saveyourassetsfirst3 |
- Billionaire George Soros could be behind the selloff in gold
- Why one of the world's best dividend-growing stocks was slammed today
- Deepcaster: Financial Crisis PHASE 2 MACROEVENTS SIGNAL PHASE 3 IMPENDING
- Gold Backwardation Chatter
- Is Gold Becoming a Risk-off Asset?
- Choosing the Right Investment Gold Products
- Why Owning Investment Metals is Becoming More Urgent
- [KR407] Keiser Report: Sterlageddon
- Sebi allows mutual funds to lend idle Gold
- SRSrocco: Fundamentals Will Win in the End, but Algos Are Still Fully in Control of PM Markets
- “You see what’s going on in Greece, in Spain and Portugal and other parts of the world? That’s what they fear, and yet, they’ve caused it.”
- Gold Silver Price Decline Not Over – Monitor Markets For Turnaround
- Turkey to Iran gold trade wiped out by new U.S. sanction
- South Africa’s gold output down 21.2% in December
- Matt Taibbi....Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail
- January Gold Imports Into India Surge 23 Percent, Hit 18-Month High
- John Kaiser: Can the TSX Venture Exchange Be Saved?
- GEAB N°72 is available! Global systemic crisis - Second half of 2013: The reality or the anticipation of the Dollar collapse obliges the world to reorganize on new fundamentals
- When It Comes to Gold, Stick to the Facts
- Gold and silver hit again with silver breaking below 30.00/Yet silver OI rises to 154,300 contracts/European data still remains weak
- Sanctions finally caught up with Turkey Iran Gold trade
- Tomorrow's Gold: Asia's Age Of Discovery
- A universal truth
- Gold Completing Huge Triangle Base- Next Upward Run Will be MASSIVE!
- China Gold demand to outstrip supply in 2 years
- Pharmacyclics Is Ripe For A Major Correction
- Gold drops 3%, Silver 5.1% for the week
- G-20 Sparks Gold's Ugly Sell-Off
- Why do we hoard gold?
- Rick Rule: Interest Rates, Precious Metals And The Mining Sector
- A small gold mine will never make you big money (Rick Rule)
- Speculative Money Flowing out of Gold
- Dollar Rally & Soros Sales See Gold Hit 6-Month Low as G20 Denies “Currency War”
- Long-term Trading Cycles in the Gold Market and Their Implications for Future Price Moves
- By the Numbers for the Week Ending February 15
- John Kaiser: Can The TSX Venture Be Saved?
- Gold loses Support
- APNewsBreak: Report casts doubt on US missile shield in Europe protecting America
| Billionaire George Soros could be behind the selloff in gold Posted: 16 Feb 2013 11:58 AM PST From Bloomberg: Billionaire investors George Soros and Louis Moore Bacon cut their stakes in exchange-traded products backed by gold last quarter as futures dropped the most in more than eight years. John Paulson maintained his holding. Soros Fund Management LLC reduced its investment in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest fund backed by the metal, by 55 percent to 600,000 shares as of Dec. 31 from three months earlier, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed yesterday. Bacon's Moore Capital Management LP sold its entire stake in the SPDR fund and lowered holdings in the Sprott Physical Gold Trust. Paulson & Co., the largest investor in SPDR, kept its stake at 21.8 million shares. The fourth-quarter decisions by Soros and Bacon may bolster speculation that gold's 12-year bull-run is coming to an end as economic data from the U.S. to China show signs of recovery, curbing haven demand. Global ETP holdings have lost 0.9 percent since reaching a record on Dec. 20. UBS AG reduced its one-month price target yesterday by 6.8 percent, saying economic optimism "takes the shine off defensive assets," including bullion. Gold futures fell to a five-month low today. "The reduction in holdings by George Soros may unnerve the market a little bit," said Nick Trevethan, a senior commodities strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. "The market may also be watching Paulson, and those are steady." Gold fell below $1,600 an ounce today for the first time since August. Futures for April delivery slumped 1.8 percent to $1,605.40 at 10:49 a.m. on the Comex in New York, after touching $1,596.70, the lowest since Aug. 15. The most-active contract, which has lost 4.3 percent this year, declined 5.5 percent in the final three months of 2012, the biggest quarterly decline since June 2004. 'Downside Risks' Hedge funds have cut bets on a gold rally by 56 percent since reaching a 13-month high in October as manufacturing rebounded from the U.S. to China. It's increasingly probable that prices peaked in 2011 and so-called downside risks are building as the world expands, Tom Kendall, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG in London, said in a report e-mailed Feb. 1. Futures rallied to $1,923.70 on Sept. 6, 2011. Growth will accelerate in the U.S. and China, the two largest economies, in the coming quarters, according to more than 100 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. In the U.S., claims for jobless benefits dropped 27,000 to 341,000 in the week to Feb. 9, fewer than any of the 49 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected, the Labor Department said yesterday. Lone Pine Capital LLC, the hedge fund run by Stephen Mandel Jr., and Scout Capital Management LLC sold their entire stakes in the SPDR Gold Trust in the quarter, filings showed. 'Looking Better' Global gold investment, including bars, coins, and ETPs, dropped 8.3 percent to 424.7 tons in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, the World Gold Council said in a report yesterday. Full-year investment slid 9.8 percent to 1,534.6 tons, it said. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index climbed to a five-year high yesterday and has surged 6.7 percent in 2013. The gauge has more than doubled since bottoming in March 2009 as the U.S. Federal Reserve conducted three rounds of bond buying to lower interest rates, boost growth, and support the labor market. The U.S. central bank will keep purchasing securities at the rate of $85 billion a month, according a statement from the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee on Jan. 30. Gold may have a sharp rally as investors seek so-called real assets, Elliott Management Corp., the hedge fund founded by Paul Singer, said in a document accompanying its fourth-quarter report on Jan. 28, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg. 'Come Back' While people would rather invest in "economically sensitive commodities and equities" as data improved, "we may see people come back to gold if troubles in Europe get worse and problems in the U.S. reappear," said Adrian Day, who manages about $160 million of assets as president of Adrian Day Asset Management in Annapolis, Maryland. Germany's economy, the largest in Europe, contracted 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter, and French GDP dropped 0.3 percent, according to data this week. Japan's economy, the world's third largest, is in recession after contracting an annualized 0.4 percent in the final quarter of 2012, following a revised 3.8 percent fall in the previous three months. Michael Vachon, a spokesman for Soros, was not immediately available when called for comment and did not reply to an e- mail. Armel Leslie, a spokesman for New York-based Paulson & Co., which manages $18 billion, declined to comment. Kenny Juarez, a spokesman for Moore Capital, also declined to comment. Money managers who oversee more than $100 million in equities must file a Form 13F with the SEC within 45 days of each quarter's end to show their U.S.-listed stocks, options, and convertible bonds. The filings don't show non-U.S. securities or how much cash the firms hold. "The economy is looking better, and people are moving to more remunerative assets like equities," Paul Dietrich, chief executive officer of Foxhall Capital Management Inc., said in a telephone interview from Alexandria, Virginia. "A lot of people have lightened up on gold." To contact the reporters on this story: Debarati Roy in New York at droy5@bloomberg.net; Phoebe Sedgman in Melbourne at psedgman2@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at sstroth@bloomberg.net; James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net. More on George Soros: |
| Why one of the world's best dividend-growing stocks was slammed today Posted: 16 Feb 2013 11:58 AM PST From Bloomberg: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. had the worst sales start to a month in seven years as payroll-tax increases hit shoppers already battling a slow economy, according to internal e-mails obtained by Bloomberg News. "In case you haven't seen a sales report these days, February MTD sales are a total disaster," Jerry Murray, Wal-Mart's vice president of finance and logistics, said in a Feb. 12 e-mail to other executives, referring to month-to-date sales. "The worst start to a month I have seen in my 7 years with the company." Wal-Mart and discounters such as Family Dollar Stores Inc. are bracing for a rise in the payroll tax to take a bigger bite from the paychecks of shoppers already dealing with elevated unemployment. The world's largest retailer's struggles come after executives expected a strong start to February because of the Super Bowl, milder weather, and paycheck cycles, according to the minutes of a Feb. 1 officers meeting Bloomberg obtained. Murray's comments about February sales follow disappointing results from January, a month that Cameron Geiger, senior vice president of Wal-Mart U.S. Replenishment, said he was relieved to see end, according to a separate internal e-mail obtained by Bloomberg News. "Have you ever had one of those weeks where your best-prepared plans weren't good enough to accomplish everything you set out to do?" Geiger asked in a Feb. 1 e-mail to executives. "Well, we just had one of those weeks here at Walmart U.S. Where are all the customers? And where’s their money?" Shares Fall Wal-Mart fell 3.3 percent to $68.46 at 2:12 p.m. in New York and earlier slid as much as 3.8 percent for the biggest intraday decline since Nov. 15. The shares rose 14 percent in the 12 months through yesterday, compared with an 8.5 percent gain for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. "As with any organization, we often see internal communications that are not entirely accurate, that lack the proper context and represent individual opinions," David Tovar, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said in an interview, adding that the company will report fourth-quarter earnings on Feb. 21. Wal-Mart's fourth quarter ends in January. Murray and Geiger didn't immediately return telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment. Both executives attributed the performance to increased payroll taxes and delayed tax returns, which Geiger called "a potent one-two punch," according to the e-mails. About $19.7 billion more in tax refunds had been delivered to shoppers by this time last year, according to an analysis prepared by Wal-Mart's Global Customer Insights & Analytics division that was attached to Murray's e-mail on Feb. 12. The retailer expected returns to be delayed by three to four weeks because of the late release of tax forms and additional, federally mandated tax-fraud scrutiny. Payroll Tax When a payroll-tax break expired Dec. 31, Americans began paying 2 percentage points more in Social Security taxes on their first $113,700 in wages. For a person making $40,000 a year, that is about $15 a week. The extra tax bite is about equal to a year of car insurance for a family making $30,000 or a basket of groceries per month for a family making $50,000, according to Wal-Mart's analysis. Other retailers who court low-income Americans also are bracing for the rising taxes. Higher payroll taxes "go against our customers' wallet," Family Dollar Chief Executive Officer Howard Levine said on a Jan. 3 conference call. "Clearly, they do not have as much for discretionary purchases than they did." Wal-Mart's Geiger in his e-mail urged employees to improve business by "fixing something that could really make a difference to our performance." He quoted Tim Yatsko, the company's executive vice president of global sourcing, saying: "We need to 'stop the stupid.'" 'Biggest Risk' Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said during a Feb. 1 officers meeting, the minutes of which were attached to Geiger's e-mail, that the troubled economy leaves little room for internal errors. "In an environment like this, we can’t afford to hurt ourselves," Simon said, according to the minutes. "Self-inflicted wounds are our biggest risk and our toughest enemy." Simon cited negative economic growth, declining consumer confidence, and rising unemployment as challenges facing the company. The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.1 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, and the unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage point to 7.9 percent in January. The Conference Board's measure of consumer confidence declined last month to the lowest since November 2011. Even with a slow January, Wal-Mart is gaining market share steadily, Simon said. "That points to our competitive landscape, which means everyone is suffering and probably worse than we are," Simon said, according to the minutes. The company must focus on process and execution, he said. "We have to fight against the tougher economic environment to earn a bigger share of a smaller consumer spending pie," Simon said, according to the minutes. To contact the reporter on this story: Renee Dudley in New York at rdudley6@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Robin Ajello at rajello@bloomberg.net. More on the retail sector: |
