold's Current Crash to the One in 2008 Posted: 22 May 2012 01:30 PM PDT Consider, for instance, gold's performance in 1979 -- a time in which the price of gold more than tripled within 12 months. I think another such move could occur, and that it may be even more volatile and explosive to the upside.
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| Adam Fleming and James Turk on Precious Metals and Mining Posted: 22 May 2012 12:55 PM PDT Adam Fleming, Chairman of Wits Gold and Fleming Family & Partners, discusses the gold bull market with GoldMoney's Chairman James Turk. Topics include metal price action, the eurozone's debt crisis, and mining in South Africa.
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| Don Coxe – ‘Gold Super-cycle Has a Long Way to Go’ Posted: 22 May 2012 12:47 PM PDT Donald Coxe, Strategy Advisor for BMO Financial Group, a highly respected veteran financial advisor for all or part of five decades with a focus on commodities, agriculture and precious metals, tells Eric King that the gold super-cycle is not near its end. "You will know the super-cycle is coming to an end when money supply growth turns negative and when interest rates turn strongly positive in real terms," Mr. Coxe said. Noting that all of the major fiat paper money issuers are trying to devalue at the same time, Mr. Coxe doesn't see much of a chance that money supply growth is about to turn negative. In the financial historian's own words: "Now even the Swiss are "printing" … unheard of!" Vultures (GGR Subscribers) will definitely want to catch the comments regarding mining shares, particularly Mr. Coxe's view that they represent a "free call on the price of gold," which is one of our own favorite ways of looking at the miners.
Scheduling note: We will remain scarce from now until after Memorial Day Monday, but we are making some new comments in our various linked charts on the subscriber pages remotely from where we are. Hold down the fort … help is on the way.
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| Manipulating the World Economy Or Just Understanding How It Really Functions. Posted: 22 May 2012 12:45 PM PDT from ArmstrongEconomics:
Read More @ ArmstrongEconomics.org
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| Don Coxe: Commodity boom has far to run, mining shares sharply discounted Posted: 22 May 2012 12:41 PM PDT 8:42p ET Tuesday, May 22, 2012 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Bank of Montreal market analyst Don Coxe today tells King World News that the commodity boom will last a long time as billions of formerly impoverished people start claiming modern lifestyles and that investors are foolish to walk away from unmined gold that is so sharply discounted in the price of mining company shares. Maybe such investors are foolish. Many are certainly scared out of their wits at the moment. But can Coxe guarantee that, when the monetary metals escape their central bank and derivative shackles and trade according to a market price for the real thing, suddenly rising in value by hundreds of percent or more, sovereign governments won't race to expropriate or impose confiscatory royalty terms? Analyses like Coxe's can be pretty accurate even while leaving the monetary metals business full of mystery, political questions, and imponderables. We really don't know what's going to happen. We can be confident only that governments will keep lying, cheating, and covering up, assisted by the mainstream financial news media and various shills, and that we should plan accordingly even as we fight back. An excerpt from Coxe's interview is posted at the King World News blog here: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2012/5/22_Do... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Sona Discovers Potential High-Grade Gold Mineralization From a Company Press Release VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- With its latest surface diamond drilling program at its 100-percent-owned, formerly producing Blackdome gold mine in southern British Columbia, Sona Resources Corp. has discovered a potentially high-grade gold-mineralized area, with one hole intersecting 13.6 grams of gold in 1.5 meters of core drilling. "We intersected a promising new mineralized zone, and we feel optimistic about the assay results," says Sona's president and CEO, John P. Thompson. "We have undertaken an aggressive exploration program that has tested a number of target zones. Our discovery of this new gold-bearing structure is significant, and it represents a positive development for the company." Sona aims to bring its permitted Blackdome mill back into production over the next year and a half, at a rate of 200 tonnes per day, with feed from the formerly producing Blackdome mine and the nearby Elizabeth gold deposit property. A positive preliminary economic assessment by Micon International Ltd., based on a gold price of $950 per ounce over eight years, has estimated a cash cost of $208 per tonne milled, or $686 per gold ounce recovered. For the company's complete press release, please visit: http://www.sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR18_2011-opt.pdf Join GATA here: Vancouver World