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- Crooks, Liars, Idiots, and Plutocrats
- The Yellen Fed: Invest With The Flow
- Jim Grant: America’s Default on Its Debt Is Inevitable!
- SD Weekly Metals & Markets: 2 Million Oz of Paper Gold Break COMEX Gold Market
- The Doc Is Giving Away 4 Free 2013 Silver American Eagles Compliments of DNA Precious Metals!
- Max Keiser interviews Real Asset Co.s Jan Skoyles on gold
- Velocity of Money Falling
- They’re Coming For Your Savings
- Has the public’s feeling about gold finally turned?
- Gold Market – The Week In Review
- Gold market report: Trading dominated by delay in resolution of the US budget and debt ceiling
- Currency Positioning And Technical Outlook: Dollar Outlook Still Constructive
- SD Weekly Metals & Markets: 2 Million Oz of Paper Gold Break COMEX Gold Market!
- The Treasury Admits Gold is King
- Gold Premiums in India Jump on Festive Demand, Supply Crunch
- U.S. Debt Standoff Provokes Ire Among China's Officials
- Born Libertarian: Doug Casey on Ron Paul and the Price of Freedom
- Four King World News Blogs
- "Stop Logic" Gold Slam Was So Furious It Shut Down CME Trading Again
- Busting the Myths That Could Wipe Out Your Investments: Louis James, Marin Katusa and Rick Rule
- India's top bullion bank to work with jewellers to tease out gold hoards
- Gold premiums in India jump on festive demand, supply crunch
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Fear and Loathing on the Comex
- Gold and Silver – Western Bankers [Forced] Bowing To China
| Crooks, Liars, Idiots, and Plutocrats Posted: 12 Oct 2013 10:55 PM PDT By Matías Vernengo, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Utah. Originally published at Triple Crisis. Economic historian Carlo Cipolla famously noted that human beings fall into four basic categories: the martyr who takes an action and suffers a loss while producing a gain to others; the genius or prodigy who takes an action by which he/she makes a gain while yielding a gain also to society; the crook (and liar too) who takes an action by which he/she makes a gain causing others a loss; and the stupid person who causes losses to others while deriving no personal gain and even possibly incurring losses. At first glance, the shutdown of the government and the looming debt-ceiling crisis seem to indicate that we are dealing with idiots, the likes of Michele Bachmann, Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, Steve King, and other Tea Party Republicans. After all, there is no rational reason to shut down the government to preclude what is essentially a Republican-designed health law (created by the Heritage Foundation), that would create the conditions for finally attaining universal health coverage in the United States, a goal that all the other advanced nations have achieved decades ago. In particular, the alternative to "Obamacare" proposed by the GOP is nonexistent, and basically means leaving millions of Americans without proper medical care. On top of that, the shutdown, together with the previous sequestration, and the overall contractionary fiscal stance, will most likely make the very slow recovery even slower, maintaining an unnecessarily large portion of the labor force unemployed. The debt ceiling, which we are still approaching, even if at a slower pace because of the shutdown, will make matters even worse. There is a certain degree of uncertainty of what could happen if an agreement on the debt ceiling is not reached. I tend to believe that there will be neither a run on the dollar nor a collapse of the world economy, as some expect. It seems unlikely that the euro, or the yen, let alone the yuan, would replace the dollar. Europe and Japan are not really thriving, and investors are not going to flock in mass to Chinese assets, since it is far from clear that an economy controlled by a single party with extensive ability to intervene in contracts provides more security than U.S. bonds. Markets might very well assume that the U.S. crisis is temporary, and as in previous crisis in the United States, like the Lehman Brothers collapse back in September 2008, flock to the security of the dollar. But I do believe that it will force a significant additional fiscal contraction on an economy that cannot take it, and may very likely lead to a new recession. It must be emphasized that the actual net level of debt, once intra-government holdings (by the Fed and other agencies and trusts) are discounted, is actually not high by historical standard (around 60% of GDP rather than 100%, which is the gross amount), and the rate of interest on it is at historical lows. So actually borrowing more to get the economy out of the slow recovery would be the sensible thing to do. However, it would be a mistake to conclude that we have been dominated by a group of rogue and irrational idiots hell-bent on destroying Western Civilization in the name of Christian values and some crazy, ill-defined notion of freedom. It is important to note that over the last two years the radical elements within the GOP have actually achieved something. They have consolidated a contractionary fiscal stance, barring any possibility of the fiscal expansion that we need for a healthy recovery. They play in the United States the same role that the Troika (European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund) plays in Europe, and that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has traditionally played in developing countries. And austerity is at the service not only of cutting expenses on services that affect the neediest in society, but also keeping wage demands in line, and so protecting the interests of corporations and the few that benefit from that. So if the public faces of the shutdown are the Tea Party-ites in Congress, with Ted Cruz and his filibuster as their poster child, it is important to remember that these groups have received the backing of foundations and shadow groups controlled by a few wealthy plutocrats, like the Koch brothers. It is those wealthy at the top, who are not affected by the shutdown, that should be blamed for the current crisis. Class warfare, not stupidity, and the crooks and liars at the top, not the "idiots" in the public spotlight, are the problem. |
| The Yellen Fed: Invest With The Flow Posted: 12 Oct 2013 09:14 PM PDT The Yellen Federal Reserve will be substantially different than the Bernanke Fed. For one thing, Ms. Yellen is a Democrat, the first Democrat, as many people have stated, appointed as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve since Paul Volcker. Now, right out of the gate, one must be careful how one takes this. Paul Volcker was a Democrat but he was also the person who said that the single most important price in the economy is the price of the country's currency in the foreign exchange market. Paul Volcker is the only Fed chairman since the value of the dollar was floated in August of 1971, who, during his tenure, saw the value of the dollar rise against other currencies. (For more on this last point see my Seeking Alpha post.) Ms. Yellen, on the other hand, is "a student of unemployment and how to |
