Gold World News Flash

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• Gold, economics, and ethics – Doug Casey Interview
• Gold De-Hedging Continues, But at Reducing Rate
• Economic Collapse -- How Did Enron Make Their Money, Hide Their Finances, Fail and Get Caught? Financial Reporting (2004)
• Daily Nugget – Gold falls ahead of FOMC
• Why Are Banking Executives In London Killing Themselves?
• What The Hell Is Going On With The German Gold & Fort Knox
• China’s Hong Kong Gold Trade Hits New Record, But Where’s it All Coming From?
• 3 Friendly Reminders Why I Buy Silver
• COMING SHOCK: ‘GOLD CANARY IN THE COAL MINE’
• Rule on Germany's absent gold, and Stoeferle on the contest between inflation and deflation
• Marc Faber Warns "Insiders Are Selling Like Crazy... Short US Stocks, Buy Treasuries & Gold"
• End of The World 2014 -- Apocalypse, Man: Michael C. Ruppert
• World Markets React To Turkey's 425bps Rate Hike
• There You Have Gold’s Unique Feature: Price Down, Demand Up
• The Gold Price Closed Down $12.60 at $1,250.80
• The Gold Price Closed Down $12.60 at $1,250.80
• Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - FOMC Tomorrow
• Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - FOMC Tomorrow
• Helicopter Ben's True Legacy -- Elaine Diane Taylor
• Now Is The Time To Enter The Precious Metals Markets
• The Place to Be When the House of Debt Collapses
• This Is How Gold Will Trade As Inflation/Deflation War Rages
• Another Ten Tonnes of Gold Bullion Came Out of Comex Eligible Inventory at JPM Yesterday
• Another Ten Tonnes of Gold Bullion Came Out of Comex Eligible Inventory at JPM Yesterday
• Returns Of A Diversified Precious Metals Box
• Chinese World Domination Means $10,000 Gold Is Coming
• Something strange is up in the gold market, Cashin tells KWN
• "Demand Physical Gold" As One Day Paper Price Manipulation Will End "Catastrophically"
• Art Cashin: Is Something Strange Brewing In The Gold Market?
• Thoughts on Chinese gold reserves – Phillips
• Gold de-hedging continues, but at reducing rate – SocGen
• ‘The silver bottom is in: Time to hold, add and ride it out’ – Morgan
• Fresnillo hits silver target, gold down due to explosives ban
• Comex Gold Silver Product Calendars for 2014
• Comex Gold Silver Product Calendars for 2014
• Where Are Gold and Silver Heading into the Future ?
• Forex Trading Alert: U.S. Dollar Erases Losses
• The Frying Pan or the Fire: US Stocks vs. Emerging Markets
• Priced to Perfection: The $3 Precious Metal Play
• Gold Prices Steady with EM Currencies, "Could Lose" Chinese Support for 3 Weeks on New Year Holidays
• Prepare for Currency Chaos
• India Gold Smuggling Adds $1bn to CAD
• India Gold Smuggling Adds $1bn to CAD
• Gold Price BOOM!
• Supply Changes Coming to Gold?
• Supply Changes Coming to Gold?
• Mexico's Mining Tax Hits Silver
• Mexico's Mining Tax Hits Silver

Gold, economics, and ethics – Doug Casey Interview Posted: 28 Jan 2014 11:00 PM PST from HardAssetsAlliance:

Gold De-Hedging Continues, But at Reducing Rate Posted: 28 Jan 2014 10:30 PM PST by Lawrence Williams, MineWeb.com So far the increasing siren songs from the investment bankers that gold miners should return to hedging a proportion of their gold output to protect future margins seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Perhaps not surprising given that gold miners are by nature optimists and most are looking for an increasing gold price ahead – not further price erosion. Logically the time to hedge is at or near a metal's high point, not at or near its lows – and most gold miners believe, perhaps more in hope than with true evidence to support their views, that the gold price may have already bottomed, despite the almost unanimous gloomy outlook presented by mainstream gold analysts and projected by some of the biggest investment banking names in the industry. These same analysts were mostly completely wrong in their upside predictions only three years ago and the gold miners are banking on their being equally wrong on the downside with their latest prognostications. Read More @ MineWeb.com

Economic Collapse -- How Did Enron Make Their Money, Hide Their Finances, Fail and Get Caught? Financial Reporting (2004) Posted: 28 Jan 2014 10:15 PM PST Enron Corporation (former New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol ENE) was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, Enron employed approximately 20,000 staff and was one of the world's major electricity, natural gas,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Daily Nugget – Gold falls ahead of FOMC Posted: 28 Jan 2014 09:40 PM PST by Jan Skoyles, TheRealAsset.co.uk The gold price retreated from its two-month high yesterday, falling by 1% as US equities steadied and jittery speculators prepared themselves for the FOMC meeting which commences today. At the moment sentiment over the outcome of the FOMC meeting appears to be mixed, with some believing a further $10billion will be tapered from the monthly asset purchases, whilst others believe it will be too much too soon. Read More @ TheRealAsset.co.uk

Why Are Banking Executives In London Killing Themselves? Posted: 28 Jan 2014 09:32 PM PST by Michael Snyder, Economic Collapse Blog: Bankers committing suicide by jumping from the rooftops of their own banks is something that we think of when we think of the Great Depression.  Well, it just happened in London, England.  A vice president at JPMorgan’s European headquarters in London plunged to his death after jumping from the top of the 33rd floor.  He fell more than 500 feet, and it is being reported by an eyewitness that “there was quite a lot of blood“.  This comes on the heels of news that a former Deutsche Bank executive was found hanged in his home in London on Sunday.  So why is this happening?  Yes, the markets have gone down a little bit recently but they certainly have not crashed yet.  Could there be more to these deaths than meets the eye?  You never know.  And as I will discuss below, there have been a lot of other really strange things happening around the world lately as well. Read More @ EconomicCollapseBlog.com

What The Hell Is Going On With The German Gold & Fort Knox Posted: 28 Jan 2014 09:02 PM PST Today one of the wealthiest people in the financial world was lashing out about what is going on with the German gold hoard and also the gold which is supposed to be stored in Fort Knox. This is an incredibly important interview with Rick Rule, who is business partners with billionaire Eric Sprott, where he predicts that global markets will see tremendous panic and chaos in 2014, and where he also discusses the ongoing war in gold." This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

China’s Hong Kong Gold Trade Hits New Record, But Where’s it All Coming From? Posted: 28 Jan 2014 09:00 PM PST by Ed Steer, Casey Research: The gold price began to rise right from the open of Sunday evening trading in New York. Then shortly before 9 a.m. Hong Kong time, the price spiked up, only to run into a wall of selling which probably came from the usual bunch of not-for-profit sellers—led by JPMorgan et al. The gold price was back in the box within a couple of hours—and it proceeded to traded more or less sideways until 10 a.m. GMT in London. The sell off from there lasted until the London p.m. fix—and then proceeded to rally a few dollars until 1 p.m. EST in New York. Then the HFT boyz showed up—and by 2:35 p.m. EST, the low was in for the day. From there, the gold price rallied a few dollars into the 5:15 p.m. close of electronic trading. The CME Group recorded the high and low ticks as $1,279.80 and $1,251.90 in the February contract. Read More @ CaseyResearch.com

3 Friendly Reminders Why I Buy Silver Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:40 PM PST by Quoth the Raven, SilverBearCafe.com: After a week like last week, people tend to lend a little bit more credence to analysts who recommended buying gold in the midst of a bull market and a gold and silver down trend. I know this as a permanent bull for gold, silver, and other nonrenewable commodity metals – I’m rarely taken seriously as I state my case for buying gold while watching it down over 30% for the year. But, my view on the metal is a view with a long term focus. My last article on gold came in the face of the Goldman Sachs downgrade, where I advised that the downgrade should be seen as a buying opportunity for those looking to invest long-term. Read More @ SilverBearCafe.com

COMING SHOCK: ‘GOLD CANARY IN THE COAL MINE’ Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:05 PM PST by Andrew McKillop, 21st Century Wire: A tectonic shift may be taking place throughout the global markets, but you wouldn't know it from watching CNBC. When the tremors start, there will be a rush to safe haven, which begs that fundamental question: paper or metal? The Cycles Roll On – On an almost predictable, totally certain cyclic basis, financial market crises throw up one pat question, with only one pat answer. What does the survival of our current finance, monetary and economic system depend on? It depends on people preferring fiat money more than gold. From the moment in 1971 when US president Nixon "broke the link with gold", the dollar floated free and made the cyclic attempts to demonetize gold a permanent feature of the financial market system, and the collateral cause of its regular and cyclic crises. To be sure, the banksters operating this permanent rearguard action fighting reality are not going to tell us when the next "reset" will happen – but it will be soon. Read More @ 21stCenturyWire.com

Rule on Germany's absent gold, and Stoeferle on the contest between inflation and deflation Posted: 28 Jan 2014 07:02 PM PST 10p ET Tuesday, January 28, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Sprott Asset Management's Rick Rule today tells King World News that he's getting suspicious about the inability of the German Bundesbank to recover much of its gold from the Banque de France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/1/29_Wh... And European fund manager Ronald-Peter Stoeferle tells King World News how he is scoring the contest between inflationary and deflationary forces in the world: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/1/28_Th... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT Jim Sinclair plans seminar in Austin Gold advocate and mining entrepreneur Jim Sinclair will hold his next market seminar from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday, February 8, at the Austin, Texas, Airport Hilton. Advance registration is required. Details are posted at JSMineSet.com here: http://www.jsmineset.com/2014/01/02/austin-texas-qa-session-confirmed/ Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Monday-Friday, March 24-28, 2014 Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ * * * 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: http://gata.org/tshirts 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: http://www.gata.org To contribute to GATA, please visit: http://www.gata.org/node/16 ADVERTISEMENT A Personal Touch in Buying Precious Metals If you've not secured your allocation of precious metals and numismatic coins, 2014 may be the last year to get them at affordable and undervalued prices. With huge amounts of gold leaving the West for Asia, the future availability of precious metals is very much in doubt. All Pro Gold has competitive pricing on all bullion and numismatic products -- and offers prompt delivery too. Long-time GATA supporters Fred Goldstein and Tim Murphy are glad to answer any questions or concerns about acquiring the monetary metals. All Pro Gold has an extensive electronic library of articles from the world's top market analysts. Learn more at www.allprogold.com or write to Fred and Tim at info@allprogold.com or telephone them at 1-855-377-4653.

