Gold World News Flash |
- Spontaneous Travel, Global Cooling and Mexican Emigration: The Weekend Vigilante January 4, 2013
- Ted Butler: 2013—The Year of JPMorgan
- First High Quality Gold Hoard In Over A Decade
- Gold and Silver Prices - You Cant Outrun the Long Arm of Equilibrium
- Michael Pento’s Boldest Predictions For 2014, Including Gold
- 11 Nasty Trends That Will Test America's Resilience
- Jim Rogers Warns "Bernanke Has Set The Stage For The Fed's Collapse"
- Precious Metals Market Report
- Gold "Speculation" Drops To Record Low
- Michael Pento’s Boldest Predictions For 2014, Including Gold
- Party Like Its 1914
- Did the Bundesbank get even a little of its original gold back?
- Bitcoin For Brownstones: You Can Now Use Digital Currency To Buy New York Real Estate
- Gold & Silver Open 2014 With a Bang! | Silver Doctors
- Noonan: “Gold” War Has Replaced Cold War in China/Russia vs. U.S. Struggle for Economic Dominance
- Noonan: Charts Suggest Lower Lows for Gold & Silver to Come in 2014
- Gold And Silver - In East v West Gold War, Both Are Still Winning
- This Past Week in Gold
- Koos Jansen: Unprecedented high gold demand in China in 2013
- DID WE JUST SEE THE HIGHS FOR THE YEAR IN THE STOCK MARKET?
- Why the World is Trapped with their U.S. Dollars
- Gold And Silver - In East v West Gold War, Both Are Still Winning
- Gold And Silver – In East v West Gold War, Both Are Still Winning
- Gold and Silver Released from the Year End Clamp Down
| Spontaneous Travel, Global Cooling and Mexican Emigration: The Weekend Vigilante January 4, 2013 Posted: 05 Jan 2014 12:00 AM PST by Jeff Berwick, Dollar Vigilante:
As you know from last week I was planning to be in Guatemala and Honduras by this time except I made one very critical error that I had not thought of. I rarely book a flight more than 24 hours ahead of time just for the simple reason that things in my life change rapidly. I often end up on the other side of the world with just a day or two’s notice of an opportunity. Like the time I was in Acapulco and got a call from an old, good friend who happened to be flying through on his jet on his way to Guyana to look at a gold mine. He had meetings set-up with the President and I recognized that both opportunities could be very interesting as he has a long track record of making tens of millions of dollars investing in these precise opportunities… plus I´d get a chance to sell the President on doing a citizenship by investment program and/or privatizing the country. | |||||||||||
| Ted Butler: 2013—The Year of JPMorgan Posted: 04 Jan 2014 11:00 PM PST by Ed Steer, Casey Research:
There were three tiny rallies in gold yesterday. The first once ended/got capped at 9 a.m. Hong Kong time—and the second one ended at 3 p.m. Hong Kong time. The last one ended about five minutes before the Comex close. A cursory glance at the Kitco chart below shows that, in most ways, the price action in gold on Friday was virtually a carbon copy of the price action on Thursday. The only real difference was that the morning rally in Far East trading didn’t get as far. The CME recorded the low and high ticks at $1,221.30 and $1,239.60 in the February contract. Gold closed in New York on Friday afternoon at $1,238.00 spot, which was up $15.00 from Thursday’s close. Gross volume was 124,000 contracts and, like Thursday, a big chunk of that came before the London open to squash the rallies that occurred during the Far East trading day. Volume was about 30% lower on Friday than it was on Thursday | |||||||||||
| First High Quality Gold Hoard In Over A Decade Posted: 04 Jan 2014 10:00 PM PST from McalvanyFinancial: | |||||||||||
| Gold and Silver Prices - You Cant Outrun the Long Arm of Equilibrium Posted: 04 Jan 2014 09:30 PM PST Jeffrey Lewis | |||||||||||
| Michael Pento’s Boldest Predictions For 2014, Including Gold Posted: 04 Jan 2014 09:00 PM PST from KingWorldNews:
This is why most money managers wrongfully predict another disastrous year for the yellow metal. These advisors have never realized the simple truth that the value of gold never changes; only its expression in currencies, which can be diluted, changes. Therefore, it always preserves its purchasing power over time and is the best hedge against a fiat currency that is headed down the pathway of destruction. Gold prices increase when the market presages a currency will lose its purchasing power—it's just that simple. | |||||||||||
| 11 Nasty Trends That Will Test America's Resilience Posted: 04 Jan 2014 06:51 PM PST Originally posted at Investors.com, The resilience that has long been one of America's remarkable traits was on display in 2013. Not only did businesses create 2 million jobs, but the struggling economy actually grew and profits and stock prices soared to near-record levels. Still, five years into the Obama presidency, the economy is grossly underperforming. Contrary to the dominant media narrative, it's not bad luck or the financial crisis to blame, but bad policies — from the $860 billion "stimulus" that didn't stimulate to the Dodd-Frank financial reform that killed lending. Last year was a challenging one for entrepreneurs and other productive Americans. No fewer than 13 new taxes were put into place. Big government now consumes one of every four dollars of our GDP and is getting bigger. Entering 2014, we face problems, including taxes and spending, that neither the White House nor Congress is addressing. In the following charts, we look at a few of the more alarming and intractable ones.
Extremely Limited Prosperity
The president talks endlessly about the need to reduce income inequality, and claims it will be the focus of his remaining years in office. As this chart shows, since the U.S. recession bottomed in June 2009, stock prices have been on a tear — fueled by a powerful rise in corporate profits. The bellwether S&P 500 index has climbed more than 90%, as U.S. investors added more than $5 trillion in stock market wealth. But Obama's slow-growth economic policies have taken a toll. Yes, corporate profits have increased, but companies worried about what lies ahead under Obama are holding on to cash or buying back stock rather than hiring workers. And the Fed's endless stimulus efforts have managed to lift stock prices to new heights. These gains have largely bypassed the struggling middle class. In fact, median household income remains well below where it was when the recovery started.