| Jim Grant: America’s Default on Its Debt Is Inevitable! Posted: 12 Oct 2013 09:10 PM PDT
 "There is precedent for a government shutdown," Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, remarked last week. "There's no precedent for default." How wrong he is. Let us face facts: We have defaulted in the past. Let us confront the implied message of the Federal Reserve's pro-inflation policy: We will default in the [...] The post Jim Grant: America’s Default on Its Debt Is Inevitable! appeared first on Silver Doctors. |
| SD Weekly Metals & Markets: 2 Million Oz of Paper Gold Break COMEX Gold Market Posted: 12 Oct 2013 09:05 PM PDT
 On this week’s Metals & Markets Wrap The Doc & Eric Dubin cover: Ongoing metals manipulation visible across the board; we’ll document this week’s gold and silver lunacy- & cartel signaling minutes prior to dumping 17,000 paper gold contracts on the market between 8:43 and 8:45am: triggering a stop of Comex gold trading as the [...] The post SD Weekly Metals & Markets: 2 Million Oz of Paper Gold Break COMEX Gold Market appeared first on Silver Doctors. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The Doc Is Giving Away 4 Free 2013 Silver American Eagles Compliments of DNA Precious Metals! Posted: 12 Oct 2013 07:39 PM PDT
 Win 4 Ounces of Free Silver From The Doc! The Doc has selected 4 2013 Silver America Eagles 1 OZ .999 PURE Silver Rounds to be rewarded to the FOUR INDIVIDUALS who are closest to the October SILVER CLOSING PRICE! One ounce will be given to each of the closest predictions on SilverDoctors.com, SD Facebook group, Twitter Followers, and Google [...] The post The Doc Is Giving Away 4 Free 2013 Silver American Eagles Compliments of DNA Precious Metals! appeared first on Silver Doctors. |
| Max Keiser interviews Real Asset Co.s Jan Skoyles on gold Posted: 12 Oct 2013 07:31 PM PDT GATA |
| Posted: 12 Oct 2013 12:02 PM PDT The following chart is a bit dated as it only covers through the first quarter of this year but even at that, the trend is glaringly obvious - down! Combine this with a CRB index or Goldman Sachs Commodity Index that cannot gain any upside traction, abysmal to miniscule job creation and of those, many are now part time jobs thanks to Obamacare, flat to relatively stagnant wages, and you can understand why, even without this chart, that the factors necessary to push prices sharply higher are currently missing. I also would include something which is more anecdotal but which I feel is also a contributing factor to the deflationary pressures being exerted upon the US economy in general, namely, the fallout from Obamacare in the area of soaring health insurance for a large number of Americans. You have already or will have very soon, heard the horror stories as they continue to increase about health insurance premiums tripling for many Americans. In an environment in which wages are flat, that price increase comes right off the top of the consumers' disposable income. That means less money available for discretionary spending. I believe this is what we are seeing reflected in this chart.  From the standpoint of gold, this helps explain why the metal keeps sinking lower. With the US Dollar not falling apart, the urgency to own the metal is subsiding among Western-based investors. That is evident from the continued drawdown in the reported gold holdings of the giant ETF, GLD. Also, when one considers especially an artificially goosed US equity market working its way higher and higher throwing off ridiculous gains practically month after month, investment capital is going to need a compelling reason to be taken out of that sector and allocated into gold. Since gold pays no yield all investment gains from the metal must necessarily come from capital appreciation. In other words, if the price of gold does not keep rising, why own it when the Fed has created a perpetual motion machine in the form of US stocks? This is why I keep coming back to the same point that I have been making - it is going to take something, some event, some occurrence, something, to break CONFIDENCE in the US Dollar or in the US monetary and political leaders for gold to respond upward in price. Most of you who read this site, and I myself believe that the US is on an unsustainable path which is going to end badly. I believe over the long term, we will be proven correct but here is the current issue - as bad as the US is, does anyone believe that the UK, Japan, the Euro Zone, etc are really and truthfully any better? They have the same problem as we do, out of control spending at their national levels and gargantuan debt levels. There remains malinvestment in China which has its own set of problems while Brazil also has its issues to deal with. The current monetary system, with the US Dollar as the Reserve currency is fatally wounded but what is there realistically to replace it at this point? Answer - nothing! At some point there will be but for now, the game continues. This is what allows the Federal Reserve to enlarge its balance sheet to obscene levels ( it is currently sitting near a mind-blowing $3.7 TRILLION and rising) without the Dollar imploding into Hades. It should come as no news to those who are informed that thanks to the Federal Reserve's shortsightedly stupid programs known as Quantitative Easing, the Fed is now the largest owner of US Treasury debt in the world. This is a Ponzi scheme, the likes of which the world has never seen and will never see again for it is one of near Cosmic Proportions. Which brings me to another point - no nation out there which is holding US Treasury obligations as part of their reserves wants to see the Dollar crash and the "value" of those reserves go up in smoke. Thus, no one rocks the boat other than some bilateral trade agreements here and there and noise about a new reserve currency. For all that noise and all those grumblings, the US Dollar is still enthroned as the king of the current monetary system. This is why I go back to what I have been saying when it comes to gold - only if confidence is lost in the US Dollar will we see gold sentiment shift here in the West. I would watch the Dollar more closely than anything right now as a result. Interestingly enough or perversely enough if your mind thinks like mine, a rising interest rate environment would theoretically make US Treasury debt more attractive in the sense of better yields but this same rise in interest rates tends to crush any incipient forms of life in the US economy further aggravating its already out of control national debt ( less economic activity means lower tax revenues). If that were not bad enough in itself, it also makes servicing any interest payments of newly issued debt even more challenging for a country whose DEBT to GDP ratio is already over 100%. And yet, this rising interest rate environment is what had pulled the Dollar higher until recently. In the long term this is why I believe gold will ultimately benefit but between the long term and the shorter term in which trading/investment decisions are made, there remains some formidable headwinds to the upward progress in the price of gold. |