Marc Faber Warns "Insiders Are Selling Like Crazy... Short US Stocks, Buy Treasuries & Gold" Posted: 28 Jan 2014 03:43 PM PST Beginning by disavowing Mario Gabelli of any belief that rising stock prices help 'most' people ("Fed data suggests half the US population has seen a 40% drop in wealth since 2007"), Marc Faber discusses his increasingly imminent fears of the markets in this recent Barron's interview. Quoting Hussman as a caveat, "The problem with bubbles is that they force one to decide whether to look like an idiot before the peak, or an idiot after the peak. There's no calling the top," Faber warns there are a lot of questions about the quality of earnings (from buybacks to unfunded pensions) but "statistics show that company insiders are selling their shares like crazy." His first recommendation - short the Russell 2000, buy 10-year US Treasuries ("there will be no magnificent US recovery"), and miners and adds "own physical gold because the old system will implode. Those who own paper assets are doomed." Via Barron's, Faber: This morning, I said most people don't benefit from rising stock prices. This handsome young man on my left said I was incorrect. [Gabelli starts preening.] Yet, here are some statistics from Gallup's annual economy and personal-finance survey on the percentage of U.S. adults invested in the market. The survey, whose results were published in May, asks whether respondents personally or jointly with a spouse have any money invested in the market, either in individual stock accounts, stock mutual funds, self-directed 401(k) retirement accounts, or individual retirement accounts. Only 52% responded positively. Gabelli: They didn't ask about company-sponsored 401(k)s, so it is a faulty question. Faber: An analysis of Federal Reserve data suggests that half the U.S. population has seen a 40% decrease in wealth since 2007. In Reminiscences of a Stock Operator [a fictionalized account of the trader Jesse Livermore that has become a Wall Street classic], Livermore said, "It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It was always my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight." Here's another thought from John Hussmann of the Hussmann Funds: "The problem with bubbles is that they force one to decide whether to look like an idiot before the peak, or an idiot after the peak. There's no calling the top, and most of the signals that have been most historically useful for that purpose have been blaring red since late 2011." I am negative about U.S. stocks, and the Russell 2000 in particular. Regarding Abby's energy recommendation, this is one of the few sectors with insider buying. In other sectors, statistics show that company insiders are selling their shares like crazy, and companies are buying like crazy. Zulauf: These are the same people. Faber: Precisely. Looking at 10-year annualized returns for U.S. stocks, the Value Line arithmetic index has risen 11% a year. The Standard & Poor's 600 and the Nasdaq 100 have each risen 9.4% a year. In other words, the market hasn't done badly. Sentiment figures are extremely bullish, and valuations are on the high side. But there are a lot of questions about earnings, both because of stock buybacks and unfunded pension liabilities. How can companies have rising earnings, yet not provision sufficiently for their pension funds? Good question. Where are you leading us with your musings? Faber: What I recommend to clients and what I do with my own portfolio aren't always the same. That said, my first recommendation is to short the Russell 2000. You can use the iShares Russell 2000 exchange-traded fund [IWM]. Small stocks have outperformed large stocks significantly in the past few years. Next, I would buy 10-year Treasury notes, because I don't believe in this magnificent U.S. economic recovery. The U.S. is going to turn down, and bond yields are going to fall. Abby just gave me a good idea. She is long the iShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF, so I will go short. ... What are you doing with your own money? Faber: I have a lot of cash, and I bought Treasury bonds. ... Faber: I have no faith in paper money, period. Next, insider buying is also high in gold shares. Gold has massively underperformed relative to the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000. Maybe the price will go down some from here, but individual investors and my fellow panelists and Barron's editors ought to own some gold. About 20% of my net worth is in gold. I don't even value it in my portfolio. What goes down, I don't value. ... Which stocks are you recommending? Faber: I recommend the Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF [GDXJ], although I don't own it. I own physical gold because the old system will implode. Those who own paper assets are doomed. Zulauf: Can you put the time frame on the implosion? Faber: Let's enjoy dinner tonight. Maybe it will happen tomorrow. ... There is a colossal bubble in assets. When central banks print money, all assets go up. When they pull back, we could see deflation in asset prices but a pickup in consumer prices and the cost of living. Still, you have to own some assets. Hutchison Port Holdings Trust yields about 7%. It owns several ports in Hong Kong and China, which isn't a good business right now. When the economy slows, the dividend might be cut to 5% or so. Many Singapore real-estate investment trusts have corrected meaningfully, and now yield 5% to 6%. They aren't terrific investments because property prices could fall. But if you have a negative view of the world, and you think trade will contract, property prices will fall, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury will drop, a REIT like Hutchison is a relatively attractive investment. ... Faber: The outlook for property in Asia isn't bad because a lot of Europeans realize they will need to leave Europe for tax reasons. They can live in Singapore and be taxed at a much lower rate. Even if China grows by only 3% or 4%, it is better than Europe. People are moving up the economic ladder in Asia and into the middle class. Are you bullish on India? Faber: I am on the board of the oldest India fund [the India Capital fund]. The macroeconomic outlook for India isn't good, but an election is coming, and the market always rallies into elections. The leading candidate is pro-business. He is speaking before huge crowds. In dollar terms, the Indian market is still down about 40% from the peak, because the currency has weakened. In the 1970s, stock market indexes performed poorly and stock-picking came to the fore. Asia could be like that now. It is a huge region, and you have to invest by company. Some Indian companies will do well, and others poorly. Some people made 40% on their investments in China last year, but the benchmark index did poorly. I like Vietnam. The economy has had its troubles, and the market has seen a big decline. I want you to visualize Vietnam. [Stands up, walks to a nearby wall, and begins to draw a map of Vietnam with his hands.] Here's Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, the border with China, and the Mekong River. And here in the middle, on the coast, is Da Nang. ... Faber: I recommend shorting the Turkish lira. I had an experience in Turkey that led me to believe that some families are above the law. When I see that in an emerging economy, it makes me careful about investing.

End of The World 2014 -- Apocalypse, Man: Michael C. Ruppert Posted: 28 Jan 2014 03:30 PM PST Apocalypse, Man: World's End According to Michael C. Ruppert Most people were first exposed to Michael C. Ruppert through the 2009 documentary, Collapse, directed by Chris Smith. Collapse was one of the scariest documentaries about our world and the fragile the state of our planet. It was... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]

World Markets React To Turkey's 425bps Rate Hike Posted: 28 Jan 2014 03:09 PM PST Judging by the reaction from SocGen and JPY crosses (and thus global equity markets), the Turkish Central Bank's decision - to tighten aka ubertaper - has solved all the tapering, tantruming, turmoiling problems in markets. TRY obviously dumped on the news (now at 2.18 -2100 from highs). JPY crosses instantly exploded higher, automatically lifting US (Dow +60) and Japanese (NKY +110) stock futures markets before they closed. Gold fell very modestly ($1). JPY continued to weaken and when markets re-opened, gold dropped further (-$6 at $1250); Dow is now +110 from pre-Turkey, NKY +175pts; S&P futures are up 10points on the news as stops are run to 1800 but the EEM ETF rallied around 1% (only).   TRY is ripping.. these are 2-week lows (or highs for the Lira against the USD)   EEM rallied then faded to a ~1% gain...   JPY was ramped and stocks followed...   Bear in mind that the 1,800 stop witch hunt perfectly tags the closing VWAP from Friday's dump-day - the big question is do we get follow-through...   But the Nikkei can't get enough...   Gold fell modestly on the news... and more when markets reopnened...

There You Have Gold’s Unique Feature: Price Down, Demand Up Posted: 28 Jan 2014 02:28 PM PST Gold is a trading vehicle, right or wrong? Surely 99 out of 100 will answers “right” on that question; but the very few that truly understand gold answer correctly, which is “wrong.” Who can find a financial asset that goes down in price with an exploding demand as a result? A simple comparison will make this point clear: The collapsing stock market in 2008 / 2009 caused demand for shares to go up or down? The ever increasing price of Treasuries (until early 2013) resulted in more or less demand for those bonds? Although we don’t have a specific case in mind, but suppose the price of collectibles would come significantly down, would it result in more or less demand? Readers get the point. What is currently unfolding in the gold market is truly astonishing, especially in Asia. Take this quote from today’s headline on Bloomberg News: Gold shipments to China from Hong Kong rose to a record in 2013 as bullion's slump attracted buyers in the world's second-largest economy. Purchases that climbed by 51 percent in December before the Lunar New Year holiday starting Jan. 31 took net imports for the year to 1,108.8 metric tons, a 33 percent gain from 2012, according to calculations by Bloomberg News based on data from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department. The net figure deducts flows from China into Hong Kong. The assistant general manager at Xiamen City Commercial Bank, Song Heping, commented on this: "Increasing disposable income guaranteed healthy demand for gold in China last year, December demand is usually strong before the Chinese New Year as consumers buy gold gifts regardless of the price outlook at this time of the year." Meantime, as we wrote a week ago in Gold Coin Demand Exploding In Europe And China On Gold's Price Lows, gold coin demand is exploding also in Europe and Mints can’t keep up with demand. Bloomberg reported something similar today: Global mints are manufacturing as fast as they can after a 28 percent drop in gold prices last year, the biggest slump since 1981, attracted buyers of physical metal. The demand gains helped bullion rally for five straight weeks, the longest streak since September 2012. That won't be enough to stem the metal's slump according to Morgan Stanley, while Goldman Sachs Group predicts bullion will "grind lower" over 2014.  Michael Haynes, the chief executive officer of American Precious Metals Exchange, an online bullion dealer, says that “the long-term physical buyers see these price drops as opportunities to accumulate more assets. We have witnessed some top selling days in the past few weeks." Things are so extreme in Asia that (a lack of) storage is becoming an issue. The largest provider of precious-metals logistics and storage, Brink’s, is adding room on top of a vault at Singapore’s Changi International Airport. Inside, “the gold bars are protected by prison-like barriers, two body scanners and 8-ton, fireproof gates.” Also from Bloomberg (source): Baskaran Narayanan, the general manager of Brink's, witnesses: "We need additional capacity, so we have to take further space. There's a surge in demand for precious metals in Asia, and one can see the focus and movement from the west to the east." A new Brink's vault in Singapore set to open by March will be the company's fifth in the city state, said Narayanan, who spent two decades in the security industry. The 154-year-old company also is adding space in Hong Kong and mainland China to meet growing storage demand, said Guy Bullen, the firm's senior vice president for the Asia-Pacific region. So where is all the gold coming from? Mineweb‘s Lawrence Williams speculates that it is probably coming from the outflow from the biggest gold ETF, GLD, as well as the COMEX warehouses. Any surplus of supply over demand is usually accounted for by scrap recovery, but falling gold prices will have almost certainly cut this supply source dramatically so the balance will have had to come from other sources – the most prevalent being sales out of the big gold ETFs and out of COMEX and other inventories – some even suggest from central bank leased gold. Indeed there have been some very big, out of the ordinary withdrawals from COMEX warehouses in the past week – all of which is thought to be headed east. These are exciting times in the gold market. It is definitely not at time to be out of the market. As David Morgan says, this is the time to enter the precious metals markets.