| Deepcaster: Financial Crisis PHASE 2 MACROEVENTS SIGNAL PHASE 3 IMPENDING Posted: 16 Feb 2013 11:45 AM PST Submitted by Deepcaster: Everybody talks about what they are not going to do, which is exactly what they are going to do. -Jim Oberweis, Oberweis Investment Management, 02/12/13 Yes, indeed, Mr. Oberweis. The Major Powers have begun a Competitive Currency Devaluation "War" = Phase 2 of the Ongoing Financial Crisis. But this War has only [...] |
| Posted: 16 Feb 2013 10:40 AM PST I have been receiving a fair amount of emails asking my opinion on a recent article chatting up "Gold Backwardation". The unspoken inference from the article is that this is bullish for gold. Let me state two things before proceeding. Number one - I am a trader and make my living by so doing. If I am on the right side of the market, I make money. If I am not, I lose money. It is that simple. Johnnie one notes cannot trade and make money because they are only always on one side of a market. IN the case of gold, that means that they are always long. Markets go up and markets go down and if you on the long side of a market going lower crashing through support levels, guess what.... You are losing money, sometimes lots of it. Leverage is your friend on the way up if you are long; it is the grim reaper if you are long and the market is dropping lower and lower. My advice to those who are using futures to trade gold and are not getting out of losing long gold positions while their commodity trading account is imploding - be prepared to suffer large losses to the extent that your potential career as a full time trader will come to an abrupt and rather inglorious end. You have heard it said by myself and others who do this for a living; "Cut your losses and get out of a losing trade when support levels get violated". That is called sound money management. Failure to do that and instead rely on HOPE is a novice's error. HOPE is not a trading strategy. Do you honestly believe that a hedge fund computer algorithm really gives a damn what yours or my opinion is of a market? Those things are going to sell as long as the signals tell them to sell. When they stop, the market bottoms.When they stop is anyone's guess. That is what the charts are for. Sometimes as a trader it is best to simply head to the sidelines and do nothing rather than keep trying to catch a falling knife. The market will bottom when it wants to bottom and not because some guy writes an article extolling the virtures of a market in backwardation or someone else makes a statement that the market will bottom in exactly two weeks or some other such nonsense. Use technical chart indicators to tell you when a bottom is in. No exceptions. So what if you do not catch an exact bottom? The greatest profits are made by taking 70-80% out of a move (unless of course you are a guy who likes to play range trades). The people who consistently brag about buying exact bottoms or selling exact tops are chronic liars. I can tell you that they DO NOT TRADE for a living because no trader can consistently get that right all of the time. We strive to do so but at our best we no more know the future than the next guy. We wait for a confirmation before risking our precious trading capital. Oh yes, it is no where near as sexy as hitting an exact bottom when buying, but then again, after 2 decades plus, we are still surviving. I have seen more casualities in this business than I care to remember. Their last words are always: "I told you I was right - see the market is now going higher". The problem is that they ran out of money before the market turned! So what if they were right. In the short term, they were dead wrong and that is why they lost their money to someone on the other side of the trade who was the "right" one. There is an old trader's saying that goes like this: "He bought the first break in price. He bought the next break in price. He bought the third break in price. He bought the fourth break in price and after that, He became the break". Second - that assumes that the backwardation is actually there. Guess what - it is not. When a real backwardation structure exists in a market it is OBVIOUS from the structure of board. That front month futures contract will be trading at a PREMIUM to the next month contract which will also be trading at a premium to the contract following that and so on. The normal structure of (Most - not all) the futures board will be one of CONTANGO. Translated this means that the front or near month will be trading at a DISCOUNT to the next closest futures contract which will be trading at a discount to the contract following it and so on. Without getting too technical for the sake of getting lost in the weeds, markets such as livestock and grains are a bit more complex because of the nature of the commodity being raised or produced but even the grains will show this pattern when dealing with the OLD CROP against the NEW CROP. Back to our BACKWARDATION structure however. When the near month trades at a premium to the next month and the one after that, the market is sending a signal that IT WANTS THAT COMMODITY AND IT WANTS IT NOW AND IT IS WILLING TO PAY MORE TO GET IT RIGHT NOW instead of waiting to take it further down the road. All VERY STRONG bull markets will show this pattern although it is not necessary for a market to be in a backwardation structure even during a bullish phase. It all depends on the SEVERITY of the DEMAND and SUPPLY situation. Markets can move strongly bullish even without a shift into backwardation occuring because an imbalance in supply and demand that it expects to continue for some time. However, when there is a supply shortage or huge demand spike, the move towards BACKWARDATION will occur. Generally this is the result of a type of concern that can easily move to FEAR or outright PANIC on the part of those who need the commodity that they are not going to be able to secure enough supply of that particular commodity that is necessary to conduct their business. Minneapolis Grain some years ago always comes to my mind. More recently, last year CORN prices did the same in the face of a near panic brought on by a drought ravaged crop. All this being said, the structure currently present in the gold market is normal. Here are the CLOSING PRICES for the four main gold contracts from last Friday: February 2013 $1607.50 April 2013 $1610.30 June 2013 $1611.60 August 2013 $1613.30 As you can clearly see, each contract is trading at a discount to its successor. This is a normal market structure which is indicative of the COSTS of storage over those months, plus interest and insurance. There is not the least sign of backwardation. Those who like to quote the spot price of gold and then compare that to the delivery month and claim backwardation exists simply do not understand the term nor the board structure. Basis is the difference between the spot or cash price of a commodity and the price of the nearest futures contract. Trying to nail that down can be tricky however because basis can be all over the place depending on the one quoting it. For instance, the basis in the corn market right now is swinging wildly. I have seen it quoted as high as $0.50 over. The problem is the corn price is imploding lower all the while the cash market is at a premium. All this means is that farmers here in the US are reluctant to turn loose of their corn right now and that is making supply for old crop scarce. What is happening however is that buyers are not willing to pay them this much for it and are instead sourcing from S. America or holding off on filling their needs until the harvest ramps up down that way. I could just as well make the argument that corn prices should not be moving lower because the cash corn market is trading above the corn futures market that the writer of the article about gold being circulated is making. What matters is the BOARD STRUCTURE. Nothing else. Besides, there is also the issue of liquidity issues in the front month contract as it prepares to go off the board. Trade dries up and often the contract will not trade at all with bids and offers moving farther apart as the liquidity shrinks. The trades that do occur need to be noted for the exact time of the trade during the day and then obtain the price of spot gold at the exact same time to get anything close to an accurate basis. This was part of the same nonsense being touted by those claiming that Deutsche Bank was stopping all the gold at the Comex and was moving it back to Germany and cleaning out the Comex warehouses in the process. Guess what, Gold prices have collapsed since that theory has come and gone. Again, no change in board structure; it was just more foolish HOPE masquerading as FACT. Deutsche was indeed doing some large stopping but how the hell do we know where that gold was going. Quite frankly, who even cares. If the board structure had changed as a result of all that, then we would have had something to chew on. It comes down to this - SUPPLY and DEMAND - when an imbalance exists that is severe, it will always show up on the futures board. Everything else is just market noise. Sort it out and you will be a good trader; act blindly on it as if it is fact and you will join the ever growing ranks of those who become road pizza on the floor of the futures exchanges. |
| Is Gold Becoming a Risk-off Asset? Posted: 16 Feb 2013 10:29 AM PST Lately we've been writing about the negative correlation between the equity market and the precious metals market. This phenomenon has been in place since summer 2011 and has re emerged in the past few months. Since November 23, the S&P 500 is up 8% while the gold shares are down 14%, Silver has lost 11% and Gold 7%. For those who have studied history this should not come as a total surprise. From 1972 to 1977 and November 2000 to July 2002, precious metals and the equity market trended in opposite directions. We've postulated that precious metals and the mining shares won't begin a new bull phase until the cyclical bull market in US equities ends. We don't expect that to happen immediately but there are some important signals beneath the surface (with the safe-havens) that we should direct our attention to. First, let's take a look at the recent activity in a number of markets. From top to bottom we plot Silver, Gold, GDX, TLT and the US Dollar. The first three markets have been in a downtrend since the end of September. Meanwhile, TLT and the buck began their downtrends in the middle of November. It appears that these markets have been tightly connected since the end of November. That is the bigger picture. The short-term term picture shows the US$ potentially breaking out and bonds not breaking to a new low. Meanwhile, we should take note of the action in some other markets since late November. Both emerging markets (EEM) and the S&P 500 have advanced, but EEM is slowing down. Commodities failed to make a new high even as the US$ made a marginal low. As we can see, the inverse of the buck is threatening to breakdown and realign with commodities and CEF, a fund which is half Gold and half Silver. The rally since November is now seeing a negative divergence as emerging markets have not made a new high and the US Dollar could be breaking out. The bottom line is the action in precious metals, commodities and the US$ is signaling a warning for the equity market. The bond market needs to confirm this warning and if it does it could be the catalyst for a sell-off in equities. Keep in mind, the S&P 500 is approaching strong long-term resistance while in a state of euphoric sentiment. If you don't believe that, check the recent sentiment surveys and ignore those who don't provide hard data. By the way, public opinion on bonds (fromsentimentrader.com), is only 14% bulls! Sounds like we should sell bonds and buy stocks, right? Meanwhile, the precious metals appear likely to test major support in the coming days and weeks. There will be some more pain but things are setting up perfectly for the next cyclical bull market. Gold is positioning itself contrary to risk-on assets. It has detached from the stock market and that is a good thing. There will likely be a transition period as precious metals find a bottom and the equity market reaches its peak. For now, look to buy precious metals if they reach an extreme oversold condition next week. As for the gold stocks, if you'd be interested in professional guidance in uncovering the producers and explorers poised for big gains then we invite you to learn more about our service. Good Luck! Jordan Roy-Byrne, CMT |
| Choosing the Right Investment Gold Products Posted: 16 Feb 2013 10:25 AM PST So you've decided to buy gold for preserving your wealth and securing your family's financial future. But how do you proceed? What do you buy? How do you buy?