| They’re Coming For Your Savings Posted: 12 Oct 2013 11:05 AM PDT Another of history's many lessons is that governments under pressure become thieves. And today's governments are under a lot of pressure. Before we look at the coming wave of asset confiscations, let's stroll through some notable episodes of the past, just to make the point that government theft of private wealth is actually pretty common. • Ancient Rome had a rule called “proscription” that allowed the government to execute and then confiscate the assets of anyone found guilty of "crimes against the state." After the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, three men, Mark Anthony, Lepidus, and Ceasar's adopted son Octavian, formed a group they called the Second Triumvirate and divided the Empire between them. But two rivals, Brutus and Cassius, formed an army with which they planned to take the Empire for themselves. The Triumvirate needed money to fund an army of its own, and decided the best way to raise it was by kicking the proscription process into overdrive. They drew up a list of several hundred wealthy Romans, accused them of crimes, executed them and took their property. • In the mid-1530s, English king Henry VIII was short of funds, so he seized the country's monasteries and claimed their property and income for the Crown. As historian G. J. Meyer tells it in The Tudors: The Complete Story of England’s Most Notorious Dynasty: "By April fat trunks were being hauled into London filled with gold and silver plate, jewelry, and other treasures accumulated by the monasteries over the centuries. With them came money from the sale of church bells, lead stripped from the roofs of monastic buildings, and livestock, furnishings, and equipment. Some of the confiscated land was sold – enough to bring in £30,000 – and what was not sold generated tens of thousands of pounds in annual rents. The longer the confiscations continued, the smaller the possibility of their ever being reversed or even stopped from going further. The money was spent almost as quickly as it flooded in – so quickly that any attempt to restore the monasteries to what they had been before the suppression would have meant financial ruin for the Crown. Nor would those involved in the work of the suppression … ever be willing to part with what they were skimming off for themselves." • Soon after the French Revolution in 1789, the new government confiscated lands and other property of the Catholic Church and used the proceeds to back a new form of paper currency called assignats. The resulting money printing binge quickly spun out of control, resulting in hyperinflation and the rise of Napoleon. • During the US Civil War, Congress passed laws confiscating property used for “insurrectionary purposes” and of citizens generally engaged in rebellion. • In 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, president Franklin Roosevelt banned the private ownership of gold and ordered US citizens to turn in their gold. Those who did were paid in paper dollars at the then current rate of $20.67 per ounce. Once the confiscation was complete, the dollar was devalued to $35 per ounce of gold, effectively stealing 70 percent of the wealth of those who surrendered their gold. • In 1942, after entering World War II, the US moved all Japanese citizens within its borders to concentration camps and sold off their property. The detainees were released in 1945, given $25 and a train ticket home – without being reimbursed for their losses. Since the 2008 financial crisis, various kinds of capital controls and asset confiscations have become common. A few examples: • Iceland required that firms seeking to invest abroad get permission from the central bank and that individual Icelanders get government authorization to buy foreign currency or travel overseas. • Greece pulled funds directly from bank and brokerage accounts of suspected tax evaders, without prior notice or judicial due process. • Argentina banned the purchase of U.S. dollars for personal savings and required banks to make loans in pesos at rates considerably below the true inflation rate. • The US Fed proposed that money market funds be allowed to limit withdrawals of customer cash in times of market stress. • Cyprus, a eurozone country, responded to a series of bank failures by confiscating 47.5% of domestic bank accounts over €100,000. • Poland in September responded to a budgetary shortfall by confiscating the assets of the country’s private pension funds without offering any compensation. • Spain was recently revealed to have looted its largest public pension fund, the Social Security Reserve Fund, by ordering it to use its cash to buy Spanish government bonds. Currently 90% percent of the €65 billion fund had been invested in Spanish sovereign paper, leaving the fund's beneficiaries dependent on future governments' ability to manage their finances. Now for the big one, reported by Automatic Earth on Saturday October 12:
Some thoughts That just leaves door number three, demonize the successful and take what they've accumulated. Recall from the historical list that opened this post that governments like to pick on members of society that 1) have lots of money and 2) have lot of enemies or can easily be framed for crimes. This time around it will be "the rich" who are living well at the expense of the rest of us. The trick will be do define "rich" down far enough to make possible the confiscation of middle-class IRAs and 401(K)s, since that's where the real money is. Interesting that the build-up to asset confiscation is coinciding with a coordinated take-down of gold and silver, the two assets that will be hardest to steal when the time comes. |
| Has the public’s feeling about gold finally turned? Posted: 12 Oct 2013 10:33 AM PDT
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| Gold Market – The Week In Review Posted: 12 Oct 2013 08:08 AM PDT In his weekly market review, Frank Holmes of the USFund.com discusses the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat in the gold market. We highlight only the elements related to the physical gold market and the gold price (leaving out the pieces about the miners). It was not a terrible for the yellow metal. Gold closed the week at $1,272.18 which is $38.62 per ounce lower (2.95%). The NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index went 4.5% lower. StrengthsRecently there have been predictions that imports of gold into China would slow down and that current levels cannot be sustained. In August, import figures declined minimally for the prior month but still remained above the sizeable volume of 100 tons. China remains on track to comfortably exceed 1,000 tons of known net gold imports for the year. By "known" we mean those being imported legally through Hong Kong, the only entry point where volumes are reported. There are plenty of other major ports of entry for trade into China; not least Shanghai, where the Shanghai Gold Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange have become the world's most active physical gold exchange markets, and the second most active gold futures market, in just a few short years. The amount of physical gold traded in Shanghai gets close to total global mine production at times. This year central banks will add as much as 350 tons of gold, valued at about $15 billion, estimates the London-based World Gold Council. Similarly, European central banks sold 5.1 metric tons of gold this year, the lowest on record. But what about the U.S. Treasury? In a recent document, the Treasury admitted to considering a range of options with respect to how it would operate if the U.S. had exhausted its borrowing authority. In conclusion, the Treasury considered asset sales while it outright rejected the option of selling the nation's gold to meet payment obligations. The Treasury reasons that selling gold would undercut confidence in the U.S. both here and abroad, and would be destabilizing to the world financial system as well. In other words, according to the official position of the U.S. Treasury, the promises and commitments of the government, and its "full faith and credit," are actually worth less than gold. WeaknessesThe National Bank Financial team of mining analysts expects that momentum for producers could remain subdued through year-end, as depressed gold prices could trigger another round of impairment charges in the third quarter. This is in addition to possible reserve write-downs at year end, and to significant revisions to 2014 mine plans as companies revisit cut-off grade strategies to navigate the current, low gold price environment. They go on to add that now that newest, capital-intensive projects have been shelved, the quality over quantity focus has extended decidedly to operating costs as companies adopt strategies to provide more breathing room and/or to restore more sustainable margins. This leads to the conclusion that there is potential for another round of corporate G&A cuts coming before year-end. OpportunitiesThe nomination of Janet Yellen as the new Federal Reserve Chairmanship could mean more dovish Fed policy. Jim O'Neill, the retiring Goldman Sachs Asset Management Chairman who first coined the "BRIC" countries term, believes Yellen represents the dovish wing of Bernanke. In fact, he says she "out-doves" Bernanke. The implications for emerging markets are imminent according to O'Neill, given the more accommodative nature of the Fed under Yellen's leadership. A more accommodative Fed policy will likely be accompanied by a weakening dollar, which could bode well for gold prices going forward. With this in mind, consider Goldman Sachs' second-quarter regulatory disclosure, which showed the addition of a significant portion of gold to its holdings. However, the Bank's commodities research analysts issued a recommendation to sell gold into 2014. Upon such a statement by the analysts, Seeking Alpha's Real Estate contributor Dave Kranzler asked, "Which side of Goldman Sachs is right about gold? As an investor, do you follow the guy selling research or do you follow the money?" The Moscow Exchange will introduce trading of gold and silver as early as this month, as part of plans to make metals more accessible to smaller banks by reducing transaction costs, Bloomberg reports. The exchange will set minimum trades starting at 10 grams of gold and 100 grams of silver, while platinum and palladium contracts will start trading in the first half of 2014. The Moscow Exchange is following the path of the Shanghai Gold Exchange by listing precious metals. It is doing so in order to add liquidity, broaden the range of instruments available for hedging, but also to increase the availability of precious metals to non-traditional market participants. We believe this market should be able to build on the experience of the Shanghai Exchange, and will offer a greater degree of actual physical trading volume, helping to increase the transparency of gold demand and supply factors. ThreatsThe belief that the U.S. will extend the recovery soon after lawmakers resolve the stalemate, led Goldman Sachs' head of commodity strategy to recommend selling gold for the next twelve months, with a target price of $1,150 per ounce. However, as GoldCore director Mark O'Byrne reminds us, Goldman's reputation in forecasting gold prices is less than stellar. The bank, among much fanfare and media attention, recommended to its clients to sell gold into 2008 and named the recommendation as one of its top ten tips. Gold rose more than 12 percent from the time of that recommendation and into December 2008. The closing price for 2008 was nearly 20 percent higher than Goldman's price forecast, costing its clients and the public a lot of money. Perhaps that is why Kevin Norrish, head of commodity research at Barclays, issued a note of caution against selling gold despite any weakness. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) appears to be moving ahead with its plan to get current gold holders to place the metal on deposit for the bank, developed to reduce import demand. Under the program, gold owners would receive interest and have the security of a guarantee backed by the central bank, while the RBI would lend the gold to the jewelry manufacturing sector, thereby reducing demand for imports, says Credit Suisse. What is worrisome here is that at least one western bank is in talks with one of the leading jewelry federations about the creation of a similar deposit scheme. This type of mechanism could result in the creation of an unregulated paper gold trading market, subject to manipulation. We recently learned that 95 percent of transactions in the futures and options markets are terminated before they reach the date on which gold has to be delivered. This means that only one out of every 20 transactions involves physical delivery, and 19 are simply paper gold trades. Our trading desk has observed some odd market activity that we have deemed the "gold flashing" trade, and appears biased toward the paper trading side. For instance, this past Wednesday morning, our traders witnessed a high frequency trader offer 47,000 contracts for sale for only one second, before cancelling 45,000 of them. Naturally, markets react negatively to sudden large offers, sending the markets into a downward spiral. |
| Gold market report: Trading dominated by delay in resolution of the US budget and debt ceiling Posted: 12 Oct 2013 08:04 AM PDT Finance and Eco. |
| Currency Positioning And Technical Outlook: Dollar Outlook Still Constructive Posted: 12 Oct 2013 07:41 AM PDT As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the US dollar strengthened for most of last week, despite the nomination of Janet Yellen as Fed chair and the continued partial closure of the US Federal government. While acknowledging the disruptions of the markets by the unprecedented expansion of central bank balance sheets and the new regulatory environment, the markets still appear to be functioning as a large discount mechanism. The abyss (of a US default) was approached and many institutional investors needed to avoid exposure to short-term US bills. However, we first detected a change in tone on Tuesday, and others did on Wednesday. The collective sigh of relief lifted the S&P 500 by nearly 2.2% on Thursday, the second largest advancing session of the year. The Dollar-Index rose to 2-week highs. The dollar rose to 2-3 week highs against the sterling and yen and the highest in a month against the |