The Gold Price Closed Down $12.60 at $1,250.80 Posted: 28 Jan 2014 01:55 PM PST Gold Price Close Today : 1250.80 Change : -12.60 or -1.00% Silver Price Close Today : 19.483 Change : -0.288 or -1.46% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 64.200 Change : 0.298 or 0.47% Silver Gold Ratio Today : 0.01558 Change : -0.000073 or -0.46% Platinum Price Close Today : 1407.70 Change : -11.70 or -0.82% Palladium Price Close Today : 715.60 Change : -6.05 or -0.84% S&P 500 : 1,792.50 Change : 10.94 or 0.61% Dow In GOLD$ : $263.25 Change : $ 4.11 or 1.59% Dow in GOLD oz : 12.735 Change : 0.199 or 1.59% Dow in SILVER oz : 817.56 Change : 16.50 or 2.06% Dow Industrial : 15,928.56 Change : 90.68 or 0.57% US Dollar Index : 80.582 Change : 0.020 or 0.02% Yesterday the GOLD PRICE closed Comex only 90 cents lower but in the aftermarket lost another $10. That showed up today at the Comex close, lower by $12.60 to $1,250.80, about 1% lower than yesterday. Yet as I said, most of that loss had already showed yesterday. Unlike recent months, gold did not follow through yesterday's weakness. The GOLD PRICE hesitation here is easily explained: it is bumping against the downtrend line from April 2013. Thus Friday it couldn't get through the $1,267.50 December high, though it came so close. Nothing is out of order here, but the gold price might drop back to its 50 DMA at $1,238.04. Further drop would call its intentions into question. However, the Fed's mumblings tomorrow might derail gold for a while. Just no telling how the market will take their words. The SILVER PRICE casts the only gloom over this brightening precious metals picture. It lost 28.8 cents (1.5%) today to end at 1948.3c. Remember that on Friday silver's weakness gainsaid gold's strength. Worse, platinum and palladium are falling, too. Copper has fallen back to its 200 DMA. So the situation is unclear, and will remain so until the FOMC shoots tomorrow. My gut and the trends in place say, regardless what the Fed intones, stocks will continue lower and gold will keep climbing, even pulling silver up. Dow would have to beat 1,500 to change that outlook, and the gold price would have to drop below $1,210 Now if I wanted to put millions of people back to work in America, the very first thing I would do is-- raise wages 39%! Yes, socialist moronism now reigns supreme in Washington, where His Federal Highness, Bernard O'Bama, is decreeing today that all those federal government contractors now paying their minimum wage folks $7.25/hr must raise them to $10.10. This will prompt those employers to look at their payrolls, scratch their heads, and fire the lot of them, as they cannot afford to raise them 39%. Thus Bernard, our first communist president, will manage to throw countless thousands out of work. Between him and the Fed, it's a job to figure out who is stupidest. Speaking of the Fed, its long, twisted shadow hangs over markets this week because the FOMC has another meeting tomorrow. Chances are Yellow Janet will be terrified by the stock market waterfall cascading over the headlines and put The Mythical Taper in the dame class with the Easter Bunny, Sasquatch, and Santa Claus, announcing that money creation (and its floor under Wall Street) will continue on, world without end. I have to leave early today, and am writing this just before the stock market closes, but I'll include closing prices below. Stocks are in big trouble, although it's not clear yet whether this is merely a correction, or we have seen the ultimate top. For now, I'll opt for a severe correction into February, with the ultimate top later this year, subject to changing my mind at the drop of an index. Stocks have been flashing all sorts of portents through January, mostly with the Dow refusing to join the party. Right now the Dow stands up 94.44 at 15,932.32, up 0.6% on the day, but in truth doing no more than a dead cat does when thrown from a three story building. The bounce signifyeth not life. S&P has managed to climb 10.93 (0.61%) to 1,792.49, but other indices are down slightly. Stocks are in such trouble that it's a fair bet that whatever comes out of the FOMC meeting tomorrow, it will contain fat meat for stocks. Ergo, no taper. Dow in Gold has fallen clean out of the trading channel and made half the journey from the 50 DMA (13.06 oz) to the 200 DMA (11.74 oz). DiG stands now at 12.73 oz (G$263.08 gold dollars). Dow in Silver hasn't been so rambunctious but at 817.75 oz has quite broken below its 50 DMA (812.76 oz). US Dollar index has gone flat last two days, and is unlikely to move today, waiting for the Fed's Delphic Oracle to predict the future. Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com © 2014, 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 or 18 ounces of silver. or 18 ounces of silver. US $ and 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.

The Gold Price Closed Down $12.60 at $1,250.80 Posted: 28 Jan 2014 01:55 PM PST Gold Price Close Today : 1250.80 Change : -12.60 or -1.00% Silver Price Close Today : 19.483 Change : -0.288 or -1.46% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 64.200 Change : 0.298 or 0.47% Silver Gold Ratio Today : 0.01558 Change : -0.000073 or -0.46% Platinum Price Close Today : 1407.70 Change : -11.70 or -0.82% Palladium Price Close Today : 715.60 Change : -6.05 or -0.84% S&P 500 : 1,792.50 Change : 10.94 or 0.61% Dow In GOLD$ : $263.25 Change : $ 4.11 or 1.59% Dow in GOLD oz : 12.735 Change : 0.199 or 1.59% Dow in SILVER oz : 817.56 Change : 16.50 or 2.06% Dow Industrial : 15,928.56 Change : 90.68 or 0.57% US Dollar Index : 80.582 Change : 0.020 or 0.02% Yesterday the GOLD PRICE closed Comex only 90 cents lower but in the aftermarket lost another $10. That showed up today at the Comex close, lower by $12.60 to $1,250.80, about 1% lower than yesterday. Yet as I said, most of that loss had already showed yesterday. Unlike recent months, gold did not follow through yesterday's weakness. The GOLD PRICE hesitation here is easily explained: it is bumping against the downtrend line from April 2013. Thus Friday it couldn't get through the $1,267.50 December high, though it came so close. Nothing is out of order here, but the gold price might drop back to its 50 DMA at $1,238.04. Further drop would call its intentions into question. However, the Fed's mumblings tomorrow might derail gold for a while. Just no telling how the market will take their words. The SILVER PRICE casts the only gloom over this brightening precious metals picture. It lost 28.8 cents (1.5%) today to end at 1948.3c. Remember that on Friday silver's weakness gainsaid gold's strength. Worse, platinum and palladium are falling, too. Copper has fallen back to its 200 DMA. So the situation is unclear, and will remain so until the FOMC shoots tomorrow. My gut and the trends in place say, regardless what the Fed intones, stocks will continue lower and gold will keep climbing, even pulling silver up. Dow would have to beat 1,500 to change that outlook, and the gold price would have to drop below $1,210 Now if I wanted to put millions of people back to work in America, the very first thing I would do is-- raise wages 39%! Yes, socialist moronism now reigns supreme in Washington, where His Federal Highness, Bernard O'Bama, is decreeing today that all those federal government contractors now paying their minimum wage folks $7.25/hr must raise them to $10.10. This will prompt those employers to look at their payrolls, scratch their heads, and fire the lot of them, as they cannot afford to raise them 39%. Thus Bernard, our first communist president, will manage to throw countless thousands out of work. Between him and the Fed, it's a job to figure out who is stupidest. Speaking of the Fed, its long, twisted shadow hangs over markets this week because the FOMC has another meeting tomorrow. Chances are Yellow Janet will be terrified by the stock market waterfall cascading over the headlines and put The Mythical Taper in the dame class with the Easter Bunny, Sasquatch, and Santa Claus, announcing that money creation (and its floor under Wall Street) will continue on, world without end. I have to leave early today, and am writing this just before the stock market closes, but I'll include closing prices below. Stocks are in big trouble, although it's not clear yet whether this is merely a correction, or we have seen the ultimate top. For now, I'll opt for a severe correction into February, with the ultimate top later this year, subject to changing my mind at the drop of an index. Stocks have been flashing all sorts of portents through January, mostly with the Dow refusing to join the party. Right now the Dow stands up 94.44 at 15,932.32, up 0.6% on the day, but in truth doing no more than a dead cat does when thrown from a three story building. The bounce signifyeth not life. S&P has managed to climb 10.93 (0.61%) to 1,792.49, but other indices are down slightly. Stocks are in such trouble that it's a fair bet that whatever comes out of the FOMC meeting tomorrow, it will contain fat meat for stocks. Ergo, no taper. Dow in Gold has fallen clean out of the trading channel and made half the journey from the 50 DMA (13.06 oz) to the 200 DMA (11.74 oz). DiG stands now at 12.73 oz (G$263.08 gold dollars). Dow in Silver hasn't been so rambunctious but at 817.75 oz has quite broken below its 50 DMA (812.76 oz). US Dollar index has gone flat last two days, and is unlikely to move today, waiting for the Fed's Delphic Oracle to predict the future. Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com © 2014, 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 or 18 ounces of silver. or 18 ounces of silver. US $ and 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.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - FOMC Tomorrow Posted: 28 Jan 2014 01:45 PM PST

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - FOMC Tomorrow Posted: 28 Jan 2014 01:45 PM PST

Helicopter Ben's True Legacy -- Elaine Diane Taylor Posted: 28 Jan 2014 01:16 PM PST Beautiful performance from Elaine Diane Taylor...Ben Bernanke leaves office on January 31. This video sets the record straight. Please add your thoughts on his tenure in the comments section below... "Helicopter Ben" performed by Elaine Diane Taylor. According to "Helicopter Ben" gold isn't... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Now Is The Time To Enter The Precious Metals Markets Posted: 28 Jan 2014 01:12 PM PST The Gold Report released an interview with David Morgan covering mainly the gold and silver outlook for the year(s) ahead. In sum, with four decades of experience in the precious metals markets, David Morgan believes the bottom is in for the metals. He is expecting silver to outperform gold, going forward. His message on the Cambridge House Investment conference in Vancouver will be that now is the time to enter the market (not exit). The factor(s) that will push silver to $100/oz, presumably in a three or four years timeframe, according to David Morgan: What’s going to push it to that level are fundamentals. There is no change fundamentally in why investors would buy gold in 2001 compared to why they would buy gold in 2013 or 2014. The fundamental fact is that there isn’t a nation state on earth that has a handle on the debt problem. Because of that, we’re going to see more people wake up to the need for precious metals, because precious metals are true money outside the framework of the current system. The correction we had in silver and gold isn’t that abnormal in a major bull market. I’ve been through one bull market already in my lifetime. I watched gold go from the fixed price of $42.22/oz up to $200/oz, then to sell off to around the $100/oz level. It later advanced all the way back to the peak of $850/oz in January 1980. I have seen the damage a big shakeout in a major bull market can have. That experience makes me a little bit more hardened to weather the storm we just experienced. However, I think that the worst is over. I think silver has bottomed. Gold probably has as well. This year, 2014, will be a rebuilding year. Depending on what happens in the global economic system, it’s possible that we could even see a very good year for the metals, but I don’t anticipate that. I’m anticipating a rebuild year where silver climbs back over $30/oz and gold travels up well over $1,600/oz, probably to the $1,700/oz level or higher depending on how the economy unfolds. Whether silver outperform or perform independently, in case gold would go to $2,000/oz in 2014: I have studied this issue as much as anyone other than The Moneychanger author Franklin Sanders. A 45-foot long historic silver chart covering the last 4,500 years, where each foot would be 100 years, shows that only in the last 19 inches the silver-gold ratio would be above 16:1. The 4,400 years before that, it would be less than 16:1! So, from a long-term perspective it means silver is undervalued to gold. Yet, let us agree that for the current time frame it has much less meaning. My point is that the ratio tells you which metal is doing better relative to each other. The ratio was 80:1 when the silver bull market started, and it’s basically 60:1 now. That means as volatile as silver has been, from the start of the bull market, if investors put the same amount of dollars into gold or silver, they would be better off putting it into silver. I’m not advocating that. I think investors should own both gold and silver. But, overall, I believe silver’s outperforming trend will continue. Now Eric Sprott believes in the monetary classic ratio of 16:1 ratio and thinks the metal will eventually return to that level. I think the ratio will at least test where we’ve already been in this bull market, and that’s about a 35:1 ratio. We’ve already been there very, very briefly when silver did its big magic jump from $19/oz to $48/oz in 2011. In the meantime, we’re looking at more volatility. The number precious metals miners that is expected survive and experience the next upleg in the metals will be limited: I’m probably not the best to ask because we focus mostly on top-tier and mid-tier companies, companies that are producers or near producers. We do study a great deal of the junior exploration sector, but suggest very few. If I would venture a guess, of the micro-cap companies—$0.5–3 million—probably half will survive, maybe fewer than that. It has been very difficult in the precious metals sector over the last couple of years. Even some of the best companies—I am thinking of one recently that has one of the richest gold mines in the world—can be mismanaged. That is why with some of these companies I tell people to only risk money they can lose because the payoff can be great, but they can lose it all, too. And some of my readers thank me for it later. That happened just this morning. The message that David Morgan will give people at the Cambridge House Investment conference in Vancouver: The bull market is not over and it’s normal in these secular bull markets to shake off some bulls and reach the status that we are currently at where the sentiment is very low. There is a lot of distrust and a lot of people are questioning whether they should be in the sector. Those are signs that the bottom is in. Now is the time, for those not in the sector, to get in. For those already in, either hold what they have, add to their position or ride it out. A couple of years from now we’re going to see much higher prices in the precious metals. Three or four years out, it may be overvalued in real terms, but that remains to be determined.

