saveyourassetsfirst3 |
- How Ex-Dividend Dates Work
- Gold steadies along with euro ahead of ECB meeting
- Gold sector sees no solace as India holds key rates
- Gold sales to Iran, econ slowdown curb Turkey trade gap
- For Silver, History is all likely to repeat itself
- Going Nowhere Fast
- Quick Monday Morning Update
- Going For The Gold As Governments Destroy Currencies
- Gold & Silver To Surge As Money Pours Into These Markets
- The world’s gold is moving from West to East
- 2.5 M Oz of Silver Withdrawn From Brinks’ Registered Vaults, JPM Transfers 90k Oz to Scotia
- Tremendous Bitcoin Volatility Today, Silver Breaks Through $28
- Germany vs the ECB..the noise gets louder/silver and gold withstand another raid prior to first day notice
- Most Important Silver COT Chart for 2012
- The Dollar is Silver – Banknotes are a Bank's Liability
- The Fed On Gold Price Manipulation
- Embry – Gold To Explode, But Europe Is In Terminal Condition
- Vote for Silver!
- Has the BIS gold pool succeeded the London Gold Pool?
- Gold at the ECB: Accident or Strategy?
- Gold at ECB: Accident or Strategy?
- Draghi Set to Unleash SMP Program While Market Awaits Fed
- Connor Kilpatrick: It’s Hip! It’s Cool! It’s Libertarianism!
- Gold Prices “Could Be Under Pressure” from Central Bank Meetings
- Silver Closes Four Consecutive Days in the Green For First Time Since January
- ‘Batman’ Shooter-LIBOR Connection Comes Under Fire
| Posted: 31 Jul 2012 11:11 AM PDT By Trading on ex-dividend dates can be confusing. The ex-dividend date is also important to dividend growth investors. It is the ex-dividend date that determines which investor, the buyer or seller, receives the dividend. Ex-dividend dates are used to make sure dividend checks go to the right people. Settlement of stocks is a T+3 procedure, which means that when you buy a stock it takes three business days from the transaction date, T, for the stock purchase to be entered into the company's record books. Below is a table exhibiting a weekend T+3 settlement of stock.
Extended Hours Trading Another area of confusion about ex-dividend dates is how pre-market and after-hour trading influences dividends. The ex-dividend date includes extended hours Complete Story » | ||||||||||||||
| Gold steadies along with euro ahead of ECB meeting Posted: 31 Jul 2012 10:09 AM PDT
from af.reuters.com: * Euro, gold steady as caution grows ahead of ECB meeting * ETFs see July outflow; gold American Eagle sales drop * Turkish gold exports to Iran help narrow trade deficit (Updates prices, adds comment) By Jan Harvey LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) – Gold steadied on Tuesday in line with the euro as investors took to the sidelines ahead of this week's European Central Bank meeting, weighing up the prospects of definite action to tackle the euro zone debt crisis. The metal rose through $1,625 an ounce for the first time since mid-June on Friday and the euro hit a three-week high against the dollar after ECB chief Mario Draghi pledged to do anything necessary to protect the single currency from collapse. But that surge has lost steam as investors consider the prospect of Draghi disappointing the markets. While the ECB has raised expectations of some kind of announcement on the bloc's burgeoning debt crisis, concrete action may still be weeks away. "Uncertainty is growing regarding the outcome of the ECB meeting on Thursday. In this context, the gold market may trade largely sideways ahead of the meeting," Anne-Laure Tremblay, analyst at BNP Paribas, said. "However, given the publication of U.S. non farm payrolls on Friday, any market reaction to the ECB meeting may prove short-lived," she added. The non-farm payrolls numbers are a key barometer of the health of the U.S. economy. Spot gold was little changed at $1,620.76 an ounce at 1406 GMT, while U.S. gold futures for August delivery were flat at $1,620.10. The euro held steady against the dollar, but stayed off three-week highs as traders tempered expectations for the ECB meeting. European shares eased and German Bund futures extended gains. Gold priced in euros was flat at 1,321.36 euros an ounce, but held near Monday's five-month high. It has outperformed spot prices this month, up 4.7 percent so far in July, against a 1.3 percent rise in dollar gold. FED EYED Ahead of the ECB meet, attention was focused on the Federal Reserve. The bank begins a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday, though analysts said immediate action from the Fed was unlikely. Swiss bank UBS on Tuesday lifted its one-month gold forecast to $1,700 an ounce from $1,550, citing expectations the Fed's Jackson Hole meeting in August could be significant for policy expectations ahead of the September FOMC meeting. It also lifted its three-month forecast to $1,750 an ounce from $1,600, which it said takes into account the U.S. elections in November and the looming U.S. 'fiscal cliff', when the expiry of some tax cuts will coincide with planned spending reductions. Interest in physical gold was lacklustre, with demand from major consumer India crimped by higher prices and the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust, on track for its biggest monthly outflow this year in July. Keep on reading @ af.reuters.com | ||||||||||||||
| Gold sector sees no solace as India holds key rates Posted: 31 Jul 2012 10:05 AM PDT
from bullionstreet.com: MUMBAI(BullionStreet): India's gold sector received no consolation from country's central bank, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as it kept its key interest rate on hold and slashed its growth forecast for the fiscal year ending in March. The RBI kept its policy repo rate at 8 percent and left the cash reserve ratio for banks at 4.75 percent. The move is unlikely to help country's weakening rupee which kept gold prices higher in the world's largest gold consumer for the past few months, analysts said. In the past, Indian buyers have seized on lower prices to buy more gold, but this time they have been undermined by the weak rupee. Analysts added that high prices will keep demand at bay, even though the usually busy wedding season and other festivals are around the corner. India's currency was trading well over 50 per dollar for some times. This means gold importers get fewer dollars for their rupees when they exchange money to buy dollar-denominated gold. Country's top gold importers are dealing with higher taxes. While the government removed the tax on gold jewelry, it kept a gold-import tax of 4%. The currency and tax factors have supported domestic gold prices. The Reserve Bank of India slashed its growth forecast for the fiscal year ending in March 2013 to 6.5 percent from 7.3 percent. It said inflation for the fiscal year will be 7.0 percent, up from its April forecast of 6.5 percent and far higher than the bank's target of 4.0 to 4.5 percent. Keep on reading @ bullionstreet.com | ||||||||||||||