| SD Weekly Metals & Markets: 2 Million Oz of Paper Gold Break COMEX Gold Market! Posted: 12 Oct 2013 06:43 AM PDT
Click here for the SD Weekly Metals & Markets Wrap With The Doc & Eric Dubin! This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The Treasury Admits Gold is King Posted: 12 Oct 2013 06:00 AM PDT Miles Franklin |
| Gold Premiums in India Jump on Festive Demand, Supply Crunch Posted: 12 Oct 2013 05:20 AM PDT "It should be obvious to all that the system is rotten to its very core." ¤ Yesterday In Gold & SilverOnce again the gold price did nothing in Far East and early London trading. But as you are already keenly aware, that all changed about 20 minutes after the Comex open, as the not-for-profit sellers took out the bid stack, and the gold price cratered more than fifteen bucks in less than two minutes, tripping trading circuit breakers. After that, the price traded more or less flat in a tight range until minutes after 2:30 p.m. EDT, when it rallied slowly but steadily into the close. The CME recorded the high in the December contracts as $1,294.80, and the low was recorded as $1,259.60. Gold closed at $1,273.20 spot, which was down $13.20 from its Thursday close. Gold volume, net of October and November, was pretty chunky at 196,000 contracts. It was more or less the same chart pattern in silver. The smack down took a bit over 2% off the silver price in less than two minutes. After that it gained back a percent in short order, and then traded almost ruler flat until 2:30 p.m. The highs and lows recorded by the CME in the December delivery month were $21.86 and $20.95, which was an intraday move of over 4%. Silver closed at $21.34 spot, down 34 cents on the day. Volume, net of October and November, was pretty high at 53,000 contracts. It was the same story in platinum, but the HFT boys gave palladium a pass. Here are the charts. The dollar index closed at 80.43 late Thursday afternoon in New York. It rallied up to 80.51 in early Far East trading before rolling over and hitting its 80.26 low at precisely 11 a.m. BST in London. From that low, it rallied in fits and starts to its 80.52 high at half-past lunchtime in New York. After that it sagged a bit into the close, finishing the Friday session at 80.38, which was down 5 whole basis points. Needless to say, the violent price move in gold, silver and platinum at 8:40 a.m. EDT had nothing to do with the currencies. With the odd exception, this is almost always the case. The gold stocks gapped down, and stayed down. The HUI closed down 2.40%. It was somewhat different for the silver stocks, as they opened only down a bit, before heading lower, with the low tick coming at 10:30 a.m. in New York. After that, they shows some strength, gaining back almost a percent of their losses. Nick Laird's Intraday Silver Sentiment Index closed down only 1.34%. The CME's Daily Delivery Report showed that 28 gold and 36 silver contracts were posted for delivery on Tuesday within the Comex-approved depositories. In gold, Jefferies and Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia were the short/issuers, with JPMorgan Chase stopping 22 of those contracts. In silver, the biggest short/issuer was Jefferies with 34 contracts, and JPMorgan Chase stood for delivery on 31 of them. The link to yesterday's Issuers and Stoppers Report is here. There was a fairly decent withdrawal from GLD yesterday, as an authorized participant shipped out 173,749 troy ounces. And as 9:10 p.m. EDT yesterday evening, there were no reported changes in SLV. But when I checked the Web site again at 5:13 a.m. EDT this morning, I see that there's been an update. An authorized participant withdrew 1,927,268 troy ounces of silver. That amount is within 150 troy ounces of the size of the withdrawal reported on October 7. It seems like too much of a coincidence, but maybe I'm imagining things. I was surprised to see another small sales report from the U.S. Mint yesterday. They sold 4,000 ounces of gold eagles. There wasn't a lot of activity in gold over at the Comex-approved depositories on Thursday. They reported receiving 4,201 troy ounces, and shipped out 13,839 troy ounces. The link to that activity is here. For a change, it wasn't overly busy in silver, either. Nothing was reported received, and a smallish 81,576 troy ounces were shipped out the door. The link to that action is here. With no Commitment of Traders Report to discuss, it's going to be a short report for a Saturday. In my conversations with Ted yesterday, he said that even though though there is no COT Report, it's a dead certainty that the Commercials were buying every long that the technical funds and small traders were puking up, and taking the long side of any short trade that these same two groups of traders were putting on. Along with no COT Report, I don't have much in the way of stories for you today, either. ¤ Critical Reads Kick Them All Out! Distaste for D.C. Politicians at All-Time High The public's displeasure with Washington politics reached a new high Friday with separate polls calling for all members of Congress to be fired and for a strong third party to challenge the 150-year-old dominance of Republicans and Democrats.  U.S. Debt Standoff Provokes Ire Among China's OfficialsWashington's debt brinkmanship has provoked deep anger in Beijing and bolstered its resolve to lessen the world's reliance on the dollar, according to current and former Chinese government advisers. Political leaders in the U.S. have intensified talks about their fiscal standoff, fuelling hopes that Washington will raise its debt ceiling before next week's deadline. However, the prospect of last-minute negotiations will test already-frayed nerves in China, the biggest foreign holder of US government debt. "You can't hijack the global economy through political struggles. It's not responsible," says Yu Yongding, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a leading government think-tank. This news item appeared in the Financial Times of London yesterday, and it's posted in the clear in this GATA release.  U.S. debt default? Asian policymakers ready $6 trillion forex safety netAs the U.S. struggles to avert a debt default, Asia's policymakers have trillions of reasons to believe they may be shielded from the latest financial storm brewing across the Pacific. From South Korea to Pakistan, Asia's central banks are estimated to have amassed some $5.7 trillion in foreign exchange reserves excluding safe-haven Japan, much of it during the last five years of rapid money printing by the U.S. Federal Reserve. Data this week showed those reserves continued to pile up, with countries having added an estimated $86.7 billion in the July-September quarter, according to data for 12 Asian countries whose reserves are tracked by Reuters. This Reuters piece, co-filed from Mumbai and Seoul, was picked up by the finance.yahoo.com Internet site early yesterday morning...and I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for his first offering in today's column.  