The Place to Be When the House of Debt Collapses Posted: 28 Jan 2014 01:06 PM PST I was more dyspeptic than usual that morning at breakfast, the latest disappointment being my latest and greatest Fabulous Mogambo Plan (FMP) to make a few bucks that popped ("boing!") into my head as I woke up, namely hooking up generators to the kids' bicycles and let them merrily pedal away all day in the garage, generating electricity, so that I could sell the excess power to the local grid and make a few bucks, or at least reduce my electric bill somewhat. Alas, my enthusiasm was soon dampened by remembering the laws of physics, which is not to mention those pesky "child labor" laws that have been the Achilles heel of many a former FMP. And perhaps it was that same kind of sloppy inattention to detail and not "thinking things through" that explains, to some degree, how I had, in my last Mogambo Guru newsletter, declared that the price of bonds had halved, which is NOT true, because interest rates had doubled, which IS true, as pointed out by Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) Dick P., whom I mention because he is the only one who did not use the words "half-wit, lowlife moron" anywhere in his email informing me of, ahem, my error. …one day this whole insane, unbelievable Debt Out The Wazoo (DOTW) idiocy will fall apart, as it must… So please ignore that part of that newsletter, but the point was how Completely Freaked Out (CFO) I am by the doubling — doubling! — of interest rates, and accentuated by my lingering paranoid hostility about the recent court case where it was revealed that the government has, by virtue of the Exchange Stabilization Fund, the absolute authority to secretly manipulate any and all markets, including the gold and silver markets, which were the issue at hand, thus committing a legalized fraud on a massive scale. Unbelievable! I still find it absolutely unbelievable that the federal government can now commit any crime, as long as they pass a law saying that it is not illegal when the government commits it! You rudely laugh at me because I am childishly hiding behind the couch, have a sour scowl on my face, a loaded pistol in each hand and pockets jammed full of gold and silver, but I mean, how paranoid do you have to BE to be justifiably afraid of a rogue government that has given itself the legal authority to monitor your every move, has given itself the legal authority to kill anybody at any time without due process, the legal authority to manipulate every market, and a compliant Federal Reserve to continuously create massive amounts of new currency and credit (actually monetizing the debt!) to finance the government's unbelievable orgies of welfare-state deficit-spending and accrual of insane amounts of future liabilities? Gaaahhh! I mean, for a guy barely holding by his broken and bloody fingernails onto the last, tattered remnants of his twisted version of reality, how big a bunker, how big a stash of gold and silver, how many guns, and how many frozen burritos in how many freezers does one need to survive such shocking un-American, un-Constitutional corruption and its guaranteed economic collapse? Perhaps that's why, in between nervously checking the security locks on the door of the Mogambo Bunker Of True Paranoia (MBOTP) and eating yummy microwave pizza rolls, I spend a lot of time hatching sinister plots in my mind where I will rally my fellow Americans to rise up in outrage, throw the government bums out, put America back on the gold standard, thus to be hailed by future generations as the greatest American patriot of all time, where happy people will name their children after me ("Your son is named Fabulous Patriot Mogambo? So is mine!"). And things did not improve when I was informed by my wife that our gold-oriented IRAs had been essentially halved over the past year, after suffering a similar fate the year before. My normal reaction to being blamed for anything is to put my fingers in my ears and scream "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" until she shuts up about it, but this time I patiently explained to her that, despite the clear evidence presented by the heroic Gold Anti-Trust Action committee and Ted Butler all those years, I just could not bring myself to really believe such creepy, corrupt government manipulation of markets could last so long. And so we, as a family, paid the price for my underestimating how corrupt a government can be. The usual family reaction to my failure was, as usual, gleefully yelling ,"You're still a moron!" and "I hate you!", phrases which have thankfully lost their sting over the years. To my credit, instead of getting into the ritual screaming match ensuing after I cleverly retort "No, YOU'RE the morons!" and "I hate you, too!", this time I graciously tried to turn it into a "teaching moment" for the wife and the kids when I went on to explain that this was a clear example of how Dollar-Cost Averaging (buying a set dollar-amount of an investment per month) is the best investment philosophy, especially so when all this time the government was manipulating the gold and silver markets down, see, so we would have been buying more and more gold and silver at cheaper and cheaper prices! "And," I said, "we all know that one day this whole insane, unbelievable Debt Out The Wazoo (DOTW) idiocy will fall apart, as it must, for if it was actually possible to keep such a corrupt, debt-besotted fiat currency system viable over the long term, another example of it would exist in history, and it doesn't. Not one!" I didn't tell the kids this part, but one other thing history shows is that gold and silver are The Place To Be (TPTB) when this happens, whereupon we, as a nuclear family of carbon-units, would be on our way to a wonderful life of Happy Times On Easy Street (HTOES), where we hire teams of control-freak nannies to watch the kids and keep them out of our hair until they are eighteen, when we can kick them out and hire expensive lawyers and bodyguards in case they tried to get back! HTOES! Hahaha! So, it would seem to be enough to own gold and silver at times like these, capitalizing on a collapsing dollar suffering from a malignant, government-centric economy gorging on a multiplying money supply, thanks to the evil Federal Reserve creating the currency and credit and the idiot-savant Keynesian economists who erroneously think they can justify it all. But with the East buying and hoarding gold by the hundreds of tons a year, with a reported 115 ounces of "paper gold" sold short for each ounce of physical gold, with the price of gold manipulated down, down, down to the rising cost of production, and with similar if not worse statistics for silver (which is in actual shortage, and the supply-deficit being temporarily filled with scrap), what else can one do except to buy gold and silver? And when one does what one must do as regards buying gold and silver, what else can one say except to throw up one's hands in excited jubilation and exultation, exclaiming, "Whee! This investing stuff is easy!"? Regards, The Mogambo Guru for The Daily Reckoning Ed. Note: After a brief hiatus, The Mogambo Guru has once again returned to the virtual pages of The Daily Reckoning to rail against the evils of the Federal Reserve and the ballooning debt obligations of the U.S. government. To make sure you hear it first, we suggest you sign up for the FREE Daily Reckoning email edition, right here.

This Is How Gold Will Trade As Inflation/Deflation War Rages Posted: 28 Jan 2014 12:44 PM PST On the heels of continued volatile trading in global markets, today a man out of Europe who has been extremely accurate with his calls on the gold market sent King World News a fantastic piece which discusses how gold will trade as the inflation/deflation war continues to rage. It also includes 6 of the most fascinating charts you will ever see from Ronald-Peter Stoferle of Incrementum AG out of Lichtenstein. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Another Ten Tonnes of Gold Bullion Came Out of Comex Eligible Inventory at JPM Yesterday Posted: 28 Jan 2014 12:24 PM PST

Another Ten Tonnes of Gold Bullion Came Out of Comex Eligible Inventory at JPM Yesterday Posted: 28 Jan 2014 12:24 PM PST

Returns Of A Diversified Precious Metals Box Posted: 28 Jan 2014 11:59 AM PST This is a guest post from Bron Suchecki, editor at Goldchat and strategic planner at The Perth Mint in Australia. I was asked about platinum on Friday in a Reuters Global Markets Forum live chat interview, and declined to give a view, saying that the Perth Mint doesn’t follow platinum, as it is a small market, less liquid, and more risky and thus not something you therefore want to push on our generally conservative clients. However, in 1994 the Perth Mint did recommend some platinum in a portfolio, producing the “Aussie Diversified Precious Metals Portfolio” which was a boxed set of two 1 kilogram Kookaburra silver bullion coins a 2oz Kangaroo gold bullion coin a 1oz Koala platinum bullion coin It never took off and the sets were eventually scrapped primarily because we charged a premium for the set (ie box) when investors could just buy the coins individually for lower cost. Anyway, the question is: how did that ratio of gold:silver:platinum perform? Before I get to that, I would just note that our Depository clients are split into three groups. The first are those who only buy gold, the second those who only buy silver, and the third who buy both. What is interesting is almost all of those buying both gold and silver do so on a 50:50 basis by dollar value, say $10,000 worth of gold and $10,000 worth of silver. I’m not sure there is anything scientific about that allocation and probably just comes down to hedging one’s bets. So let’s compare the performance of those three groups against the Aussie portfolio, using 30 Dec 1994 London Fix prices to 31 Dec 2013: I’d say if you’re not too sure about whether gold or silver will be the better performer, the un-”modern portfolio theory” 50:50 strategy seems to have worked out. Of course, the above figures themselves are highly unscientific with no real basis for the starting date beyond that was when the Aussie was launched, but hey, what do you want from a free blog? As always, do your own due diligence.