Basically gold comes in 3 major forms: 1. Jewelry: mostly not pure gold, but alloys (because it's intended for use and because gold is soft, it's good to add some other metal to it in order to keep it hard) 2. Coins: either old gold coins, numismatic investment coins or bullion investment coins (the latter two are specifically manufactured for the sake of investments, but beginner investors should focus on bullion coins – will be explained a little big lower) 3. Bars: the gold bars come in various shapes and sizes and even with a very small amount of money, you could buy at least half a gram or a single gram even
OK, so if you intend to invest in gold, then jewelry is not the best form. It's hard to re-sell and most dealers are only interested in the gold content of the object. You'll most likely be able to sell your jewelry as "scrap gold", on behalf of the aesthetical value/design. You'll need to focus on widely-recognized forms of gold, meaning: coins and/or bars. The latter are easier to buy and sell, but there are several coins that are also ideal for investment. Before actually purchasing, look around, educate yourself on the basic facts about gold and understand how to buy investment gold (like which is the ideal form to hold, how to reduce risks and increase the benefits). Make sure you focus on buying pure gold (bars or coins should be at least .999 pure, but there are plenty of .9999 purity items as well) and that you obtain them from reliable merchants. Don't go hunting bargains on eBay or purchase from individual sellers – scams and fakes are abundant. If you buy coins, focus on the Canadian Maple Leaf, American Buffalo, Vienna Philharmonic, Kangaroo Nugget coins and others… The British Sovereigns are widely known, but most of them have a purity of only 91.7 %, while the American Eagle and Krugerrand coins are not pure gold (despite having it engraved on them!) – the latter contain the face-engraved amount of gold (for instance, 1 ounce), but they also contain additional metals for keeping the coin hard. Bullion bars are perhaps the best form of investment gold out there. They're for the sake of metal content and many of them even sell with certificates. It's recommended for you to focus on those bars that are enclosed in boxes/cases/packages that cannot be opened. These packages generally serve as certificates and many even have hologram seals and bar codes, serial codes. Make sure you pick a reliable place to buy (for instance, APMEX), |
| Why Owning Investment Metals is Becoming More Urgent Posted: 16 Feb 2013 10:19 AM PST It's advised to own precious metals, indeed, especially during times of crisis. But if you are aware of the recent economic trends and events, then you'll observe an increased importance of gold on financial markets, increased sales of investment gold and even a special interest by the governments (which are in a repatriation and buying fever). Nevertheless, gold has gotten more popular and the charts are reflecting this: the price of gold has gone up. The euro crisis will deepen and the US dollar will eventually crash. Are you already prepared to face the financial havoc that these two currency crises will cause? Do you already own a substantial amount of precious metals in your portfolio? Or, are you relying on bank accounts and other less-reliable assets to keep your wealth in? Owning the shiny yellow metal throughout history was always empowering. It's needless to explain, but today one can observe the urgency, the rush – governments are hasty in purchasing. It's simple to access the statistics on the World Gold Council's website and see which country bought gold and how much they added to their existing portfolio. Citizens in crisis-affected countries are turning to gold as well. Across Europe, in the USA and the Anglo-Saxon world in general, in India and China, but quite recently even in Japan – gold purchases started picking up (as a response to the Japanese government's more monetary easing). Prime Values periodically publishes news, reports and other information regarding the trends regarding precious metals and commodities. On can observe rising awareness towards hard assets among the population of the World in general. Gold has been in a bull market for over a decade and regardless whether it will correct, the long-term bullishness remains certain amidst crisis. Let's not forget: we're still at the beginning of the global economic crisis and things will get worse as the US is headed towards the fiscal cliff's edge and the euro as a currency is awaiting its demise. In early 2013, the masses are still pretty much "asleep", but as awareness rises and as governments will buy more and more gold, the price of the metal will follow soon. |
| [KR407] Keiser Report: Sterlageddon Posted: 16 Feb 2013 09:28 AM PST We discuss ending the currency war with a gold standard. They also look at how, since going off the gold standard in 1971, productivity gains have all gone to the one percent who create and push the paper and credit. … Continue reading |
| Sebi allows mutual funds to lend idle Gold Posted: 16 Feb 2013 09:00 AM PST Total gold demand in India in 2012 was around 864.2 tonnes, according to World Gold Council. Of this, jewellery demand stood at 552 tonnes and investment demand at 312 tonnes. |
| SRSrocco: Fundamentals Will Win in the End, but Algos Are Still Fully in Control of PM Markets Posted: 16 Feb 2013 08:35 AM PST Submitted by SRSrocco: All I can say is that the figures and stats out there now are completely worthless in what we are facing going forward.. First…. we keep hearing on all the BULLISH sites that there is a real tightness in the physical silver market. On the other hand, we keep getting a build [...] |
| Posted: 16 Feb 2013 07:21 AM PST Levin: US preparing for societal collapse by buying up billions of rounds of ammo [AUDIO] "I'm going to tell you what I think is going on," Levin said. "I don't think insurrection. Law enforcement and national security agencies — they … Continue reading |
| Gold Silver Price Decline Not Over – Monitor Markets For Turnaround Posted: 16 Feb 2013 07:02 AM PST We often make a distinction between buyers of physical precious metals, [PMs] and buyers of futures, exhorting the former to buy with impunity, and some may see that as cavalier, given how the price for both gold and silver have been in recent decline. The point for buyers of PMs is for both protection and creation of wealth. Protection against insidious central bankers destroying currency-purchasing power, over time, and wealth creation as evidenced by those buying PMs over the past decade and seeing the intrinsic value grow dramatically. Buyers of the physical as less price sensitive and view current declines as opportunity to add more. As an example, we still hold physical silver purchased when price was in the mid-40s. Has the relative value declined? Absolutely. Concerned? Absolutely not. It remains a matter of time when the price of PMs will go dramatically higher, and the concern will not be how much one paid, $1800 or $1600 the ounce for gold, or $45 or $30 the ounce for silver. The concern will be over having any at all. If gold is to go to $3,000, $4,000 $5,000, or wherever, and silver go to $100, $150, or $250, there will be many who will be glad to have paid $2,500 the ounce for gold, and $75 the ounce for silver. How does that compare to $1,800 and /or $45 purchases for physical PMs, at this point? One cannot always time the market, which is why consistent buying over time is strongly recommended, but one can determine whether to be an owner of PMs, or not. The problem moving forward is fear of central bankers changing the rules and precluding the purchase of any PMs by the public, at any price. Death and taxes are touted as the two things one cannot escape, [not always true for the latter], but the certainty of lies and deception by central bankers/planners runs an immediate third place. The handwriting is on the wall, as most in PMs know only too well. We mention this for those on the fence, those waiting for "bargains," [misplaced values, there], and those who have not yet purchased any PMs. Do not wait, do not wait, do not wait! For futures, while most everyone is of the mind that manipulation is showing a steady hand in PMs markets, that "hand" is losing its grip. It is the charts that show what the market has to say about what those who are participating are saying about their decisions. A not so simple statement, but one that says, watch developing market activity to know what is going on. That is always our purpose. While ongoing efforts are being made to suppress the price of PMs and discourage their purchase, mostly in futures markets, the "Discouragees," [central bankers,] have been net buyers of gold for a few years now, after having been sellers for so long, so do not go by what central bankers say, [often voiced through the puppetmeisters on daily financial "news" programs], go by what they do, only in this area. Ignore them, otherwise. The larger picture for gold is as bullish as ever. We provide two strong facts to confirm why, on the monthly chart. Bullish spacing is referenced as such because it shows the degree of eagerness of buyers in a market. It is measured by noting the last swing high and the last swing low. Typically, markets retest previous swing highs. When buyers are so intent on being long in a market, they do not wait to see if a retest of the last swing high will be successful. Instead, they, [and by "they" we mean smart money participants, or controlling forces], just keep buying breaks, creating a space that is bullish. Another and related measure is the extent of a break, or market "give-back," in a reaction after a rally. Monthly charts are more controlling than the lower time frames, so the information you can glean from them is more reliable and more pertinent. You can see how the current break since the September 2011 high has been relatively shallow when compared to from where the rally began. Despite the "daily grind lower," recently, the larger focus is very strong. Very strong.