Jack Welch: President Has Too Much Power "The presidency has become too powerful relative to Congress," Welch told CNBC. This short article was posted on the moneynews.com Internet site very early on Friday afternoon...and it's the second offering in a row from Elliot Simon.  JPMorgan's Dimon Posts First Loss on $7.2 Billion Legal CostJPMorgan Chase & Co. reported its first loss under Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon after taking a $7.2 billion charge to cover the cost of mounting litigation and regulatory probes. The third-quarter loss was $380 million, or 17 cents a share, compared with a profit of $5.71 billion, or $1.40, a year earlier, the New York-based company said today in a statement. The last time the bank failed to report a profit was the second quarter of 2004, when William Harrison was CEO. “Over the last few weeks the environment has become highly charged and very volatile,” Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake said on a conference call. “Things have been very fluid and the situation escalated to the point where we are facing very large premiums and penalties, the level of which have gone far beyond what we reasonably expected.” Dimon, 57, who led JPMorgan to record earnings in each of the past three years, is grappling with regulatory investigations and tightening internal controls following a trading loss last year of more than $6.2 billion. The legal costs contributed to a 54 percent surge in non-interest expenses to $23.6 billion, as revenue dropped 8 percent from a year earlier. This Bloomberg story was posted on their website yesterday morning Denver time...and I thank Ulrike Marx for finding it for us. Commentary: Ned Goodman and the 'Botox Economy'Canadian billionaire Ned Goodman, is president and CEO of Dundee Corp. He spoke about the perils of quantitative easing at the Toronto Resource Investment Conference on September 12. He made the following remarks, as recorded by The Northern Miner. I have a lot to say and I will give you my biases, no problem there. I believe I’m a sensible man. And as a sensible man I’ve been told by my mother, actually, that even though you don’t know the hour or the place of your demise — you do know, that without a doubt, it’s going to come. So as a sensible investor, I’m ready for the day that the U.S. Empire crumbles, and that’s a hint as to where I’m going . . . I know that nothing lasts forever and the environment that we’re in could change. But we do not know anything other than nothing lasts forever, and right now it looks like whatever is happening is speeding up, not slowing down. I expect and hope to be here to watch it happen. Wow...and I thought Eric Sprott and John Embry were blunt and to the point! This is only Part 1 of his speech, and you have to subscribe to The Northern Miner to read the other half. But the part that's free is a must read...and I thank Ken Hurt for pointing it out to us. I posted something on this speech many weeks back, but this is the full version from the man himself.  Doug Noland: The Perils of Mopping Up Injecting liquidity into already overheated speculative markets is tantamount to QE as rocket fuel. It both inflates securities prices directly while also heavily incentivizes risk-taking and speculative leveraging. Couple rocket fuel QE with “transparency,” “forward guidance,” and a promise to backstop markets in the event of a “tightening of financial conditions,” and you’ve progressed all the way to reckless monetary policy. Is the Fed really promising the markets that they will remain ultra-accommodative for at least the next couple years in the face of conspicuously speculative securities markets and increasingly overheated asset markets generally?  Report: Obama brings chilling effect on journalismThe U.S. government's aggressive prosecution of leaks and efforts to control information are having a chilling effect on journalists and government whistle-blowers, according to a report released Thursday on U.S. press freedoms under the Obama administration. The Committee to Protect Journalists conducted its first examination of U.S. press freedoms amid the Obama administration's unprecedented number of prosecutions of government sources and seizures of journalists' records. Usually the group focuses on advocating for press freedoms abroad. Leonard Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post, wrote the 30-page analysis entitled "The Obama Administration and the Press." The report notes President Barack Obama came into office pledging an open, transparent government after criticizing the Bush administration's secrecy, "but he has fallen short of his promise." "Fallen short?" That's being kind. This commentary was posted on the Associated Press website late on Thursday afternoon, and I consider it worth reading. It's another offering from Elliot Simon.  Born Libertarian: Doug Casey on Ron Paul and the Price of FreedomThe country may be going in the wrong direction, but born Libertarians Dr. Ron Paul and Casey Research founder Doug Casey are enjoying the power of sowing dissension by spreading ideas. In this interview at the Casey Research 2013 Summit in the wake of Ron Paul's keynote address, Casey tells The Gold Report why he believes the U.S. is looking more like ancient Rome in its final days and how he is planning for the coming crisis—in another country watching on his big-screen television. This interview with Doug was posted on theaureport.com Internet site yesterday...and it's definitely worth reading.  'March against Monsanto': Global movement plans second protestJoining six continents, 52 countries and over 500 cities, ‘March against Monsanto’ is planning its second mass rally Saturday against the biotech giant and genetically modified food. A number of Agent Orange victims are expected to join the protest. “Saturday is a big day of action against Monsanto. We took our lights out to a local cornfield. Monsanto is bad for our food and bad for our planet,” the March against Monsanto’s movement posted on its Facebook page. One doesn't have to do too much research to find the dark underbelly of this corporation. This story was posted on the Russia Today website early yesterday morning Moscow time...and it's courtesy of South African reader Bob Visser.  Pepe Escobar: Fear and loathing in House of SaudEvery sentient being with a functional brain perceives the possibility of ending the 34-year Wall of Mistrust between Washington and Tehran as a win-win situation. Ay, there's the rub. Everybody knows why the Israeli right will fight an US-Iran agreement like the plague - as Iran as an "existential threat" is the ideal pretext to change the debate from the real issue; the occupation/apartheid regime imposed on Palestine. A part of this essay was a bit of a slog, even for me, but it's only a couple of paragraphs, and once you're through that, the picture becomes clear. I consider this a must read, especially for |