Chinese World Domination Means $10,000 Gold Is Coming Posted: 28 Jan 2014 10:25 AM PST With continued turmoil in global markets, today acclaimed money manager Stephen Leeb told King World News that China's move to dominate the world means $10,000 gold is coming. Leeb also spoke about the fall of the United States as well as what investors can do to protect themselves. Below is what Leeb had to say in this timely and powerful interview. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Something strange is up in the gold market, Cashin tells KWN Posted: 28 Jan 2014 10:07 AM PST 1:10p ET Tuesday, January 28, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: UBS and CNBC market analyst Art Cashin tells King World News today that something strange seems to be happening in the gold market: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/1/28_Ar... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT A Personal Touch in Buying Precious Metals If you've not secured your allocation of precious metals and numismatic coins, 2014 may be the last year to get them at affordable and undervalued prices. With huge amounts of gold leaving the West for Asia, the future availability of precious metals is very much in doubt. All Pro Gold has competitive pricing on all bullion and numismatic products -- and offers prompt delivery too. Long-time GATA supporters Fred Goldstein and Tim Murphy are glad to answer any questions or concerns about acquiring the monetary metals. All Pro Gold has an extensive electronic library of articles from the world's top market analysts. Learn more at www.allprogold.com or write to Fred and Tim at info@allprogold.com or telephone them at 1-855-377-4653. Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Monday-Friday, March 24-28, 2014 Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ * * * 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: http://gata.org/tshirts 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: http://www.gata.org To contribute to GATA, please visit: http://www.gata.org/node/16 ADVERTISEMENT Jim Sinclair plans seminar in Austin Gold advocate and mining entrepreneur Jim Sinclair will hold his next market seminar from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday, February 8, at the Austin, Texas, Airport Hilton. Advance registration is required. Details for the Austin seminar are posted at JSMineSet.com here: http://www.jsmineset.com/2014/01/02/austin-texas-qa-session-confirmed/

"Demand Physical Gold" As One Day Paper Price Manipulation Will End "Catastrophically" Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:42 AM PST "Physical gold is in a serious present shortage with price implications soon to be seen."   --Jim Sinclair Scrambling Gold Mints Around The World Plead: "We Can't Meet The Demand, Even If We Work Overtime" Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/27/2014 One of the big disconnects over the past year has been the divergence between the price of paper gold and the seemingly inexhaustible demand for physical gold, from China all the way to the US mint. Today we get a hint on how this divergence has been maintained: it now appears the main culprit is the massive boost in supply by gold mints around the world working literally 24/7, desperate to provide enough supply to meet demand at depressed prices in order to avoid a surge in price as bottlenecked supply finally catches up with unprecedented physical demand. Bloomberg reports that "global mints are manufacturing as fast as they can after a 28 percent drop in gold prices last year, the biggest slump since 1981, attracted buyers of physical metal. The demand gains helped bullion rally for five straight weeks, the longest streak since September 2012. That won't be enough to stem the metal's slump according to Morgan Stanley, while Goldman Sachs Group predicts bullion will "grind lower" over 2014." Odd - one could make the precisely opposite conclusion - once mints run out of raw product, the supply will slow dramatically forcing prices much higher and finally letting true demand manifest itself in the clearing price. READ MORE ____________________________ Gold Mint Runs Overtime in Race to Meet World Coin Demand By Debarati Roy Jan 27, 2014 Austria's mint is running 24 hours a day as global mints from the U.S. toAustralia report climbing demand for gold coins even while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says this year's price rebound will end. Austria's Muenze Oesterreich AG mint hired extra employees and added a third eight-hour shift to the day in a bid to keep up with demand. Purchases of bullion coins at Australia's Perth Mint rose 20 percent this year through Jan. 20 from a year earlier. Sales by the U.S. Mint are set for the best month since April, when the metal plunged into a bear market. Global mints are manufacturing as fast as they can after a 28 percent drop in gold prices last year, the biggest slump since 1981, attracted buyers of physical metal. The demand gains helped bullion rally for five straight weeks, the longest streak since September 2012. That won't be enough to stem the metal's slump according to Morgan Stanley, while Goldman Sachs Group predicts bullion will "grind lower" over 2014. "The long-term physical buyers see these price drops as opportunities to accumulate more assets," said Michael Haynes, the chief executive officer of American Precious Metals Exchange, an online bullion dealer. "We have witnessed some top selling days in the past few weeks." READ MORE ____________________________ The FT Goes There: "Demand Physical Gold" As One Day Paper Price Manipulation Will End "Catastrophically" Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/25/2014 What have we done: after a series of reports in late 2012 in which we showed, with no ambiguity, that not only might the Bundesbank's offshore held gold be severely "diluted" (follow our 2012 exposes on German gold here,here, here, and here), but that on at least one occassion, the Fed and the Bank of England conspired against the Buba in returning subpar quality gold, the Bundesbank shocked everyone in early January 2013 when it announced it would repatriate 300 tons of gold helt in New York and all of its 374 tons of gold held in Paris. But convincing the Bundebsbank to demand delivery was peanuts compared to changing the tune of the Financial Times - that bastion of fiat "money", and where the word gold is mocked and ridiculed, and those who see the daily improprieties in the gold market as nothing but "conspiracy theorists" - to say the magic words: "Learn from Buba and demand delivery for true price of gold", adding that "one day the ties that bind this pixelated gold may break, with potentially catastrophic results." In other words, precisely what we have been saying since the beginning. Welcome to the 'conspiracy theorist' club, boys. From the FT's Neil Collins: "Learn from Buba and demand delivery for true price of gold: One day the ties that bind the actual and the traded commodity will snap: READ MORE ____________________________ Is there a shortage of physical gold? Sultan Ameerali, BNN.ca staff 1:18 PM, E.T. | January 17, 2014 With spot gold trading near $1,260 US, veteran trader Tres Knippa says investors should consider accumulating physical gold to take advantage of a delivery squeeze. Pointing to recent Comex futures data, Knippa says there may not be enough gold to go around if everyone with a futures contract insists on taking delivery of physical bullion. He believes gold shot through $1,900 in 2011 before plunging last year because of an explosion in the amount of gold futures contracts – setting up separate markets for "real" and "paper" gold. "Maybe the reason gold prices went up is an expansion of that multiple of the amount of paper gold versus real gold," Knippa tells BNN. "So maybe the market has come back down as the people who are holding the paper gold start to liquidate it." "But the underlying story here is that the people acquiring physical gold appear to be continuing to do that. And that's what I think is important," Knippa adds, noting large investors like hedge fund manager Kyle Bass are taking delivery of the gold they're buying. WATCH VIDEO ____________________________ Things That Make You Go Hmmm...Manipulation of Gold by Central Banks Cannot Continue in 2014 By Grant Williams, 1/20/2014 2013 was an absolutely seismic year for gold, but the way in which the tectonic plates shifted has yet to be fully understood. I firmly believe that in the years to come, when we look back at the great game being played in gold, we will pinpoint January 16, 2013, as the day when it all began to unravel. That day, the day the Bundesbank blinked and demanded its bullion, will be shown to be the beginning of the end of the gold price suppression scheme by the world's central banks; and then gold will go on to trade much, much higher. The evidence of suppression is everywhere, though most refuse to believe their elected officials are capable of such subterfuge. However, the recent numerous scandals in the financial world are slowly forcing people to realize that anything and everything can be manipulated. Libor, mortgage rates, FX — all were shown to be rigged markets, but NONE of them have the importance that gold has at the centre of the financial universe, yet all of them are far bigger markets than gold and therefore much harder to rig. Gold is a manipulated market. Period. 2013 was the year that manipulation finally began to unravel. 2014? Well now, THIS could be the year that true price discovery begins in the gold market. If that turns out to be the case, it will be driven by a scramble to perfect ownership of physical gold; and to do that you will be forced to pay a lot more than $1247/oz. Count on it... READ MORE ____________________________ Precious Metals in 2014 Alasdair Macleod, Posted 31 December 2013 Gold has become undervalued relative to fiat currencies such as the US dollar, as shown in the chart below, which rebases gold at 100 adjusted for both the increase in above-ground gold stocks and US dollar FMQ since the month before the Lehman Crisis. Given the continuation of the statistically-concealed economic slump, plus the increased quantity of dollar-denominated debt, and therefore since the Lehman Crisis a growing probability of a currency collapse, there is a growing case to suggest that gold should be significantly higher in corrected terms today. Instead it stands at a discount of 36%. This undervaluation is likely to lead to two important consequences. Firstly, when the tide for gold turns it should do so very strongly, with potentially catastrophic results for uncovered paper markets. The last time this happened to my knowledge was in September 1999, when central banks led by the Bank of England and the Fed rescued the London gold market, presumably by making bullion available to distressed banks. The scale of gold's current undervaluation and the degree to which available monetary gold has been depleted suggests that a similar rescue of the gold market cannot be mounted today. The second consequence is to my knowledge not yet being considered at all. The speed with which fiat currencies could lose their purchasing power might be considerably more rapid than, say, the collapse of the German mark in 1920-23. The reason this may be so is that once the slide in confidence commences, there is little to slow its pace. READ MORE ____________________________

Art Cashin: Is Something Strange Brewing In The Gold Market? Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:23 AM PST Today KWN is pleased to share an important piece from 50-year veteran Art Cashin, who is Director of Floor Operations at UBS ($650 billion under management). Cashin takes a trip down the rabbit hole to see if there is something strange brewing in the gold market? This is an extremely important piece that includes a fascinating guest commentary on the strange happenings in the gold market. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Thoughts on Chinese gold reserves – Phillips Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:13 AM PST China has announced unchanged gold reserves – still officially at 1,059 tonnes as they have been reported each year since 2009 – but the Chinese only tell us what suits them! Read more….

Gold de-hedging continues, but at reducing rate – SocGen Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:13 AM PST The latest global gold hedgebook analysis from SocGen (prepared by GFMS) notes that net de-hedging is continuing but at an ever-reducing rate with the global gold hedgebook now totalling only 92 tonnes. Read more….

‘The silver bottom is in: Time to hold, add and ride it out’ – Morgan Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:13 AM PST When the bulls are running for the doors, that is a sign that we have hit bottom and wise investors should hold on to their portfolios for the ride up, says David Morgan. Read more….

Fresnillo hits silver target, gold down due to explosives ban Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:13 AM PST Mexican precious metals miner Fresnillo said on Tuesday it hit a 2013 production target for silver, while just missing a revised target for gold. Read more….

Comex Gold Silver Product Calendars for 2014 Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:06 AM PST

Comex Gold Silver Product Calendars for 2014 Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:06 AM PST

Where Are Gold and Silver Heading into the Future ? Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:05 AM PST The State of the Global Markets 2014 special 50 page report includes videos such as an 8-minute piece from Steve Hochberg's 'Elliott Speaks: What Lies Ahead?' Steve gave this presentation at the New Orleans Investment Conference where he showed how sentiment indicators signaled the top in gold and where gold and silver are headed in the future.

Forex Trading Alert: U.S. Dollar Erases Losses Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:01 AM PST Earlier today, the U.S. currency rose against most of major currencies as expectations that the Federal Reserve will continue to scale back stimulus program this week fueled demand for the greenback. What impact did these moves have on major currency pairs? If you want to know our take on this question, we invite you to read our today's Forex Trading Alert.