A Wide Economic Growth Gap
The Obama recovery is the most feeble since the Great Depression. GDP growth is far below the average recovery since World War II, and even below the average growth of the past three recoveries. In dollar terms, if Obama's recovery had been merely average, the economy would be $1.3 trillion — or 8% — bigger today than it is. Put another way, every American alive today — workers, non-workers, children — is $4,100 less well off than he or she would have been if growth had only been normal. Consider it a tax we all pay for voting poorly in recent elections. This is more than just a matter of numbers. America's highest-in-the-world standard of living has been built on economic growth. Without it, we'll all be worse off. Unfortunately, the policies put in place by tax-and-spend leftists in the administration and a Democrat-dominated Congress have stalled the U.S. growth machine.
A Massive Ongoing Jobs Gap
The jobless rate is coming down and will likely continue to fall in 2014. But the tepid recovery has left millions who would otherwise have jobs languishing in the unemployment line. By this time in past recoveries, the economy had churned out at least a 10% gain in net new jobs. This time, the hamstrung economy has managed just over 4%. Worse, the total number of payroll jobs — 136.765 million as of November — remains 1.3 million below the level when the economy first went into the tank in December 2007. By comparison, our population has grown by 13 million over the same stretch. Statistically, this is the worst job slump since the Great Depression.
Dependency Growing, Not Jobs
Obama's policies have also created a wide disparity between self-sufficiency and dependency. As this chart shows, food stamp and disability enrollment have climbed at a much faster pace than jobs since June 2009. Today, 47 million people are on food stamps, up from about 28 million when Obama was sworn in. And disability rolls have swollen by 2 million. This has not only increased our federal budget deficit as welfare spending has risen sharply. It has also led to a startling surge in Americans' dependence on government handouts — a radical altering of the country's traditional culture of self-reliance and hard work.
America's Global Strength Wanes
For more than a decade, the IBD/TIPP Poll has asked Americans about the U.S. position in the world. Our final poll of 2013 is in, and opinions have never been lower. Whether it's the bumbling over Egypt and Syria, the Benghazi scandal, Iran's burgeoning nuclear program, Russia's and China's growing challenges or the cavalier treatment by the Obama White House of old allies, Americans feel our global standing has weakened. This doesn't bode well for future engagement in the world economy and trade, or for U.S. influence.
Workers Leave Labor Force
The administration has pointed proudly to the decline in unemployment from above 10% to a current level of 7%. What it doesn't say is how that was achieved. It came about largely as a result of millions of workers leaving the workforce. As the chart shows, labor force participation has dropped steeply since the financial crisis — from 66% to 63%. The difference may not seem large, but it is. The number of people who tell the government they are not in the labor force has jumped by 10 million since Obama took office, and 91.5 million Americans are not working at all. If the labor force had remained relatively stable over the past five years, the unemployment rate today would be over 10%.
America, The Biggest Debtor Ever
This chart may look innocent, but it's anything but. It shows how our debt has surged. As recently as 2008, total U.S. public debt totaled just over 60% of GDP — not low, but certainly manageable. Today, our total debt is right at 100% — a level that many economists believe endangers future economic growth. The bad news is, it could rise to 150% or higher in coming decades. That's national insolvency. As Americans pay increasing amounts to service their massive debt obligations, businesses will have less capital available to grow — and will hire fewer workers.
Real Jobless Rate? Double Digits
As mentioned earlier, nominal unemployment has fallen from 10% to 7%. But that's not the only measure for joblessness. The government's U6 rate — which adds in those who are only marginally employed, or working part time but want full-time work — pegs the unemployment rate at a hefty 13.2%. That's down from 17.1% when the recovery began in June 2009. But as the chart shows, today's level is much higher than it's been in nearly two decades. Coupled with more long-term unemployed than ever, this chart paints a picture of labor force distress that will disappear only when normal economic growth resumes.
Regulation Is Huge Hidden Tax
Politicians like to make laws; it's what they do. And when they make laws, the unelected bureaucracies go to work, filling in all the gaps with new regulations. They are, in a real sense, the real lawmakers. This is not without cost. Indeed, it's the most significant cost to consumers and businesses in America. According to the respected Competitive Enterprise Institute, regulations are an annual tax on the U.S. economy equal to $1.5 trillion. As the chart shows, that's more than all corporate and income taxes combined. And it's roughly equal to all corporate pretax profits. This is yet another huge tax you pay, without knowing it.
What America Really Owes
We constantly hear that we have trillion-dollar deficits. And we do. We also have $17 trillion in total debt, nearly a third bigger than when Barack Obama entered office. Yet that doesn't even scratch the surface of what we really owe. Economists look at all the promises government has made, then at the expected revenues to satisfy those promises, and find we come up way short. They call this the long-term fiscal gap. Depending on how it's counted, over the next 75 years the U.S. must find $54 trillion to $200 trillion to pay for all our promises.
Long-Term Fiscal Outlook Is Ugly
America's long-term fiscal outlook is grim. Based on the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's "alternative scenario" — the one it actually thinks is most likely — federal spending will continue to soar out of control, eventually gobbling up more than 35% of all economic output. Fast-growing entitlement spending is at the heart of the spending boom. Yet, based on long-term experience, federal revenues won't keep pace. The result: A massive deficit of nearly 20% of GDP. At that level, all capital available for spending or investment will go to finance the government's red ink. As the government itself says, it's "unsustainable."