| Gold sales to Iran, econ slowdown curb Turkey trade gap Posted: 31 Jul 2012 10:00 AM PDT
from af.reuters.com: (Repeats to fix spaces in paragraphs 4-5) * Turkey's trade deficit narrows on economic slowdown, gold exports * Data indicates improvement in c/a deficit (Adds comment from statistics institute, background) ISTANBUL, July 31 (Reuters) – Turkey's trade deficit narrowed more than expected in June mainly due to gold exports to Iran, a dip in oil prices and a slowdown in the economy, data showed on Tuesday, indicating an improvement in the country's troublesome current account gap. The trade deficit fell to $7.18 billion in June from $10.26 billion a year earlier, the Turkish Statistics Institute said, lower than a forecast deficit of $8 billion in a Reuters poll. Turkish gold exports to Iran stood at $1.3 billion in June, bringing the total gold exports so far in 2012 to $4.4 billion. The Turkish Statistics Institute said there were no findings suggesting gold exports to Iran were used as a tool for oil and gas payments, rejecting media speculation to that effect. Most of the gold export payments were made in cash, it said. T urkey, which imported around 200,000 barrels a day of Iranian crude in 2011, sharply reduced shipments earlier this year to win a waiver from U.S. sanctions that allows it to continue purchasing Iranian crude through the second half of 2012. Turkey also imports gas from Iran. "Improvement in the foreign trade deficit continued in June thanks to gold exports to Iran, declining petroleum price and a slowdown in the economy," said Ozgur Altug, chief economist at BGC Partners. Previously, gold sector officials said Iranians were turning to gold for savings and possibly trade as Western sanctions tighten to force Iran to curb its nuclear programme. Iran was the biggest single destination for Turkish exports in June. Turkish exports to Iran increased 471.2 percent to $1.6 billion from a year earlier. Turkey's total June exports rose 16.9 percent to $13.27 billion and imports decreased 5.4 percent to $20.44 billion. "When we look at the data excluding gold, we see that the annual increase in exports stands at 4 percent while the annual decline in imports rises to 10 percent," said Gizem Oztok Altinsac, an economist at Garanti Securities. "The data shows a small current account deficit in June at around $3.7 billion and the annual current account deficit would narrow to $63-64 billion," Altinsac said. Keep on reading @ af.reuters.com | ||||||||||||||
| For Silver, History is all likely to repeat itself Posted: 31 Jul 2012 09:54 AM PDT
from bullionstreet.com: LOS ANGELES(BullionStreet): History repeats itself in the precious metals market, said Stephen Smith, the managing member at Smith McKenna LLC. According to Smith, With major investing assets like stocks and bonds expected to decline with eventual rising interest rates; gold and especially silver are going to increase in value dramatically in what investors like to call a 'boom.'. The next few years will likely prove to be exceptionally rewarding for those who invest in silver and other precious metals like gold. The price of gold and silver would be much higher under current market conditions if it weren't for some strength in the stock and bond sector. Is this bad? No it's not, especially for first time and long term investors, because right now it is allowing for exceptionally cheap prices for buying and investing in silver. As traditional investment forms reach their bubble and subsequently fall, including interest rates rebounding and global economic recovery, silver is expected to emerge as the leader – reaching never before seen highs. Silver is approximately $26 per ounce, compared to gold at roughly $1,600 per ounce right now. The value ratio between the two is substantially skewed compared to its traditional value and mirroring relationship. Because of this and what lies ahead, pay particular attention to silver, because silver investors are potentially going to be very wealthy in the next few years. According to Stephen Smith, the key to investing in silver both in the past and in the future will always be having the right knowledge and position in the market. One part of that is the price of the investment, and right now marks the perfect time to invest in silver. Keep on reading @ bullionstreet.com | ||||||||||||||
| Posted: 31 Jul 2012 09:50 AM PDT
from tfmetalsreport.com: I had hoped that Tuesday would provide some excitement. Nope. We are in Dullsville while everyone awaits the FOMC tomorrow. To kill the time, I found something we definitely need to discuss. Last night, ZeroHedge decided to dip into their archives and recycle a post from September of 2009. In case you missed it, I thought I should focus on it here, while we wait for a tomorrow that will be about 1000% more interesting. Here is the link to the story from last evening which begins with the following paragraph: "Lately various media outlets have been swamped with stories and allegations of precious metal manipulation ranging from the arcane, to the bizarre to the outright ridiculous. At issue is not that these claims of price fraud are unfounded – they very well may be completely true – but without a notarized facsimile of an actual trade ticket signed by Brian Sack, or his replacement Simon Potter, or any of the BIS traders confirming they are indeed selling gold on behalf of the Fed, BOE, ECB, SNB or BOJ simply to keep the price of the metal down, what such constant factless accusations (and no, sorry, a chart showing that the price of gold may go up or go down sharply indicates merely that and nothing about the underlying factors for such a move) do is to habituate the broader public to the real issues surrounding precious metal, and other asset class, manipulation. So instead of searching for circumstantial evidence which one can easily find everywhere, we decided to go straight to the source. To do that we go back to a post we wrote back in September of 2009, based on an internal previously confidential Fed document, which conveniently enough explains everything vis-a-vis gold manipulation and leaves nothing to speculation or misinterpretation. Zero Hedge presents the smoking gun that may provide responses to all the various open questions regarding the Fed's Modus Operandi in the gold arena which answer the core question – motive – courtesy of a declassified memorandum, written by none other than the then Fed Chairman, and addressed to the president of the United States." http://www.zerohedge.com/news/fed-gold-price-manipulation Keep on reading @ tfmetalsreport.com | ||||||||||||||