The Frying Pan or the Fire: US Stocks vs. Emerging Markets Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:00 AM PST As worried investors continue to sell stocks, you might think it's time to look overseas for some bargains. Let me save you the trouble — don't do it. Selling out of U.S. stocks for emerging market exposure right now would be like jumping out of the frying pan right into the fire… Sure, I've talked about emerging markets a lot over the past year. Heck, we even traded some of them last summer when they bottomed and shot higher. I even noted that the potential breakout move in China's Shanghai Composite was one of my favorite setups of 2014. But now, just a few weeks into January, the charts look broken. Cracks are appearing across the globe. From China growth scares to Turkey's borrowing to Argentina's currency meltdown, it feels as if a new crisis tosses more gasoline on the fire every day. "Emerging market equities just posted their biggest drop in almost seven months, overshadowed only by the most extensive selloff seen in emerging market currencies in five years," explains Rude researcher Noah Sugarman. While the S&P has dropped 3.6% to start the year, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSE:EEM) is down almost 9%. That's a nasty drop for a basket of names that looked to be getting its act together just a few months ago… Expect some wild action from emerging markets over the next several months. Ultimately, I think many of these names will move lower. My friend J.C. Parets, president of Eagle Bay Capital, wrote on his blog that he is a seller of EEM on any strength. He notes the false breakout in emerging markets three months ago will most likely cause a much more violent move lower. Toss your support levels out the window — this wildfire could get out of control very quickly… Regards, Greg Guenthner for The Daily Reckoning P.S. Noah and I recently dug up a fresh emerging market play – one that looks ripe for a quick trade. In today’s Rude Awakening email edition I gave readers an exclusive chance to learn all about this opportunity first-hand. To make sure you don’t miss another great chance to profit, sign up for my FREE Rude Awakening email edition, right here.

Priced to Perfection: The $3 Precious Metal Play Posted: 28 Jan 2014 06:00 AM PST The silver market is primed for a breakout move. And as you'll see, there's a $3 way to play it. Last year we saw a general downtrend in precious metal prices. From a high last January around $32 an ounce, the price of silver marked a downward trail to its current perch at $20/oz. That's the bad news. The good news is that over the past two months the price of silver has formed a solid base. Said another way, silver's chart is consolidating for a potential move to the upside… Call it what you will — an ascending triangle, consolidation, coiling or sideways trade – but the recent trend for silver is the most positive action we've seen in months. From where I stand the price has formed a substantial base around $20 — which makes for a great upside opportunity. There are several fundamental reasons to like silver right now, too. Sure, we're talking about a precious metal and similar to gold the price of silver will rise with the threat of inflation. And even though the fed has unveiled the first step in its taper plan, it's been well-digested by traders and baked into the pie, so to speak, for the price silver. In that sense, I think we're also seeing some positive bottoming action. If silver heads towards $25 an ounce, the right mining play will pay off handsomely. But silver is also much more than just a precious metal, it's also a vastly-used industrial metal. It's a great conductor for electricity and is used extensively in the developed world. So as economies the world-over continue to recover and grow, the demand for industrial silver is set to soar. This is a key distinction between gold and silver. Unlike gold, silver prices are much more affected by mine output. So as mine output flattens and demand continues to rise we could see a very positive trend emerge for silver. (This is very similar to what we've seen in platinum and palladium – only this time around it's silver's turn!) Add it all up and there's a lot of reason to like silver right now. But while the price of silver may rise some 25%, on its way back to $25/oz, the price of a well-run silver miner could more than double those gains. If silver heads towards $25 an ounce, the right mining play will pay off handsomely. My favorite company for this short-term upswing is Hecla Mining (HL.) Hecla Mining is a pure play silver miner with a manageable market cap shy of $1 billion — that's about 1/20th the size of, say, a mining giant like Goldcorp. From a production standpoint Hecla runs two silver mining operations. Greens Creek, in mining friendly Alaska, is their main silver operation. The mine is wholly owned by Hecla and in 2013 production rang the register at seven million ounces of silver. When you add in the cost of byproduct metals (like gold and zinc) Hecla's cash cost per ounce at Greens Creek is $2.70 an ounce – making it one of the lowest cost silver mines in the world. The expected mine life at current production is nine years, so there will be more production to come for this workhorse of an asset. Hecla's other silver operation is the Lucky Friday mine in Idaho — the mine went offline in 2012 for rehab work, but resumed production (on schedule) in Q1 2013. Since then, the mine produced 1.6 million ounces. At full speed this mine is expected to produce over five million ounces per year (expected by 2017.) With 25 years of mine life expected this mine will also continue to provide reliable cash-flow and ounces for years to come. In regards to silver production, a good year for Hecla should be above 10 million ounces of silver — plus the associated gold, lead and zinc production (which helps offset mining costs.) In perspective, Hecla is one of the lowest cost pure play silver miners on the market. And even though all in costs are around $20 an ounce there's still upside in this play. After all, just a slight increase in silver prices (a rise to $25?), an increase in zinc or gold prices, or a decrease in costs (down to $15?), could lead to substantial upside. As a little icing on the cake, last June Hecla acquired a producing gold mine from Aurizon Mines. The Casa Berardi mine in Quebec has expected 2013 production of 62,000 ounces of gold. With a mine life of approximately 9 years this gold mine will add to Hecla's producing assets – and keep the cash spinning. Besides being straightforward, Hecla is cheap. Shares recently dropped close to the $3 threshold, which is why this player is back on my radar. Looking at Hecla's chart, since mid-December prices are up 18%. This could be the beginning to a nice leg higher for Hecla. Add in the fact that silver prices look poised for a rally and you'll see that this $3 silver miner is worth a good hard look. Keep your boots muddy, Matt Insley for The Daily Reckoning Ed. Note: As the silver market starts to heat up, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got Matt on your side telling you what he sees and how best to play it. He spends countless hours researching trends and finding the hidden investment plays that make the most of these kinds of moves. And he shares everything he knows with his FREE Daily Resource Hunter readers every single trading day. It’s a perfect way to stay informed on the resource and energy markets, and you might just make a bit of money in the process. So what do you have to loose? Sign up for the FREE Daily Resource Hunter email edition, right here. The article originally appeared in the Daily Resource Hunter

Gold Prices Steady with EM Currencies, "Could Lose" Chinese Support for 3 Weeks on New Year Holidays Posted: 28 Jan 2014 05:54 AM PST GOLD PRICES steadied $25 below yesterday's new 10-week peak at $1278 per ounce in London trade Tuesday, holding in a tight range as world equities also calmed with emerging-market currencies.   Turkey's central bank today raised its money-market lending rate to 9.0% from 7.75%.   The Lira held just above Monday's new all-time lows on the currency market.   India's central bank meantime surprised analysts by raising its key "repo" interest rate 25 basis points to 8.0%.   Consumer price inflation in the world's former No.1 gold consumer nation – where annual gold smuggling to India may total $1.1 billion on the finance ministry's estimates – was pegged in December at 9.7%.   "Un-surprisingly Chinese interest was piqued at the lower levels" in Tuesday's gold prices below $1255, says Swiss refiner and finance group MKS's Asian desk.   With Chinese wholesale interest still quiet, however, "perhaps the majority of [gold] buying has already been completed in the run up to Chinese New Year," the note suggests.   Premiums above international gold prices today slipped to $7 per ounce on the Shanghai Gold Exchange, down from early January's 6-month peak near $20.   "This indicates that the rally in gold prices," says Australia's ANZ Bank, "is resulting in a loss of interest from the Chinese."   Looking ahead, the Shanghai premium on gold prices "tends to remain subdued after the [New Year] holiday week has passed," says the bank's commodities team.   With the Year of the Horse starting this Friday, "Chinese support for the market may be absent for another three weeks," ANZ concludes.   Meantime in Singapore, gold trading hub between India and China, "We need additional capacity, so we have to take further space," Bloomberg News today quotes Brinks Inc.'s general manager Baskaran Narayanan.   "There's a surge in demand for precious metals in Asia, and one can see the focus and movement from the west to the east."   China's giant ICBC bank – the world's biggest bank, currently acquiring a 60% stake in fellow London bullion market members Standard Bank's commodities division – today said its customers in busted "wealth product" Credit Equals Gold No.1 can sell their investment for the initial value, an about-turn from last week's promise of "no bail out".   China's so-called "shadow banking" industry of similar high-yield products targeting wealthy individuals is valued at some $1.2 trillion, according to the Financial Times.   Meantime in Japan – where the country's 3rd largest gold retailer Sumitomo sold its business to the No.1, Tanaka, this week, citing low consumer sales – the government is planning to seize about ¥50 billion per year ($0.5bn) in "dormant" bank accounts, and use the cash "for welfare and education projects".

Prepare for Currency Chaos Posted: 28 Jan 2014 04:31 AM PST On November the 25th I published the following warning about the effects from the Fed’s imminent tapering of asset purchases: “There is a good chance that the beginning of tapering will lead to a reversal of the trade to sell gold ahead of the news. But the major averages have priced in a sustainable recovery on the other side of QE, which will not come to fruition. For the Dow, S&P 500 and NASDAQ the end of QE will be especially painful. A unilateral removal of stimulus on the part of the Fed will send the dollar soaring [especially against emerging market currencies] and risk assets plunging -- you could throw in emerging market equities and any other interest rate sensitive investment on planet earth.”

India Gold Smuggling Adds $1bn to CAD Posted: 28 Jan 2014 03:03 AM PST Customs seizures triple, equal 3-8% of total says finance minister...   GOLD smuggling to India – the world's largest consumer nation – may have equaled $1.1 billion by value since legal imports were effectively banned last summer, analysis of Finance Ministry estimates by BullionVault shows.   "I know gold smuggling has increased," said India's finance minister P.Chidambaram on Monday.   "But the restrictions on gold import were absolutely necessary," he went on, blaming gold for India's current account deficit – the gap between inflows and outflows of money – which yawned to 4.8% of the country's GDP last fiscal year, worth some $88.2 billion.   "These restrictions," says Chidambaram, "have brought down gold import, which in April and May had crossed 300 tonnes.If we had not imposed restrictions, there was no way we could have managed balance of payments or the CAD."   With India's gold import duty now set at 10% by value, local premiums to the international price peaked in October, just before the main gold-buying festival of Diwali, at $150 per ounce.   Last week the government of neighboring Pakistan enforced a "temporary" ban on all gold shipments, aiming to stem the illegal flow of metal across its border into India.   Speaking Monday, Chidambaram repeated his Ministry's previous estimate of 1-3 tonnes of illegal gold being smuggled into India each month since the strictest anti-import rules were imposed last summer.   Those figures are substantially below the 250-tonne estimate of 2012-2013 smuggling made to the Business Standard last February by Bachhraj Bamalwa, chairman of the All India Gems & Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF), which represents 40,000 members across the industry.   At average prices across the year, Chidambaram's current estimates would still add between $0.4 and $1.1bn to the Current Account Deficit for 2013-2014, which the finance ministry believes will shrink to $50bn this year.   Citing "official sources", a separate report from the Press Trust of India says this fiscal-year, running to the end of March, has seen "as many as 700 cases" of smuggled gold being seized by customs and revenue staff across India.   That compares with 870 cases in 2012-2013, the PTI says, and puts the number of India's gold smuggling seizures cases on course for a 4% drop for the full year.   By value, in contrast, 2013-2014 has seen customs officers seize gold worth 150% more, the PTI report says, pricing this year's seizures at INR 2.5 billion ($39m). Based on average prices, and with two months of the fiscal year still to go, that means seizures by weight have nearly tripled already to 0.95 tonnes.    Equal to between 3-8% of Chibamdaram's smuggling estimate, that figure would stand at just half-a-percent of the 2012-2013 estimate from the GJF's Bamalwa.   Last month, says a separate article from the Times of India, "almost every passenger on a flight from Dubai to Calicut was found carrying 1 kg of gold each" by customs officials, who imposed a legal levy for carrying gold bought for personal ownership into the country.