Members of both parties will have to act soon — or risk national bankruptcy and fiscal collapse. | |||||||||||
| Jim Rogers Warns "Bernanke Has Set The Stage For The Fed's Collapse" Posted: 04 Jan 2014 05:46 PM PST With Bernanke's term due to expire in January, Jim Rogers warns Mineweb that the Fed-head will be remembered as "the guy who set the stage for the demise of the Central Bank in America. We've had three central banks in America. The first two disappeared. This one's going to disappear too in the next decade." With precious metals, bonds, and stock markets obsessing over Fed actions, Rogers says, in the next 10 years or so, "People will realise that these guys have led us down a terrible path," and collapse is "not a possibility," he adds, "it's a probability." "100 years ago you could not have named the head of most central banks in the world," Rogers told Mineweb. "Now they're all rockstars." Gold and equity markets have increasingly been locked in Fed-watch mode in 2013, obsessing over when or whether chairman Ben Bernanke would taper the bank's vast bond buying scheme. Rogers however, an ardent free-marketeer, says the market's narrow focus on the Fed reflects the bank's rising and now extreme interference in global markets, propelling the likes of Bernanke in the US and Mario Draghi in Europe to near household name status. "Everybody knows them," he says, "but that's only a phenomenon of the last 20 years, when central banks have been pumping money into the markets and everybody's singing hallelujah." With Bernanke's term due to expire in January, Rogers says he will be remembered as "the guy who set the stage for the demise of the Central Bank in America. We've had three central banks in America. The first two disappeared. This one's going to disappear too in the next decade." "It's not a possibility," he adds, "it's a probability. People will realise that these guys have led us down a terrible path. The Fed balance sheet has increased by 500 per cent in the last 5 years and a lot of it's garbage." Unlike the wider market, Rogers does not set great store by the Fed's decision shortly before Christmas to taper its bond buying measures from $85bn per month to $75bn. The announcement put pressure on gold and drove US equities to a new all-time high, in what Rogers views as a relief rally. "The US went up because people said, 'Now it's done, we don't have to worry anymore.' But somewhere along the line, markets are going to start suffering. They'll taper until the markets start hurting and then they'll panic and loosen up again. They've got themselves in a terrible box." "It'll turn into a bubble or a very inflated situation, but eventually the markets will say, we're not going to take your garbage anymore, whether it's treasury bonds or currency." Inflation, Rogers says, has only been kept in check in the US by the country's shale gas discovery, putting a "dampener" on energy prices. Whist Rogers views mass money printing as untenable, in the short term, he expects equities to turn parabolic, rather than collapse. "The Japanese Central Bank has said that it will print unlimited amounts of money," he says. "That's their word and they're doing it. When people look back 20 years from now they'll say that's what killed Japan, but in the meantime, all the staggering, unlimited amounts of money have got to go somewhere and it's going to go into Japanese shares." Rogers prefers gold over gold mining shares and divisible coins over bullion, but says "there's nothing in precious metals that I'm tempted to buy at the moment." Indian import tariffs he views as the single biggest drag on the gold market currently. "They've got a huge balance of trade deficit and the three largest parts are oil, gold and cooking oil. They cannot do anything about oil or cooking oil, so they're attacking gold, blaming their problems on gold. Gold has not caused their problems, gold is a symptom of their problems, but politicians are pretty simple-minded people and they look for the easy answer." For early 2014, Rogers is therefore long inflatable equities and neutral on gold, but longer term, he expects to short junk and government bonds and is ultra bullish on gold. "Gold will become one of the only refuges around," he says. | |||||||||||
| Posted: 04 Jan 2014 05:00 PM PST | |||||||||||
| Gold "Speculation" Drops To Record Low Posted: 04 Jan 2014 03:40 PM PST While the last two days of relative excitement in the precious metals are noteworthy in their bucking-the-trend of recent months, there is perhaps a much more critical 'trend' that may finally allow the demand for physical gold to peer through the veneer of synthetic paper pricing. As JPMorgan notes, speculative positions (defined CFTC net longs minus shorts) have dropped to record lows in the last few weeks. With ETF gold holdings back below 'Lehman' levels and gold coin sales elevated, perhaps the Indian government's (and most of the Western world's Feds) hope for the death of the precious metals market is greatly exaggerated...
Gold Spec positions at record lows...
"Paper" Gold ETF Holdings at pre-Lehman crisis levels...
As "physical" Gold coin sales are on the rise again...
Charts: JPMorgan | |||||||||||
| Michael Pento’s Boldest Predictions For 2014, Including Gold Posted: 04 Jan 2014 01:02 PM PST  Today one of the top economists in the world issued his boldest predictions for 2014, which included the gold market. This is a powerful piece where he discusses what this will mean for global markets. Below is what Michael Pento, founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies, had to say in his exclusive piece for KWN readers. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | |||||||||||
| Posted: 04 Jan 2014 12:53 PM PST Forget the last two day's decline. The consensus opinion for 2014 is pretty uniform: stocks will go up modestly, bond will decline in similar fashion. Job growth will grind higher, as will inflation. The Fed will taper its bond-buying program, slowly. And so it may all come to pass... But ConvergEx's Nick Colas ponders what could go wrong, or at least different. Top of his list: fixed income volatility, in conjunction with stock market valuations that are, at best, average. Colas reflects ominously on 1914, where if you read the papers of the day you would have seen much of the same "Yeah, we got this" tone that prevails today. Seven months later, and the New York Stock Exchange had to shut for +4 months due to the start of World War I. No, we aren’t calling for Armageddon. After all, the Dow started 1914 at 57.7 and ended at 54.6, even with the European war. But one thing we know for sure – the time to worry is when no one else seems concerned. Via ConvergeEx's Nick Colas, Consider the following quote from the New York Times: “Whatever may be said of the stock market there can be no doubt that the investment situation afforded grounds for a most hopeful view of the outlook.” Aside from the archaic-sounding wordiness, it is a good summary of the current outlook for U.S. stocks. Economic conditions are improving, as is investor confidence. Last year’s 30% return for the S&P 500 means even retail investors are returning to stocks, much as swallows portend the arrival of Spring after a chilly Winter. Things look good for 2014, both in the domestic economy and stock markets. The date of the quote, however, is not January 2014, but rather a hundred years ago: January 31st 1914. The Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 60.6, up 5.0% from the start of the year. The first few days of 1914 had been choppy, to be sure, but the good returns of January were enough to give investors some hope that things were solidly on the mend. The Times did feature some stories about the political situation in Europe, but there was more ink spilled about the fabulous parties given by New York’s 1% of the day. Fifty person sit down dinners seemed common, with a separate guest list for those who merely attended the coffee and entertainment afterwards. Not quite as spicy as Bethenny Frankel’s lastest boyfriend – today’s hot news – but close enough. Just six months after that quote, the New York Stock Exchange closed for over four months. The start of World War I meant that foreigners – mostly British subjects – wanted their money out of U.S. stocks and repatriated back to their local currency. The Treasury Secretary at the time felt that suspending the gold standard – the method of exchange between different currencies at the time – was too costly to America’s reputation. The only alternative was to freeze the U.S. capital markets, and the NYSE did not reopen until December 12th. Despite the opening salvos of the Great War, U.S. stocks fared pretty well in 1914. The Dow ended the year 54.5, down only 5.5% for the year. America’s entry into the conflict would come in 1917, and at the end of the war in 1918 the Dow closed at 87.2 - 38% higher than the beginning of 1914. Fast-forward a century, and the lessons of 1914 ring true: be careful when the market thinks it has everything under control. And such is the case as I write this note. Despite today’s 16 point drop in the S&P 500, the narrative of the U.S. equity market is resoundingly bullish. A few of the more optimistic sound bites:
All this sounds so neat and compact, and the rally last year seems to confirm the basic outlines of the case. Yet that quote from the Times shows that the easy case may ignore a lot of important factors. It wasn’t a surprise that Europe was a tinderbox in 1914. It was the how, the when, the who, and the why that no one knew. Happily, there is no World War in the offing in 2014, but let’s take a moment to consider some less-than-perfect outcomes that might make the consensus wrong.