Resource Investment Conference Standard Chartered's Earth Resources Conference Hong Kong Gold Investment Forum Toronto Resource Investment Conference New Orleans Investment Conference * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Platinum (TSXV: NKL) and Ursa Major Minerals Company Press Release VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) and Ursa Major Minerals Inc. have signed a binding letter of agreement for a business combination through a proposed all-share transaction. In doing so Prophecy and Ursa have acted at arm's length and the transaction has been negotiated at arm's length. Prophecy will issue one common share in exchange for every 25 outstanding common shares of Ursa. Ursa options and warrants will be exchanged for options and warrants of Prophecy on an agreed schedule. Prophecy's offer represents a value of about $0.15 per each common share of Ursa based on Prophecy's share price of $3.70 as at March 1, representing a premium of 130 percent to Ursa's March 1 closing price of $0.065. Prophecy is to subscribe for $1 million common shares of Ursa by way of private placement financing at $0.06 per share, subject to regulatory approval. Upon placement completion, John Lee and Greg Hall, current Prophecy directors, will be appointed to Ursa's board. Prophecy thus will become a mid-tier resource company with a robust and diversified pipeline of platinum nickel projects, including: -- The fully permitted open-pit Shakespeare PGM-Ni-Cu mine close to Sudbury, Ontario, infrastructure with near-term production capabilities. -- The flagship Wellgreen (Yukon) PGM-Ni-Cu project with more than 10 million ounces of Pt-Pd-Au inferred resource. Drilling is under way and a preliminary economic assessment study is pending. -- Manitoba's Lynn Lake Ni-Cu project with more than 262 million pounds Ni and 138 million pounds Cu measured and indicated. For the complete announcement, please visit Prophecy Platinum's Internet site here: http://www.prophecyplat.com/news_2012_mar02_prophecy_platinum_ursa_major...
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| Will China Make the Yuan a Gold-Backed Currency? Posted: 22 May 2012 11:51 AM PDT If China Backs Its Currency with Gold, It Could Have Profound Effects for Investors … and ConsumersLarry Edelson – - writes today:
Edelson I have no idea whether Edelson is right or not. But he's not the first to make the claim. Doug Casey says that if one country – such as China – switches to a gold-backed currency, the dollar will be toast:
Similarly, SafeHaven points out:
Goldcore argues:
Simit Patel writes:
MaxKeiser says:
And Wikileaks noted several reasons for China's stocking up on gold. ZeroHedge summarizes:
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| Big Oil's Cost-Revenue Tightrope Posted: 22 May 2012 10:38 AM PDT Synopsis: If Big Oil could profit 10 years ago when crude was $25 a barrel, you might think it could survive a significant drop today... but you would be wrong. By Marin Katusa, Chief Energy Investment Strategist I am pretty vocal with my opinion that high oil prices are here to stay. In the long term, the key forces that sway the oil supply-demand balance will all work to push prices upward: Demand will rise as the global population rises; supplies will become constrained as oil-producing nations retain greater portions of their production for domestic use; and production costs will climb and climb as we run out of easy oil and are forced to tap into more complex and costly reservoirs. However, a bullish long-term perspective doesn't preclude a bearish short-term viewpoint. And that is precisely what I have. In the near term, oil prices are going to slide. The largest economy on the planet, the EU, is slipping and sliding through a financial storm that will likely tear the union apart. The world's second-largest economy, the United States, is still struggling to keep its head above water and now must contend with the uncertainty of a presidential election. The third-largest economy on the globe and the one that has propelled global growth for the last decade, China, is showing serious strain – growth has slowed, inflation is rising, liquidity is evaporating, and jobs are disappearing. In the fourth-largest economy in the world, Japan, sovereign debt has reached 225% of GDP (in Greece, the ratio is only 140%) and represents almost 2,000% of government revenues, which is a completely unsustainable scenario. Clearly, global economies are not in their prime. And when the world's economies slow, demand for oil drops and declining demand means lower prices. To boot, Iran just reached a tentative pact with the United Nations on nuclear inspections. For several months oil prices have carried a premium because of concerns that the Islamic Republic would blockade the Strait of Hormuz or go to battle with Israel. Now those concerns are easing, at least for the moment. Since oil prices have been near or above the $100 mark for what seems like ages now, you might think that oil companies have breathing room and can handle a price slide of 15 to 35%. After all, oil prices only climbed above $50 a barrel in late 2004 after averaging approximately $25 for two decades.
