Gold World News Flash |
- Incredible Events Now Unfolding In The Gold & Silver Markets
- Will the Short-Term Link Between Crude Oil and Gold Wane?
- Supply and Demand Report: 15 Sep, 2013
- After spending $540 million, Anglo American dumps Pebble project in Alaska
- Richard Russell - Center Of The World, The US Dollar & Silver
- Canadian billionaire predicts end of US Dollar as world’s reserve currency
- JPMorgan in the Manipulation Of The Gold And Silver
- Gold and Larry ‘Bye-Bye’ Summers
- On The "Lunatics" At The Fed" Bill Fleckenstein Warns "As The Fantasy Dies, Gold Will Soar"
- The Market Bubble Enters Its Blow Off Top
- David Stockman On 2008: "Hank Paulson's Folly: AIG Was Safe Enough to Fail" Part 1
- Baupost's Klarman Returns Money To Clients Amid "Too Few Opportunities"
- Dollar Gets Sold Like Funnel Cakes At A State Fair!
- WTF Chart Of The Day
- The Top 10 Questions About Twitter's Real Value
- 25 Fast Facts About The Federal Reserve
- Silver and Gold Prices Rose Today — Gold Price Closing at $1,317.90
- Silver and Gold Prices Rose Today — Gold Price Closing at $1,317.90
- Monetary Metals Supply and Demand Report
- Bill Black ~ Lessons learned from the failure of Lehman Bros., AIG
- Today’s Volatility In Metals & Markets Could Amplify With US Fed Meeting
- Bring Our Gold Campaign Now in Finland, Just 2 Weeks After Poland
- In KWN interview, Turk comments on Summers' withdrawal and raids on gold
- Incredible Events Now Unfolding In The Gold & Silver Markets
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - JPM To Pay About $800 Million Fine for London Whale
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - JPM To Pay About $800 Million Fine for London Whale
- Many know of manipulation but refuse to acknowledge it, Embry says
- Larry Summers Was a Lousy Choice Anyway
- Cambridge House Interview On Gold: “Great Wealth Is Made During Corrective Markets”
- New Gold Money for Pre-Civilized People
- New Gold Money for Pre-Civilized People
- The Credit Crisis: Five Years Past or Five More in the Making
- It’s Time to Harden Your Assets—NOW
- Gold trims gains but still up after Summers news
- Gold trims gains but still up after Summers news
- Credit Crisis Five Years Past or Five More in the Making
- Maguire, The BIS & The Coming Gold & Silver Super-Surge
- The Daily Market Report
- Will the Short-Term Link Between Crude Oil and Gold Wane?
- Gold slips 1 pct on prospects of U.S. Fed tapering soon
- Will Short-Term Link Between Crude Oil and Gold Wane?
- Gold is Desperately in Need of a New Catalyst
- Gold lower at 1314.00 (-13.10). Silver 21.84 (-0.36). Dollar soft. Euro jumps. Stocks called sharply higher. US 10yr 2.81% (-8 bps).
- Gold Prices Fall Hard Despite Dollar Drop on Summers' Exit from Fed Race
- Gold price in a range of currencies since December 1978 XLS version
- Latest World Official Gold Reserves
- Quarterly times series on World Official Gold Reserves since 2000
- Changes in World Gold Official Reserves
- Latest sales under the third Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA3)
- Is the Peruvian Government Becoming More Mining Friendly?
| Incredible Events Now Unfolding In The Gold & Silver Markets Posted: 16 Sep 2013 11:00 PM PDT from KingWorldNews:
But these complaints have been met by blatant stonewalling, as evidenced by a CFTC investigation of silver manipulation that has now been ongoing for 5 years. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Will the Short-Term Link Between Crude Oil and Gold Wane? Posted: 16 Sep 2013 10:45 PM PDT SunshineProfits | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Supply and Demand Report: 15 Sep, 2013 Posted: 16 Sep 2013 10:14 PM PDT In this report, we look at supply and demand fundamentals in the gold and silver markets. In brief, the basis and cobasis are spreads between the spot and futures market. A rising basis and falling cobasis indicate increasing abundance. A falling basis and rising cobasis indicate increasing scarcity. For a full discussion of the theory and concepts, click here. In last week's report, we said:
The prices of the metals were down sharply. Was this manipulation? As you'll see below, the picture in silver is astonishing. Look for an article we will publish this week, on the topic of why the monetary metals are subject to these otherwise-inexplicable drops in price.
The Prices of Gold and Silver
For each metal, we will show a graph of the basis and cobasis overlaid with the price of the dollar in terms of the respective metal. It will make it easier to provide terse commentary. The dollar will be represented in green, the basis in blue and cobasis in red. Here is the gold graph.
The Gold Basis and Cobasis and the Dollar Price
As the dollar went up in gold terms (i.e. the gold price went down in dollar terms), the cobasis moved mostly sideways. This is not an especially bullish move. If the big selloff had been concentrated in futures, the cobasis should have risen sharply. It did not. NB: Gold is still in backwardation, though by a very small amount—not at all like the implied divorce between the "paper" gold and "real" gold prices that is frequently discussed in mainstream gold commentaries. Now let's look at silver.
The Silver Basis and Cobasis and the Dollar Price
The dollar got quite a bit stronger, measured in silver terms (i.e. the silver price fell, measured in dollar terms). But the basis went sideways and the cobasis fell! This is definitely not bullish. We again reiterate that we never recommend that one short a monetary metal naked. If there had been a selloff in futures, the cobasis would have risen. This was a selloff concentrated in physical metal more than in futures.
The Ratio of the Gold Price to the Silver Price
Last week, we said:
The ratio did indeed rise, though it corrected on Friday. We shall see.
The Monetary Metals Supply and Demand Report is a free, weekly report.
© 2013 Monetary Metals | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| After spending $540 million, Anglo American dumps Pebble project in Alaska Posted: 16 Sep 2013 09:04 PM PDT The destruction of the gold mining industry accelerates as the industry won't raise a finger to defend itself against market manipulation by central banks and their bullion bank agents. * * * Company Withdraws from Alaska Mine Project By Becky Bohrer http://finance.yahoo.com/news/company-withdraws-alaska-mine-project-1743... JUNEAU, Alaska -- One of the partners in a massive and contentious proposed gold and copper mine in Alaska is pulling out, raising questions about the future of the project. London-based Anglo American PLC announced Monday that a subsidiary, Anglo American Pebble LLC, is withdrawing from the Pebble Mine project, leaving Canada-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. as the sole owner. Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani said the decision follows a review of his company's backlog of projects. He said in a statement that Anglo American's focus has been on prioritizing money for projects with the highest value and lowest risks within its portfolio and on reducing the amount of money needed to sustain projects in the preapproval phase. ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit: http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata Anglo's subsidiary had spent about $540 million on the Pebble project through June, Northern Dynasty said in a release. To retain its 50 percent interest in the project, Anglo American would have been obligated to fund $1.5 billion in project costs through permitting and construction, Northern Dynasty has said. It's not clear what's next. Sean Magee, vice president of public affairs for Northern Dynasty, said in an interview that his company has the resources and expertise to move the project into the permit process and to carry it in to what would likely be the next major milestone: bringing on a new partner. He said he expects the permitting phase to require lower levels of spending than have been seen in the past. Mike Heatwole, a spokesman for the Pebble Limited Partnership, which was created to design, permit and run the mine, said by email that Pebble "remains an important project for Alaska and we will share additional information about the way forward for the project in the days and weeks ahead." In April, Northern Dynasty said the goal was to begin permitting for the controversial project before the end of 2013, but the timeline for releasing project specifics and possibly moving into permitting has slipped several times over the last few years. Magee said there has been no decision to change plans at this point, but said officials are "re-evaluating everything." Pebble has said the prospect is one of the largest of its kind in the world, with the potential of producing 80.6 billion pounds of copper, 5.6 billion pounds of molybdenum and 107.4 million ounces of gold. But it's located near the headwaters of a major salmon fishery. Given the significance of the project, Magee said it will almost certainly be developed by a consortium of major partners in the future. He declined to speculate on what future partnerships might exist, noting in part that this has been a difficult time in the markets for the mining sector. The Pebble project has been the subject of a fierce public relations battle for years. Supporters of the project contend it would bring much-needed jobs to economically depressed rural Alaska, but opponents fear it could adversely affect a way of life in the region. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is studying the impact of large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay region after concerns were raised about the project. A final report, expected this year, could affect permitting for the mine. Tim Bristol, director of Trout Unlimited's Alaska program, said in a statement that he couldn't think of a development project in the state's history that has faced such "wide and deep opposition" from Alaska's citizens. Bristol, a critic of the mine project, said Anglo American's decision is no surprise, given the number of Alaskans who support efforts to protect the Bristol Bay region. Join GATA here: Gold Investment Symposium 2013 Mines and Money Australia New Orleans Investment Conference https://jeffersoncompanies.com/landing/speakers?IDPromotion=613011610080... * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with our forecast for 2013 that includes profiles of nine companies and technical analysis of their stock performance. Six of the companies have market capitalizations of less than $800 million and one company has a market cap of only $30 million. The most exciting of these companies will begin production in a few weeks and has a market cap of just $150 million. Half of all proceeds from the sale of this report will be donated to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts exposing manipulation and fraud in the gold and silver markets. To learn about this report, please visit: http://www.futuremoneytrends.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=376&tmp... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Richard Russell - Center Of The World, The US Dollar & Silver Posted: 16 Sep 2013 09:02 PM PDT  As Bernanke now prepares to leave the Fed, today the Godfather of newsletter writers, Richard Russell, covered everything from the "center of the world," to silver, stocks, interest rates and the US dollar. Russell also included a great many charts, but of special interest to KWN readers might be the chart covering silver and the US dollar.This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Canadian billionaire predicts end of US Dollar as world’s reserve currency Posted: 16 Sep 2013 09:00 PM PDT from cambridgehouseintl: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| JPMorgan in the Manipulation Of The Gold And Silver Posted: 16 Sep 2013 08:40 PM PDT by David Schectman, MilesFranklin.com:
I'm not writing today but I dug up a few short and interesting articles for you to read. Be sure and watch the following two short videos below. Up first is an interview with Charles Nenner in Jim Sinclair's section below. They explain why they are so bullish on gold and silver and so bearish on the stock market. These folks have been very accurate in the past on their gold calls. Also, be sure and watch the Egon von Greyerz video in the GATA section. There is a discussion of Andrew Maguire's stunning revelation that two whistleblowers, former employees of JPMorgan, have come forward implicating JPMorgan in the manipulation of the gold and silver markets. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold and Larry ‘Bye-Bye’ Summers Posted: 16 Sep 2013 08:00 PM PDT by Pater Tenenbrarum, Acting-Man.com:
On Friday the HUI briefly touched the only uptrend line it can boast of since mid 2012. It’s not even a very steep line, and it only exists because a higher low was put in on occasion of the early August decline, relative to the low in June. Frankly, two weeks ago we would have thought the odds of visiting said trend line or possibly breaking below it were quite low, especially in the month of September (at the back of our mind we did entertain the possibility that some sort of retest would occur in the October/November time frame, but we thought we could postpone the crossing of that bridge until then). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| On The "Lunatics" At The Fed" Bill Fleckenstein Warns "As The Fantasy Dies, Gold Will Soar" Posted: 16 Sep 2013 07:24 PM PDT "Right now, people continue to believe that the same idiots that created all of these problems, namely the central banks, are going to somehow get us out of it with the exact same policies that got us into it," is the subtle manner in which the outspoken Bill Fleckenstein describes the 'fantasy' in which most Americans live during this wide-reaching interview. "We've had so much artificial stimulus, and we've misallocated so much capital;" he adds, warning that Americans "believe in the lunatics at the Fed, and the rest of the Western world is that way (as well)." His conclusion is clear, "as the fantasy dies, then they will understand the need to own gold," and if the Fed tapers and is forced to un-Taper, "more people will see that the Fed is trapped."