As the great market sage Yogi Berra once opined, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Our historical case study about 1914 comes neatly on the 100-year anniversary of the start of World War I, but you needn’t expect a cataclysm to take its cautionary tale to heart. The U.S. economy and capital markets have much to commend them, but the current optimism seems to run ahead of fundamentals for the moment. Perhaps today’s pullback is the start of a correction, and that would be both healthy and positive for 2014. Either way, a cautious outlook is the better part of valor so early in the year. | |||||||||||
| Did the Bundesbank get even a little of its original gold back? Posted: 04 Jan 2014 12:00 PM PST 3:08p ET Saturday, January 4, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Correspondence between the German financial journalist Lars Schall and Germany's Bundesbank suggests that the small amount of gold the Bundesbank claims recently to have repatriated from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was not returned in the form in which it was deposited many years ago -- that, indeed, the original German gold was not and is not available to be returned because something undisclosed was done with it. Schall's correspondence with the Bundesbank is appended along with a statement by Peter Boehringer of the German Precious Metals Society and a leader of the movement in Germany seeking repatriation of the country's gold supposedly vaulted abroad, who raises questions the Bundesbank has yet to answer. CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer * * * December 26, 2013 Dear Ladies and Gentlemen: I am an independent financial journalist. In connection with the transfer of 37 tons of Bundesbank gold from New York to Germany, I came across the news that the bars were a melted before the transfer. May I kindly ask you for the following information: Why were the bars melted at all? And why couldn't that wait until the bars arrived in Frankfurt? Kind regards, Lars Schall * * * January 3, 2014 Dear Mr Schall: Thank you for your enquiry. At a press conference on the topic of Germany's gold reserves on 16 January 2013, Executive Board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele presented the Deutsche Bundesbank's new storage concept. In addition to the relocation of gold bars, this concept includes, amongst other things, measures to ensure that the specifications of the London Good Delivery (LGD) standard are met. You can find these specifications on Page 17 of the following presentation: http://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/DE/Downloads/Presse/Publikationen/201... Storage plan (new) Planned relocations: -- Phased relocation of 300 tonnes of gold from New York to Frankfurt. -- Phased relocation of 374 tonnes of gold from Paris to Frankfurt. -- Achieve LGD standard, where this is not already the case. You can find the specifications for the London Good Delivery (LGD) standard at the following address: http://www.lbma.org.uk/pages/index.cfm?page_id=27. In cases where these specifications were not already met, the Bundesbank had these original gold bars melted down and recast in order to meet this standard. This was achieved without any difficulties. Please understand that in order to ensure the security of the gold transports and our employees, the Bundesbank is unable to provide you with any further information. Yours sincerely, DEUTSCHE BUNDESBANK Tel.: +49 69 9566x3511 or 3512 * * * Statement by Peter Boehringer, president of German Precious Metal Society and co-initiator of the Repatriate our Gold campaign -- http://www.gold-action.de/campaign.html -- on the Bundesbank's response. Why does the Bundesbank continue to avoid transparency regarding Germany's gold holdings? Why not just come up with easy-to-deliver facts instead of repeated rhetoric about an alleged remelting of gold bars in the United States that even people with some knowledge of the gold industry and some common sense fail to understand? There is no reason why the original gold bars acquired in the 1950s and 1960s (if they ever existed at all, which has never been proven, as by publication of bar lists or photos) had to be melted down and recast into LGD-compliant bars in New York as opposed to Frankfurt. Nor is there reason why all this had to be done in obscurity without any published report of the recasting. The public is still waiting for answers to crucial questions like these: -- What kind of gold bars were melted? Original material from the 1950s and '60s? -- How can the Bundesbank hint in its press release that some of the old bars already met the LGD specifications when those specifications were not defined and made a standard for central bank bars until 1979? -- Why has the Bundesbank not published a bar number list of the old bars? How can there be security concerns about bars that no longer exist? Why has the Bundesbank not published a bar number list of the newly cast bars? -- Who exactly melted the bars? Where exactly was this melting performed? Is there a smelter at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York? -- Who witnessed the melting and recasting of the bars? -- Are there any reports on this in writing with a valid signature? By whom? -- And especially: Why was it deemed necessary to perform this action in the United States as opposed to Frankfurt or nearby Hanau, where there are some of the best facilities in the world for metal probing, melting, and recasting? Had these actions been performed in Germany in a fully transparent manner, it would have been so easy for the Bundesbank to dismiss all questions from "paranoid gold conspiracy theorists." The Bundesbank is just the custodian of Germany's national gold, which is worth more than $125 billion. The Bundesbank owes the public full transparency in all these gold matters. That is, physical audits, independently verified storage reports, and a publication of the full bar lists of all its gold in all national or international vaults. Despite having now had the excellent opportunity of this partial repatriation, the Bundesbank has again failed to produce any proof or indication that at least 37 tonnes (out of 1,500 tonnes of German gold at the New York Fed) still existed through 2013 in their original 1950s-'60s bar form. Instead, Germany is now owner of almost 3,000 LGD-compliant standard bars, which proves nothing and dismisses no allegations of decade-long manipulation of the gold price. It is still possible and even probable that the old German bars were lent into the market long ago or that they have multiple owners or are backing multiple gold