(Click on image to enlarge) If Big Oil could make money at $25 oil ten years ago, surely they can survive at $70 oil today, right? Wrong. A heck of a lot has changed in the oil sector in the last ten years, and the primary result has been a dramatic increase in production costs. A decade ago it was standard for oil companies to assess a new project's profitability using an oil price of US$17 to $20 per barrel. Prices had been at that level for many years, and most reservoirs were near surface and easy to access, which meant it often cost less than $10 to produce a barrel of oil. Then we started to deplete the easy oil. The days when a company could simply prick the Earth's crust in Texas or the Middle East and let the black gold gush became a fond memory. Instead, companies had to drill deeper to find oil, fracture tight rocks to enable oil to flow, figure out how to produce oil from reservoirs underneath several miles of water, or develop methods to separate sticky oil from sand. And production costs soared. By 2008 the cost to produce a barrel of oil from a new project had climbed to between $50 and $75 per barrel. Today, it's even worse. New production from the Canadian oil sands and from Venezuela's heavy oil deposits costs roughly $70 to $90 a barrel, all in. Deepwater oil production costs $70 to $85 per barrel. To produce oil from tight oil formations in the United States such as the Bakken shale costs at least $80 a barrel. And production from Arctic oil reservoirs, coal-to-liquids and gas-to-liquids projects, and biofuels are even more expensive. Here's a good example of why costs have climbed so dramatically. In 1985, only 6% of the oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico came from wells drilled in water more than 300 meters deep. By 2009, deepwater wells accounted for 80% of the Gulf's output. Deepwater wells are very technical and very risky, but they are also more and more common as Big Oil tries to keep increasing output to meet growing demand. The huge deposits off Brazil's coast will demand similar deepwater operations, while the Arctic deposits in northern Russia and Canada are in waters that are not only deep, but also very rough and very cold. Here it is important to note that most OPEC producers can spit out a barrel of oil for considerably less than those estimates. In most OPEC countries even new production costs approximately $50 a barrel. However, most OPEC countries rely on oil income for the bulk of their government spending, and that responsibility boosts the "cost" of each barrel significantly. In many OPEC countries, each barrel of oil sold to the international markets has to generate enough revenue to pay for the massive social programs used to placate their restive populations – programs that ballooned in the wake of the Arab Spring as leaders bought their way to stability with promises of handouts, jobs, greater security, and increased benefits. Saudi Arabia now needs an oil price of almost $100 a barrel to meet the billions in social-spending pledges made to quell Arab Spring discontent (up from only $50 a barrel a few years ago); and many other major oil countries, including Venezuela and Russia, are in a similar position. As such, from Canada's oil sand to Brazil's offshore reservoirs to Saudi Arabia's conventional fields, it is safe to say that most producers need to make at least $85 from each barrel of oil sold in order to meet their costs. Today, West Texas Intermediate is trading at US$91.75 per barrel, while Brent oil is priced at US$109.20 a barrel. That is not a lot higher than US$85, which means prices would not have to decline much before producers start shutting down production from projects where the costs outweigh the benefits. The bottom line is that Big Oil's cost-benefit balance is much tighter than many would think. For the investor, the question is always: how can one profit? There are quite a few ways to play a falling oil price, but in the upcoming Casey Energy Report I outline my suggestion. It's an investing avenue that I'm excited enough about that I am actually creating a special new section within the monthly CER with a supplemental recommendation… but I've given enough away already.
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| More Upside for Gold...or Gold Miners? Posted: 22 May 2012 10:14 AM PDT By: Dan Simon Tuesday, May 22, 2012 Gold has a 5 year return of 137%. Gold Mining shares have traded sideways. We have seen the price for physical gold increase for eleven straight years. It was $273 at the beginning of 2000 and it is currently trading in the $1,600 range. This is almost a 500% increase since the start of this bull market in gold. However, during the same period the mining index has only increased about 214% . Since the 2008 credit crisis, gold mining shares have greatly underperformed relative to the product they produce. Gold peaked at $1,002 in March 2008 before the US entered the credit crisis. Since then gold has increased about 65%, while the mining shares are down 14%. Why is there such a discrepancy between the producer and the product? Comparing the Producer to the Product One method for gauging the market’s sentiment for gold min...