| Posted: 31 Jul 2012 09:45 AM PDT
from tfmetalsreport.com: Just a quick update. I'll try to come back with something more substantive later today. As we begin what will certainly be a wild week, gold is coming back from its European lows while silver has surged higher for the fourth, straight day. With gold already near the top of its now 3-month range, there's not much to talk about. It will either break out soon or it won't. Silver, on the other hand, is quite interesting. Take a look at these charts. All signs point toward silver heading back to the top of its range, as well. The first step is clearing the highs set in early July, near $28.50. Once that level is bested, it should head straight back toward $29 and the top of the range. From there, the key level will be 29.80-30.00. If there is going to be a Cartel line of defense, that is where you will find it. I for one, can't wait to see what happens! "Turd's Army", led by Brigadier General Maguire, is having another outstanding month. Those able to precisely follow Andy's trades have pocketed another 5 AGEs and a tube or two of ASEs. I've mentioned before that plenty of very big dollar hedge funds, sovereigns and HNW individuals subscribe to Andy's services simply to get his weekly commentary. As a member of "The Army", you are privy to that information, too. This past weekend's commentary was fantastic but, of course, I can't c& it in entirety here. I asked Andy, though, if I could copy the passage below and he obliged. In this section of his commentary, Andy discusses the decline of The Comex and the rise of bullion banking in China and he references a note he wrote on 1/8/12. Great stuff. "Another important aspect. We have noted some of the many ways China is moving to become the global centre for bullion trading, the latest factors being the upcoming introduction of international facing fully backed rolling spot contracts purposefully designed to compete directly with the LBMA bullion banks and soon the introduction of a Beijing gold and silver fix. This is all part of China's bigger plan to move the RMB into the world stage on its way to being the world's reserve currency. Since 2010, we have been reporting an accelerated move by China to purchase gold in order to facilitate the RMB becoming an internationally respected currency. This has been far above the quantities reported in the media. The reason for this accelerated move to purchase gold reflects Chinas biggest concern, not just the rate that the US is devaluing its currency but worst case, what if it is forced to devalue? For this devaluation to be sufficient (for the USA), it would likely be affected at a rate of $10 for $1 in order to front run a move to back the $ ahead of China as a global gold backed currency. It is no coincidence that in 2010 the China Business news wrote and expressed concerns on exactly this subject. Keep on reading @ tfmetalsreport.com | ||||||||||||||
| Going For The Gold As Governments Destroy Currencies Posted: 31 Jul 2012 09:42 AM PDT
from kingworldnews.com: Today Michael Pento warned, "It is now becoming blatantly apparent that the central banks of the developed world are becoming desperate in their pursuit to fight deflation." Pento also clarified, "… a central bank can always create inflation when they so choose. All they need is a firm commitment to destroy the value of the currency, and a government that is compliant towards that goal." Pento also stated that key governments are on board with that agenda: "That situation is quickly coming into fruition in Japan, Europe and the United States." Today Michael Pento, of Pento Portfolio Strategies, writes exclusively for King World News to put global readers ahead of the curve, once again, on what is unfolding as a result of the major, and unprecedented moves by central banks. Keep on reading @ kingworldnews.com | ||||||||||||||
| Gold & Silver To Surge As Money Pours Into These Markets Posted: 31 Jul 2012 09:21 AM PDT
from kingworldnews.com: Today Stephen Leeb told King World News, "There is no plan for growth, and so in this type of environment people are going to remain very frightened." Leeb, who is Chairman of Leeb Capital Management, also predicted, "This will lead to an ocean of paper money moving into the gold and silver markets." The acclaimed money manager also discussed Europe and the US, but first, here is what Leeb had to say about the ongoing crisis: "One thing that defines us today is fear, at least in this country. We are a very frightened people right now. For the first time that I've seen we've had a dramatic drop in median income. I'm not talking over the last 20 or 30 years, I'm talking about since this horrible recession began." Keep on reading @ kingworldnews.com | ||||||||||||||
| The world’s gold is moving from West to East Posted: 31 Jul 2012 09:18 AM PDT
from sovereignman.com: Did you know that, according to Capgemini and the Royal Bank of Canada's latest World Wealth Report, there are now more millionaires in Asia than North America…? An estimated 3.37 million individuals in the Asia-Pacific region have a liquid net worth of over US$1 million. That compares to 3.35 million in North America. The same trend is evident in the gold market. While the current world hubs for gold trading and storage are London, Zurich, and New York, stores of physical metal are also beginning to migrate east. Gold storage facilities are springing up all over Asia like mushrooms after a summer rain. Back in 2009, the Hong Kong Airport Authority set up the first secure gold storage facility inside the confines of the Hong Kong Airport. This September, Malca-Amit, the Tel Aviv-based diamonds and precious metals company is opening a second state of the art facility at the airport, which will have capacity for 1,000 metric tons of gold. That compares to the 4,582 tons that the US government claims is in Fort Knox, and the record 2,414 million tons that the world's exchange traded gold funds collectively held – mostly in London– as of July 5th. Malca-Amit also has a facility in Singapore's Freeport complex, and the company is planning a third Asian precious metals storage facility in Shanghai in the near future. Keep on reading @ sovereignman.com | ||||||||||||||
| 2.5 M Oz of Silver Withdrawn From Brinks’ Registered Vaults, JPM Transfers 90k Oz to Scotia Posted: 31 Jul 2012 09:15 AM PDT