| U.S. Debt Standoff Provokes Ire Among China's Officials Posted: 12 Oct 2013 05:20 AM PDT U.S. Debt Standoff Provokes Ire Among China's Officials Washington's debt brinkmanship has provoked deep anger in Beijing and bolstered its resolve to lessen the world's reliance on the dollar, according to current and former Chinese government advisers. Political leaders in the U.S. have intensified talks about their fiscal standoff, fuelling hopes that Washington will raise its debt ceiling before next week's deadline. However, the prospect of last-minute negotiations will test already-frayed nerves in China, the biggest foreign holder of US government debt. "You can't hijack the global economy through political struggles. It's not responsible," says Yu Yongding, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a leading government think-tank. This news item appeared in the Financial Times of London yesterday, and it's posted in the clear in this GATA release. |
| Born Libertarian: Doug Casey on Ron Paul and the Price of Freedom Posted: 12 Oct 2013 05:20 AM PDT Born Libertarian: Doug Casey on Ron Paul and the Price of Freedom The country may be going in the wrong direction, but born Libertarians Dr. Ron Paul and Casey Research founder Doug Casey are enjoying the power of sowing dissension by spreading ideas. In this interview at the Casey Research 2013 Summit in the wake of Ron Paul's keynote address, Casey tells The Gold Report why he believes the U.S. is looking more like ancient Rome in its final days and how he is planning for the coming crisis—in another country watching on his big-screen television. This interview with Doug was posted on theaureport.com Internet site yesterday...and it's definitely worth reading. |
| Posted: 12 Oct 2013 05:20 AM PDT  Four King World News Blogs 1. Tim Gardiner: "Gold Plunge, Who's Responsible, Who's Buying and What's Next?". 2. Andrew Maguire: "The "Vampire Squid" is Busy in the Gold Market". 3. Egon von Greyerz: "Gold and Silver Smash...and a Nation on the Edge of a Precipice". 4. Art Cashin: " Danger For the U.S...and Strange Happenings in Gold". [Please direct any questions or comments about what is said in these interviews by either Eric King or his guests, to them, and not to me. Thank you. - Ed] |
| "Stop Logic" Gold Slam Was So Furious It Shut Down CME Trading Again Posted: 12 Oct 2013 05:20 AM PDT  "Stop Logic" Gold Slam Was So Furious It Shut Down CME Trading Again As part of the already noted massive gold slam down just before 9 am Eastern, when "someone" sold an epic 2 million ounces of gold in one trade, the CME just went dark for 10 seconds, blaming it on an appropriately named "stop logic" event. What is Stop Logic? Basically, it is a the mother of all stop hunts, which takes out the entire bid stack and continues until such time as there is absolutely no liquidity left in the entire market! This must read commentary contains some excellent charts, and was posted on the Zero Hedge Internet site yesterday morning shortly after the 'event' occurred. But nowhere in this article is the question asked as to who the perpetrators were, or what their motives might have been. It was, unquestionably, JPMorgan et al...and since no one asked the question, I'm happy to provide the answer anyway. I thank Ulrike Marx for being the first reader through the door with this story yesterday morning. There's a slightly different take on this issue in a story posted on the cnbc.com Internet site late yesterday morning. It's headlined "Gold's plunge blamed on one big sell order". I found this news item in a GATA release that Chris Powell filed from Auckland on Saturday local time...and it, too, is worth reading. |
| Busting the Myths That Could Wipe Out Your Investments: Louis James, Marin Katusa and Rick Rule Posted: 12 Oct 2013 05:20 AM PDT Busting the Myths That Could Wipe Out Your Investments: Louis James, Marin Katusa and Rick Rule The Gold Report sat down with three of the mythbusters-in-chief at the recent Casey Research 2013 Summit. Louis James, Marin Katusa and Rick Rule debunk myths that range from quantitative easing to crowd funding, and touch on an array of resource sectors, including gold, platinum, palladium and oil. Get insights about the work investors need to do to succeed and learn why age matters. This rather longish interview was posted on theaureport.com Internet site yesterday...and it's definitely worth your time. |
| India's top bullion bank to work with jewellers to tease out gold hoards Posted: 12 Oct 2013 05:20 AM PDT  India's top bullion bank to work with jewellers to tease out gold hoards The biggest bullion-importing bank in India plans to team up with jewellers for the first time to offer a gold deposit scheme, hoping ease of access and attractive interest rates will tempt people to part with their jewellery and relieve tight supplies. Bank of Nova Scotia is in talks with trade group the Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to finalise details, the head of the bank's Indian bullion operations said. Gold imports to the world's biggest bullion buyer have all but dried up after steps taken by the government and RBI to cut them to help rein in a record current account deficit, leaving domestic jewellers scrambling for supplies. With demand still strong and expected to rise in the next few months as the festival season starts, the gold industry has turned its sights on the 20,000 tonnes of gold thought to be squirrelled away in homes. These guys never quit...and it's no surprise to me to see one of the '4 or less' Comex short holders in both gold and silver futures contracts to be front and center here...Canada's beloved Bank of Nova Scotia. I've posted a story on this already, but that was a week or so ago, and things have advanced since then, so this story has a little more information and depth to it. It's another contribution to today's column from Ulrike Marx. |
| Gold premiums in India jump on festive demand, supply crunch Posted: 12 Oct 2013 05:20 AM PDT Gold premiums in India jump on festive demand, supply crunch Gold premiums in India, the world's biggest buyer of the metal, jumped sharply this week as the festive season began, driving up demand, and supply remained tight on a lack of imports. |
| Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Fear and Loathing on the Comex Posted: 12 Oct 2013 04:01 AM PDT Le Cafe Américain |
| Gold and Silver – Western Bankers [Forced] Bowing To China Posted: 12 Oct 2013 03:27 AM PDT On Friday morning, gold trading was shut down for 10 seconds in a "stop logic" event, as the CME explains. In essence, when there is an overload of orders that cleans out stops, the market halts, [10 seconds???] "designed to prevent exaggerated price movements." In a sorry-ass explanation that defies common sense, except to protect the criminal exchange behavior, we give this CME propaganda no further consideration. Here it is in picture format on a 1 minute chart.