A trading range is where smart money operates to accumulate or distribute their positions. Controlling market forces require time to acquire positions so as not to disrupt their attempted "sleight of hand" buys/sells during the process, and the TRs are also used to discourage participants from following them. We said last week that $1600 was a possible target, and it was reached on Friday. Will that area hold? "NMT." Need More Time to know that answer. Points 1 and 2 form an upper supply channel line, and a further line down is marked by dashes to show how it extends into the future, well ahead of price activity. Point 3 is the low is between points 1 and 2, and it is from there that a horizontal line, a demand line, is extended lower. It is also dashed to show that it extends into the future well ahead of developing price activity, to be used as a guide to gauge potential support when touched by yet to develop market declines. You can see how the dashed line held the December lows, and now February is retesting it, again. There is no evidence yet of a turnaround, and it does take time for a market to turn.
The most interesting aspect of the daily chart happens to be the last bar, Friday's activity. It is a wide range bar lower, a sign of EDM, [Ease of Downward Movement], indicating sellers are in control. The sharply higher volume is a red flag, a point in time for which one needs to pay close attention, moving forward. Remember, sharp volume increases are usually smart money either pushing a market even more, or starting to take the other side in a transfer of risk. Subsequent developing market activity usually indicates which. This volume day prompted a look at intra day behavior to see if any clues can be gleaned.
We say smart money always tries to hide their intent, but volume is something they need in order to move or accumulate positions, and they cannot hide that. If smart money sells highs and buys lows, where is the highest volume in this chart? We ask, the chart answers. The position of the close tells us buyers are more than matching the effort of sellers to cause a rally off the low under such heavy selling pressure. The two preceding bars of increased volume may "look" like selling, but it is quite possible that smart money has been buying on the way down, taking everything offered by weak-handed longs selling out and new shorts getting in.
If Benjamin Franklin had been a trader, he would surely have said, "Never a bottom- picker be." Bullish spacing exists in silver, just not as strongly. We do point out how the past five months of selling effort has not been impressive, relative to the two month rally prior. It is like an Ali "Rope-A-Dope," taking all the punches from his opponent, but protecting himself so not much damage is inflicted, despite the effort against him. Eventually, he comes out stronger to defeat his now-weakened opposition.
We show the same intra-TR channel down, just like in gold. Unlike gold, however, silver's low has held the lows of last December, a small show of relative strength within a negative trading environment. Still, no apparent end is at hand in the decline of futures. The best way to trade a TR? Not to trade it at all, instead, wait for a price breakout and go with it. Why does that work? As mentioned, TRs are how smart money accumulates positions. Once they are done, they then begin the mark-up or mark-down phase, and it will last for some time, once it gets underway.
Just as a dashed line in a channel projects into the future for support/resistance, you can see where the failed probe lower, at the end of December/beginning of January acted as support. From there, a horizontal line is drawn. We made it dashed to show that is was extended into the future much earlier than when current price activity has returned to it. Will price hold current lows? No one knows, and anyone who says otherwise is showing an unwise ego trying to be "right," as opposed to being in harmony with the market. Any bottom requires time in order to turn around, and any potential turnaround always needs to be confirmed by price behavior. The increased volume on Friday is a red flag, as it was for gold, but a red flag means a sign or caution, to take note and see how price responds to it. That takes time. Futures players have time, or at least the smart ones are exercising it.
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| Turkey to Iran gold trade wiped out by new U.S. sanction Posted: 16 Feb 2013 06:50 AM PST  Tighter U.S. sanctions are killing off Turkey's gold-for-gas trade with Iran and have stopped state-owned lender Halkbank from processing other nations' energy payments to the OPEC oil producer, bankers said on Friday. U.S. officials have sought to prevent Turkish gold exports, which indirectly pay Iran for its natural gas, from providing a financial lifeline to Tehran, largely frozen out of the global banking system by Western sanctions over its nuclear program. Turkey, Iran's biggest natural gas customer, has been paying Iran for its imports with Turkish lira, because sanctions prevent it from paying in dollars or euros. |
| South Africa’s gold output down 21.2% in December Posted: 16 Feb 2013 06:50 AM PST  South Africa's gold output fell by 21.2 percent in volume terms in December, while total mineral production fell 7.5 percent compared with the same month last year, data showed on Thursday. Production of non-gold minerals was 5 percent lower, Statistics South Africa said. Production of platinum group metals plunged 23.2 percent in December. This 2-paragraph Reuters story was filed from Johannesburg...and you just read it. It was posted on the mineweb.com Internet site on Thursday...and the link to the hard copy is here. |
| Matt Taibbi....Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail Posted: 16 Feb 2013 06:50 AM PST  The deal was announced quietly, just before the holidays, almost like the government was hoping people were too busy hanging stockings by the fireplace to notice. Flooring politicians, lawyers and investigators all over the world, the U.S. Justice Department granted a total walk to executives of the British-based bank HSBC for the largest drug-and-terrorism money-laundering case ever. Yes, they issued a fine – $1.9 billion, or about five weeks' profit – but they didn't extract so much as one dollar or one day in jail from any individual, despite a decade of stupefying abuses. |
| January Gold Imports Into India Surge 23 Percent, Hit 18-Month High Posted: 16 Feb 2013 06:50 AM PST ¤ Yesterday in Gold and SilverThe gold price traded pretty flat through Far East trading on their Friday...but then dipped slightly at the London open going into the a.m. gold fix. From there it traded flat until 1:00 p.m. GMT...8:00 a.m. in New York...and about twenty minutes before the Comex open. By the time that JPMorgan et al were done for the day, the low tick checked in at $1,596.00 spot around 10:35 a.m. Eastern time. From there, the price rallied back to the $1,610 spot mark, but wasn't allowed to trade above that price for the rest of the Friday session. On an engineered price decline of this magnitude, the trading volume was immense...around 284,000 contracts, give or take...and gold closed at $1,610.10 spot...down $24.30 on the day.
Of course silver was the metal that "da boyz" were really after...and it was under light selling pressure right from the moment that Far East trading began on their Friday morning. However, by 1:00 p.m. GMT in London, silver was only down about a dime from Thursday's close. But once the engineered price decline began, it was sold down hard throughout the entire Comex trading session...and the low tick of the day [$29.59 spot] was set at precisely 2:45 p.m. Eastern time in electronic trading. The subsequent rally wasn't allowed to get far...although the price did recover about 20 cents from its low. Silver closed the Friday trading day at $29.80 spot...down 60 cents from Thursday's close. Gross volume was around 96,000 contracts, but once the spreads and roll-overs for March were subtracted, the net volume was only 44,000 contracts.
The dollar index opened at 80.39 on Friday morning in Japan...and hit its nadir [80.22] just minutes before the London open. The high tick [80.57] was in around 7:30 a.m. in New York...and from there the index faded a hair in the close. The dollar index finished the day at 80.48...up about 10 basis points. For the umpteenth day in a row, there was no correlation between the currencies and the precious metal price action.
The gold stocks gapped down and then headed for the nether reaches of the earth...and from about 10:30 a.m. Eastern time onwards, the stocks bounced along the bottom despite the fact that the gold price recovered a bit after that. The HUI got smoked to the tune of 3.61%.
The silver stocks got hit pretty hard as well, but did a little better than their golden brethren. Nick Laird's Intraday Silver Sentiment Index closed down 3.20%.
(Click on image to enlarge) And here's the long-term Silver Sentiment Index so you can see how things look going back several years.