Via SHFTPlan blog,
and Via The Mess That Greenspan Made blog,
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| The Market Bubble Enters Its Blow Off Top Posted: 16 Sep 2013 07:20 PM PDT by Graham Summers, Gains Pains & Capital:
Truth of the matter is that neither candidate should be considered for Fed Chairman. Summers was one of the chief architects for the 2008 meltdown, repeatedly pushing back on anyone who wanted to regulate the derivatives markets. This in of itself should bar him from ever being considered for a position of influence in the financial markets. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| David Stockman On 2008: "Hank Paulson's Folly: AIG Was Safe Enough to Fail" Part 1 Posted: 16 Sep 2013 06:56 PM PDT Authored by David Stockman, author of "The Great Deformation", A decisive tipping point in the evolution of American capitalism and democracy—the triumph of crony capitalism—took place on October 3, 2008. That was the day of the forced march approval on Capitol Hill of the $700 billion TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bill to bail out Wall Street. This spasm of financial market intervention, including multi-trillion-dollar support lines provided to the big banks and financial companies by the Federal Reserve, was but the latest brick in the foundation of a fundamentally anti-capitalist régime known as “Too Big to Fail” (TBTF). It had been under construction for many decades, but now there was no turning back. The Wall Street bailouts of 2008 shattered what little remained of the old-time fiscal rules. There was no longer any pretense that the free market should determine winners and losers and that tapping the public treasury requires proof of compelling societal benefit. Not when AAA-rated General Electric had been given $30 billion in taxpayer loans and guarantees to avoid taking modest losses on toxic assets it had foolishly funded with overnight borrowings that suddenly couldn’t be rolled over. Even more improbably, Goldman Sachs had been handed $10 billion to save itself from alleged extinction. Yet it then swiveled on a dime and generated a $29 billion financial surplus—$16 billion in salary and bonuses on top of $13 billion in net income—for the year that began just three months later. Even if Goldman didn’t really need the money, as it later claimed, a round trip from purported rags to evident riches in fifteen months stretched the bounds of credulity. It was reminiscent of actor Gary Cooper’s immortal 1950s expression of suspicion about Communism. “From what I have heard about it,” he told a congressional committee, “it isn’t on the level.” Nor was Washington’s panicked bailout of Wall Street on the level; it was both unnecessary and targeted at the wrong problem. The so-called financial meltdown was not the real crisis; it was only the tip of the iceberg, the leading edge of a more fundamental economic malady. In truth, the US economy was heading for the wringer because a multi-decade spree of unsustainable borrowing, speculation, and financialization of the national economy was coming to an abrupt end. In the years after 1980, America had undergone the equivalent of a national leveraged buyout (LBO). It was now saddled with $30 trillion more in combined public and private debt than would have been the case under the time-tested canons of financial discipline and prudence which prevailed during the nation’s long economic ascent. This massive debt burden had fueled a three-decade prosperity party by mortgaging the nation’s future. Now the bill was coming due and our national simulacrum of prosperity was over. This rendezvous with the limits of “peak debt,” however, did not mean that the Main Street economy was in danger of collapse into an instant depression. That was the specious claim of the bailsters. What did threaten was a deeper and more enduring adversity. The demise of this thirty-year debt super cycle actually meant that it was payback time. Instead of swiping growth from the future, the American economy would now face a long twilight of debt deflation and struggle to restore household, corporate, and public sector solvency. This abrupt turn in the road should not have been surprising. America’s fantastic collective binging on debt, public and private, had no historical precedent. During the century prior to 1980, for example, total public and private debt on US balance sheets rarely exceeded 1.6 times GDP. When the national borrowing spree reached its apogee in 2007, however, the $4 trillion of new debt issued by households, business, banks, and governments amounted to 6 times that year’s $700 billion gain in GDP. Plain and simple, what was being recorded as GDP growth was little more than faux prosperity borrowed from the future. In fact, by the time of the financial crisis total US debt outstanding was $52 trillion and represented 3.6 times national income of $14 trillion. Accordingly, there were now two full turns of extra debt weighing on the nation’s economy. And the embedded math was forbidding: at the historic leverage ratio of 1.6 times national income, which had prevailed for most of the hundred years prior to 1980, total US public and private debt would have been only $22 trillion at the end of 2008. So the nation’s households, businesses, and taxpayers were now lugging around the aforementioned $30 trillion in excess debt. This staggering financial burden dwarfed levels which had historically been proven to be healthy, prudent, and sustainable. TARP and all its kindred bailouts and the Fed’s ceaseless money printing could not relieve it. And Washington’s reckless use of Uncle Sam’s credit card to fund the Obama stimulus actually made it far worse by attempting to revive the false prosperity of the bubble years. The obvious question remains: Why did this plague of debt arise? Did the American people suddenly become profligate and greedy through a mysterious process of moral and social decay? There is no evidence for the greed disease theory but plenty of reason to suspect a more foreboding cause. The real reason for the current crisis of debt and financial disorder is that public policy had veered into the ditch, permitting an unprecedented aggrandizement of the state and its central banking branch. In the process, the vital nerve center of capitalism, its money and capital markets, had been perverted and deformed. Wall Street has become a vast casino where leveraged speculation and rent seeking have displaced its vital function of price discovery and capital allocation. The September 2008 financial crisis, therefore, was about the need to drastically deflate the Wall Street behemoths—that is, dangerous and unstable gambling houses—fostered by decades of money printing and market rigging by the Fed. Yet policy veered in the opposite direction, propping them up and thereby perpetuating their baleful effects, owing to a predicate that was dead wrong. A handful of panic-stricken top officials, led by treasury secretary Hank Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, proclaimed that the financial system had been stricken by a deadly “contagion” that had come out of nowhere and threatened a chain reaction of financial failures that would end in cataclysm. That proposition was completely false, but it gave rise to a fateful injunction—namely, that all the normal rules of free market capitalism and fiscal prudence needed to be suspended so that unprecedented and unlimited public resources could be poured into the rescue of Wall Street’s floundering behemoths... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Baupost's Klarman Returns Money To Clients Amid "Too Few Opportunities" Posted: 16 Sep 2013 06:36 PM PDT Seth Klarman's Baupost Group will be returning money to investors at year-end. As II Alpha reports, though the amount has yet to be determined, this would be only the second time the hedge fund has returned money in the firm's 31-year history. With the world of asset managers, as we recently noted, increasingly become herd-like beta-chasers, it seems Klarman - just as he noted earlier in the year - will return capital unless investment opportunities dramatically increased - and that hasn't happened.
and Klarman's previous thoughts: To wit:
And the rest of Klarman's sermon, serving as the perfect counter to the voodoo shamans operating their Keynesian religion in the Marriner Eccles building. From Seth Klarman of Baupost:
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| Dollar Gets Sold Like Funnel Cakes At A State Fair! Posted: 16 Sep 2013 06:20 PM PDT by Chuck Butler, Daily Pfennig:
So, the dollar is getting sold like funnel cakes at a state fair this morning… The other item that's weighing on the dollar was the announcement this weekend that Lawrence Summers has withdrawn his name from the list of those wishing to be the next Fed Chairman. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 16 Sep 2013 05:48 PM PDT Now the Apple-Gold relationship is just getting silly...
One recent reason suggested for this idiocy is... that since AAPL is such a hedge fund hotel and gold the ultimate store of wealth for collateral needs that the two are now inextricably linked via the leveraging/deleveraging of a thousand long-only leveraged beta chasers screaming buy-buy-buy... and needing to sell their paper gold to cover margins.
What was intriguing today was the AAPL move occurred perfectly as OPRA failed and within 30 minutes (as OPRA re-opened) Gold legged down perfectly in line with its edible cousin... and after-hours, that gap between AAPL and Gold has closed (with AAPL dumping to a $446 handle.
Chart: Bloomberg
(h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Top 10 Questions About Twitter's Real Value Posted: 16 Sep 2013 05:43 PM PDT The number whispered on Wall Street is $10 billion (or $14-$15 if you ask The Saudis), but potential investors in the micro-blogger's IPO will need more to go on than simple valuation math and guided judgment. As ConvergEx's Nick Colas notes, Tech firms are particularly dependent on innovation and human capital for their viability. So while Twitter may come out with a double-digit billion dollar IPO, Colas points out the most important question – Is it actually worth buying there? The bottom line to the success of thriving tech companies (historically names such as Amazon, Google and Apple) is that they consistently and reliably build products that people want to purchase and use. Colas explores multiple avenues to determine whether Twitter has the engine to do this, or whether it could emerge more "Groupon" than "Google" in the public company tech arena – and the answer lies in how you weigh the pros and cons of our top 10 points related to the social network's IPO. As for Colas, he'd prefer a clearer picture of Twitter's vision (i.e. a pipeline of new innovative product ideas) before tossing his dollars in the ring.