exchange-traded fund derivatives. Of course the same holds for our remaining 120,000 bars at the New York Fed. The "repatriation" of a mere 1.5 percent of Germany's foreign gold holdings and the supposed melting and recasting of the original gold bars do not prove the continued existence of Germany's remaining gold holdings supposedly vaulted at the New York Fed. The Bundesbank has missed a great opportunity to bring transparency to Germany's gold reserves. What a pity. And at its current speed the Bundesbank will require 60 years to accomplish the repatriation mission forced upon it by an impatient public. What a shame. The initiators of the Repatriate Our Gold campaign -- http://www.gold-action.de/campaign.html -- are considering legal action based on freedom-of-information law against the Bundesbank and possibly also against its auditors, who have certified the Bundesbank's balance sheet without having adequately considered the risks associated with a non-transparent gold hoard, which is the only asset of substance on the Bundesbank's books. (Ninety percent of those assets are mere paper claims, many of dubious quality, like "Target 2" claims.) Our objective remains to achieve the publication of all gold bar lists and full transparency involving Germany's gold. The German people are entitled to have all information about their golden property. And the American people have a right to know as well. After all, it is the U.S. Federal Reserve System and the U.S. Treasury Department that have been obscuring their gold holdings and foreign gold holdings since the last proper audit in 1953. ADVERTISEMENT Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit: http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata Join GATA here: Vancouver Resource Investment Conference http://www.cambridgehouse.com/event/vancouver-resource-investment-confer... Mines and Money Hong Kong 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: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Jim Sinclair plans seminar in Austin on Feb. 8 Gold advocate and mining entrepreneur Jim Sinclair will hold his next market seminar at the Austin, Texas, Airport Hilton from 2 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, February 8. Advance registration is required. Details are posted at Sinclair's Internet site, JSMineSet, here: http://www.jsmineset.com/2014/01/02/austin-texas-qa-session-confirmed/ | |||||||||||
| Bitcoin For Brownstones: You Can Now Use Digital Currency To Buy New York Real Estate Posted: 04 Jan 2014 11:47 AM PST Having doubled off the post-PBOC-ban-and-Fed-Taper lows, Bitcoin, trading at USD910 currently is becoming increasingly ubiquitous as a payment method for many businesses. The latest, as NY Post reports, is Manhattan-based real-estate broker Bond New York, is "using Bitcoins to help facilitate transactions." With overseas money-laundering as a key support, and Manhattan apartment sales setting a record in Q4 for volume of transactions (+27% YoY), we suspect the acceptance of Bitcoin will merely ease the Chinese (or Russian) ability to transfer funds directly into NYC housing - blowing an even bigger bubble.
But it is that perspective that could indeed be lost on the burgeoning foreign interest in moving money overseas (into US real estate)... (as we noted in September)
But now, with the acceptance of Bitcoin, we would imagine the "funds" transfer process is even easier... blowing what is already a bubble... (via Bloomberg)
Into an even bigger one...
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| Gold & Silver Open 2014 With a Bang! | Silver Doctors Posted: 04 Jan 2014 11:18 AM PST On this week's SD Weekly Metals & Markets the Doc and Eric Dubin cover: 1. New Year's upside reversal: PMs rise for a change- a sign of things to come in 2014? 2. Chinese buying remains strong-... [[ 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! ]]  | |||||||||||
| Noonan: “Gold” War Has Replaced Cold War in China/Russia vs. U.S. Struggle for Economic Dominance Posted: 04 Jan 2014 11:06 AM PST With the Western central bankers conducting a clearance sale, and depleting their physical holdings in the process, China So writes Michael Noonan (edgetraderplus.com) in edited excerpts from his original article* entitled Gold And Silver – In East v West Gold War, Both Are Still Winning. [The following is presented by Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.FinancialArticleSummariesToday.com and www.munKNEE.com and may have been edited ([ ]), abridged (…) and/or reformatted (some sub-titles and bold/italics emphases) for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. This paragraph must be included in any article re-posting to avoid copyright infringement.]Noonan goes on to say in further edited excerpts: The moneychangers have run their centuries old scam of storing private gold and issuing gold receipts, in exchange, making it easier for the holders of gold to carry paper, convertible into gold upon demand, instead of the physical gold itself. The moneychangers noted that the owners did not demand their gold back, preferring to keep the receipts, instead. The moneychangers began issuing receipts many times more than the actual gold backing the receipts, creating "new money" and the assumption of gold backing. Paper alchemy was created, and it was highly profitable for the moneychangers, which became central banks. It worked quite successfully until several years ago when the elite's Ponzi scheme began to unravel. Fast forward to 2013, and the central bankers of the West are having trouble fulfilling the unprecedented demands of physical gold from the East. One thing the Rothschild formula for theft did not take into account was an "Follow the munKNEE" via Twitter (https://twitter.com/munknee or @munknee or #munknee) The East vs. West Gold War a) The East China [and Russia] represent the East, importing gold at cheaper and cheaper price levels, as the Western central bankers have been conducting a clearance sale…depleting their physical holdings. In the war for gold, the East and West are still winning, but for vastly different reasons. China loaned Mao's gold to the NY central bank, and it would not [could not] return it. The gold was gone, loaned out, sold, we will not likely know the true story, but it was gone. Paper was the name of the game for the West. Physical gold, silver, and natural resources was, and still is the name of the game for China and Russia. Both have been dumping US Treasury bonds in exchange for gold, silver, and any other asset that is not a derivative of paper. Because of the NY central bank experience, China is out for revenge.