(Click on image to enlarge) The CME's Daily Delivery Report showed that 78 gold and 65 silver contracts were posted for delivery on Tuesday within the Comex-approved depositories. It was "all the usual suspects" in gold...and in silver it was Jefferies as the big short/issuer of note once again with 60 contracts issued...and Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia stopping 63 contracts. The link to yesterday's Issuers and Stoppers Report is here. There were no reported changed in either GLD or SLV yesterday. The U.S. Mint had a small sales report yesterday. They sold 5,000 ounces of gold eagles...1,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...and 35,000 silver eagles. Month-to-date the mint has sold 43,000 ounces of gold eagles...3,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...and 1,643,500 silver eagles. Based on these sales, the silver/gold sales ratio for February to date stands at just under 36 to 1. Over at the Comex-approved depositories on Thursday, they didn't report receiving any silver, but did ship 350,997 troy ounces of the stuff out the door...and the link to that activity is here. I'm happy to report that were big improvements in the Commercial net short positions in both silver and gold in yesterday's Commitment of Traders Report from the CFTC. In silver, the Commercial net short position declined by 5,149 contracts...or 25.7 million ounces. The total Commercial net short position is now down to 234.0 million ounces of silver. The Big 4 traders are short 256.7 million ounces of silver, or 109.7% of the entire Commercial net short position...and Ted Butler says that JPMorgan Chase is short 167.5 million ounces of that amount all by itself. The '5 through 8' traders are short an additional 54.2 million ounces of silver, bringing the Big 8's total up to 310.9 million ounces...of which JPMorgan Chase holds over 50% of the Big 8's short position on its own. As far as concentration goes...the Big 4 are short 50.5% of the entire Comex futures market in silver...of which 33 percentage points of that amount is held by JPMorgan on its own. Just think about that for a second....one trader is short one third of the entire silver market! And it's my opinion the Canada's own Bank of Nova Scotia is short about 11 percentage points of the Comex silver market as well...so these two banks are short about 44% of the entire silver market between them on a net basis...and these are minimum percentages. The '5 through 8' traders are short another 10.7 percentage points of the Comex futures market in silver. So the Big 8 are short over 61% of the silver market on a net basis. In gold, the Commercial net short position declined by 13,954 contracts, or 1.40 million ounces. The Commercial net short position in gold is now down to 16.07 million ounces. The Big 4 are short 9.92 million ounces...and the '5 through 8' largest traders are short an additional 5.66 million ounces. The Big 8 are short 15.58 million ounces of gold, or 97.0% of the entire Commercial net short position. As far as concentration goes, the Big 4 are short 27.1% of the entire Comex futures market in gold on a 'net' basis. The '5 through 8' largest traders are short an additional 15.4 percentage points...so, in total, the Big 8 are short 42.5% of the entire Comex futures market in gold on a net basis and, once again, those are minimum percentages. Here's Nick's now world famous "Days of World Production to Cover Short Positions" chart. JPMorgan is short about 87 days of world silver production...and it's my opinion that Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia is short about 27 days of world silver production. That's two banks short 114 days of world silver production between them...just about four months. Also note how the four short traders in silver totally dominate the short side. The '5 through 8' trader's position...even in total...just don't matter.
If you'd like to view the interactive, long-term COT charts going back about sixteen years, you can do so by clicking here for silver...and here for gold. It nearly goes without saying that since the Tuesday cut-off for yesterday's COT Report, there has been an even bigger improvement in the Commercial net short positions in both silver and gold than we had in this last report. I'm guessing between 7-10,000 more contracts in silver...and 20-30,000 additional contracts in gold...especially after the engineered price declines we saw yesterday. Yesterday was a capitulation to the down side in spades...all courtesy of JPMorgan and friends. Further to the story about producing I.D. for buying or selling gold bullion or jewellery in the U.S.A...I got the following e-mail from reader Harry Morgan yesterday... Hello Ed,
Considering it's a Saturday column, I don't have that many stories for you today...and I'm rather happy about that. Well, was that the bottom? Beats me, but if I had to bet a dollar, I'd say we're pretty close...at least in gold. South Africa's gold output down 21.2% in December. Turkey to Iran gold trade wiped out by new U.S. sanction. John Kaiser: Can the TSX Venture Exchange Be Saved? "To Get the Gold, They Will Have to Kill Every One of Us First" ¤ Critical ReadsSubscribeWal-mart sales a 'total disaster', say leaked emailsThe retailer's shares slid after Jerry Murray, vice president of finance and logistics, also told colleagues that it was "the worst start to a month I have seen in my ~7 years with the company". "Well, we just had one of those weeks here at Wal-Mart US. Where are all the customers? And where's their money?" Wal-Mart, which owns Asda, had been expecting a boost to February sales from the Super Bowl and other factors including milder weather across the Atlantic. This article was posted on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site yesterday evening GMT...and I thank "David in California" for our first story of the day. The link is here.  JPMorgan Said to Fire Traders, Realign Pay Amid SlumpJPMorgan Chase & Co., grappling with Wall Street's worst year for stock-trading since 2008, cut pay at the equities unit about 4 percent and pushed out about three dozen employees, people with knowledge of the moves said. About two dozen U.S. traders and sales staff were fired, and some senior employees left voluntarily as the unit aligned pay more closely with revenue, said the people, asking to not be identified because the measures aren't public. The bank also dismissed equity analysts last week, three people said, with one saying about a dozen were affected. Industry-wide equities- trading revenue fell 5 percent last year, the third straight annual drop, according to analytics firm Coalition Ltd. This Bloomberg story was posted on their website late yesterday morning Mountain time...and I thank Manitoba reader Ulrike Marx for sending it our way. The link is here.  Matt Taibbi....Gangster Bankers: Too Big to JailThe deal was announced quietly, just before the holidays, almost like the government was hoping people were too busy hanging stockings by the fireplace to notice. Flooring politicians, lawyers and investigators all over the world, the U.S. Justice Department granted a total walk to executives of the British-based bank HSBC for the largest drug-and-terrorism money-laundering case ever. Yes, they issued a fine – $1.9 billion, or about five weeks' profit – but they didn't extract so much as one dollar or one day in jail from any individual, despite a decade of stupefying abuses. People may have outrage fatigue about Wall Street, and more stories about billionaire greed-heads getting away with more stealing often cease to amaze. But the HSBC case went miles beyond the usual paper-pushing, keypad-punching sort-of crime, committed by geeks in ties, normally associated with Wall Street. In this case, the bank literally got away with murder – well, aiding and abetting it, anyway. For at least half a decade, the storied British colonial banking power helped to wash hundreds of millions of dollars for drug mobs, including Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, suspected in tens of thousands of murders just in the past 10 years – people so totally evil, jokes former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, that "they make the guys on Wall Street look good." The bank also moved money for organizations linked to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and for Russian gangsters; helped countries like Iran, the Sudan and North Korea evade sanctions; and, in between helping murderers and terrorists and rogue states, aided countless common tax cheats in hiding their cash. Despite its length, this essay by Matt Taibbi is an absolute must read from one end to the other...and I thank Marshall Angeles for sharing it with us. It was posted on the Rolling Stone website on Thursday...and the link is here.  Doug Noland: Hedge Funds Gone WildAt the same time, there is also ongoing confirmation that the incredible global policymaking and liquidity backdrop is much more successful in inflating asset markets than it is in boosting economic performance. In particular - and especially considering policy environments - economies in Europe, Japan and the U.S. continue to un-impress. This bolsters the view of a widening global gap between inflating financial asset prices and underlying economic fundamentals. This begs the question: how might the emboldened "global macro" community play this divergence? Will they play policymaking and the inflating Bubble for all it's worth? Or will they begin to approach speculative markets with a more contrarian bent? With some funds emboldened and still so many others desperate for performance, it seems reasonable to assume that markets become even more speculative – a game of trying to catch folks on the wrong side of trades (i.e. Apple, gold, etc.), underexposed to outperforming sectors (i.e. homebuilders and "short" stocks) and overexposed to the underperforming (i.e. "defensive"). Most call it a "new bull market". I'll stick with "inflating speculative Bubble". Doug Noland's weekly Credit Bubble Bulletin falls into the must read category for me every week. Yesterday's edition is posted at the prudentbear.com Internet site...and the link is here.  G20 set to dilute big powers' demands on currenciesThe Group of 20 nations will not single out Japan over the weak yen and will disregard a call from G7 powers to refrain from using economic policy to target exchange rates, according to a text drafted for finance leaders. A G20 delegate who has seen the communiqué - prepared by finance officials for their bosses - also said it would make no direct mention of new debt-cutting targets, something Germany is pressing for but which the United States wanted struck out. If adopted by G20 finance ministers and central bankers meeting in Moscow on Friday and Saturday, Japan will escape any censure for its expansionary policies which have driven the yen lower and drawn demands for action from some quarters. "There will not be a |
| John Kaiser: Can the TSX Venture Exchange Be Saved? Posted: 16 Feb 2013 06:50 AM PST  Is the end near for the TSX Venture Exchange, the victim of "algo traders," low volume and lack of institutional investors? If newsletter writer John Kaiser is right, as many as 500 of the 1,484 resource companies listed on the Venture Exchange will go under this year due to lack of money in the bank. In this Gold Report interview, Kaiser suggests that a crowd-sourced valuation system may give the investors the information they need to invest with confidence and fend off the proprietary traders. |