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| Posted: 22 May 2012 10:07 AM PDT First of all, let's get one thing straight: if instead of about to breach a 20-handle, the Facebook stock price was in the $60, nobody would care about anything that happened in the past 3 days, everyone would be happy and delighted, and increasing the velocity of money with the comfort that some greater fool would be willing to pay even more for ridiculous overvalued ponzi, pardon, portfolio holdings. Alas, we are not there, and as a result, the fingerpointing phase has come and gone. Now come the lawsuits, because people, led to believe in huge short-term profits, are now faced to face with a grim sur-reality in which the tooth fairy was just exposed as the cookie monster. And the latest farcical development: Nasdaq finally pulling market conditions, but not just any market conditions - retroactive ones. As the WSJ reports: "A senior Nasdaq Stock Market official told customers Tuesday afternoon that it would have pulled the plug on Facebook Inc.'s initial public offering had it known the full extent of the technical problems that plagued its systems. On a conference call with brokers after Tuesday's close, Eric Noll, head of transaction services, said the exchange "by no means would have gone forward" with the much-watched Facebook debut if it had known problems would disrupt a "normal trading day." "In retrospect, it was incorrect," Mr. Noll said of Nasdaq's interpretation of problems." At this point every plaintif's bar attorney eyes just lit up, because what Nasdaq just admitted was liability. And every single retail investor who has lost money, which would be everyone who has bought and held as the stock closed at a fresh all time (read 2.7 day) low, will now demand that had they known what the Nasdaq pretended not to know, but now knows, they would not have put that limit $43 buy order. In the meantime, the actual stock price of Facebook will flounder as the stock becomes a whipping boy if not for investors, then for attorneys everywhere. More from the WSJ:
We'll give the Nasdaq one thing though: unlike everyone else in this day and age, whose primary recourse is to scapegoat, and to deflect blame, Nasdaq refused to bash that one whipping boy for all things market structure (which Zero Hedge first warned about over 3 years ago): high frequency trading.
Sadly, something tells us that the final outcome of this debacle will be the end of the Nasdaq which will soon be BATS'ed out of existence, but not due to faulty algos originating on the NYSE or Sigma X, but because the firm will soon be sued to liquidation. Which a world in which virtually no retail investors are left, is probably very much overdue. * * * Still why didn't Nasdaq, or Morgan Stanley, do pull a "market conditions" on Friday? Here is how we laid it out.
In retrospect, the current outcome will likely turn out even worse for investors' faith and sentiment in the farce known as the capital markets.
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| Posted: 22 May 2012 09:55 AM PDT May 22, 2012 [LIST] [*]More oil than Alaska? Fivefold production growth? Astounding anecdotes from the new American energy boom, and why oil's recent price drop hardly matters... [*]Home sales up... but relative to what? Home prices also up... but watch out for this factor to reverse the trend [*]China pulls the "stimulus" cord, while iron ore piles up in parking lots: Marc Faber on the real threat to the global economy [*]More tales of nickel-and-dime bank fees ... a critic labels us "closet Fox News sheep" (!)... a powerful statement tantamount to treason... and more! [/LIST] Oil sits near a seven-month low this morning at $91.50. "It's trading down due to a stronger dollar and expectations of economic weakness in Europe," says Byron King, skeptical about the staying power of either trend. "OK, maybe we'll see a decline from Greece after the wheels fall off," he concedes. "Meanwhile, the large, older fields in the Middle East are in decline," he says, eyeing ...
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| The Real Price of Gold Holds the Cards for Gold and Gold Shares Posted: 22 May 2012 09:43 AM PDT We often write about the real price of gold (RPG) as it is a leading macro indicator and leading indicator for gold stock fundamentals. The RPG is simply a measurement of Gold in terms of various markets such as commodities, stocks or currencies. If the RPG is broadly outperforming then it could be signaling credit stress and even an economic contraction. If equities and commodities are outperforming Gold then it signals an improving economic environment and an improving credit environment. We also note that a strengthening RPG in itself is a catalyst for improving margins for gold miners. Furthermore, since a rising RPG is a contractionary signal, it can also be a catalyst for Fed action. The RPG appears to have bottomed and looks likely to trend higher in the coming months. Note that during the financial crisis of 2008, the real price of gold began rising several months before gold itself. In the chart below we plot gold, gold/commodities, gold/foreign currencies, and ...
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| Gold Miner Requirement - U.S.$3,000 Gold Price... Posted: 22 May 2012 09:31 AM PDT SafeHaven
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A British citizen has been arrested in Bangkok after six foetuses were found stuffed into travel bags.
Some people will never admit a mistake. No matter what I say, they just will not believe me. I have
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