Russia has always been a known adversary and is winning against the US by default, simply waiting for the US to self-implode, which it is doing. Where China holds the majority of physical gold, Russia holds energy trump cards over the US and its faltering scheme of the petro-dollar. It is fast being replaced by sounder forms of collateral and trade outside of the Western fiat scheme. The US has become isolated. Russia has vast amounts of natural gas to supply Europe, replacing, in part, oil. "Follow the munKNEE" via Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/lorimer.wilson b) The West How is the West winning in the war for gold supremacy? By default, which is all it knows how to do. The entire Western world remains in the financial grip of fiat obligations. Everything is dependent upon the central banking system that is close to collapse. The fiat Ponzi scheme is being kept afloat by China and Russia not forcing the totally insolvent Western banking system to make good on its debts. Instead, China is being rewarded by cheap gold prices and cheap New York real estate that comes with the added bonus of the largest commercial gold vault (they bought 1 Chase Plaza for $750 million, about half of its value, from JP Morgan which also happens to house the world's largest gold vault) located across the street from the Federal Reserve gold vault. In spite of the fact that there have been:
they have had zero impact on the price of gold…In fact, the price of gold was down 28% for the year! Why? Because the greatest, and only impact on the price of gold has been the central bankers and their concerted effort to suppress prices, and a very successful endeavor for the past few years. In this regard, Western central bankers have been winning the paper battle on gold, but they are also losing the most important war, economic dominance. Sign up for our FREE Market Intelligence Report newsletter Keeping Score Because the natural laws of supply and demand does not apply to gold and silver, the only way we can track the influence of endless paper supply on the market is through the most reliable source, the market itself, and the best way to track the market is through charts. [Editor's Note: The author's views and conclusions in the above article are unaltered and no personal comments have been included to maintain the integrity of the original post. Furthermore, the views, conclusions and any recommendations offered in this article are not to be construed as an endorsement of such by the editor.]*http://edgetraderplus.com/market-commentaries/gold-and-silver-in-east-v-west-gold-war-both-are-still-winning Related Articles:  Most Americans simply don’t understand that Russia and China have the power to collapse the U.S. economy by going to a gold for oil system. All they have to do is pull the trigger. Let me explain. Words: 1515 Read More » 2. A Look At the Great Chinese Gold Rush  China is taking over the world one gold bar at a time. The infographic below shows how, in the space of a few decades, it has developed a huge appetite for the world's physical gold. Read More » 3. China Converting U.S. Dollar Debt Holdings Into Gold At Accelerating Rate  China, Russia and other nations are exiting their dollar-denominated holdings in favor of gold. This action should put pressure on the dollar and U.S. treasuries, pushing not only central banks, but mainstream investors towards the safety of precious metals and other tangible assets that cannot be defaulted on. There will be a rush out of dollars and into assets with no counter-party risk, it is just a matter of how soon it happens. Read More » 4. Noonan: Is Gold's Decline Being Caused By Fed Payback Time to China?  The manipulated raids in the gold market since last April may be hurting the Precious Metals game players, weakening their confidence and "disproving" gold's worth against a fiat currency, but they serve a greater purpose, as in Federal Reserve payback time to China. Here’s why. Read More »
The post Noonan: “Gold” War Has Replaced Cold War in China/Russia vs. U.S. Struggle for Economic Dominance appeared first on munKNEE dot.com. | |||||||||||
| Noonan: Charts Suggest Lower Lows for Gold & Silver to Come in 2014 Posted: 04 Jan 2014 10:52 AM PST Because the natural laws of supply and demand does not apply to gold and silver, the only way we can track the influence of So writes Michael Noonan (edgetraderplus.com) in edited excerpts from his original article* entitled Gold And Silver – In East v West Gold War, Both Are Still Winning. [The following is presented by Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.FinancialArticleSummariesToday.com and www.munKNEE.com and may have been edited ([ ]), abridged (…) and/or reformatted (some sub-titles and bold/italics emphases) for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. This paragraph must be included in any article re-posting to avoid copyright infringement.]Noonan goes on to say in further edited excerpts: (As an important aside, when we reference charts, we are not talking about traditional technical analysis that uses artificial tools like moving averages, RSI, endless broken trend lines, Bollinger Bands, whatever. Instead, we apply the most important factors that best capture market activity: price and volume.) Gold – Annual, Quarterly & Monthly Charts The Annual and Quarterly charts (A & Q on the left hand side) below for gold suggest a lower low is more than likely. One does not have to happen, but odds favor at least a nominal lower low in 2014. The Quarterly chart looks bottom heavy for the past 3 Qtrs, and the last Qtr shows a lower high, lower low, and lower close. The monthly chart, on the right side, shows a labored decline over the past 5 months, and the last 6 months have all been inside June's wide range. We often mention how a wide range bar will often contain subsequent bars, for whatever time frame, this one monthly. The lower end close for December also increased the probability of a lower low, next month, January.
Here are two separate forms of market activity that provide for reasonable expectations into the future, not predictions, but expectations.
It does not matter what the fundamentals say. The market is providing a clue or clues in what to expect. It may not always happen, but we are dealing in probabilities that tend to be fairly consistent. "Follow the munKNEE" via Twitter (https://twitter.com/munknee or @munknee or #munknee) Gold – Weekly Chart [As can be seen in the chart below] price did make a nominal low on the weekly, and it held the support area established in June. With the close located in the middle of the down channel, while the price of gold can still rally, it is unlikely to break upside, at this juncture.
"Follow the munKNEE" via Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/lorimer.wilson Gold – Daily Chart [As can be seen in the daily chart for gold below] the down channel has been broken but of all the time frames discussed, the higher time frames are more controlling than the daily. It could turn out that the daily activity will lead to change on the weekly, then from weekly to monthly, etc, but what we know most about market trends is that they take time to change direction.
Friday's bar was the smallest of the last three rally bars, and that tells us demand has weakened. With the location of the close near high-end on the bar, sellers were weaker than buyers. What needs to be watched closely, next week, is how price reacts on any pullback.
We do not have to know ahead of time, nor do we need to predict. Instead, knowing how price and volume could develop, day by day, we just need to be prepared for how price may develop, and react accordingly. The market will give us the information needed on what to expect. Sign up for our FREE Market Intelligence Report newsletter Silver Silver is a slightly different story, according to the charts. Silver – Annual, Quarterly & Monthly Charts It would not be unreasonable to expect a lower low from the annual chart (A) as shown on the right hand side of the monthly chart below. As shown in the quarterly chart (Qtr.) also below on the right hand side, the last Quarter in 2013 was the smallest range in the past 4 years. What matters is where it appears: at the lower end of the correction. The reason why the range is small is due to lack of sellers, combined with buyers meeting the effort of sellers sufficiently to prevent the range from extending lower. It does not preclude a lower low, next Quarter, but a rally could occur first. The monthly chart below shows how labored the decline was relative to the wide range August rally. Here, again, we see a wide range that contained the price activity for the next several bars. December was a small range, letting us know, just like the Quarterly, that selling was weak, and buyers were meeting the effort of the sellers. The buyers were able to keep the range from extending lower, and also to close just slightly above November.