Who would do such a thing? "Someone" sold 2 million oz of paper contracts at one time. There does not seem to be much interest by the exchange, and none by I-cannot-find-any-wrongdoing-Department- of-Justice-head-Eric Himpton Holder as to who was [ir]responsible for what would be considered an act of terrorism were it against the FX "dollar" or Fed-driven stock market. Smart money does what it can to hide its accumulation, when in a buying campaign, or distribution when engaged in a selling campaign. Smart money would not do such a thing. A prudent investor employs capital preservation tools and would not do such a thing. The average trader is too poor to own 2,000,000 oz of gold so could not do such a thing. No liquidation margin call, here. What about dumb money? Who represents dumb money? Why central bankers, of course, and they are on a suicide mission to destroy the financial economy in order to save their fiat [out of]control. Guess which country is the largest holder of toxic and worthless US Treasury Bonds? China. China is still pissed at the U S government for selling out China's gold, [on loan, but sold out from under them, anyway], back in the 1990s. As the holder of over a $trillion in US T-Bonds that are proving worthless, China is a Tiger getting rid of that paper. This commentary is a partial answer to the manipulated raids in the gold market since last April. Those raids may be hurting the Precious Metals, [PM] game players, weakening their confidence and "disproving" gold's worth against a fiat currency, but they serve a greater purpose, as in Federal Reserve payback time to China. Few will ever know the true picture, but here is a plausible scenario. It is a generally held view that central bankers have emptied their vaults of all their gold, and not just their own holdings. Through hypothecation, rehypothecation, and who knows what more, central bankers have also sold every other country's gold on loan. German gold: Kaput! Allocated gold from wealthy private holders: Gone! [No! You cannot see your gold that we hold for you in our bank.] [We stole it.] Where did it all go? Shipped East. What about all that sovereign and private allocated gold that has numbers on each bar? So sorry. It was melted down, [accidents do happen], and remolded into bars and shipped to China. Why do you keep asking these unnecessary questions? So why the manipulated gold raids? It is a way to get the price of gold lower as a favor to the Chinese who are doing almost all of the buying to compensate for the worth less and less Treasury Bonds they are holding. If the central bank Fed does this for them, the Chinese will not dump all their holdings and cause the Western banking system to collapse. Instead, the greedy-but-dumb central bank Fed will cause the collapse of the US Federal Reserve Note, [also incorrectly called the "dollar," along with the rest of the US economy, but at a relatively slower pace. Forget about all these stories of long lines to buy gold, record sales in coin purchases, a pittance in comparison to the thousands of tonnes Chine, Russia, and a few others are buying at lower and lower prices, courtesy of the deceiving Fed, caught with its goldenless pants down. The game is up, and the Fed has chosen a slower death dance by increased money printing and QE-ScrewYou4Ever antics to buy time. What does this mean for you? Got gold? Got silver? If not, you got nothing. All paper-dominated "things," for we cannot call them assets, except in the minds of the holders, have little to no intrinsic "value." Despite the detractors who always to say gold and silver are not forms of wealth, both PMs are immune from government fiat dictates. Gold and silver are the equivalent of a wooden stake to drive into the central banker's fiat heart, if they had one. It is gold and silver that is the nemesis of all central bankers, for PMs would break the fiat paper back of their control. Why do you think the Federal Reserve was created 100 years ago by the New World Order? To get rid of the gold/silver specie backing of United States Notes and replaced with no-backing-whatsoever Federal Reserve Notes, as the means for stealing the entire wealth of the United States, forcing the country into bankruptcy in 1933, and turning the US into the Third World-rate country it has become. Each and every week we advocate buying physical gold and silver, at any price. Just get it and hold it personally. Buying physical PMs is not an investment; they are necessary for your survival. Their ownership is the only way to avoid total bank/government control. The problem with land it that is not portable, and it can be more easily confiscated than gold and silver. They are the best means of preserving that which is yours. They are an insulation from bank bail-ins, [Why anyone still keeps money in any bank is a mystery.] The gold and silver that you own and hold will escape the likely conversion of pension accounts, 401ks, etc, to be "taken," as in theft, by the government, for your own good, of course, and converted into [worthless] government bonds. You have a choice: Do you want to have your life run by a private banking cartel, [which the foreign-owned Federal Reserve is], and in turn, federal government sponsored, [which is controlled by the foreign-owned Federal Reserve], or… Do you want to control your own life and financial destiny? The choice is yours. Your self-liberation is simply choosing to buy and hold as much gold and silver as you can. You have no third-party counter-risk. There is no debasement – an ounce of gold or silver is the same as it was for the past 4,782 years. [Why always 5,000 years?] You are an eye-witness to the Western banking cartel's self-destruction. As always, we provide a chart or two that shows there is no panic that the decline in PMs has run it course and will run higher. One more thing: just as you see these waterfall drops in price, there will come a day when that effect will reverse, and those who waited "for the right time or a better price," will be left holding their worth-considerably-less fiats. There is no evidence of a turnaround on the daily. Gold closed at a support level, labeled as "important," but it is what it is, and we get to deal with its breach or holding. For now, it is holding tenuously. That price is holding well above the lower reverse trend line is a plus. Support is an area, and not just a single price, so as long as gold holds support +/- either way is all that matters. Volume increased on a wide range bar and lower close. Every part of that supports sellers in control. Results will confirm or reject that, next week, and by waiting for the market to make that determination, there is no reason to buy futures.
Silver held above its last swing low where gold did not. The gap support remains intact, but not in gold. There is also a potential higher swing low. If it holds, and silver can rally above 22.50, the daily trend will turn back up from a key price level. Keep buying as much physical as you can, and hold it personally. Plus, do not tell anyone.
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