| Posted: 16 Feb 2013 06:47 AM PST - Public announcement GEAB N°72 (February 16, 2013) -  Just as the Euro crisis pushed Europe to modernize and adapt its economic and financial governance to the challenges of the 21st century, the terrible US dollar crisis will oblige the world to transform the whole of world governance structures, beginning of course with the international monetary system to calm the storm which is on the point of striking currencies. According to our anticipations, this reorganization which will only start to become a reality with the September G20 unfortunately risks taking place in a hurry since our team envisages the first major fears over the Dollar during the March-June 2013 period. A phrase by Antonio Gramsci (1) splendidly describes the long, dangerous transition period that we are currently living through: "The old world is dying away, and the new world struggles to come forth: now is the time of monsters". This period will finally come to an end but the monsters are still restless. With no surprise, one of the powerful factors which will accelerate the United States' loss of influence in the world relates to oil. In fact we are witnessing the last days of the petrodollar, the key element of US domination. This is why we have decided to deal with the world oil problem at length in this GEAB. We are also publishing the GEAB Dollar-Index and Euro-Index to follow currency developments more reliably in the current monetary storm. Finally, as usual, we finish with the GlobalEurometre. In this public announcement for the GEAB N°72, our team has chosen to present a series of converging indices on the crisis which leads it to keep its "global systemic crisis" alert in force for the March-June 2013 period, as well as its anticipation of the risk of "Icelandisation" in the management of the banking crisis. A flurry of signs of crisis, or why we are keeping the March-June 2013 alert Since last month (GEAB n°71), the converging line of strong trends and indices announcing a catastrophe during the March-June 2013 period have strengthened further. First of all it's the "currency wars" which takes on political dimensions and ruins the confidence that countries give each other. We will expand on our analysis below. But it's also many of the domestic indices which should ring alarm bells about the United States. In deciding to separate the debates on the budgetary cuts/increase in taxation and on the debt ceiling (2), the Americans have doubled the shock to come: there was only one at the end of February/beginning of March, there is now another in May. This separation reveals the Republicans' strategy clearly. Of course they will exert a power struggle to the maximum over raising the debt ceiling to reduce spending further, but they will ultimately feel obliged to vote for a rise in order not to be held responsible for the cataclysm which would follow a payment default (3). On the other hand the consequences of the budgetary cuts envisaged for March 1st, though certainly not painless, are far from being as traumatising and the Republicans have really decided to negotiate a sizeable reduction in the public deficit under penalty of leaving the last resort of automatic cuts at work.  In any event, with these budgetary cuts at the beginning of March, and after a so-called "surprising" and largely ignored drop in US GDP in the 4th quarter of 2012 (4), who could still think that GDP growth in the first quarter of 2013 will be positive (except by making up the numbers)? The fall is all the more inevitable as a few days of economic activity were lost in the North-East because of Nemo (the blizzard) and that there was a severe flu epidemic this year (5). They will be the excuses offered (6) when it's necessary to justify a fall in GDP in an economy officially supposed to be picking up. Nevertheless an announcement at the end of April of a US relapse into recession (two consecutive quarters of a fall in GDP) will make its own modest impression on the world economy. Fortunately a "dam" has been built to avoid the waves: Egan Jones, the credit rating agency, less biased than its three big brothers (the one which has already downgraded the US three times to AA-), has been banned from rating the country for 18 months (7); what a happy coincidence! And amongst the three major credit rating agencies, S&P is being prosecuted (8), the only one which dared to downgrade the United States; a second happy coincidence! The others have just to watch their step. This "dam" although futile especially reveal the fears at the highest level in 2013 and is only one more sign of the shock's imminence. It's also from this perspective that the January 1st 2013 decision should be read on the unlimited current account guarantee by Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (9) (FDIC): by guaranteeing them only up to $250,000, 1,400 billion dollars are no longer guaranteed (10), which could conveniently avoid a FDIC bankruptcy in the event of a problem… And apparently the insiders of world finance are also preparing themselves: enormous short bets have been placed for expiries through the end of April (11); two Swiss banks are changing their status so that their partners are no longer personally liable for the bank's losses (12); Eric Schmidt has sold 2.5 billion dollars worth of Google shares (13); etc. But it's not only the markets which are preparing for the worst. The US government itself seems to be expecting disorder and a great deal of violence: first of all it is arming its department of internal security (Department of Homeland Security) with 7000 assault rifles) (14), then Obama is signing a law allowing the pure and simple execution of Americans posing a vague "imminent threat" (15), to the great displeasure of a section of US public opinion… Bank failures: Towards an « Icelandation » of the banking crisis' management In the face of this shock, our team estimates that most countries, including the United States, will approach management of the crisis in an "Icelandic style", i.e. not to bail out the banks and to let them collapse (16). We have already had a glimpse with the liquidation of the Irish bank IBRC which has given many people ideas: "How Ireland liquidated its banking albatross in one night" headlined La Tribune (17) admiringly. This possibility seems to increasingly be the solution in the event of the banks backsliding, for the following reasons: first, it seems much more effective than the 2008-2009 bailout plans judging by Iceland's recovery; second, countries don't really have the means to pay for new bailouts anymore; finally, one can't deny that it must be a big temptation for leaders to get rid in a popular fashion of part of the debts and "toxic assets" which encumber their economy. These « too big to fail » banks are in fact gorged of public and private Western debt from which they gained their profits and power. In past GEABs our team had already established the link between a bank like Goldman Sachs for example and the Knights-Templar (18), a medieval military order which had grown excessively rich on States' backs and which King Philip the Fair put an end to, taking their gold for his state coffers. One can see certain current trends following this thread: the efforts of certain States requiring banks to separate investment and deposit banking (19) would in fact ensure that the first's difficulties don't overly impact the second; along the same lines, all the lawsuits of which certain very large banks are deservedly currently the object (Barclays, etc… (20)) can also be seen as a means of recovering money from the banks to re-inject it into the states' coffers or the real economy… The major countries' leaders will probably not decide to "blow up" a bank but one thing is certain, that the motivation and the means to save banks in difficulty will have no relationship from now on with those which had been implemented in 2009. If any leniency could be shown for the "too big to fail", like Bank of America which seems to be ailing (21), at it is certain that those in charge will be accounted for the mistakes to the maximum. But whatever this period's management policy, as we had anticipated in the GEAB n°62 ("2013: end of the domination of the US Dollar in the settlement of the world trade"), this new shock will accelerate the loss of US influence and in particular of their ultimate weapon, the Dollar. ---------- Notes : (1) See Wikipedia on this Italian thinker. (2) Source: The New York Times, 23/01/2013 (3) Two examples of thinking on the consequences of a US payment default: American style, Preparing for the Unthinkable: Could Markets Handle a US Default? (CNBC, 17/01/2013), and Russian style: Could the Russian economy withstand a U.S. default? (RBTH.ru, 04/02/2013). (4) The kind of reasoning that prevails in US markets, "if the economic news is good, so much better because the economy is improving; if it's bad, so much better because the Fed will intervene", shows the extent to which they are disconnected from reality. Which is characteristic of a dysfunctioning power on the edge of the cliff. (5) Cf. CNBC, Major Flu Outbreak Threatens to Slow Economy Further, 10/01/2013. (6) Source: ZeroHedge, 07/02/2013 (7) Source: US Securities and Exchange Comission (SEC), 22/01/2013 (8) Source: Wall Street Journal, 04/02/2013 (9) Source: FDIC.gov (10) Source: BusinessFinance, 19/07/2012 (11) Source: Do Wall Street Insiders Expect Something Really BIG To Happen Very Soon? Activist Post, 07/02/2013 (12) Source: Après plus de 200 ans d'existence, deux banques suisses font leur révolution (After an existence of more than 200 years, two Swiss banks are having their own revolution), Le Monde, 06/02/2012 (13) Source: Forbes, 11/02/2013 (14) Source: The Blaze, 26/01/2013 (15) Source: Le Monde, 06/02/2013 (16) Like Icesave, the Icelandic bank that the authorities let drop; and particularly after a referendum they didn't take on re-imbursement of the bank's debts. Source : Wikipedia (17) Source: La Tribune, 07/02/2013 (18) Source: Wikipedia (19) Source: Reuters, 02/10/2012 (20) Just to realize the phenomenon's extent, go « bank + sued » in Google. (21) Source: The Frightening Truth Behind Bank Of America's "Earnings", ZeroHedge (17/01/2013) |
| When It Comes to Gold, Stick to the Facts Posted: 16 Feb 2013 06:33 AM PST Frank Holmes with U. S. Global Investors writes: Gold dipped below $1,600 this week, falling to a six-month low, much to the chagrin of gold investors. I find the timing of the correction peculiar, given the G20 Finance Ministers Meeting taking place this weekend. There's been a growing debate over Japan's move to devalue its currency to stimulate growth, with reaction from the G-7 leaders stating that "domestic economic policies must not be used to target currencies," reports Reuters. While the G-7 tried to legitimize the currency debasement with this statement, in reality, investors seem to be able to see through to the real motivations. The main reason the mainstream media gave for the correction in the yellow metal is hedge funds' selling of gold late last year. According to quarterly filings, Hedge Fund Manager George Soros sold half of his holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) in the fourth quarter of 2012. Bloomberg attributed the sell as a move that may "bolster speculation that gold's 12-year bull-run is coming to the end." However, Soros may have liquidated his gold holdings because he identified a significant short-term opportunity in the currency markets.I have said many times that government policies are precursors to change, and late last year, Japan's new leader, Prime Minister Shinz? Abe, openly indicated his intention to drive down the currency to make the economy more competitive and increase inflation. As a result of Japan's policy changes, the yen weakened, driving up the price of gold in Japan's local currency. In other words, a gold investor in Japan was likely ecstatic with his gold trade over the past few months. Take a look at the comparison of gold's return in different currencies. The chart below compares the percentage change of gold in the Japanese yen to the metal's percentage change in U.S. dollar terms over the last six months. From the middle of August 2012 until about November, gold prices in both currencies closely followed each other. However, as a result of changes in government policies, over the six-month period, gold rose nearly 19 percent in yen, while only increasing less than one percent in U.S. dollar terms.
George Soros seemed to anticipate the effect that Japan's government policies would likely have on the velocity of money. This turned out to be a brilliant move, as "wagering against the yen has emerged as the hottest trade on Wall Street over the past three months," says the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper reported that Soros gained "almost $1 billion on the trade since November," during a time the yen declined nearly 20 percent in four months. I admire Soros for his ability to identify significant effects that government policies have on markets as easily as recognizing when ice turns to water. More importantly, he quickly acts on these emerging events. This isn't his first big win in foreign markets. In 1992, based on British government policy changes, Soros shorted British pounds and bought German marks, earning $1.8 billion for his fund. Just like recognizing how new equilibriums can alter the dynamics of an environment, government policies can significantly change the velocity of money. Global investors watch for these trends to know where to invest in commodities and markets, find new opportunities and adjust for risk. I discussed the potential motivation behind Soros' trade with Simon Hobbs this morning on CNBC. I explained how gold's correction was reaching an extreme, indicating a potential buying opportunity. You can see on our oscillator model how gold has dropped nearly 2 standard deviations on a year-over-year basis. An event like this has happened only about 2 percent of the time over the last 10 years. Following these extreme lows, gold has historically increased as much as 15 percent over the next year.