from silverdoctors.com: We have unprecedented silver inventory volatility to report from Friday's COMEX silver action, with the big news being a massive 2.5 million ounce REGISTERED (dealer) silver withdrawal from Brink's. Besides the massive withdrawal from Brink's vaults, there was also an 89,842.240 ounce silver withdrawal from JP Morgan, and a coinciding identical 89.942.240 oz deposit into Scotia Mocatta. Keep on reading @ silverdoctors.com | ||||||||||||||
| Tremendous Bitcoin Volatility Today, Silver Breaks Through $28 Posted: 31 Jul 2012 09:12 AM PDT
from silvervigilante.com: Supporting a central thesis here at Silver Vigilante, the US Dollar is becoming increasingly irrelevant. It is no mystery to anybody that the US Dollar is continuing its steady decline as American wages continue their forty year trend of stagnation and decline via the hidden tax of inflation, while the powers-that-be buy up the world's resources since the stuff-and-things of the natural world – with their independent, scientifically discovered use-values – will outlast the dictatorial edict of fiat fantasy. Since the US Dollar also, to a degree, backs each fiat currency of nation's the world over – most of which have been restructured under the Washington Consensus and via US and western backed institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – this then means that we will see a waning of all currencies. That's the reason individuals want and need something more. Today, albeit that the US Dollar is up in terms of most major currencies, bitcoin and silver have traded right alongside the world reserve currency, breaking trend with their historical antithetic to the dollar. Bitcoin, to be sure, has demonstrated enormous volatility today, with swings up to $9.10, back below $9, then back up near its day's high. Usually, when the dollar goes up, then silver takes a dip more dramatic (usually) than does gold. Today that is not the case. And, right alongside poor man's gold, bitcoin has also popped, trading today at essentially the top of its range sinceits fall from the $30 mark of June 2011. This has been marred by considerable volatility on the Mt. Gox chart, though. Below is the one-year chart for BTC Mt. Gox: Keep on reading @ silvervigilante.com | ||||||||||||||
| Posted: 31 Jul 2012 09:10 AM PDT
from harveyorgan.blogspot.com: Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen: Gold closed at up today to the tune of $1.80 at $1619.70. However the star of the show was silver rising by 54 cents to $28.04. Something happened today which has not happened in many years. The cartel could not whack silver and especially gold into it's big delivery month of August. Since I have been following gold and silver at the comex, today was the first time that the bankers could not fleece any option holders on gold and silver. The bankers at one point would whack both metals, on the eve of option's expiry. Usually this occurs 4 days prior to first day notice. After we continually bombarded the CFTC with these facts, the bankers switched tactics and raided right after options expiry and right up until first day notice, trying to prevent holders from plunking their money down and exercising their options and taking delivery. This is the first time that all 4 days have seen a rise in our precious metals. The bankers are now terrified. There must be major supply problems in England. Wait until you see what happened on the delivery front (below) Let us head over to the comex and assess trading today. The total gold comex OI fell by 5045 contracts with gold rising on Friday. We probably lost some bankers who threw themselves over the bridge as they tried to cover their massive shortfall. The July gold month (a non official delivery month) is now off the board, however we did have a rather large notice filed for delivery today. The next big delivery month is August and here the OI fell by 40,860 contracts from 80,744 to 39,884. Some rolled into October and most into the biggest delivery month, December. The total silver comex OI fell marginally by 842 contracts as again we probably lost a few bankers who covered a small percentage of their shortfall. The July delivery month is now off the board but we strangely had some big notices filed late Friday night as some bankers were in desperate need of silver. Sure enough, the withdrawals in silver were enormous! The August (non official delivery month) saw its OI rise by 10 contracts to 157 from 147. Keep on reading @ harveyorgan.blogspot.com | ||||||||||||||
| Most Important Silver COT Chart for 2012 Posted: 31 Jul 2012 09:07 AM PDT from gotgoldreport.com: Mr. Arensberg wanted me to share with you-all the chart below, which he says is the "most important chart for the CFTC commitments of traders (COT) data for silver so far in 2012." Gene already commented on the very bullish positioning in the Vulture subscriber charts over the weekend, but he wanted a visual representation of it available. The chart is of the short positions by the traders the CFTC classes as "Managed Money," including hedge funds, Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) and other funds that trade futures for clients. They are normally on the long side for silver futures, but over the past couple months they have been adding more and more short positions up to a new record high for the entire disaggregated COT report data going back to 2006. As of Tuesday, July 24, with silver at $26.93, Managed Money traders held the highest ever number of bets that silver would fall in price (17,575 short contracts). Continued… That is a very, very small net long position! And, if you believe like we do, a very low Managed Money net long position means there is a lot of buying horsepower sitting on "go" for when the Funds think a new rally is getting underway. Mr. Arensberg is convinced that the Funds have built up that record high short position as a kind of insurance – a "just in case hedge" to protect them if silver broke down through the super-important long time technical support level of $26. (But silver did not break down through $26, did it.) He believes that if silver were to move back higher, up through about $28.50 or maybe $29 or so, the Funds would be quick to buy back those short bets on silver – because it will have broken out of a bottom consolidation pattern. What is more, once it is clear that the Funds have started closing out all those record high short bets, all the regular traders on the N.Y. COMEX will be trying to front run that short covering, sort of like switching on an afterburner. Then, when that is going on the other shorts might be trying to take profits, buying back their shorts all at the same time with the algo traders trying to jump on it for the ride. "It could be an explosive move if that happens," Gene said. "We could even see an offer vacuum for a little while, which we have not seen since January," he added. Keep on reading @ gotgoldreport.com | ||||||||||||||