India Gold Smuggling Adds $1bn to CAD Posted: 28 Jan 2014 03:03 AM PST Customs seizures triple, equal 3-8% of total says finance minister...   GOLD smuggling to India – the world's largest consumer nation – may have equaled $1.1 billion by value since legal imports were effectively banned last summer, analysis of Finance Ministry estimates by BullionVault shows.   "I know gold smuggling has increased," said India's finance minister P.Chidambaram on Monday.   "But the restrictions on gold import were absolutely necessary," he went on, blaming gold for India's current account deficit – the gap between inflows and outflows of money – which yawned to 4.8% of the country's GDP last fiscal year, worth some $88.2 billion.   "These restrictions," says Chidambaram, "have brought down gold import, which in April and May had crossed 300 tonnes.If we had not imposed restrictions, there was no way we could have managed balance of payments or the CAD."   With India's gold import duty now set at 10% by value, local premiums to the international price peaked in October, just before the main gold-buying festival of Diwali, at $150 per ounce.   Last week the government of neighboring Pakistan enforced a "temporary" ban on all gold shipments, aiming to stem the illegal flow of metal across its border into India.   Speaking Monday, Chidambaram repeated his Ministry's previous estimate of 1-3 tonnes of illegal gold being smuggled into India each month since the strictest anti-import rules were imposed last summer.   Those figures are substantially below the 250-tonne estimate of 2012-2013 smuggling made to the Business Standard last February by Bachhraj Bamalwa, chairman of the All India Gems & Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF), which represents 40,000 members across the industry.   At average prices across the year, Chidambaram's current estimates would still add between $0.4 and $1.1bn to the Current Account Deficit for 2013-2014, which the finance ministry believes will shrink to $50bn this year.   Citing "official sources", a separate report from the Press Trust of India says this fiscal-year, running to the end of March, has seen "as many as 700 cases" of smuggled gold being seized by customs and revenue staff across India.   That compares with 870 cases in 2012-2013, the PTI says, and puts the number of India's gold smuggling seizures cases on course for a 4% drop for the full year.   By value, in contrast, 2013-2014 has seen customs officers seize gold worth 150% more, the PTI report says, pricing this year's seizures at INR 2.5 billion ($39m). Based on average prices, and with two months of the fiscal year still to go, that means seizures by weight have nearly tripled already to 0.95 tonnes.    Equal to between 3-8% of Chibamdaram's smuggling estimate, that figure would stand at just half-a-percent of the 2012-2013 estimate from the GJF's Bamalwa.   Last month, says a separate article from the Times of India, "almost every passenger on a flight from Dubai to Calicut was found carrying 1 kg of gold each" by customs officials, who imposed a legal levy for carrying gold bought for personal ownership into the country.

Gold Price BOOM! Posted: 28 Jan 2014 03:00 AM PST By Grant Williams "What a year this has been for gold.  "The price of the yellow metal fell almost 30% from its peak at the end of August a year earlier, to bombed-out lows amidst a wall of selling which included several very sharp and somewhat counterintuitive selloffs, including violent plunges in both the April-May time frame and again into year-end.

Supply Changes Coming to Gold? Posted: 28 Jan 2014 01:50 AM PST Higher prices may be the only way to resolve mining costs and Chinese demand...   On The SUPPLY SIDE of the gold market, newly mined gold supply in 2013 was around 2,800 tonnes, writes Julian D.W.Phillips at the GoldForecaster.com   Scrap gold was around 1,400 tonnes, before US investment sales of around 1,200 tonnes. That totaled 5,400 tonnes.   With prices now at $1200 there is little incentive for scrap sellers to sell for profit. So these supplies in 2014 are expected to drop substantially, until prices rise back to much higher levels.   To sustain supply levels of gold miners need to continuously explore and start up new ventures. From discovery to production takes in excess of 5 years. What is the condition of future supplies?   Gold discoveries have fallen off the cliff from 4,977 tonnes (160 million ounces) in 1995 to fewer than 155 tonnes (5 million ounces) in 2011.   We are hearing that so many Junior miners and ventures are failing and projects shelved. The costs are so close to income potential that they are losing their backer's support.   Now we hear from Harmony Gold mine in South Africa, which has implemented expenditure cuts on capital expenditure and exploration to a cost per ounce of $1150. As the head of Goldfields said last year gold mining below $1500 isn't viable.   Cutting costs this way is done primarily by moving production to higher grade ore and mothballing lower grade production. This shortens the life and production capacity of mines and, in turn, global production levels. After all, the same principle has to be applied throughout the gold mining world.   This limits future gold production levels significantly. Accurate figures for this are not available just rough estimates (10-50% over time?).   With so many new ventures in politically unstable countries or where huge infrastructure problems exist the risks for new ventures are so much higher than they were last century. So, in future years the number of new mines coming on stream has been savaged.   If the US investment community has nearly completed sales from gold ETFs then the market will lose that vital source of supply, trimming around 1,200 tonnes (including the sales of physical gold last year, April in particular) off supplies to London, center of the world market.   The 5,400 tonnes of supply will drop in 2014 and we estimate this fall could take London's supply down by 2,000 tonnes. Gold prices will have to reflect this.   With such a fall, where will China buy gold at current prices? It can't. It will have to decide to pay up to rising prices or exit the market.   We do not believe it will exit the market 'officially' (for the reasons given in the previous article). It will continue to access as much gold as it can.   The retail trade in China will lessen demand simply because the disposable income they have, while rising quickly, will achieve only the volume that money can buy. Perhaps the average middle class income will buy perhaps 25% less gold, if prices rise that much, but we believe the size of the middle class, in China, will rise by that much in 2014. So expect a similar level of Chinese retail demand in 2014 to the new record year of 2013.   But be clear on one fact, the Chinese and Indian markets want to feel the gold in their hands. Derivatives and gold share are no substitute there!   China cannot hold prices down. It can only buy what it can by 'buying the dips' and sourcing gold outside of the London market. It will continue to do that. But with the supply/demand picture changing so much in 2014 and beyond, they will accept rising prices. We believe they have been buying knowing that would happen in the future.   They are fully aware that paper currencies will cheapen in the future, as confidence in them falls, until gold is used, once more, to price currencies.

Supply Changes Coming to Gold? Posted: 28 Jan 2014 01:50 AM PST Higher prices may be the only way to resolve mining costs and Chinese demand...   On The SUPPLY SIDE of the gold market, newly mined gold supply in 2013 was around 2,800 tonnes, writes Julian D.W.Phillips at the GoldForecaster.com   Scrap gold was around 1,400 tonnes, before US investment sales of around 1,200 tonnes. That totaled 5,400 tonnes.   With prices now at $1200 there is little incentive for scrap sellers to sell for profit. So these supplies in 2014 are expected to drop substantially, until prices rise back to much higher levels.   To sustain supply levels of gold miners need to continuously explore and start up new ventures. From discovery to production takes in excess of 5 years. What is the condition of future supplies?   Gold discoveries have fallen off the cliff from 4,977 tonnes (160 million ounces) in 1995 to fewer than 155 tonnes (5 million ounces) in 2011.   We are hearing that so many Junior miners and ventures are failing and projects shelved. The costs are so close to income potential that they are losing their backer's support.   Now we hear from Harmony Gold mine in South Africa, which has implemented expenditure cuts on capital expenditure and exploration to a cost per ounce of $1150. As the head of Goldfields said last year gold mining below $1500 isn't viable.   Cutting costs this way is done primarily by moving production to higher grade ore and mothballing lower grade production. This shortens the life and production capacity of mines and, in turn, global production levels. After all, the same principle has to be applied throughout the gold mining world.   This limits future gold production levels significantly. Accurate figures for this are not available just rough estimates (10-50% over time?).   With so many new ventures in politically unstable countries or where huge infrastructure problems exist the risks for new ventures are so much higher than they were last century. So, in future years the number of new mines coming on stream has been savaged.   If the US investment community has nearly completed sales from gold ETFs then the market will lose that vital source of supply, trimming around 1,200 tonnes (including the sales of physical gold last year, April in particular) off supplies to London, center of the world market.   The 5,400 tonnes of supply will drop in 2014 and we estimate this fall could take London's supply down by 2,000 tonnes. Gold prices will have to reflect this.   With such a fall, where will China buy gold at current prices? It can't. It will have to decide to pay up to rising prices or exit the market.   We do not believe it will exit the market 'officially' (for the reasons given in the previous article). It will continue to access as much gold as it can.   The retail trade in China will lessen demand simply because the disposable income they have, while rising quickly, will achieve only the volume that money can buy. Perhaps the average middle class income will buy perhaps 25% less gold, if prices rise that much, but we believe the size of the middle class, in China, will rise by that much in 2014. So expect a similar level of Chinese retail demand in 2014 to the new record year of 2013.   But be clear on one fact, the Chinese and Indian markets want to feel the gold in their hands. Derivatives and gold share are no substitute there!   China cannot hold prices down. It can only buy what it can by 'buying the dips' and sourcing gold outside of the London market. It will continue to do that. But with the supply/demand picture changing so much in 2014 and beyond, they will accept rising prices. We believe they have been buying knowing that would happen in the future.   They are fully aware that paper currencies will cheapen in the future, as confidence in them falls, until gold is used, once more, to price currencies.