Via ConvergEx's Nick Colas, Twitter is the most anticipated Initial Public Offering of 2013, but that doesn't mean we actually know very much about its real value. Thursday's news of a confidential S-1 filing with the SEC does little to remedy that, since we don't get to see the company's financials. Still, Beth steps into that breach today with some thoughts about how to assess Twitter's future value based on its business strategy and current operating model. Twitter is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $9-$11 billion, according to the standard Wall Street approach. And now, after the company's September 12 IPO filing, you can expect the speculation and bickering over the micro-blogger's value to continue. A quick internet search will reveal a handful of analyses, ranging from BlackRock's recent $9 billion valuation to a Greencrest Capital conclusion that pegs Twitter's worth at upwards of $11 billion. The basic math behind these valuations is loosely as follows:
But despite the natural affinity for number crunching, pinning a number on Twitter is more like speculative fun than it is an exact science. Company analysis goes way beyond throwing a 16x multiple on next year's earnings – especially for private companies – so we've compiled a list of the top 10 hashtags related to the Twitter IPO to determine the company's strategic capabilities and whether or not the social networking service has the horsepower to follow in the footsteps of the Amazons and Googles of the world. We outline our top 10 in the form of a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) and then conclude with a brief note on Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma. Number One: #ShopTilUDrop Twitter's biggest strength right now is its growing importance in the land of social commerce sales. The micro-blogging network accounted for 22% of social-generated e-commerce sales during the second quarter of this year, according to AddShoppers, which relies on tracking codes embedded in retailers' websites to determine which revenue dollars resulted from a social media site referral. Facebook was the clear winner, with a 28% share of social-generated internet revenue dollars, though just one year ago Facebook dominated the space with a 55% share, compared to just 15% for Twitter. Although social media still represents a relatively small share of e-commerce traffic, keep two points in mind. One, there is a secular shift among advertisers toward directing a greater portion of ad dollars to social media, so the overall importance of social-generated internet sales has a bright future. Secondly, Twitter is gaining on Facebook in terms of social media e-commerce sales referrals – and gaining fast. Advertisers are bound to take notice, and Twitter recently hired its first head of commerce to discover how users can shop via tweets. Number Two: #YoungRichPeople A broader strength for Twitter lies in the demographics of its users. Twitter users tend to live in upper-income households and to fall within the 18 to 35 year old category that advertisers target. A study published last month by Pew research determined that 30% of internet users between the ages of 18 and 29 had Twitter accounts, while 17% of those between 30 and 49 used Twitter. This compares to just 13% of 50 to 64 year olds and only 5% of people over the age of 65. Additionally, 22% of internet users who are on Twitter live in households earning more than $75,000 a year, versus 15% living in households making less than $30,000 a year. Number Three: #IPOWindowOpen And then there's the current IPO landscape. Through the end of August, 131 companies have filed for an IPO this year, compared with just 91 during the same time period in 2012, according to Renaissance Capital. Pricings, too, are up over last year – a substantial 38%. So for companies in the market for an IPO, now is broadly-speaking a good time to get in on the action. Of course, we'll have to wait and see how much stock Twitter wants to sell. The illusion of scarcity that makes for a good IPO is hard to pull off if there are billions of dollars of stock for sale. Number Four: #LosingControl Twitter's most high-profile weakness is the widespread gossip about its corporate culture. Despite having the standard perks you'd expect from a well-funded startup aiming to create a fun workplace environment, word on the street is there's a downside too. One anonymous blogger and apparent employee described the work culture as "good but chaotic" and said the firm was getting so big so fast that "communication is difficult, and duplicate work is starting to happen." Business Insider spoke with a former employee who depicted the workplace as a "self-congratulatory, complacent environment" with a mentality of "This is our product, just perfect it." That attitude, if accurate, is a 180 from the likes of Facebook, which is constantly aiming to reinvent itself and make its products more innovative. Number Five: #ClimbingTheCorporateLadder Former employees also opened up to the press about structural flaws. According to Business Insider, sources say Twitter started with mediocre engineering talent (which isn't all that uncommon in Silicon Valley), but it magnified the issue by promoting them into positions of power and allowing them to hire their own teams, rather than choosing the best talent for the most important roles. In other words, "old-timers" became leaders based on their length of time with the company and not necessarily their talent. Another source said that Twitter hasn't been enough of an "engineer-driven company" and that at a good tech company, roughly half of the employees should be engineers and this has not been the case at Twitter. Number Six: #PleaseBuySomething E-commerce conversion rates are another thorn. Depending on who did the study, Facebook's social commerce conversion rate is anywhere from 1.08% to 3.30%, meaning that once users are referred to e-commerce sites via Facebook, there is a 1.08% to 3.30% chance they will purchase something. These numbers are nothing to brag about, but Twitter's projected conversion rate range of 0.36% to 0.90% is significantly lower. Number Seven: #WhereMyMoneyAt As for opportunities, Twitter has several in the pipeline, as it focuses on building out its advertising system and firming up revenue growth in the wake of its IPO. The social networking site is now charging $200,000 a day for promoted trends, up from $150,000 last year and $80,000 when they were introduced in 2010. Promoted trends are advertiser-sponsored versions of Twitter's trending topics that allow brands to stimulate conversation around a particular topic. And because promoted trends tend to be self-perpetuating, brands find them especially attractive. Promoted tweets, which turn a tweet into an ad and show up in users' streams or against a search, reportedly fetch anywhere between $15,000 and $25,000. The opportunity to continue raising ad prices and improve the appeal of promoted tweets represents potential key drivers of revenue. Number Eight: #TVSportsRule Another opportunity involves Twitter's deal with ESPN. The sports broadcaster has agreed to display video highlights of football, soccer and the X games within individual tweets in return for a guaranteed allotment of promoted tweets that will parallel ads inside the videos themselves, basically allowing users to watch replays on their phone. This finally affords Twitter access into the world of TV, something the company had been interested in for a while, confirmed by its acquisition of Bluefin Labs, a firm that delivers statistics regarding conversations about TV on social networks. Number Nine: #CorporateBrandingLove Corporate customer service accounts, too, could offer future benefits for Twitter. According to a quarterly study by Simple Measured, 32% of top brands have separate customer service Twitter accounts (aside from their main accounts) as of the first half of 2013. This up from 23% at the end of December 2012 and will likely continue to grow. It's clear that top brands are making the effort to communicate with their customers via social media platforms, though the process has yet to prove efficient. The same study discovered that the average customer response time originating through Twitter was 4.6 hours, while a different study (conducted by Social Bakers) found the average response time to be 6.6 hours. Once tidied up, however, corporate reliance on Twitter for customer relations stands to be a strong exit barrier. Number Ten: #WhoAreThoseGuys Facebook dominates the social media arena right now, but Pinterest appears to be Twitter's greatest threat. We mentioned previously that Twitter is rapidly catching up to Facebook in terms social-generated e-commerce sales (in the past year Facebook's share of the social referrals market sank to 28% from 55%, as Twitter simultaneously saw its share rise from 15% to 22%). But perhaps even more impressive was Pinterest's ascent – from a mere 2% last year to eclipse Twitter this year with a 23% market share in the space. Separately, three distinct studies on the average value of online orders stemming from social media sites all came to the conclusion that Pinterest leads both Facebook and Twitter in referring big spenders to retailers' websites. Another concern is Twitter's susceptibility to the Innovator's Dilemma. First penned in 1997 by Clayton Christensen, in a book by the same name, the innovator's dilemma refers to an outcome when successful companies place too much emphasis on customers' current needs and fail to adopt new technologies or business models that are able to meet customers' future needs, some of which are not yet apparent. Christensen argues that such companies will eventually fall behind. By all outside accounts, it seems the world in unsure what Twitter's next step will be. Yes – they have a successful product – but one successful product isn't enough to make it big in today's rapidly changing technology playing field. So the ultimate question revolves around Twitter's potential pipeline of new products. Does current management have the right vision? Do current employees have the right skills? Or is everyone so focused on the original Twitter that new products are an afterthought? Twitter's founders, including current executive director Jack Dorsey, didn't set out to create a mega billion dollar company. In fact, the service began as an experimental pet project that consumers turned into a social powerhouse; in 2010 company executives made substantial investments in infrastructure to make the service more reliable, as its inner workings were not designed to accommodate the hundreds of millions of users. All that is in the past, though, and Dorsey (also founder and CEO of Square, a mobile payments company) has gone and returned. Joining him in top management positions are the folks briefly described below.
From an outside perspective, it certainly seems as though management is more business savvy than technologically innovative, and while Twitter may have initially been an accidental success, its future success must be perfectly intentional. If you're going to invest in Twitter, then you should be thinking c-level management can intentionally massage it into a $100 billion company. How does it do that? Well, either the strengths overcome the weaknesses and the opportunities overcome the threats, or they do not. Any of the following three paths (or a combination therein) are capable of leading the social networking firm to a triple-digit dollar valuation, but it must choose at least one direction otherwise face the real risk of flatlining.