| The Dollar is Silver – Banknotes are a Bank's Liability Posted: 31 Jul 2012 09:04 AM PDT
from wealthcycles.com: The name dollar follows from a German word describing the valley in what is today the Czech Republic where silver was mined and summarily coined. The word "dollar" was used in English to describe a silver coin before 1600. Milton Friedman famously noted that "the major monetary metal in history is silver, not gold." Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution lays out the powers of the federal government (per the supremacy clause) over states that have signed on to the federation. At this point all 50 U.S. states have agreed: Now where former President Woodrow Wilson gets off handing this Constitutional power out to a private bank is beyond this discussion. But note, the Federal Reserve (Fed) is in control of the money supply and emits banknotes, a liability of its bank. (And when you invest in these banknotes, do you consider the assets of the issuing bank?) The banknotes issued by the Fed are called "dollars." This is because the Fed co-opted the name. The word "dollars" refers to silver dollars, whether produced domestically (below, top) or in a Spanish colony (below, lower), both circulated in America. Dollars are not paper rectangles. In the times before the Fed, per Wikipedia: Keep on reading @ wealthcycles.com | ||||||||||||||
| The Fed On Gold Price Manipulation Posted: 31 Jul 2012 09:01 AM PDT
from zerohedge.com: Lately various media outlets have been swamped with stories and allegations of precious metal manipulation ranging from the arcane, to the bizarre to the outright ridiculous. At issue is not that these claims of price fraud are unfounded – they very well may be completely true – but without a notarized facsimile of an actual trade ticket signed by Brian Sack, or his replacement Simon Potter, or any of the BIS traders confirming they are indeed selling gold on behalf of the Fed, BOE, ECB, SNB or BOJ simply to keep the price of the metal down, what such constant factless accusations (and no, sorry, a chart showing that the price of gold may go up or go down sharply indicates merely that and nothing about the underlying factors for such a move) do is to habituate the broader public to the real issues surrounding precious metal, and other asset class, manipulation. So instead of searching for circumstantial evidence which one can easily find everywhere, we decided to go straight to the source. To do that we go back to a post we wrote back in September of 2009, based on an internal previously confidential Fed document, which conveniently enough explains everything vis-a-vis gold manipulation and leaves nothing to speculation or misinterpretation. Zero Hedge presents the smoking gun that may provide responses to all the various open questions regarding the Fed's Modus Operandi in the gold arena which answer the core question – motive – courtesy of a declassified memorandum, written by none other than the then Fed Chairman, and addressed to the president of the United States. Exclusive Smoking Gun: The Fed On Gold Manipulation Zero Hedge has recently presented several declassified documents from the pre-1971 "Nixon Shock" days, that endorse the case for gold as a major historical factor in US monetary and foreign policy, as demonstrated by State Department and CIA disclosure. Gold's special status in policy and administrative decision-making was a direct factor in Nixon's choice to abolish the gold reserve at a time of an exploding budget deficit. Yet what about the days after 1971, and specifically, how did that critical "behind the scenes" organization, the Federal Reserve, perceive and manipulate gold in the post Bretton-Woods world? Was gold, freed from its shackles to the dollar, once again merely a symbolic representation for money? Zero Hedge presents the smoking gun that may provide responses to all the various open questions, courtesy of a declassified memorandum, written by none other than the then Fed Chairman, addressed to the president of the United States. Keep on reading @ zerohedge.com | ||||||||||||||
| Embry – Gold To Explode, But Europe Is In Terminal Condition Posted: 31 Jul 2012 08:58 AM PDT
from kingworldnews.com: Today John Embry told King World News, "… the sentiment backdrop is perfect for an explosion in both the gold and silver price." Embry also cautioned, "… the economy is eroding everywhere in the world, but particularly in the United States … (and) there is only one solution to keep the game going, and that is to create as much money as is necessary to keep the system afloat." Embry, who is Chief Investment Strategist of the $10 billion strong Sprott Asset Management, discussed gold, silver and the mining shares, but first, here is what Embry had to say about the ongoing crisis in Europe: "This European situation is in some sort of terminal condition. You have Draghi, head of the ECB, coming out late last week and essentially saying that the ECB will do anything to preserve the euro. But I don't think the Germans are behind this move." Keep on reading @ kingworldnews.com | ||||||||||||||
| Posted: 31 Jul 2012 08:54 AM PDT
from silverstockreport.com: Many investors are waiting to make decisions after the election. Investors can afford to wait. But the financial status of the USA is not likely to really change, and monetary inflation will continue. "Money is the most important subject intellectual persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it is widely understood and its defects remedied very soon." The defects are not in "money", it's in the currency! There are no defects in silver and gold. The defects lie within the abominations issued by the Federal Reserve, those electronic banking notes that are an unjust weight and measure of theft, backed by nothing but slips of dirty and smelly paper money. Buying silver is a political action. It is a veto. It unilaterally stops the Government from being able to steal from you through inflation and money printing from excess spending. The political veto of buying silver carries a weight over 1000 times stronger and more powerful than voting. The reasons are simple. Buying silver is a vote of no confidence in the actions of government that prints paper money. But who is actually voting that way? Almost nobody. Almost everybody is