The trend has not changed, but we are seeing little pieces of information that alert us to potential change. The trend being down, and combined with bearish spacing, we know that silver has a lot of overhear resistance that will likely stop initial rally efforts from current levels. Until price moves out of the box, up or down, the TR remains intact. "Follow the munKNEE" – Set up an RSS feed: It's really easy - here's how Silver – Weekly Chart Last week's reversal from lows, with a strong close, did not rally much above the previous week's close. This is a small red flag that the rally could be meeting resistance. There is a cluster of closes over the last 7 weeks. This signals either continuation lower or a reversal of the immediate trend. Until price rallies and closes above the high of the box or declines and closes under, there is no confirmation to be positioned, either way.
In the first box [to the left in the chart above] it looked like price would rally higher toward the end of October. Price gapped lower, instead, and created a lower box TR, the current one. This is why we said there needs to be confirmation, even though the weekly close in the above chart "appears" as though the rally will continue. Silver – Daily Chart The daily chart, below, is an example of why one needs to wait and let the market be the best guide, eliminating guesswork and having to predict. .
Conclusion The conclusion we reach from the gold and silver charts is that price may be forming a bottom, but it will take more time before a change will take place, and that could take weeks, months, even Quarters. [Editor's Note: The author's views and conclusions in the above article are unaltered and no personal comments have been included to maintain the integrity of the original post. Furthermore, the views, conclusions and any recommendations offered in this article are not to be construed as an endorsement of such by the editor.]*http://edgetraderplus.com/market-commentaries/gold-and-silver-in-east-v-west-gold-war-both-are-still-winning Related Articles: [Editor's Note: The author's views and conclusions in the above article are unaltered and no personal comments have been included to maintain the integrity of the original post. Furthermore, the views, conclusions and any recommendations offered in this article are not to be construed as an endorsement of such by the editor.] 1. Gold & Silver to Plunge – Again – Then Move Up Dramatically Later in 2014  Back in early May, 2013, I correctly forecast the lows in gold & silver which occurred 2 months later. Today, my new analyses of gold & silver indicates they both will show further weakness during the first quarter of 2014 before both jumping dramatically in price before the end of 2014. Below are the specific details of my forecasts (with charts) to help you reap substantial financial rewards should you wish to avail yourself of my insightful analyses. Read More » 2. Gold In 2014: Price Forecasts ($900 – $1,435) & Commentary  Below are a series of forecasts and predictions of what 2014 could bring for the price of gold (as low as $900/ozt. & no higher than $1,435/ozt.) and the reasons why with interesting commentary by some individual investors and gold enthusiasts. Read More » Recent Noonan Articles: 1. Noonan: "Gold Ain't Going Higher – At Least For the Short Term" – and Here's Why  Does the fast-fading world reserve currency [the USD] look like it is collapsing? A look at the performance of the U.S. Dollar Index does not suggest that it is, weak as it is. If the fiat dollar is not in danger of imminent "collapse," or even breaking down, then gold does not have this event as an impetus for rallying higher. [Frankly speaking,] until that changes, gold ain't going higher, at least in the short term. Read More » 2. Noonan: Here's Why Silver Is So Low & What To Do About It  The demand for silver has grown exponentially in the past few years (record sales for American Eagle coins, record buying in India), but supply, on the other hand, keeps diminishing…Whenever there is a situation where demand rises sharply, while supply commensurately declines, it is a recipe for higher prices, and usually, much higher prices. This is true, unless one is talking about the silver market…[which] is at its lowest levels in the past three years. With talk of silver going anywhere from $150 to $500 higher, it currently struggles to hold $20. Why is this so? Read More »
The post Noonan: Charts Suggest Lower Lows for Gold & Silver to Come in 2014 appeared first on munKNEE dot.com. | |||||||||||
| Gold And Silver - In East v West Gold War, Both Are Still Winning Posted: 04 Jan 2014 07:12 AM PST China represents the East, as its insatiable demand for buying physical gold continues unabated, while in the West, the elite's central banks have pretty much depleted their physical holdings. In the war for gold, both are still winning ... Read More... | |||||||||||
| Posted: 04 Jan 2014 07:09 AM PST Summary: Long term - on major sell signal since Mar 2012. Short term - on buy signals. Gold sector cycle - up as of 12/27. COT data is now favorable for a bear market rally. Read More... | |||||||||||
| Koos Jansen: Unprecedented high gold demand in China in 2013 Posted: 04 Jan 2014 06:56 AM PST Price suppression was evident, and China was its primary beneficiary. * * * 9:54a ET Saturday, January 4, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Gold market researcher and GATA consultant Koos Jansen today reports final Chinese gold demand figures from 2013: unprecedentedly high and possibly surpassing world gold production for the year, with the flow of metal into China draining the Western gold exchange-traded fund GLD. Jansen summarizes: "2013 has been a spectacular year, wherein the pice of gold fell 29 percent but Chinese gold demand has been unprecedented and may have reached, People's Bank of China purchases included, over 2,500 tons, exposing a disparity between the gold price set by derivatives and supply and demand for the underlying good. The divergence strongly hints at price manipulation, of which the Chinese would have been the largest beneficiaries. China has $3.5 trillion in foreign exchange (of which at least $1.7 trillion are denominated in U.S. dollars) and is aware that the United States is forced to devalue its currency, evaporating China's reserves. For this reason China has a strong incentive to diversify away from the U.S. dollar into gold. Hence the enormous physical gold purchases in 2013." Jansen's report includes some great photographs and charts, is headlined "Unprecedented Total Chinese Gold Demand in 2013," and is posted at his Internet site, In Gold We Trust, here: http://www.ingoldwetrust.ch/unprecedented-total-chinese-gold-demand-2013 CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with our forecast for 2013 that includes profiles of nine companies and technical analysis of their stock performance. Six of the companies have market capitalizations of less than $800 million and one company has a market cap of only $30 million. The most exciting of these companies will begin production in a few weeks and has a market cap of just $150 million. Half of all proceeds from the sale of this report will be donated to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts exposing manipulation and fraud in the gold and silver markets. To learn about this report, please visit: http://www.futuremoneytrends.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=376&tmp... Join GATA here: Vancouver Resource Investment Conference http://www.cambridgehouse.com/event/vancouver-resource-investment-confer... Mines and Money Hong Kong 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: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit: http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata | |||||||||||