Twitter seems to have overcome the management shakeup and exodus of 2011, and the company is clearly growing. Twitter is hiring across all functional units – there are 202 open positions to be exact, including 55 engineers. Expansion is evident, but missing from the story is a clear corporate vision. The underlying factor in all successful tech companies is the ability to create products that people will pay for and enjoy, over and over and over. People thought Groupon, too, was worth about $10 billion before its IPO, and that hasn't turned into a success story. If Twitter is going to go the way of the Amazon, Google, Apple, etc. then investors need more clarity on its path. Otherwise we're in for another Groupon. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 25 Fast Facts About The Federal Reserve Posted: 16 Sep 2013 05:12 PM PDT Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog, As we approach the 100 year anniversary of the creation of the Federal Reserve, it is absolutely imperative that the American people understand that the Fed is at the very heart of our economic problems. It is a system of money that was created by the bankers and that operates for the benefit of the bankers. The American people like to think that we have a "democratic system", but there is nothing "democratic" about the Federal Reserve. Unelected, unaccountable central planners from a private central bank run our financial system and manage our economy. There is a reason why financial markets respond with a yawn when Barack Obama says something about the economy, but they swing wildly whenever Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke opens his mouth. The Federal Reserve has far more power over the U.S. economy than anyone else does by a huge margin. The Fed is the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world, and if the American people truly understood how it really works, they would be screaming for it to be abolished immediately. The following are 25 fast facts about the Federal Reserve that everyone should know... #1 The greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history was when there was no central bank. #2 The United States never had a persistent, ongoing problem with inflation until the Federal Reserve was created. In the century before the Federal Reserve was created, the average annual rate of inflation was about half a percent. In the century since the Federal Reserve was created, the average annual rate of inflation has been about 3.5 percent, and it would be even higher than that if the inflation numbers were not being so grossly manipulated. #3 Even using the official numbers, the value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 95 percent since the Federal Reserve was created nearly 100 years ago. #4 The secret November 1910 gathering at Jekyll Island, Georgia during which the plan for the Federal Reserve was hatched was attended by U.S. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department A.P. Andrews and a whole host of representatives from the upper crust of the Wall Street banking establishment. #5 In 1913, Congress was promised that if the Federal Reserve Act was passed that it would eliminate the business cycle. #6 The following comes directly from the Fed's official mission statement: "To provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. Over the years, its role in banking and the economy has expanded." #7 It was not an accident that a permanent income tax was also introduced the same year when the Federal Reserve system was established. The whole idea was to transfer wealth from our pockets to the federal government and from the federal government to the bankers. #8 Within 20 years of the creation of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. economy was plunged into the Great Depression. #9 If you can believe it, there have been 10 different economic recessions since 1950. The Federal Reserve created the "dotcom bubble", the Federal Reserve created the "housing bubble" and now it has created the largest bond bubble in the history of the planet. #10 According to an official government report, the Federal Reserve made 16.1 trillion dollars in secret loans to the big banks during the last financial crisis. The following is a list of loan recipients that was taken directly from page 131 of the report... Citigroup - $2.513 trillion #11 The Federal Reserve also paid those big banks $659.4 million in fees to help "administer" those secret loans. #12 The Federal Reserve has created approximately 2.75 trillion dollars out of thin air and injected it into the financial system over the past five years. This has allowed the stock market to soar to unprecedented heights, but it has also caused our financial system to become extremely unstable. #13 We were told that the purpose of quantitative easing is to help "stimulate the economy", but today the Federal Reserve is actually paying the big banks not to lend out 1.8 trillion dollars in "excess reserves" that they have parked at the Fed. #14 Quantitative easing overwhelming benefits those that own stocks and other financial investments. In other words, quantitative easing overwhelmingly favors the very wealthy. Even Barack Obama has admitted that 95 percent of the income gains since he has been president have gone to the top one percent of income earners. #15 The gap between the top one percent and the rest of the country is now the greatest that it has been since the 1920s. #16 The Federal Reserve has argued vehemently in federal court that it is "not an agency" of the federal government and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. #17 The Federal Reserve openly admits that the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks are organized "much like private corporations". #18 The regional Federal Reserve banks issue shares of stock to the "member banks" that own them. #19 The Federal Reserve system greatly favors the biggest banks. Back in 1970, the five largest U.S. banks held 17 percent of all U.S. banking industry assets. Today, the five largest U.S. banks hold 52 percent of all U.S. banking industry assets. #20 The Federal Reserve is supposed to "regulate" the big banks, but it has done nothing to stop a 441 trillion dollar interest rate derivatives bubble from inflating which could absolutely devastate our entire financial system. #21 The Federal Reserve was designed to be a perpetual debt machine. The bankers that designed it intended to trap the U.S. government in a perpetual debt spiral from which it could never possibly escape. Since the Federal Reserve was established nearly 100 years ago, the U.S. national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger. #22 The U.S. government will spend more than 400 billion dollars just on interest on the national debt this year. #23 If the average rate of interest on U.S. government debt rises to just 6 percent (and it has been much higher than that in the past), we will be paying out more than a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt. #24 According to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress is the one that is supposed to have the authority to "coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures". So exactly why is the Federal Reserve doing it? #25 There are plenty of possible alternative financial systems, but at this point all 187 nations that belong to the IMF have a central bank. Are we supposed to believe that this is just some sort of a bizarre coincidence?
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| Silver and Gold Prices Rose Today — Gold Price Closing at $1,317.90 Posted: 16 Sep 2013 04:15 PM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1317.90 Change : 9.50 or 0.73% Silver Price Close Today : 21.963 Change : 0.293 or 1.35% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 60.005 Change : -0.373 or -0.62% Silver Gold Ratio Today : 0.01667 Change : 0.000103 or 0.62% Platinum Price Close Today : 1440.60 Change : -3.00 or -0.21% Palladium Price Close Today : 704.30 Change : 6.80 or 0.97% S&P 500 : 1,697.60 Change : 9.61 or 0.57% Dow In GOLD$ : $243.04 Change : $ 0.11 or 0.05% Dow in GOLD oz : 11.757 Change : 0.005 or 0.05% Dow in SILVER oz : 705.49 Change : -4.06 or -0.57% Dow Industrial : 15,494.78 Change : 118.72 or 0.77% US Dollar Index : 81.260 Change : 0.187 or 0.23% Silver and GOLD PRICES rose today. Silver gained 29.3 cents to 2196.3 and the gold price added $9.50 to $1,317.90, bouncing off the same low as Fridays, $1,307 and change. If I've drawn the neckline for gold's upside-down head and shoulders correctly, then that $1,307 is about where it sits. That makes the last two week's action nothing more than a touch back for a kiss good-bye Course that'll all blow up like your daddy when he found that package of Lucky Strikes in your 12-year old back pocket if gold drops below $1,300, but the market will tell us. If the neckline of silver's upside-down HandS runs about 2500c, then the top of the shoulders runs about 2190 - 2200c. Accurate or note, 2140c marked the low on Friday, so a close below that, which coincides with the 50 DMA at 2146c, would take silver lower. I certainly don't dismiss the possibility of a drop much lower, but right now both metals are playing around their 50 DMA (yes, gold is lower). Everybody is expecting lower silver and GOLD PRICES, but markets have a way of fooling folks. The lore of the sailor sayeth that whenever rats stream off a ship in port, they are signaling that once it leaves port, that ship won't come back. Rats, you see, have a sixth sense that warns them of forthcoming events. Speaking of rats, Larry Summers announced today that he would not accept appointment as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. What do y'all think that Larry, in the opinion of many as big a rat as ever scoured a dumpster for dainties, knows that the other rats don't? Maybe the SILVER and gold price know the same thing Larry Summers knows. And don't ever forget this other ancient seaman's proverb: "A nation without a central bank is like a fish without a bicycle." On the news that Larry cared not to climb aboard the sinking ship of state, the stock market went loony. Twas widely (not wisely, but widely) assumed that Larry (engineer of the "strong dollar policy" and probably of the gold price suppression scheme) would not create new dollars so generously and hectically as Ben. Never mind for the nonce, you rationalist, that no nation ever has or ever will printed its way to prosperity, that appears to be what stock markets believe. So removing Larry and making Janet Yellen (where do they get people with these goofy names?) the confirmed money-printress Fed chairman must mean Happy Days Are Here Again. Dow rose 118.72 to 15,494.78 (up 0.77%) and the S&P500 rose 9.61 (0.57%) to 1,697.60. Yea, even the vigilantes of the bond market were fooled. Ten year treasury yield dropped 0.83% to 2.874% (bond prices rose). Maybe somebody can tell me one day (I am such a durned natural born fool from Tennessee that I am not smart enough to grasp it) how the prospect of printing MORE dollars makes holding bonds more attractive, since they are only promises to pay future dollars, now guaranteed to be worth ever less than today. I'm tellin' y'all, them boys in Warshingtun done figured out a perpetchul moshun mo-sheen. They can fix anything and guarantee prosperity forever by just cranking up the press and printin' more money. Personally I'm a-thinkin' this is about as good as it gets for stocks, but what do I know? US dollar rose (that's right, rose) 18.7 basis points (0.24%) to 81.26. However, the yen and euro also rose. I reckon this IS the best of all possible worlds, where everybody's prosperous, the government is always right, and even central bankers are loved. Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com 1-888-218-9226 10:00am-5:00pm CST, Monday-Friday © 2013, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down. WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned: Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures. NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps. NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced. NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt. What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands. One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Silver and Gold Prices Rose Today — Gold Price Closing at $1,317.90 Posted: 16 Sep 2013 04:15 PM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1317.90 Change : 9.50 or 0.73% Silver Price Close Today : 21.963 Change : 0.293 or 1.35% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 60.005 Change : -0.373 or -0.62% Silver Gold Ratio Today : 0.01667 Change : 0.000103 or 0.62% Platinum Price Close Today : 1440.60 Change : -3.00 or -0.21% Palladium Price Close Today : 704.30 Change : 6.80 or 0.97% S&P 500 : 1,697.60 Change : 9.61 or 0.57% Dow In GOLD$ : $243.04 Change : $ 0.11 or 0.05% Dow in GOLD oz : 11.757 Change : 0.005 or 0.05% Dow in SILVER oz : 705.49 Change : -4.06 or -0.57% Dow Industrial : 15,494.78 Change : 118.72 or 0.77% US Dollar Index : 81.260 Change : 0.187 or 0.23% Silver and GOLD PRICES rose today. Silver gained 29.3 cents to 2196.3 and the gold price added $9.50 to $1,317.90, bouncing off the same low as Fridays, $1,307 and change. If I've drawn the neckline for gold's upside-down head and shoulders correctly, then that $1,307 is about where it sits. That makes the last two week's action nothing more than a touch back for a kiss good-bye Course that'll all blow up like your daddy when he found that package of Lucky Strikes in your 12-year old back pocket if gold drops below $1,300, but the market will tell us. If the neckline of silver's upside-down HandS runs about 2500c, then the top of the shoulders runs about 2190 - 2200c. Accurate or note, 2140c marked the low on Friday, so a close below that, which coincides with the 50 DMA at 2146c, would take silver lower. I certainly don't dismiss the possibility of a drop much lower, but right now both metals are playing around their 50 DMA (yes, gold is lower). Everybody is expecting lower silver and GOLD PRICES, but markets have a way of fooling folks. The lore of the sailor sayeth that whenever rats stream off a ship in port, they are signaling that once it leaves port, that ship won't come back. Rats, you see, have a sixth sense that warns them of forthcoming events. Speaking of rats, Larry Summers announced today that he would not accept appointment as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. What do y'all think that Larry, in the opinion of many as big a rat as ever scoured a dumpster for dainties, knows that the other rats don't? Maybe the SILVER and gold price know the same thing Larry Summers knows. And don't ever forget this other ancient seaman's proverb: "A nation without a central bank is like a fish without a bicycle." On the news that Larry cared not to climb aboard the sinking ship of state, the stock market went loony. Twas widely (not wisely, but widely) assumed that Larry (engineer of the "strong dollar policy" and probably of the gold price suppression scheme) would not create new dollars so generously and hectically as Ben. Never mind for the nonce, you rationalist, that no nation ever has or ever will printed its way to prosperity, that appears to be what stock markets believe. So removing Larry and making Janet Yellen (where do they get people with these goofy names?) the confirmed money-printress Fed chairman must mean Happy Days Are Here Again. Dow rose 118.72 to 15,494.78 (up 0.77%) and the S&P500 rose 9.61 (0.57%) to 1,697.60. Yea, even the vigilantes of the bond market were fooled. Ten year treasury yield dropped 0.83% to 2.874% (bond prices rose). Maybe somebody can tell me one day (I am such a durned natural born fool from Tennessee that I am not smart enough to grasp it) how the prospect of printing MORE dollars makes holding bonds more attractive, since they are only promises to pay future dollars, now guaranteed to be worth ever less than today. I'm tellin' y'all, them boys in Warshingtun done figured out a perpetchul moshun mo-sheen. They can fix anything and guarantee prosperity forever by just cranking up the press and printin' more money. Personally I'm a-thinkin' this is about as good as it gets for stocks, but what do I know? US dollar rose (that's right, rose) 18.7 basis points (0.24%) to 81.26. However, the yen and euro also rose. I reckon this IS the best of all possible worlds, where everybody's prosperous, the government is always right, and even central bankers are loved. Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com 1-888-218-9226 10:00am-5:00pm CST, Monday-Friday © 2013, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down. WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned: Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures. NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps. NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced. NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt. What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands. One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monetary Metals Supply and Demand Report Posted: 16 Sep 2013 04:00 PM PDT In this report, we look at supply and demand fundamentals in the gold and silver markets. In brief, the basis and cobasis are spreads between the spot and futures market. A rising basis and falling cobasis indicate increasing abundance. Read More... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bill Black ~ Lessons learned from the failure of Lehman Bros., AIG Posted: 16 Sep 2013 03:53 PM PDT Five years ago, the Great Recession began with a global financial meltdown due to the collapse of several Wall Street companies. First, the Lehman Brothers investment bank filed for Chapter 11... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://FinanceArmageddon.blogspot.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Today’s Volatility In Metals & Markets Could Amplify With US Fed Meeting Posted: 16 Sep 2013 02:59 PM PDT A surprising and sharp move higher started the trading day and week. Futures of most equity markets jumped more than 1% at the opening of the Asian trading sessions. Gold and silver started slightly higher. The driver was the news about Larry Summers’ resignation for the function of US Fed Chairman. As Summers would not aim for additional monetary easing, the news was interpreted as positive for the markets (i.e. more money printing coming). Reuters wrote today: “Stocks and bonds on major markets rose on Monday after former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers withdrew from consideration to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, leading investors to believe U.S. monetary policy might stay looser for longer.” However, as the trading session continued, all markets started moving south:
Gold and silver short term chartsThe gold and silver price are in corrective mode since past week. The downtrend is clear on the short term price charts:
Gold and silver daily chartsOn the longer term charts, the downtrend remain intact. The August rally did not succeed to break the trend; resistance appeared to be too strong. This week will be “make or break” for the metals. Based on the market reaction on the FOMC meetings, we can expect a decisive short to mid-term move higher or lower. Mind that the very long term view remains positive, as the secular bull remains intact for the time being.
Increased volatility with this week’s FOMC meetingThe importance of this week’s FOMC meeting cannot be underestimated. In a recent article, we quoted Jim Rickards:
Although nobody knows the decision of the US Fed in advance, market commentary from BullionVault emhasized the most anticipated results of this meeting and the impact on gold and silver prices:
Expect a lot of volatility and violent price action in all markets later this week and potentially the coming weeks. Our forecast 2013 – Start of Seismic Shifts in Money, Metals, Markets is likely coming true. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bring Our Gold Campaign Now in Finland, Just 2 Weeks After Poland Posted: 16 Sep 2013 02:42 PM PDT As reported by GATA over the weekend, Finland is launching a campaign to bring its country’s gold back. The initiative is a referendum with the aim to put a deadline on the repatriation of Finland’s gold, being May 2014. The Finish website which leads the campaign is Kansalaisaloite.fi. Finland has 49.1 tons of gold. Most of Finland’s gold is kept outside of Finland. It is in vaults all over the world but mostly at the Bank of England. Earlier this year, Venezuela and Germany decided to bring their gold back. It started a whole movement across the world. Finland is the latest country in this wave. Poland was the one but last, as reported by GATA two weeks ago. The people of Finland have never been asked whether Finland should keep and hold its gold on its own. This is relevant now as the gold markets are changing significantly and the performance of currencies is unsure. The problem that will arise longer term is that probably not all gold will reach its owners, when a critical mass of the owners request a repatriation. The underlying reason is that the gold market is too leveraged: every ounce of gold in the main vaults of the US Fed and Bank of England carry a certain number of claims. There are far more claims to gold than there is available gold. Nobody knows exactly how much is sitting in the vaults and how many claims rest on the metal. But sooner or later the world will probably get to know. Read past articles: Germany's Gold Is Coming Home – Facts & Opinions Gold Is Money: Central Bank Actions Send Investors a Clear Message
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| In KWN interview, Turk comments on Summers' withdrawal and raids on gold Posted: 16 Sep 2013 02:22 PM PDT 5:15p ET Monday, September 16, 2013 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk, interviewed by King World News today, speculates on the possible meaning of Lawrence Summers' withdrawal of candidacy for chairman of the Federal Reserve. Turk adds: "Over the past decade we have seen many artificial and forced takedowns in gold just before important news events, only to have gold bounce back after the announcement. Last week's takedown seems like it will fit this pattern." An excerpt from the interview is posted at the King World News blog here: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/9/16_In... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT You Don't Have to Wait for Your Monetary Metal: Many investors lately report having to wait weeks and even months for delivery of their precious metal orders. All Pro Gold works with the largest wholesalers that have inventory "live" -- ready to go. All Pro Gold can ship these "live" gold and silver products as soon as payment funds clear. All Pro Gold can provide immediate delivery of 100-ounce Johnson Matthey silver bars, bags of 90 percent junk silver coins, and 1-ounce silver Austrian Philharmonics. All Pro Gold can deliver silver Canadian maple leafs with a two-day delay and 1-ounce U.S. silver eagles with a 15-day delay. Traditional 1-ounce gold bullion coins and mint-state generic gold double eagles are also available for immediate delivery. All Pro Gold has competitive pricing, and its proprietors, longtime GATA supporters Fred Goldstein and Tim Murphy, are glad to answer any questions or concerns of buyers about the acquisition of precious metals and numismatic coins. Learn more at www.allprogold.com or email info@allprogold.com or telephone All Pro Gold toll-free at 1-855-377-4653. Join GATA here: Gold Investment Symposium 2013 Mines and Money Australia New Orleans Investment Conference https://jeffersoncompanies.com/landing/speakers?IDPromotion=613011610080... * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Incredible Events Now Unfolding In The Gold & Silver Markets Posted: 16 Sep 2013 01:21 PM PDT  With gold and silver beginning to approach the key area where London metals trader Andrew Maguire told King World News there would be massive central bank buying, today James Turk spoke with KWN about the incredible events which are unfolding. Turk also sent KWN about silver a powerful chart to go with his commentary below.This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - JPM To Pay About $800 Million Fine for London Whale Posted: 16 Sep 2013 01:14 PM PDT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - JPM To Pay About $800 Million Fine for London Whale Posted: 16 Sep 2013 01:14 PM PDT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Many know of manipulation but refuse to acknowledge it, Embry says Posted: 16 Sep 2013 01:05 PM PDT 4p ET Monday, September 16, 2013 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Sprott Asset Management's John Embry today tells King World News that London metals trader Andrew Maguire's latest interviews with KWN highlight the refusal of so many people to acknowledge gold and silver market manipulation even though they know what's going on. That manipulation, Embry says, grows more obvious every day. An excerpt from the interview is posted at the King World News blog here: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/9/16_Ma... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Don't Let Cyprus Happen to You Depositors at the Bank of Cyprus lost 47.5 percent of their savings. So to preserve your wealth, get some of it outside the banking system into physical gold and silver. Worldwide Precious Metals (Canada) Ltd., established in 2001, specializes in physical gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. We offer delivery or secure and fully insured storage outside the banking system in Brinks vaults. We have access to gold and silver from trusted worldwide refineries and suppliers. And when you have an account with us you have immediate access to it for buying and selling your stored bullion. For information on owning physical precious metals in your portfolio, visit us at: www.wwpmc.com. Join GATA here: Gold Investment Symposium 2013 Mines and Money Australia New Orleans Investment Conference https://jeffersoncompanies.com/landing/speakers?IDPromotion=613011610080... * * * Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Larry Summers Was a Lousy Choice Anyway Posted: 16 Sep 2013 12:45 PM PDT Our campaign to become the next Fed chairman was dealt a major setback on Friday, as reports washed over from Japan that President Obama was only days away from appointing rival Larry Summers to the post. But wait. What’s this? "Larry Summers withdraws name from Fed consideration," reported The Washington Post this morning. We’re back in the running! But let’s look again at why Summers would be bad for the Fed. Yes, Summers is smarter than we are. Yes, he has a better academic record. Yes, he is a real economist. Yes, he has widespread political support and a winning personality. But beyond those things, studies find that people with lower IQs make better truck drivers than people with high IQs. Which puts the critical question right out in the open: What kind of thing is running a central bank? And how smart do you have to be to be a successful central banker? We'll come back to those questions in a moment. First, let us note that last week was good for US stocks and bad for gold. We're starting to wonder if the trading patterns of August – sinking stocks and rising gold – were nothing more than that wily old Mr. Market messing with our minds again. We'll have to wait to find out. One thing we're sure of is that we're seeing the worst kind of "recovery" – a return to the bubbly imbecilities of the 2005-07 period. (Keep reading!) Works of art are selling for astronomical prices. High-end palaces and antique cars are setting new records. Is this reckless money hitting the stock market too? Judging by soaring margin debt, the answer is yes. It could be breathtaking. It could be wild. It could be crazy… Summers' main selling point is that he is a genius. As a 25-year-old teacher at MIT, Summers convinced one of the great names in academic finance, Fischer Black, to go from being a leading proponent of efficient markets to one of the champions of its critics. Black is most famous for his work on the Black-Scholes equation – widely considered to be one of the most important concepts in modern financial theory and used to determine the fair prices for options. The same options were instrumental in monumental blow-ups – most notably at hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, where the two recipients of the 1997 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, Myron Scholes and Robert Merton, sat on the board of directors. After MIT, Black went on to work at Goldman Sachs. It too probably would have come crashing down in the crisis of 2008-09 had not then US Treasury secretary and former Goldman CEO Hank Paulson come to its aid. Summers eventually moved out of academia… and into politics. We don't know if the White House ever gave Larry sufficient credit for his role in the deregulation of the derivatives markets. Nor do we know if Harvard's endowment ever gave Larry sufficient credit for his role in its $2 billion in losses on an interest-rate bet gone bad, either. But all that is water under the bridge. Forgotten. Forgiven. History. So is the inconvenient fact that Summers had no idea the global financial crisis was coming. You can read his public statements for yourself. He was as ignorant of the looming trouble as Ben Bernanke. All of that is behind us. But what is ahead of us? According to our friend Gillian Tett at the Financial Times, more of the same: "Insane financial system lives post-Lehman," is the headline atop one of her recent articles. "The bad news," she continues, five years after Lehman Brothers went bust, "is that the system is just as insane – perhaps more so." Why? The big banks are even bigger. The rich are richer. Fannie and Freddie are still at it. Shadow banking plays an even bigger role. And the system depends even more on central bank management. So you see, the next Fed chief is likely to be an even greater threat to the financial health of the world than Ben Bernanke has been. Which brings us back to our question: How smart do you have to be to be a good Fed chief? Do you need an IQ of 150? 180? 200? What do you get for all that computing power? Does an extra 10 points of IQ somehow reduce debt levels? Does it help you create jobs? Does it help you spot a bubble before it pops? Not on the evidence! Here's a corollary question: Isn't it possible that Larry Summers is too smart for his own good… and too smart for the good of the world economy? Our view: Driving the financial system isn't rocket science. It's more like driving a truck. The idea is not to invent new theories and complex innovations. The important thing is not to run off the road! Larry Summers? No thanks. He's been in too many accidents already. Note to Barack Obama: It's not too late. We drive a Ford F-150. Call us. Regards, Bill Bonner Ed. Note: Bill can petition the president all he wants, we’re confident that the next Fed chairman will be the wrong person for the job. And when he or she is finally named, look out! The future of the U.S. economy is in serious jeopardy. Best to start protecting yourself now. Get the all the facts. Sign up for The Daily Reckoning, absolutely free, right now. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cambridge House Interview On Gold: “Great Wealth Is Made During Corrective Markets” Posted: 16 Sep 2013 12:27 PM PDT I had the honor last week to interview with GoldSeek & Cambridge House International, at the Toronto Resource Investment Conference. Items discussed during the interview included the power of dollar-cost averaging in precious metals during bear markets, "The Richest Man In Babylon", and a great conversation I had with the co-founder and CEO of Fortuna Silver Mines. To watch the interview, simply click the video box below: Also, to leave a comment in response (I love your feedback!), "click-through" over into YouTube, and enter your thoughts there. Lastly, your editor's travel schedule is winding down, with regularly timed articles and interviews to resume shortly. Da Silva "Legendary Mine Builders" Index readers---thank you for your patience! Best, Tekoa Da Silva Bull Market Thinking | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Gold Money for Pre-Civilized People Posted: 16 Sep 2013 11:43 AM PDT The true value of gold coin money through the Law of Reciprocity... CALL US traitors. Accuse us of treason. Say we're quislings and fifth columnists, writes Bill Bonner in his Daily Reckoning. But don't forget to mention: We're also right! Yes – today we stand shoulder to shoulder with Barack Obama's arch-rival, Vladimir Putin. We'll come back to this in a moment. But first, let's check the latest market moves. The Dow eased off last week. But gold got whacked – WHACKED! If gold really is in a bull market (as we believe it is) it is doing a good job of keeping it quiet. Why did gold sell off so much? Maybe it is because of Mr. Putin. Yes, dear reader, when we thought we'd seen everything, along comes a New York Times column from none other than the stony-faced president of Russia. Last week Putin took the extraordinary action of writing directly to the American people to warn us not to do something stupid. Here's the key point of Putin's NYT comments:
But US force has proved ineffective and pointless. Ineffective and pointless? Here, dear reader, we will let you in on the deepest insight we have ever had. It is so profound we need a powerful flashlight to find it in the darkest spaces of inner Earth. And then we stop dead in our tracks...our mouth wide open...in admiration and silent awe. We started thinking about it years ago, as we pondered why and how our financial system had gotten so rotten and so corrupt. No kidding. Today's financial system...and today's US foreign policy...are both reacting to the same sour perversion. You're probably reeling. We are. It is what happens when you find a piece of the puzzle and are finally able to put it in place. Roughly 5,000 years ago, mankind made a giant leap forward, from barbarity to civilisation. This was a big change. It allowed people to:
Pre-civilised people had no prohibition on killing one another. Sometimes, they ate each other too. And they had a hard time doing business with one another. First, because they were almost always trying to kill each other. Second, because they had no easy way to work out an exchange. But then, along with sedentary agriculture and far-ranging commerce, came a new rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Otherwise known as the Law of Reciprocity, it is the underlying rule governing human affairs.
Simple enough. It is also why Vladimir Putin is right. Brute force doesn't work. Because it breaks the fundamental rule of civilised foreign policy:
The rule is often broken. But rarely with happy consequences. "Live by the sword; die by the sword," says the Bible. More importantly, brute force doesn't take you where you want to go. Except for self-protection, brute force doesn't work in any aspect of life. Which brings us to the Federal Reserve...and the US Dollar. The other major breakthrough of 5,000 years ago was the introduction of a new kind of money. This was money you could trust. Not a promise by someone to give you his wife's sister. Not a threat against him and his family. Not a credit against next year's hunt...or the hope that his tribe will come to your aid if you are attacked by a third tribe. No, this new 'money' was something different. It was something you could count on. It made it easy to settle a transaction right on the spot. No need to remember who owed what to whom. No need to speak the same language or worship the same gods. This new 'money' was worth something in itself. This new money was gold. Gold helped cooperation triumph over brute force. With it, you could bargain for goods and services, rather than insisting on them. You didn't have to take your neighbour's wheat field by force to feed your family. You could buy his wheat. You didn't have to drag off his daughter, either; you could pay for her too. Force doesn't work in human affairs, because it doesn't bring people what they really want. Force doesn't give you a 'win-win' trade. Instead, force sets up a 'win-lose' transaction. A man robs a liquor store. He has booze. But the liquor-store window is broken, and the store's insurance rates go up. The world is poorer as a result. Force rarely works in domestic affairs, either. A woman coerced is rarely a happy woman. And an unhappy woman rarely makes a man happy for long. Nor does force work in an economy. When the Fed forces interest rates down, it is driving buyers and sellers to do something that they otherwise would not do. It is exercising brute force on markets. Does it work? Ask any jackass who has ever tried price controls or centralised economic planning. The answer is no. Why doesn't it work? For the same reason attacking Syria doesn't work. Brute force is primitive and barbaric. It brings the attacker, the rapist, the price controller and the central banker a momentary satisfaction and celebrity. But it is a losing proposition. People don't get what they really want; they get what someone else wants them to have. And since all value is measured by what people really want and freely choose, it makes the world poorer. Why would the US do things that make the world worse off? Dear reader, where have you been? It's got nothing to do with liberal or conservative, hawk or dove, Democrat or Republican, Bush or Obama. And it's not because we are dumber than we used to be, either. Instead, thinking people are starting to realise that we're right about this too. America is a victim of creeping zombieism. Bureaucrats at the Fed force down interest rates to support zombies everywhere – from Wall Street to Skid Row. Low rates also help make more money available to the zombies who are besieging the Pentagon. Here's journalist and author Leon Hadar at the American Conservative:
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| New Gold Money for Pre-Civilized People Posted: 16 Sep 2013 11:43 AM PDT The true value of gold coin money through the Law of Reciprocity... CALL US traitors. Accuse us of treason. Say we're quislings and fifth columnists, writes Bill Bonner in his Daily Reckoning. But don't forget to mention: We're also right! Yes – today we stand shoulder to shoulder with Barack Obama's arch-rival, Vladimir Putin. We'll come back to this in a moment. But first, let's check the latest market moves. The Dow eased off last week. But gold got whacked – WHACKED! If gold really is in a bull market (as we believe it is) it is doing a good job of keeping it quiet. Why did gold sell off so much? Maybe it is because of Mr. Putin. Yes, dear reader, when we thought we'd seen everything, along comes a New York Times column from none other than the stony-faced president of Russia. Last week Putin took the extraordinary action of writing directly to the American people to warn us not to do something stupid. Here's the key point of Putin's NYT comments:
But US force has proved ineffective and pointless. Ineffective and pointless? Here, dear reader, we will let you in on the deepest insight we have ever had. It is so profound we need a powerful flashlight to find it in the darkest spaces of inner Earth. And then we stop dead in our tracks...our mouth wide open...in admiration and silent awe. We started thinking about it years ago, as we pondered why and how our financial system had gotten so rotten and so corrupt. No kidding. Today's financial system...and today's US foreign policy...are both reacting to the same sour perversion. You're probably reeling. We are. It is what happens when you find a piece of the puzzle and are finally able to put it in place. Roughly 5,000 years ago, mankind made a giant leap forward, from barbarity to civilisation. This was a big change. It allowed people to:
Pre-civilised people had no prohibition on killing one another. Sometimes, they ate each other too. And they had a hard time doing business with one another. First, because they were almost always trying to kill each other. Second, because they had no easy way to work out an exchange. But then, along with sedentary agriculture and far-ranging commerce, came a new rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Otherwise known as the Law of Reciprocity, it is the underlying rule governing human affairs.