upset with Congress, as 90% of people have "no confidence" in federal politicians, but 99.9% of people still trust the money, and almost nobody is taking action to buy silver! Less than 1 person (or dollar) in 1000 is buying silver per year. If even 1/1000th of the paper money in existence were buying silver, that would be $18 billion (out of 18 trillion). But annual investment demand for silver is only about $3 billion per year. That indicates that only 1 out of 5000 dollars is buying silver per year. So if even 1 person in 1000 bought silver, the silver price could be well over $150/oz. by next month, and yet silver prices sit at around $28/oz. today. If such a change happened, the dollar would lose 80% of it's value as measured by silver, and the Federal government's power to confiscate wealth from the people through printing press paper money would correspondingly drop by that much, too. Or the dollar could lose more if more people were inspired to buy silver! People complain that the government debauches the currency by giving handouts to immigrants. I get emails on this topic nearly daily. But they don't do anything about it by buying silver! Keep on reading @ silverstockreport.com | ||||||||||||||
| Has the BIS gold pool succeeded the London Gold Pool? Posted: 31 Jul 2012 08:52 AM PDT
from gata.org: Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: An inquiry tonight about the Bank for International Settlements led your secretary/treasurer back into GATA's documentation archive – http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21 – where the bank has figured prominently over the last year. First there was GATA's disclosure of the presentation made to central banks that were recruited for membership in the BIS during a meeting at the bank's headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, in June 2008, a presentation advertising BIS services including secret interventions in the gold market: http://www.gata.org/node/11012 Then there was Zero Hedge's disclosure of a BIS gold trader's attempt to remove from his official biography a reference to his responsibility for those secret interventions: http://www.gata.org/node/11257 And then there was the discovery by our Dutch friend, the economist Jaco Schipper of MarketUpdate.nl, of the memoirs of the late president of the Netherlands central bank and president of the BIS itself, Jelle Zijlstra, who wrote that, because of the insistence of the United States, "Gold is artificially kept at a far too low price": http://www.gata.org/node/11304 But there was also something else from a bit farther back — an extraordinary profile of the BIS by the investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein, published in Harper's magazine in November 1983 after Epstein was given what appears to have been unprecedented access to the bank. Epstein described the BIS as running practically the whole world financially in virtual contempt of elected governments and in near-complete secrecy. But Epstein's references to the bank's involvement in the gold market are of greatest interest to GATA's work. Keep on reading @ gata.org | ||||||||||||||
| Gold at the ECB: Accident or Strategy? Posted: 31 Jul 2012 08:52 AM PDT From what we see, central banks have been scared into holding gold since the onset of the financial crisis. Beyond that, we don't see an active strategy at the ECB to keep its gold reserves at 15% of total assets. | ||||||||||||||
| Gold at ECB: Accident or Strategy? Posted: 31 Jul 2012 08:51 AM PDT Merk Fund | ||||||||||||||
| Draghi Set to Unleash SMP Program While Market Awaits Fed Posted: 31 Jul 2012 08:48 AM PDT
from goldcore.com: Today's AM fix was USD 1,622.75, EUR 1,323.29, and GBP 1,034.46 per ounce. Silver is trading at $28.21/oz, €23.06/oz and £18.06/oz. Platinum is trading at $1,429.20/oz, palladium at $585.80/oz and rhodium at $1,100/oz. Gold fell $1.30 or 0.08% in New York yesterday and closed at $1,622.10/oz. Silver pulled back to $27.53 in Asia, but then it hit a high of $28.23 in New York and ended with a gain of 1.55%. Gold is flat on Tuesday ahead of the US Federal Reserve's policy meeting later today where investors hope to receive some hints on the bank's position on quantitative easing. Many analysts are not expecting large policy moves. The US Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has its Jackson Hole Economic Symposium scheduled at the end of August, which will be significant for determining policy expectations ahead of the September 13th FOMC meeting. Attendees include prominent central bankers, finance ministers, academics, and financial market participants from around the world. The European Central Bank has its policy meeting this Thursday, and because of Mario Draghi's comments last week, some action is expected. Draghi is set to come out with a plan that involves employing the SMP (securities market program) bond-buying program coupled with EFSF/ESM purchases of Spanish and Italian bonds on primary markets. The main plan, was also confirmed by Eurogroup president Jean-Claude Juncker according to Spanish daily El Pais. Keep on reading @ goldcore.com | ||||||||||||||
| Connor Kilpatrick: It’s Hip! It’s Cool! It’s Libertarianism! Posted: 31 Jul 2012 08:45 AM PDT By Connor Kilpatrick, the managing editor of Jacobin magazine. Cross posted with The eXiled
Calling yourself a libertarian today is a lot like wearing a mullet back in the nineteen eighties. It sends a clear signal: business up front, party in the back. You know, those guys who call themselves "socially liberal but fiscally conservative"? Yeah. It's for them. Today, the ruling class knows that they've lost the culture wars. And unlike with our parents, they can't count on weeping eagles and the stars 'n bars to get us to fall in line. So libertarianism is their last ditch effort to ensure a succession to the throne. Republicans freak you out but think the Democrats are wimps? You must be a libertarian! Want to sound smart and thoughtful in front of your boss without alienating your "socially liberal" buds? Just say the L-word, pass the coke and everyone's happy! Just look at how they play it up as the "cool" alternative to traditional conservatism. It's pathetic. George Will wore the bowtie. But Reason magazine's Nick Gillespie wears an ironic D.A.R.E. t-shirt. And don't forget the rest of his all-black wardrobe, complete with leather jacket. What a totally with-it badass. ***