Back in June 2012, I told CNBC the same thing: Gold had reached an extreme low, and only a few months later, the metal climbed nearly 10 percent. During short-term gold corrections, it's much more important to focus on the facts, including the fact that gold is increasingly viewed as a currency. Rather than buying real estate, lumber or diamonds, central banks around the world are buying gold. According to the World Gold Council (WGC), over 2012, central bank demand totaled 534 tons, a level we have not seen in nearly 50 years.
Emerging market central banks have been adding gold to their reserves, including Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines, South Korea and Russia. Over the past decade, Russia has accumulated a total of 958 tons of gold, making its gold reserves the eighth largest of all central banks, says the WGC. Another fact about gold is the persistence of the Love Trade. As you can see below, jewelry demand declined slightly, about 3 percent in 2012, and more than half of this demand came from India and China, the countries with a cultural affinity toward gold. India's gold purchases declined 12 percent due to an import tax and a weak rupee. However, even though the gold price experienced a significant increase in local currency, India's demand is "all the more remarkable and serves to emphasise the importance of gold to Indian consumers," says the WGC. Notably, India had a better-than-expected fourth quarter, and retained its rank as the largest gold market in the world.
In China, there was a slowdown in GDP in the first half of the year, which weighed on gold purchases. For the year, the WGC indicated that there was only a slight increase in demand over the previous year. In 2013, the WGC expects both markets to remain strong, forecasting growth rates of about 10 to 15 percent. I believe as GDPs in Chindia rise, so will their gold demand. And as long as the precious metal is attractive to both the fear trade and the love trade, hold tight to gold, with a 5 to 10 percent weighting in gold and gold stocks, and rebalancing annually. February 15, 2013 (U. S. Global Investors) http://www.usfunds.com/investor-resources/investor-alert/#.UR-XAqUqZSA |
| Posted: 16 Feb 2013 05:24 AM PST This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Sanctions finally caught up with Turkey Iran Gold trade Posted: 16 Feb 2013 05:17 AM PST Analysts said Turkey, which is not a major gold producer, was a net gold, jewelery and precious metals importer in 2011 but swung to being a net exporter last year. |
| Tomorrow's Gold: Asia's Age Of Discovery Posted: 16 Feb 2013 05:00 AM PST By Chris DeMuth Jr.: Tomorrow's Gold: Asia's age of discovery This note is one of a series about the books that have informed and inspired my life and work. Click here for the previous book, Too Big To Fail. Chris DeMuth Jr:
Marc Faber:
Chris DeMuth Jr:
Marc Faber:
Complete Story » |
| Posted: 16 Feb 2013 04:24 AM PST According to the US Mint, gold bullion coin sales totaled 150,000 ounces, up 97.4 percent from December. Sales for the month were up 18.1 percent from comparable sales of 127,000 ounces year over year. |
| Gold Completing Huge Triangle Base- Next Upward Run Will be MASSIVE! Posted: 16 Feb 2013 04:00 AM PST Submitted by Morris Hubbartt: Fundamentally, the US dollar is at great risk. Even if politicians make headway in spending cuts in the coming months, it won't stop the debt from growing. According to CNS news, about 11,000 people sign up for the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (food stamps) every day. As the United States [...] |
| China Gold demand to outstrip supply in 2 years Posted: 16 Feb 2013 03:46 AM PST Analysts said gold exchange traded funds, likely to be introduced in 2013, could further push up demand for gold reserves in China. |
| Pharmacyclics Is Ripe For A Major Correction Posted: 16 Feb 2013 03:34 AM PST By Since February 2012, Pharmacyclics' (PCYC) price had a run up of 232%. The company's incredible run up was fueled by ibrutinib's incredible Phase III data results, Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ) generous milestone payments, numerous analysts' "buy" recommendations, and ibrutinib's potential to become a billion-dollar blockbuster. On November 5th, with Pharmacyclics' earnings announcement, the stock price abruptly dropped 19%. Although earnings were slightly weaker than analysts' forecast, what spooked investors was the CEO's announcement that as of November 7th, employees can start exercising their options to sell their shares. Currently, insiders hold 20% of the company's outstanding shares. This is equivalent to the effect of a 20% stock dilution. On February 12, the FDA gave ibrutinib the classification of "breakthrough therapy" which may potentially accelerate the approval of ibrutinib. Exactly how much is the acceleration, no one knows for sure. However, in response to the "potential" accelerated approval, the Complete Story » |
| Gold drops 3%, Silver 5.1% for the week Posted: 16 Feb 2013 03:29 AM PST Gold prices hovered above $1,600 Friday, having slipped below that level for the first time in six months after regulatory filings showed that several high-profile fund managers cut back their bullion holdings. |
| G-20 Sparks Gold's Ugly Sell-Off Posted: 16 Feb 2013 01:56 AM PST By In a few of my previous articles, I have tried to lay out the fundamental reasons for why we are far closer to the end of this consolidation in gold (GLD) than the beginning. As this year has unfolded, price action has strained that thesis; turning the last month, in particular, into a gut-wrenching exercise in relentless price-capping and high volume indiscriminate precisely-timed selling which has forced longs to retreat again and again. The mixture of the Asian Lunar New Year and the G-20 meeting created the perfect backdrop for what I think is the final down move in gold before the fundamentals take over. Having watched the ticker in gold for far longer than any rational person should, I can tell you that the sheer magnitude of the selling in the face of very stiff support has been unique in this bull market. Every time you would think there Complete Story » |
| Posted: 16 Feb 2013 01:30 AM PST GoldCoin |
| Rick Rule: Interest Rates, Precious Metals And The Mining Sector Posted: 16 Feb 2013 12:03 AM PST By Patrick MontesDeOca: Rick Rule - Founder, Global Companies Mr. Rule has dedicated his entire adult life to many aspects of natural resource securities investing. In addition to the knowledge and experience gained in a long, successful and focused career, he has a worldwide network of contacts in the natural resource and finance worlds. As Chairman of Sprott US Holdings, Mr. Rule leads a highly skilled team of earth science and finance professionals who enjoy a worldwide reputation for resource investment management. Mr. Rule is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, and is interviewed for numerous radio, television, print and online media outlets concerning natural resource investment and industry topics. He is frequently quoted and referred by prominent natural resource oriented newsletter and advisories. Mr. Rule and his team have long experience in many resource sectors, including agriculture, alternative energy, forestry, oil and gas, mining and water. Sprott US Holdings is active Complete Story » |
| A small gold mine will never make you big money (Rick Rule) Posted: 15 Feb 2013 11:00 PM PST Mineweb |
| Speculative Money Flowing out of Gold Posted: 15 Feb 2013 09:30 PM PST This afternoon's (Friday) Commitment of Traders report confirms what I have been discussing here on this site as well as in my audio interviews over at King World News Metals Wrap, namely, that the Central Banks have managed to curtail speculative money flows into Gold and direct those money flows into equities. This is the reason gold cannot find much in the way of traction to the upside and cannot mount any sustained moves higher. Quite simply, big specs are using rallies into resistance to unload stale longs and put on new shorts. Now that near term momentum has shifted to the downside, they are also selling into weakness and pressuring the metal even lower. Notice that since October of last year, hedge funds have been steadily liquidating long positions in the gold market while simultaneously instituting brand new short positions. The result of money flows out of the gold market that began in that month, in addition to fresh shorting, has sent the gold price down $116/ounce as of Tuesday of this week, when the data for the COT is captured by the CFTC. Gold has since fallen another $39 as of Friday so one can assume that further long liquidation has been taking place by hedge funds along with another fresh burst of short selling by this same group of traders. Another way of saying this is that gold has fallen $155/ounce since this movement or repositioning by large hedge funds has occured in earnest. I should also note that this is the LARGEST outright short position by hedge funds in Five Years.... that is quite remarkable to say the least.  |
| Dollar Rally & Soros Sales See Gold Hit 6-Month Low as G20 Denies “Currency War” Posted: 15 Feb 2013 07:10 PM PST
Gold for Sterling investors touched a 2-week low beneath £1050, and Euro-gold held above Tuesday's 8-month low at €1220 per ounce. India meantime approved use by exchange-traded gold trust funds of household gold deposits made at retail banks. New US regulatory data yesterday showed big-name hedge fund manager George Soros halving his gold ETF position in the final 3 months of 2012. "If the equities market continue to roll higher," Reuters quotes Bill O'Neill at Logic Advisors in New Jersey, "investors could divert more money away from gold in the near term." "[Gold] has fallen out of fashion," agrees a wholesale-market dealer in London. "All eyes are on equities and [platinum-group] metals." Platinum ticked higher Friday lunchtime after losing 2.0% from Thursday's near-18 month highs. European stock markets also recovered early losses to trade unchanged for the week, as did the broad commodity indices. Major-government bond prices eased back, nudging 10-year US and UK interest rates towards their highest weekly closes since April above 2.00% and 2.20% respectively. "Prospects for better global growth," says the latest Metals Metals Monthly from bullion-bank Scotia Mocatta, "have increased the opportunity cost of holding gold." For silver, in contrast, "The potential for economic recovery is boosting the outlook for industrial demand," Scotia adds. Silver prices also fell Friday morning, outpacing gold's 2.3% drop for the week but hitting only a 5-week low of $30.20 per ounce. When gold prices were last at current Dollar levels, in August 2012, the price of silver was more than $2 lower than it was at lunchtime in London today. "There is some skepticism out there that February is not going to be a great month," says one stock broker quoted today by Reuters, "but I think there's more room to run." Looking at this week's raft of worse-than-forecast Europan data, "We're not hopeful that the Eurozone will overcome its economic crisis anytime soon," writes Standard Bank's currency strategist Steven Barrow this morning. "As long as that's the case, we need to be ready for financial strains to re-emerge, just as they are re-emerging in the UK." Finance ministers from the G20 group of nations now meeting in Moscow today said they want to switch debate from "competitive devaluation" – where countries fight to gain export sales by weakening their individual currencies – to discussing economic growth instead, reports CNBC. But "currency war is what we need to get the global economy out of the crisis," writes Lars Christensen, head of Emerging Markets Research at Danske Bank, on his personal blog, The Market Monetarist. "Monetary easing is much preferable to the populist alternative – protectionism and deflationism." Gold prices "will ultimately benefit from the debasement of currencies," says a London bullion dealer in a note, as governments continue "rolling today's problems onto our children and grand-children. "Why do you think that central banks and sovereign funds are still buying gold?" he asks, noting yesterday's news of a 5-decade high in official-sector gold demand reported in the World Gold Council's quarterly Gold Demand Trends. Adrian Ash Gold price chart, no delay | Buy gold online Adrian Ash is head of research at BullionVault, the secure, low-cost gold and silver market for private investors online, where you can buy gold and silver in Zurich, Switzerland for just 0.5% commission. (c) BullionVault 2013 Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it. |