Simple enough. It is also why Vladimir Putin is right. Brute force doesn't work. Because it breaks the fundamental rule of civilised foreign policy:
The rule is often broken. But rarely with happy consequences. "Live by the sword; die by the sword," says the Bible. More importantly, brute force doesn't take you where you want to go. Except for self-protection, brute force doesn't work in any aspect of life. Which brings us to the Federal Reserve...and the US Dollar. The other major breakthrough of 5,000 years ago was the introduction of a new kind of money. This was money you could trust. Not a promise by someone to give you his wife's sister. Not a threat against him and his family. Not a credit against next year's hunt...or the hope that his tribe will come to your aid if you are attacked by a third tribe. No, this new 'money' was something different. It was something you could count on. It made it easy to settle a transaction right on the spot. No need to remember who owed what to whom. No need to speak the same language or worship the same gods. This new 'money' was worth something in itself. This new money was gold. Gold helped cooperation triumph over brute force. With it, you could bargain for goods and services, rather than insisting on them. You didn't have to take your neighbour's wheat field by force to feed your family. You could buy his wheat. You didn't have to drag off his daughter, either; you could pay for her too. Force doesn't work in human affairs, because it doesn't bring people what they really want. Force doesn't give you a 'win-win' trade. Instead, force sets up a 'win-lose' transaction. A man robs a liquor store. He has booze. But the liquor-store window is broken, and the store's insurance rates go up. The world is poorer as a result. Force rarely works in domestic affairs, either. A woman coerced is rarely a happy woman. And an unhappy woman rarely makes a man happy for long. Nor does force work in an economy. When the Fed forces interest rates down, it is driving buyers and sellers to do something that they otherwise would not do. It is exercising brute force on markets. Does it work? Ask any jackass who has ever tried price controls or centralised economic planning. The answer is no. Why doesn't it work? For the same reason attacking Syria doesn't work. Brute force is primitive and barbaric. It brings the attacker, the rapist, the price controller and the central banker a momentary satisfaction and celebrity. But it is a losing proposition. People don't get what they really want; they get what someone else wants them to have. And since all value is measured by what people really want and freely choose, it makes the world poorer. Why would the US do things that make the world worse off? Dear reader, where have you been? It's got nothing to do with liberal or conservative, hawk or dove, Democrat or Republican, Bush or Obama. And it's not because we are dumber than we used to be, either. Instead, thinking people are starting to realise that we're right about this too. America is a victim of creeping zombieism. Bureaucrats at the Fed force down interest rates to support zombies everywhere – from Wall Street to Skid Row. Low rates also help make more money available to the zombies who are besieging the Pentagon. Here's journalist and author Leon Hadar at the American Conservative:
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| The Credit Crisis: Five Years Past or Five More in the Making Posted: 16 Sep 2013 11:20 AM PDT Wall Street is now reflecting upon the fifth anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the start of the Credit Crisis. In fact, most are celebrating the belief that the complete collapse of the American economy was avoided ... Read More... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| It’s Time to Harden Your Assets—NOW Posted: 16 Sep 2013 10:36 AM PDT Dear Reader, As I type, I'm sitting in an airport waiting room in Mexico, having just been scrutinized by a pair of unusually zealous security personnel. I'm on my way back from checking out a new silver processing plant, but that's not what I want to talk about. Today's international travel experience really drives home the reality of what Doug Casey has been saying for some time: the financial noose is tightening. It's time to harden your assets—NOW. As I explain below, one of the best ways to do that is to use the Hard Assets Alliance to buy, store, and sell your precious metals. This is the best program we've ever worked with. One of the reasons for this is the transparency, as evidenced by HAA General Manager Ed D'Agostino sitting down with us to answer readers' questions. I am once again being rather blunt in urging readers to consider one of the services Casey Research is affiliated with, but there's a good, time-sensitive reason for it. I do hope you're going to give it some thought and take whatever action you deem best. Sincerely, Louis James
It’s Time to Harden Your Assets—NOWLouis James, Chief Metals & Mining Investment Strategist What sort of currency, gold, or other financial instruments can you take with you when you travel? What do you have to declare? It all seems to get more complicated and difficult every day. Doug Casey has been predicting ever more stringent currency controls for some time, along with greater scrutiny of every financial move made by every person on earth—and that was before the NSA's snooping on everyone became public knowledge. This is worth fighting as a matter of principle: the president and every member of Congress who votes against shutting down the NSA's illegal and unethical activities should be voted out of office. With prejudice. But there are also very pragmatic and near-term financial consequences to think about. Doug believes the global economy has started down a spiral that will eventually become known as the Greater Depression. Whether you agree with Doug's view or not, it is beyond question that the state's vise grip on our lives is tightening, and that governments are particularly keen to use these increasingly Orwellian powers to secure their lifeblood: money. Just google the new G-20 agreement on sharing taxpayer information. I rest my case. We expect this trend to accelerate rapidly in the near term, as more governments get desperate. And we'd expect it to continue getting worse, even if somehow the global economy miraculously recovers without spendaholic governments having to pay the piper. Key takeaway: if you have not done so already, you need to harden your assets while it's still possible—and legal. That can mean many things, but for Doug Casey, it primarily means shifting more of one's wealth into real assets. For liquidity, that means precious metals stored in multiple jurisdictions—gold, silver, and maybe platinum (if you don't mind that most people can't distinguish it from silver). This is the only financial asset class that is not also some counterparty's liability. Gold is money, and it's what we use for savings. So much for theory. In practice, people have a lot of questions; where to buy, how to get the best price, how to store precious metals, etc. It's simple enough to drop in at your local coin shop and pick up a few gold Eagles, Buffaloes, or Krugerrands, but there's only so much bullion you can stuff in your mattress before it gets lumpy. Constructing one's own vault and hiring security guards gets pretty pricey—and guard dogs can bark all night. Where does one even begin? It's a good question, and several companies have come up with services to provide answers. The best of these, however, are mostly meant for high-net-worth individuals, and the ones that are economic for smaller accounts still tend to expose bullion owners to counterparty risk. This is how the Hard Assets Alliance came into being. Founded by a group of independent financial researchers, this bullion service gives investors and savers a convenient, inexpensive, and secure way to buy, store, and liquidate precious metals—whether they have modest funds or large amounts of wealth to protect. At the risk of sounding overly promotional, I'll mention three key advantages of the Hard Assets Alliance: 1. Its sophistication. You can open many types of accounts—individual, joint, corporate, partnership, sole proprietorship, LLC, IRA, or trust account. Opening an account is very simple. 2. Competitive pricing. Every time you place an order, no fewer than four bullion dealers bid on fulfilling your order—so you are guaranteed to get the best price. 3. Top-quality storage. You can store your bullion in the same fully audited and insured independent vaults central banks use in New York, Salt Lake City, Zurich, London, Singapore, and Melbourne. These are some of the many reason we decided to add HAA to our very short list of recommended ways to buy and hold precious metals (if you missed it, you can grab their information kit here and read all about the program). But, even with our endorsement, there's a lot to think about, and many of our readers have had questions. So we surveyed them, and put their questions to HAA General Manager Ed D'Agostino, as you can see in this video Q&A session. Whether or not you're interested in HAA's services, you should consider taking steps to safeguard your wealth as soon as possible—in at least one, if not several jurisdictions beyond the reach of the government that claims you as its beast of burden. Not so long ago, it was possible to do this in relative privacy and security. Those days are gone—at least as far as privacy goes. On the bright side, it is still legal… for now. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold trims gains but still up after Summers news Posted: 16 Sep 2013 09:20 AM PDT SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures gained ground Monday but were off the day's high hit on news that former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers had withdrawn from consideration for the job of Federal Reserve chairman. Gold for December delivery rose $8.70, or 0.7%, to $1,317.30 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, erasing some of its 1.7% loss from Friday. The contract had been trading around$1,330 in the early morning hours on Monday. "It was an interesting move overnight, but it just didn't really seem to have much staying power," said Darin Newsom, senior analyst at DTN, a commodity-market research company. He described gold's initial jump as "a knee-jerk reaction" to the Summers news, adding that traders are now focused on "the next round of headlines." Summers was widely viewed as more hawkish than other leading candidates to run the Fed, meaning he was seen as more likely to push for a speedier end to the central bank's easy-money policies. Those policies have supported gold and pressured the dollar. "The market now sees continuity for the Fed as a groundswell of support for [Fed Vice Chair] Janet Yellen to take the helm is likely," said Gene Arensberg, editor of the Got Gold Report. "We have to wonder, however, if Summers's decision is a signal that the smartest man in the room sees too much trouble ahead and that is why he chose to stand down," said Arensberg. (Continued...) Please see the entire article at the source: MarketWatch http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-gains-sharply-as-dollar-drops-on-summers-news-2013-09-16?link=MW_home_latest_news By Myra P. Saefong and Victor Reklaitis, MarketWatch | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold trims gains but still up after Summers news Posted: 16 Sep 2013 09:20 AM PDT SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures gained ground Monday but were off the day's high hit on news that former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers had withdrawn from consideration for the job of Federal Reserve chairman. Gold for December delivery rose $8.70, or 0.7%, to $1,317.30 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, erasing some of its 1.7% loss from Friday. The contract had been trading around$1,330 in the early morning hours on Monday. "It was an interesting move overnight, but it just didn't really seem to have much staying power," said Darin Newsom, senior analyst at DTN, a commodity-market research company. He described gold's initial jump as "a knee-jerk reaction" to the Summers news, adding that traders are now focused on "the next round of headlines." Summers was widely viewed as more hawkish than other leading candidates to run the Fed, meaning he was seen as more likely to push for a speedier end to the central bank's easy-money policies. Those policies have supported gold and pressured the dollar. "The market now sees continuity for the Fed as a groundswell of support for [Fed Vice Chair] Janet Yellen to take the helm is likely," said Gene Arensberg, editor of the Got Gold Report. "We have to wonder, however, if Summers's decision is a signal that the smartest man in the room sees too much trouble ahead and that is why he chose to stand down," said Arensberg. (Continued...) Please see the entire article at the source: MarketWatch http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-gains-sharply-as-dollar-drops-on-summers-news-2013-09-16?link=MW_home_latest_news By Myra P. Saefong and Victor Reklaitis, MarketWatch | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Credit Crisis Five Years Past or Five More in the Making Posted: 16 Sep 2013 09:10 AM PDT Wall Street is now reflecting upon the fifth anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the start of the Credit Crisis. In fact, most are celebrating the belief that the complete collapse of the American economy was avoided thanks to a massive intervention of government-sponsored borrowing and money printing. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maguire, The BIS & The Coming Gold & Silver Super-Surge Posted: 16 Sep 2013 09:00 AM PDT  Ahead of the Fed meeting, today a man who has been involved in the financial markets for 50 years spoke about the blockbuster KWN interview with Andrew Maguire, the ongoing war in the gold market, the BIS, and the coming super-surge in gold and silver. Below is what John Embry had to say in this fascinating interview.This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 16 Sep 2013 08:53 AM PDT Gold Choppy Amid New Uncertainty Over Fed