With such a bleak economic forecast for the Millennials, it shouldn't surprise anyone that our elites want to make "libertarianism" shorthand for "political disaffection." Now there's a demographic with some growth potential. And it's inspired a lot of poorly-sourced, speculative babble about how "the kids have all gone Galt," almost always through the personal anecdotes of young white men. A couple of months ago, after Harvard released a poll on the political views of Millennials, libertarians took to the internet to tell the world how the youth of America was little more than a giant anarcho-capitalist sleeper cell–ready to overthrow the state and privatize the air supply at a moment's notice. So I took a look at the poll numbers. And you know what? It's utter horseshit. Right off the bat, we're told that 79% of Millennials don't consider themselves politically-engaged at all so, uh, keep that in mind. Much is made of the fact that less than half of the survey respondents thought the government should provide free health care to those who can't afford it. What they don't mention is that that number (44 percent) is twice the percentage who say they stand against (22 percent) such "hand outs." Nearly a third didn't think one way or the other. Then we hear that the poll proves kids don't care about climate change. But they don't mention that slightly more Millennials wanted the government to do more on that front than they're doing now–even if it hurt economic growth. Nearly half, you guessed it, "neither agree nor disagree." (Come on kids, Rock the Vote!) More Millennials identify as liberals than conservatives. Hardly any of them (10 percent) support the libertarian-embraced Tea Party. About three-quarters say they despise congressional Republicans. Nearly two-thirds voted for Obama in 2008. Slightly over half approve of him now. Nearly three-quarters of Millennials hate congressional Republicans. 55% trust in the U.S. military, one of the largest state-socialist programs in the entire world, also responsible for, you know, those wars that libertarians supposedly hate. Over a quarter put their faith in the federal government all or most of the time, and 55% "some of the time." Only 17% answered "never." And despite all their supposed Ron Paul love, they trust the "globalist" United Nations even more than they do the feds. A little nibble here with only 36% approving of Obama's handling of the budget deficit, but then again, that's actually better than his rating on the deficit with Americans of all ages. Plus, worrying about the budget deficit is how dumb people have tried to sound smart since the days of FDR. And most people are dumb. And when we finally get down to a hypothetical libertarian match-up between Obama and Ron Paul—41 percent pick Obama and only 27 percent pick Paul. Oh, but the kiddies are cool with gay marriage and tired of bombing brown people overseas? No shit. That just makes them normal people living in the 21st century. I'm for single-payer health care and can't stand Barney Frank. Does that mean I sip the Kool-Aid at the Lyndon LaRouche compound? None of this should be too surprising. For almost two decades, roughly two-thirds of the American public have supported what we'd call a moderate European welfare state—putting the average U.S. citizen significantly to the left of the Democratic party, a center/center-right organization saddled, much to their dismay, with a perpetually-disappointed center-left constituency. But hey, our ruling class would shit a brick if any of that wealth redistribution stuff happened over here. Which is why "this is a center-right nation" has been a favorite Fox News talking point for over ten years. It's only now—after Occupy Wall Street forced their hand—that the media is finally willing to admit that it might be bullshit. But libertarianism? Our ruling class is totally fine with that. Smoke your reefer and sodomize whomever you please, just keep your mouth shut and hand over your Social Security account. ***
Never trust a hippietarian I get the appeal. The state's been sticking it to working folks for decades. It seems almost unimaginable that Big Government could ever be run by us and not the One Percent. But child labor laws, the Civil Rights act, federal income tax, minimum wage laws, Social Security, Medicare, food safety—libertarians have accused all of them as infringements upon the free market that would lead to economic ruin. And over and over again, they've been proven wrong. Life goes on—a little less gruesomely—and society prospers. "There is no such thing as a free-market," economist Ha-Joon Chang has said repeatedly. "A market looks free only because we so unconditionally accept its underlying restrictions that we fail to see them." In other words, markets are social institutions, just as much under the thumb of politics and government as everything else. Which means they're subject to democratic pressures, as they should be. And what you "earn" from said markets? Chang: "All our wages are, at root, politically determined." Despite what Ron Paul's trolls might have you believe, gold Krugerrands don't spray out your asshole every time you type up a spreadsheet or pour a Grande mochachino for your next customer. Capitalism has always been a product of Big Government. Ever since the railroads of the nineteenth century, to Silicon Valley, Big Pharma and the banks, the Nanny State has been there all along, passing subsidies and tax breaks, and eating the costs the private sector doesn't want. So whenever a libertarian says that capitalism is at odds with the state, laugh at him. It's like saying that the NFL is "at war" with football fields. To be a libertarian is to say that God or the universe marked up that field, squirted out the pigskins from the bowels of the earth and handed down the playbooks from Mt. Sinai. *** When a Red like me wants to argue for something like universal health care or free college tuition, we can point to dozens of wealthy democratic societies doing just that. The Stalinist left is nothing more than a faint memory. But where are the libertarian Utopias? General Pinochet's Chile was a longtime favorite. But seeing as how it relied on a fascist coup—with a big assist from Nixon and Kissinger—Chile's lost a bit of that Cold War luster. So these days, for the slightly more with-it libertarian, we get Singapore as the model of choice. Hey, isn't that where the Facebook guy lives these days? That's pretty "hip"! Ah, Singapore: a city-state near the very top in the world when it comes to "number of police" and "execution rate" per capita. It's a charming little one-party state where soft-core pornography is outlawed, labor rights are almost nonexistent and gay sex is banned. Expect a caning if you break a window. And death for a baggie of cocaine. But hey: no capital gains tax! (Freedom!)