| Long-term Trading Cycles in the Gold Market and Their Implications for Future Price Moves Posted: 15 Feb 2013 06:52 PM PST
Based on the February 15th, 2013 Premium Update. Visit our archives for more gold & silver articles. This week price moves in the gold market could certainly give investors the creeps. The yellow metal opened at around $1,668 on Monday, closed $1,634 on Thursday and is currently (at the moment of writing these words) at $1,606. We have stressed it many times that in order to make long-term investment decision one should put more weight on long-term charts rather than focusing on short-term noise. Today we will focus on the long-term gold chart – it gives the most insight into what may happen in the long run. Let us jump straight into it (charts courtesy by http://stockcharts.com) There are two things to focus on in this chart. The first is that the RSI levels have declined and are now at a level equal to those seen at the 2011 and 2012 bottoms, it seems very likely that a major bottom is either in or at hand now. The second important point is that we have discovered a long-term cycle when analyzing gold market consolidations and how they evolve to rally and top. We generally project the price path that will be seen next, however, this time we thought of looking at when a top could be seen and inferring how gold might get there. Note that the second stage of the gold bull market began in 2006 (breakout in terms of euro, acceleration in terms of the US dollar). From the major bottom in that year and after, we see strong relationships and that every two years or so, we have a major top preceded by a sharp rally. The coming top (long-term cyclical turning point) is suggested in late May, so a sharp rally is expected very soon, that is, prior to the May top Note that before this rally there may still be some short-term turmoil on the market – since we are talking about long-term signals, it is very hard to give a very precise starting point for a rally. This is yet another confirmation of our bullish theory for the coming weeks and months and supports staying in the market at this time. The second gold chart for today is also of long-term nature. In this week's chart of gold from the non-USD perspective, we still see a bullish picture. Prices have consolidated after breaking out, and while the situation looks a bit discouraging (as not much happened in the past few months), it is still overall bullish in our view. Summing up, the situation for the yellow metal remains bullish at this time. The analysis of this week's long-term chart uncovered some bullish signals based on a study of trading patterns seen since 2006. As always, implications gleaned from long-term charts carry more weight than those from shorter time periods and are the most important factors to be considered from this week's gold section. The bullish situation remains in place and RSI levels suggest an oversold situation similar to the major bottoms of 2011 and 2012. Although the short-term picture looks grim, the long term one is really encouraging, even though an additional short-term decline may be seen before the big rally. To make sure that you are notified once the new features are implemented, and get immediate access to our free thoughts on the market, including information not available publicly, we urge you to sign up for our free gold newsletter. Sign up today and you'll also get free, 7-day access to the Premium Sections on our website, including valuable tools and charts dedicated to serious Precious Metals Investors and Traders along with our 14 best gold investment practices. It's free and you may unsubscribe at any time. Thank you for reading. Have a great and profitable week! Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA * * * * *
About Sunshine Profits Sunshine Profits enables anyone to forecast market changes with a level of accuracy that was once only available to closed-door institutions. It provides free trial access to its best investment tools (including lists of best gold stocks and silver stocks), proprietary gold & silver indicators, buy & sell signals, weekly newsletter, and more. Seeing is believing. Disclaimer All essays, research and information found above represent analyses and opinions of Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA and Sunshine Profits' associates only. As such, it may prove wrong and be a subject to change without notice. Opinions and analyses were based on data available to authors of respective essays at the time of writing. Although the information provided above is based on careful research and sources that are believed to be accurate, Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA and his associates do not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the data or information reported. The opinions published above are neither an offer nor a recommendation to purchase or sell any securities. Mr. Radomski is not a Registered Securities Advisor. By reading Przemyslaw Radomski's, CFA reports you fully agree that he will not be held responsible or liable for any decisions you make regarding any information provided in these reports. Investing, trading and speculation in any financial markets may involve high risk of loss. Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA, Sunshine Profits' employees and affiliates as well as members of their families may have a short or long position in any securities, including those mentioned in any of the reports or essays, and may make additional purchases and/or sales of those securities without notice. |
| By the Numbers for the Week Ending February 15 Posted: 15 Feb 2013 06:20 PM PST SOUTHEAST TEXAS -- The strong jump in gold and silver volatility we have been expecting and talking about with Subscribers has arrived. Yoda's voice: "Thankful, we are, that profitably stopped out we were, when we were. - Umm Hmm! May the trading stops be with you and mind them well." This week's closing table is just below. This week includes some very important COT changes even though the cutoff was on Tuesday, with gold still in the $1,650s then. It shows that Managed Money traders, The Funds, have been the major source of paper gold selling pressure over the past while, NOT the Producer Merchants and bullion banks. For the details, Subscribers log in to review updated comments directly in the Subscriber GGR charts Sunday evening or so. To subscribe to Got Gold Report please click on the "Subscribe to GGR" button at top right. Join us today. |
| John Kaiser: Can The TSX Venture Be Saved? Posted: 15 Feb 2013 05:36 PM PST By The Gold Report: Is the end near for the TSX Venture Exchange, the victim of "algo traders," low volume and lack of institutional investors? If newsletter writer John Kaiser is right, as many as 500 of the 1,484 resource companies listed on the Venture Exchange will go under this year due to lack of money in the bank. In this Gold Report interview, Kaiser suggests that a crowdsourced valuation system may give the investors the information they need to invest with confidence and fend off the proprietary traders. The Gold Report: John, at the Cambridge Conference in Vancouver, you spoke about visualizing an alternative to "zombie land," the zombies being the 1,000+ companies in the resource sector trading at less than $0.20/share, which include a good number of the more than 600 companies with less than $200,000 in the bank. You predicted at least 500 would go out of business in Complete Story » |
| Posted: 15 Feb 2013 05:16 PM PST Gold bears have been salivating for nearly 5 weeks now over the prospect of setting off the avalanche of sell stops that had been building below the support region marked on the chart starting near $1640 and extending to $1630. They hit them and more today setting off a selling cascade that also nailed the sell stops just below $1620. That was enough, along with some brand new short selling, to take gold down towards the psychological support level at $1600. It then briefly penetrated that line but managed to claw its way back up as short term traders rang the cash register after this week's fall of $60+. The pit session close was a good $10 off the intraday low but in the aftermarket gold continued to attract selling pressure and was pivoting around the $1606 level for most of the late afternoon. The last 30 minute or so of trading in the stock market saw that sector begin recovering off the Wal-Mart email fiasco news and as it did, gold began to drift higher. Prior to that it had moved back down towards $1604 again. I mentioned earlier this week that a strong break of support on good volume would turn the trend indicator, the ADX, into a trend mode and that is what it did. Note on the indicator that the negative DMI (red line) has exceeded its previous peak and is now moving towards the next peak made near mid-December of last year. +DMI is also workly steadily lower confirming the move while the ADX line is now rising indicating that a short term trend lower is in effect. Gold will need to recapture $1640 at a bare minimum to turn this indicator friendly and push out some weak-handed shorts but more than anything, $1665 - $1670 to get any serious large scale short covering started. The 200 day moving average comes in near $1664 and that will serve to attract selling for the time being.  Right now the story remains the same - the Central Banks of the West (Japan is included) have managed to pull off one helluva feat by corraling the hedge funds out of commodities (and gold) and into equities, the only game in town to capture any decent yield on investment in this pathetically low, near zero , interest rate environment that they have created. As far as downside in gold goes, today's low will serve as the initial level of chart support as handle of "15" will serve to attract some value-based buying as it has been a while since we have seen that price. If the market cannot hold there, I see some light chart support near $1585 or so. Below that, $1560 and then $1545. The HUI looks beyond pathetic. Barrick announced that they will be selling off some non-productive assets and properties, etc, to streamline their operations and reduce costs. That is a very good sign that some of these mining CEO's are getting the message from the market: "Get your financial house in order and get costs under control so that you can return value to stockholders or else...". It is a pity that it has taken a beating of this severity to wake some of these guys up. One last thing - be selective about which gold companies you want to own. Make sure that management is serious about running a tight ship. |
| APNewsBreak: Report casts doubt on US missile shield in Europe protecting America Posted: 15 Feb 2013 02:47 PM PST Secret Defense Department studies cast doubt on whether a multibillion-dollar missile defense system planned for Europe can ever protect the U.S. from Iranian missiles as intended, congressional investigators say... Read |
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