But isn’t that bullish for gold? Eventually that’s likely to be the case, but for now, it’s ‘risk on’ and stocks seem to be the initial beneficiary. While most continue to think the FOMC will announce tapering this week, the yield on the 10-year note tumbled 9 basis points to 2.79% on the expectation that a central bank chaired by Yellen will keep rates at 0% for the foreseeable future. A much weaker than expected NY Empire State index for September and a fifth consecutive negative miss on industrial production in August are just the latest indications that economic recovery is far from assured. The Fed certainly doesn’t want to be in the position of having to ‘un-taper’ down the road. This is especially true given the likelihood of impending contentious debates over the federal budget and the debt ceiling in the weeks ahead. Budget expert Stan Collender thinks there is a 60% chance the government will shut down for at least a few days toward the end of this month. We could apparently breach the debt ceiling as soon as 18-Oct, although Collender sees the odds that the debt ceiling won’t be raised in the “10 to 20 percent range.” Gene Sperling, the director of the National Economic Council at the White House, has suggested that the debt ceiling debate of 2011 was as damaging to consumer confidence as Pearl Harbor or 9/11. That may be hyperbole, but one thing is certain; the U.S. has never met a debt ceiling it could not exceed. The debt ceiling will surely be raised, it’s just a question of how destructive the negotiations will be. President Obama has already pledged not to negotiate, while Republicans seem poised to try and extract concessions once again. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Will the Short-Term Link Between Crude Oil and Gold Wane? Posted: 16 Sep 2013 08:19 AM PDT Looking at the charts of crude oil, we clearly see that the major factor, which has driven the price of light crude in the recent weeks was the uncertainty around Syria. At the beginning of the previous week, crude oil began to drop ... Read More... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold slips 1 pct on prospects of U.S. Fed tapering soon Posted: 16 Sep 2013 06:37 AM PDT
The consensus is that the Fed will initially reduce its bond purchases, now $85 billion a month, by $10 billion and will announce the reduction to its quantitative easing (QE) after a Sept. 17-18 meeting. The withdrawal of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Summers from the Fed race could suggest a more gradual approach to tightening monetary policy, with potential front-runner Janet Yellen perceived as a more dovish contender. The news sent the dollar to a near-four-week low against a basket of currencies, and European shares to five-year highs but it had limited impact on gold, which rose nearly $10 an ounce before giving up gains. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Will Short-Term Link Between Crude Oil and Gold Wane? Posted: 16 Sep 2013 06:33 AM PDT Looking at the charts of crude oil, we clearly see that the major factor, which has driven the price of light crude in the recent weeks was the uncertainty around Syria. At the beginning of the previous week, crude oil began to drop after Russia offered to help put Syria's chemical weapons under international control. Although the U.S. President Barack Obama said that he will still continue efforts to convince politicians to back military action, Russia's proposal raised the chance that a U.S. military strike would be delayed or averted. In the following days, we saw two-day small bounce up in crude oil prices as investors worried about whether diplomatic efforts to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons would avert military action that could disrupt oil supplies from the Middle East. These diplomatic efforts intensified as Russia warned that a U.S. strike could unleash extremist attacks and carry the country's bitter civil war beyond Syria's borders. However, this improvement was only temporary and crude oil slipped on Friday as the United States and Russia worked on a plan for Syria to surrender its chemical weapons. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold is Desperately in Need of a New Catalyst Posted: 16 Sep 2013 06:00 AM PDT The bears regained the upper hand in precious metals markets over the short-term as a vicious sell-off on Thursday sent gold and silver prices to their biggest one-day declines in almost three months. Both metals ended higher on Friday, but large sell orders occurring at odd hours the day before inflicted [...] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 16 Sep 2013 05:40 AM PDT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold Prices Fall Hard Despite Dollar Drop on Summers' Exit from Fed Race Posted: 16 Sep 2013 05:36 AM PDT GOLD PRICES fell hard Monday morning, retreating near Friday's 5-week lows after earlier spiking to $1336 per ounce in Asian hours despite wholesale dealers reporting lacklustre trade with "hardly any offtake." Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers last night withdrew from being considered for the role of US Federal Reserve chief, leaving current vice-chair and noted advocate of low interest rates Janet Yellen the likely successor to Ben Bernanke next February. World stock markets rose today, while the US Dollar dropped half-a-cent to the Euro and sank to fresh 8-month lows vs. the Pound. That drove gold prices for UK investors down to £822.75 per ounce – the lowest level since 7 July, and over 7% beneath Monday morning last week. "We had thought," says Standard Bank's chief FX strategist Steven Barrow, "that political risks surrounding Syria and the Fed chair nomination shifted the balance of probability towards bond tapering in December, not September. "But now that these risks have been lifted it seems most likely that the Fed will taper this week." "Given the damage done last week to gold prices," says a note from analysts at US investment bank Morgan Stanley, "only a complete delay in tapering would likely bring gold back to its late August peak." New data released Friday showed speculative traders in US gold futures and options slashing their net bullish position last week at the fastest pace since June's gold price crash. Shrinking by 14% from a week before, the "net long" position of non-industry players' bullish minus bearish bets as a group dropped to 381 tonnes by last Tuesday. Now the smallest "net spec long" since mid-August, that net position on gold prices was still almost 3 times greater than early July's 14-year low. The high probability that Fed tapering will be announced on 18th September leads us to a bearish view on gold, although this outcome is largely priced in and there may be a relief rally if the Fed's move does not match expectations. "Investors appear to be exiting long positions [on gold prices] in anticipation of a possible fall around the Fed meeting," says Jonathan Butler at Japanese trading and investment company, Mitsubishi Corporation. But "at the same time, there appears to be only limited new short position taking, suggesting investors remain unconvinced of the potential for significant downside from here." Looking at Friday's late rally in gold prices, reckon commodity analysts at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, "[it] is likely to have been triggered initially by money managers who closed short positions just before the weekend." But "the change in US monetary policy," says German precious metals refining group Heraeus in its Weekly Update, "is likely to continue weighing on the gold price in the coming year." Silver prices also fell Monday morning, dropping to $21.74 per ounce and nearing Friday's 1-month lows. "Despite [silver's] low price level" last week, says refiner Heraeus, "industrial consumers reacted cautiously. "On the contrary, when silver temporarily recovered, we observed an increase in sales of scrap metal." Base metals held steady on Monday morning, but broad commodity indices dropped 0.8% as crude oil fell hard to new 4-week lows. "I see Syria fading as a factor that's moving oil markets," Bloomberg quotes head of consulting Robin Mills at Manaar Energy Consulting & Project Management in Dubai. "It become evident there was no attack imminent." Longer-term analysis by Societe Generale's natural resources team today says that "Commodities should trade mainly on their respective fundamentals," pointing to what they call "a regime change" in what's driving prices. "The ongoing normalisation of the global financial system after the 2008 meltdown," write SocGen's team, means that "the proportion of price variability explained by [supply and demand] has approached – or even surpassed – the proportion explained prior to Lehman." "The temporary sparkle that we had seen because of Syria is disappearing," says $3bn asset manager Donald Selkin at National Securities Corp. in New York. "The market is trying to find a price for gold in an environment where the Fed begins cutting back its assistance." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold price in a range of currencies since December 1978 XLS version Posted: 16 Sep 2013 02:00 AM PDT Excel file of gold price charts and data - Updated weekly in 19 curriences: US dollar, Euro, Japanese yen, Pound sterling, Canadian dollar, Swiss franc, Indian rupee, Chinese renmimbi, Turkish lira, Saudi riyal, Indonesian rupiah, UAE dirham, Thai baht, Vietnamese dong, Egyptian pound, Korean won, Russian ruble, South African rand, Australian dollar | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Latest World Official Gold Reserves Posted: 16 Sep 2013 01:00 AM PDT Information on each country's gold reserves and the proportion this represents of their total external reserves. Updated quarterly. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Quarterly times series on World Official Gold Reserves since 2000 Posted: 16 Sep 2013 01:00 AM PDT A quarterly time series of World gold holdings (in Excel format) in terms of volume (tonnes), value (US dollars) and as a percentage of total reserves. Updated bi-annually. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Changes in World Gold Official Reserves Posted: 16 Sep 2013 01:00 AM PDT Shows month by month, how countries' reported gold holdings have changed since January 2002 and reasons where known. Updated quarterly. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Latest sales under the third Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA3) Posted: 16 Sep 2013 01:00 AM PDT Updated quarterly. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Is the Peruvian Government Becoming More Mining Friendly? Posted: 16 Sep 2013 01:00 AM PDT With a credit rating higher than Mexico and Brazil, Peru should be high on the list of mining investors, but confidence has been shaken over the last few years when the government revoked some high-profile mining licenses. According to Lima-based Kallpa Securities Managing Director Ricardo Carrión and President Alberto Arispe, recent government actions might signal a reset, with the government even acting as a mediator between mining companies and the local communities. In this interview with The Gold Report, Carrión and Arispe detail the state of mining exploration in Peru and discuss companies actively exploring, including one that just received its long-awaited environmental approval. |
There are so many important news events going on at the moment, Eric, that one has to pick and choose where to begin. However, I think the most stunning development is your interview with Andrew Maguire. For years there have been outcries that the CFTC is not doing enough to investigate the manipulation of the precious metal markets. 
HUI Defending a Trendline … Barely
The markets roared higher over the weekend when Larry Summers withdrew his candidacy for Fed Chairman. This makes Janet Yellen of the San Francisco Fed the current favorite for next Fed Chair.
I came in this morning, turned on the currency screens, and what to my surprise! A currency rally! 2 days before the Fed will announce tapering to boot! So, what gives? Why would the dollar be getting sold now? Ahhh grasshopper, come, sit, and listen to a tale of what they call in the markets of an event being "priced in"… Apparently, traders came to the realization last night that the Fed's tapering, is already "priced in", and the only thing left is for the Fed to disappoint them, with the announcement of a small amount of pull-back, or a delay…
International Speculator
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