Singapore: Libertarian Paradise It's not like any of this will make it through the glassy eyes of the true-believers. Ludwig von Mises, another libertarian pin-up boy, wrote in 1927 that, "Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization." Lately, Ron Paul's economic advisor has been claiming that Communist Party-ruled China has a freer market than the U.S.'s. *** So let's talk a little about this freedom they're always going on about. Or, to paraphrase Lenin, the libertarian's ultimate nemesis: freedom for who to do what? Most American adults spend about half their waking hours at a job. And during that time, libertarians do not give a flying fuck about your liberty. Instead, they condone the most brutal of tyrannies all in the name of a private employer's freedom. Racial discrimination, verbal abuse, random drug testing, body-searches, sexual harassment, illegal termination, email monitoring, union busting, even withholding piss-breaks–ask any libertarian how they feel about workplace unfreedom and they'll tell you: "Hey man, if you don't like it, you have the freedom to get another job." If folks are hiring. But with four-and-a-half applicants for every job, they're probably not. Here's another thing libertarians always forget to mention: a free-market capitalist society has never and by definition can never lead to full-employment. It has to be made to by—you guessed it—the Nanny State. Free market capitalism actually requires a huge mass of the unemployed—it's not just a side effect. And make no mistake: corporate America loves a high unemployment rate. When most everyone has a job, workers are less likely to take shit. They do nutty things like join unions, demand better wages and refuse to work off-the-clock. They start to stand up to real power: not to the EPA, and not the King of England, but to their bosses. But with a real unemployment rate close to 20 percent, that ain't happening. Well, fuck. Better sign up for that Big Government welfare state they're always whining about. Hey, don't worry. You could always sell a little crack and turn a few tricks. Libertarians totally support that. After all, that's your freedom, dude! *** Libertarianism isn't some cutting-edge political philosophy that somehow transcends the traditional "left to right" spectrum. It's a radical, hard-right economic doctrine promoted by wealthy people who always end up backing Republican candidates, no matter how often they talk about civil liberties, ending the wars and legalizing pot. Funny how that works. It's the "third way" for a society in which turning against capitalism or even taking your foot off the pedal is not an option. Thanks to our shitty constitution and the most violent labor history in the West, we never even got a social-democratic party like the rest of the developed world. So what do we get? The libertarian line: "No, no: the problem isn't that we're too capitalist. It's that we're not capitalist enough!" Genius. At a time in which our society has never been more interdependent in every possible way, libertarians think they're John fucking Wayne looking out over his ranch with an Apache scalp in his belt, or John fucking Galt doing…whatever it is he does. (Collect vintage desk toys from the Sharper Image?) Their whole ideology is like a big game of Dungeons & Dragons. It's all make-believe, except for the chain-mail–they brought that from home. Elves, dwarves and fair maidens for capital. Even with the supposedly "good ones"—anti-war libertarians—we're still talking about people who think Medicare's going to lead to Stalinism. So my advice is to call them out. Ask them what their beef really is with the welfare state. First, they'll talk about the deficit and say we just can't afford entitlement programs. Well, that's obviously a joke, so move on. Then they'll say that it gives the government tyrannical power. Okay. Let me know when the Danes open a Guantánamo Bay in Greenland. Here's the real reason libertarians hate the idea. The welfare state is a check against servility towards the rich. A strong welfare state would give us the power to say Fuck You to our bosses—this is the power to say "I'm gonna work odd jobs for twenty hours a week while I work on my driftwood sculptures and play keyboards in my a chillwave band. And I'll still be able to go to the doctor and make rent." Sounds like freedom to me.
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| Gold Prices “Could Be Under Pressure” from Central Bank Meetings Posted: 31 Jul 2012 08:45 AM PDT
from goldnews.bullionvault.com: Gold Prices held steady above $1620 per ounce during Tuesday morning's London trading, while stocks and commodities were also broadly flat and major government bond prices ticked higher with markets looking ahead to key central bank policy decisions later in the week. Silver Prices meantime hit a four-week high at $28.47 per ounce. "With wider markets setting the flow direction for [gold] bullion, underlying demand for the metal remains soft and has barely provided any significant direction," says a note from Swiss precious metals refiner MKS. "Gold may come under some pressure in the run-up to this week's central bank meetings," adds a note from Australian and New Zealand bank ANZ, referring to monetary policy decisions due from the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of England. The ECB's Governing Council and the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee both announce their decisions Thursday, while the Federal Open Market Committee does so a day earlier on Wednesday. In a survey of economists by newswire Bloomberg, 88% said they expected the Fed will hold off launching a third round of quantitative easing asset purchases, known as QE3. "The [US] economy is basically treading water," says Michael Gapen, senior US economist at Barclays, citing last week's first estimate of GDP that showed economic growth slowed to an annual rate of 1.5% in the second quarter. "The Fed [has] the ability to sit tight for now [as] market conditions haven't weakened that much." "We do not feel that this week will see an announcement of outright quantitative easing," agrees Standard Bank commodities strategist Marc Ground. "We expect the Fed to wait until there are stronger signals that the US economy is faltering. As such, we feel that any rallies off the back of QE3 hopes should be viewed with skepticism, and caution that the week could see heightened volatility." "[Fed policymakers] are at the end of their rope and are probably searching for every last option for what they can do," argues Michael Feroli, chief US economist at JPMorgan Chase in New York. Keep on reading @ goldnews.bullionvault.com | ||||||||||||||
| Silver Closes Four Consecutive Days in the Green For First Time Since January Posted: 31 Jul 2012 08:43 AM PDT from silvervigilante.com: Silver has not had 4 positive, green closes like it has the last 4 days since 1/16-1/23, when it had 6 consecutive positive, green days. Before then, it had, from 1/9-1/13, 4 consecutive green days. During this period, silver enjoyed a moon-rocket from $26 on 12/29 to $37.58 on 2/29. Are we on the verge of a dramatic move a la what we saw at the beginning of the year? It is tough to know, but the last four days have been some of the most positive action silver has seen in weeks. Just today, silver was good for nearly 3% in green moves. In due time, we will see if these gains can be sustained into european trading and into the early hours in the United States. So far, in the after market, silver has been lazy, moving sideways towards the magnet of $28. Keep on reading @ silvervigilante.com | ||||||||||||||
| ‘Batman’ Shooter-LIBOR Connection Comes Under Fire Posted: 31 Jul 2012 08:40 AM PDT
from silvervigilante.com: Silver Doctors went live on Sunday with the following post, suggesting James Holmes' father had intimate connection with the global financial system, and was playing the role of whistle blower. The folks at Dollar Vigilante pointed SV towards the Daily Paul, where users debated the validity of the story. The link cited by Silver Doctors, in turn, does not corroborate its claim. SV is open to new information regarding the matter. Keep on reading @ silvervigilante.com |
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