Mexico's Mining Tax Hits Silver Posted: 28 Jan 2014 01:47 AM PST Silver prices have bottomed, reckons David Morgan. Resource wars now loom...   DAVID MORGAN, publisher of The Morgan Report and Silver-Investor.com, consults for hedge funds, high net-worth investors, mining companies, depositories and bullion dealers.   A featured speaker at investment conferences in North America, Europe and Asia, David Morgan says here to The Gold Report that silver prices have hit bottom, and wise investors should hold on to their precious metals and selected mining stocks as "resource wars" compromise supply worldwide...   The Gold Report: When we interviewed you last, you mentioned the possibility of "resource wars" in 2014 as referenced in Michael Klare's book of the same title. What will that look like to the average investor?   David Morgan: The resource wars have already started. Look at Mexico. It has a resource that it covets very much, and that's energy. That is why the government levied a new tax designed primarily at energy but subsequently adds a 7.5% royalty on mining profits. Is it a war? Not per se, but it is detrimental to companies that operate in Mexico today and in the future. I think we will see even more of this kind of thing in 2014.   TGR: Last year was a volatile year for precious metals prices with silver going below $20 per ounce and gold bobbing around $1200 per ounce at the end of the year. Are we still three or four years from $100 per ounce silver as you said in your last interview? What's going to push it to that level?   David Morgan: What's going to push it to that level are fundamentals. There is no change fundamentally in why investors would buy gold in 2001 compared to why they would buy gold in 2013 or 2014. The fundamental fact is that there isn't a nation state on earth that has a handle on the debt problem. Because of that, we're going to see more people wake up to the need for precious metals, because precious metals are true money outside the framework of the current system.   The correction we had in silver and gold isn't that abnormal in a major bull market. I've been through one bull market already in my lifetime. I watched gold go from the fixed price of $42.22 per ounce up to $200 per ounce, then to sell off to around the $100 per ounce level. It later advanced all the way back to the peak of $850 per ounce in January 1980. I have seen the damage a big shakeout in a major bull market can have. That experience makes me a little bit more hardened to weather the storm we just experienced.   However, I think that the worst is over. I think silver has bottomed. Gold probably has as well. This year, 2014, will be a rebuilding year. Depending on what happens in the global economic system, it's possible that we could even see a very good year for the metals, but I don't anticipate that. I'm anticipating a rebuild year where silver climbs back over $30 per ounce and gold travels up well over $1600 per ounce, probably to the $1700 per ounce level or higher depending on how the economy unfolds.   TGR: Precious metals experienced a nice little bump at the beginning of the year. Of the companies now in the resources market, what percentage will live to see an upturn in the metals prices? How many are just on the edge right now?   David Morgan: That's a good question, but I'm probably not the best to ask because we focus mostly on top-tier and mid-tier companies, companies that are producers or near producers. We do study a great deal of the junior exploration sector, but suggest very few. If I would venture a guess, of the micro-cap companies – $0.5-3 million – probably half will survive, maybe fewer than that.   It has been very difficult in the precious metals sector over the last couple of years. Even some of the best companies – I am thinking of one recently that has one of the richest gold mines in the world – can be mismanaged. That is why with some of these companies I tell people to only risk money they can lose because the payoff can be great, but they can lose it all, too. And some of my readers thank me for it later. That happened just this morning.   TGR: You mentioned Mexico's new tax. What impact is that going to have on producers large and small there? Are there some companies that could do well even with the new royalty burdens?   David Morgan: Yes, there are. We're still working on our white paper on the topic, but I can outline it in general terms. If you're a major producer, the new Mexican tax is going to cut into the bottom line, but major producers will be able to adjust to still make a profit. For a mid-tier company, it could have more of an effect because the margins are less. But in the junior sector, after this tax is paid, it's going to be touch and go in many cases. The smaller companies that have very little margin or would need to be producing for a few years to become profitable are not going to be able to start as easily because their breakeven analysis is pushed out farther. So, basically, if a company is currently producing with wide margins, it will be okay But companies just getting started or very small producers are going to have a tougher time.   TGR: Do you see this mining tax as a permanent thing or will the government see the error of its ways and rescind it?   David Morgan: I really don't know. There may be too much political pressure to take it back in the short term. It might be altered somewhat, but I don't think it will come off entirely.   TGR: We've had a lot of debate among some of our experts about the ideal ratio between gold and silver. If gold goes to $2000 per ounce in 2014, do you believe silver will follow based on a specific ratio or do you see them working independently?   David Morgan: I have studied this issue as much as anyone other than The Moneychanger author Franklin Sanders. A 45-foot long historic silver chart covering the last 4,500 years, where each foot would be 100 years, shows that only in the last 19 inches the silver-gold ratio would be above 16:1. The 4,400 years before that, it would be less than 16:1! So, from a long-term perspective it means silver is undervalued to gold. Yet, let us agree that for the current time frame it has much less meaning.   My point is that the ratio tells you which metal is doing better relative to each other. The ratio was 80:1 when the silver bull market started, and it's basically 60:1 now. That means as volatile as silver has been, from the start of the bull market, if investors put the same amount of Dollars into gold or silver, they would be better off putting it into silver. I'm not advocating that. I think investors should own both gold and silver. But, overall, I believe silver's outperforming trend will continue.   Now Eric Sprott believes in the monetary classic ratio of 16:1 ratio and thinks the metal will eventually return to that level. I think the ratio will at least test where we've already been in this bull market, and that's about a 35:1 ratio. We've already been there very, very briefly when silver did its big magic jump from $19 per ounce to $48 per ounce in 2011. In the meantime, we're looking at more volatility.   TGR: What message did you give people at the Cambridge House Investment conference in Vancouver?   David Morgan: The bull market is not over and it's normal in these secular bull markets to shake off some bulls and reach the status that we are currently at where the sentiment is very low. There is a lot of distrust and a lot of people are questioning whether they should be in the sector. Those are signs that the bottom is in. Now is the time, for those not in the sector, to get in. For those already in, either hold what they have, add to their position or ride it out. A couple of years from now we're going to see much higher prices in the precious metals. Three or four years out, it may be overvalued in real terms, but that remains to be determined.   TGR: Thanks, David, for your insights and time.

Mexico's Mining Tax Hits Silver Posted: 28 Jan 2014 01:47 AM PST Silver prices have bottomed, reckons David Morgan. Resource wars now loom...   DAVID MORGAN, publisher of The Morgan Report and Silver-Investor.com, consults for hedge funds, high net-worth investors, mining companies, depositories and bullion dealers.   A featured speaker at investment conferences in North America, Europe and Asia, David Morgan says here to The Gold Report that silver prices have hit bottom, and wise investors should hold on to their precious metals and selected mining stocks as "resource wars" compromise supply worldwide...   The Gold Report: When we interviewed you last, you mentioned the possibility of "resource wars" in 2014 as referenced in Michael Klare's book of the same title. What will that look like to the average investor?   David Morgan: The resource wars have already started. Look at Mexico. It has a resource that it covets very much, and that's energy. That is why the government levied a new tax designed primarily at energy but subsequently adds a 7.5% royalty on mining profits. Is it a war? Not per se, but it is detrimental to companies that operate in Mexico today and in the future. I think we will see even more of this kind of thing in 2014.   TGR: Last year was a volatile year for precious metals prices with silver going below $20 per ounce and gold bobbing around $1200 per ounce at the end of the year. Are we still three or four years from $100 per ounce silver as you said in your last interview? What's going to push it to that level?   David Morgan: What's going to push it to that level are fundamentals. There is no change fundamentally in why investors would buy gold in 2001 compared to why they would buy gold in 2013 or 2014. The fundamental fact is that there isn't a nation state on earth that has a handle on the debt problem. Because of that, we're going to see more people wake up to the need for precious metals, because precious metals are true money outside the framework of the current system.   The correction we had in silver and gold isn't that abnormal in a major bull market. I've been through one bull market already in my lifetime. I watched gold go from the fixed price of $42.22 per ounce up to $200 per ounce, then to sell off to around the $100 per ounce level. It later advanced all the way back to the peak of $850 per ounce in January 1980. I have seen the damage a big shakeout in a major bull market can have. That experience makes me a little bit more hardened to weather the storm we just experienced.   However, I think that the worst is over. I think silver has bottomed. Gold probably has as well. This year, 2014, will be a rebuilding year. Depending on what happens in the global economic system, it's possible that we could even see a very good year for the metals, but I don't anticipate that. I'm anticipating a rebuild year where silver climbs back over $30 per ounce and gold travels up well over $1600 per ounce, probably to the $1700 per ounce level or higher depending on how the economy unfolds.   TGR: Precious metals experienced a nice little bump at the beginning of the year. Of the companies now in the resources market, what percentage will live to see an upturn in the metals prices? How many are just on the edge right now?   David Morgan: That's a good question, but I'm probably not the best to ask because we focus mostly on top-tier and mid-tier companies, companies that are producers or near producers. We do study a great deal of the junior exploration sector, but suggest very few. If I would venture a guess, of the micro-cap companies – $0.5-3 million – probably half will survive, maybe fewer than that.   It has been very difficult in the precious metals sector over the last couple of years. Even some of the best companies – I am thinking of one recently that has one of the richest gold mines in the world – can be mismanaged. That is why with some of these companies I tell people to only risk money they can lose because the payoff can be great, but they can lose it all, too. And some of my readers thank me for it later. That happened just this morning.   TGR: You mentioned Mexico's new tax. What impact is that going to have on producers large and small there? Are there some companies that could do well even with the new royalty burdens?   David Morgan: Yes, there are. We're still working on our white paper on the topic, but I can outline it in general terms. If you're a major producer, the new Mexican tax is going to cut into the bottom line, but major producers will be able to adjust to still make a profit. For a mid-tier company, it could have more of an effect because the margins are less. But in the junior sector, after this tax is paid, it's going to be touch and go in many cases. The smaller companies that have very little margin or would need to be producing for a few years to become profitable are not going to be able to start as easily because their breakeven analysis is pushed out farther. So, basically, if a company is currently producing with wide margins, it will be okay But companies just getting started or very small producers are going to have a tougher time.   TGR: Do you see this mining tax as a permanent thing or will the government see the error of its ways and rescind it?   David Morgan: I really don't know. There may be too much political pressure to take it back in the short term. It might be altered somewhat, but I don't think it will come off entirely.   TGR: We've had a lot of debate among some of our experts about the ideal ratio between gold and silver. If gold goes to $2000 per ounce in 2014, do you believe silver will follow based on a specific ratio or do you see them working independently?   David Morgan: I have studied this issue as much as anyone other than The Moneychanger author Franklin Sanders. A 45-foot long historic silver chart covering the last 4,500 years, where each foot would be 100 years, shows that only in the last 19 inches the silver-gold ratio would be above 16:1. The 4,400 years before that, it would be less than 16:1! So, from a long-term perspective it means silver is undervalued to gold. Yet, let us agree that for the current time frame it has much less meaning.   My point is that the ratio tells you which metal is doing better relative to each other. The ratio was 80:1 when the silver bull market started, and it's basically 60:1 now. That means as volatile as silver has been, from the start of the bull market, if investors put the same amount of Dollars into gold or silver, they would be better off putting it into silver. I'm not advocating that. I think investors should own both gold and silver. But, overall, I believe silver's outperforming trend will continue.   Now Eric Sprott believes in the monetary classic ratio of 16:1 ratio and thinks the metal will eventually return to that level. I think the ratio will at least test where we've already been in this bull market, and that's about a 35:1 ratio. We've already been there very, very briefly when silver did its big magic jump from $19 per ounce to $48 per ounce in 2011. In the meantime, we're looking at more volatility.   TGR: What message did you give people at the Cambridge House Investment conference in Vancouver?   David Morgan: The bull market is not over and it's normal in these secular bull markets to shake off some bulls and reach the status that we are currently at where the sentiment is very low. There is a lot of distrust and a lot of people are questioning whether they should be in the sector. Those are signs that the bottom is in. Now is the time, for those not in the sector, to get in. For those already in, either hold what they have, add to their position or ride it out. A couple of years from now we're going to see much higher prices in the precious metals. Three or four years out, it may be overvalued in real terms, but that remains to be determined.   TGR: Thanks, David, for your insights and time.

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