| DID WE JUST SEE THE HIGHS FOR THE YEAR IN THE STOCK MARKET? Posted: 04 Jan 2014 06:56 AM PST I believe we have now come to an inflection point, and I think the next 2 weeks have the potential to determine the economic direction in 2014. I believe that if stocks had been allowed to trade freely they would have moved down after the last FOMC meeting and continued the failed daily cycle that was already in progress. However, it's my opinion that the Fed rescued the market immediately after the meeting as they saw it was beginning to plunge. Let's face it if the market had sold off hard right after the FOMC announcement of tapering then their only choice would have been to immediately reverse their decision. So I think the Fed was prepared to rescue the market if it showed any signs of weakness after the announcement. That explains the large reversal candle on December 18. I think it was their intent to create a momentum move to try and prevent the market from correcting very similar to what they did in June 2011 as QE 2 was coming to an end. The bullish seasonality and typical Santa Claus rally helped the Fed keep this market propped up into year end.  But now it looks like the momentum is running out of gas, just like the momentum in June 2011 ran out of gas.  I think the next two weeks are very important, and if the Fed loses control of the stock market it's going to put into motion unintended consequences that have the potential to push the economy back into recession. To begin with the Fed has created a parabolic advance in stocks. Parabolas always collapse. If this parabolic move is about to overwhelm the Fed and collapse then we can expect in the not-too-distant future that this silly notion of tapering will quickly go away and instead the Fed will frantically increase quantitative easing to try to rescue the stock market.  This may be what the rally in the dollar is signaling. That a hard selloff in the stock market is imminent. This is the consequences of not allowing the stock market to correct naturally in 2013. You take away all fear for market participants and create an unsustainable parabolic advance. When that parabola collapses you have a major catastrophe on your hands. This is no different than 2005 when the Fed allowed real estate prices to climb into the Stratosphere. We should know within the next two weeks whether or not this parabolic move is coming to an end       | |||||||||||
| Why the World is Trapped with their U.S. Dollars Posted: 04 Jan 2014 05:45 AM PST To a lot people a country with large foreign reserves is equivalent to a strong country. In a way it is true because a country can only accumulate foreign reserves when it is running a budget surplus. Having large foreign reserves has its advantages like enabling it to finance more imports and also acting as a cushion against an economic downturn. However there are also disadvantages associated with having a large foreign reserve. Besides generating inflation it also increases our dependence on the US$ which we are unable to get out from. A lot of people might thought I am nuts, saying that Malaysia and the rest of the world are trapped with their Dollar denominated foreign reserves. I shall show you why we can’t as a group but before that let us go through our country’s international reserves holdings. | |||||||||||
| Gold And Silver - In East v West Gold War, Both Are Still Winning Posted: 04 Jan 2014 05:20 AM PST China represents the East, as its insatiable demand for buying physical gold continues unabated, while in the West, the elite's central banks have pretty much depleted their physical holdings. In the war for gold, both are still winning, but for vastly different reasons. China and every other BRICS nation importing gold have been doing so at cheaper and cheaper price levels, as the Western central bankers have been conducting a clearance sale. Even the fixtures are being sold, like JP Morgan's fire sale of 1 Chase Plaza for $750 million, about half of its value. The building also happens to house the world's largest gold vault, and it also located across the street from the Federal Reserve gold vault. This gives China a "two-fer.". Now it can store the gold in Manhattan and save shipping costs, and should the NY central bank have any left, it just gets rolled across the underground tunnel. | |||||||||||
| Gold And Silver – In East v West Gold War, Both Are Still Winning Posted: 04 Jan 2014 04:58 AM PST China represents the East, as its insatiable demand for buying physical gold continues unabated, while in the West, the elite's central banks have pretty much depleted their physical holdings. In the war for gold, both are still winning, but for vastly different reasons. China and every other BRICS nation importing gold have been doing so at cheaper and cheaper price levels, as the Western central bankers have been conducting a clearance sale. Even the fixtures are being sold, like JP Morgan's fire sale of 1 Chase Plaza for $750 million, about half of its value. The building also happens to house the world's largest gold vault, and it also located across the street from the Federal Reserve gold vault. This gives China a "two-fer.". Now it can store the gold in Manhattan and save shipping costs, and should the NY central bank have any left, it just gets rolled across the underground tunnel. The moneychangers have run their centuries old scam of storing private gold and issuing gold receipts, in exchange, making it easier for the holders of gold to carry paper, convertible into gold upon demand, instead of the physical gold itself. The moneychangers noted that the owners did not demand their gold back, preferring to keep the receipts, instead. The moneychangers began issuing receipts many times more than the actual gold backing the receipts, creating "new money" and the assumption of gold backing.
China loaned Mao's gold to the NY central bank, and it would not [could not] return it The gold was gone, loaned out, sold, we will not likely know the true story, but it was gone. Paper was the name of the game for the West. Physical gold, silver, and natural resources was, and still is the name of the game for China and Russia. Both have been dumping US Treasury bonds in exchange for gold, silver, and any other asset that is not a derivative of paper. Because of the NY central bank experience, China is out for revenge. Russia has always been a known adversary and is winning against the US by default, simply waiting for the US to self-implode, which it is doing. Where China holds the majority of physical gold, Russia holds energy trump cards over the US and its faltering scheme of the petro-dollar. It is fast being replaced by sounder forms of collateral and trade outside of the Western fiat scheme. The US has become isolated. Russia has vast amounts of natural gas to supply Europe, replacing, in part, oil.
We have pretty much stopped announcing "gold news," as in record sales for silver and gold coins by the public, record imports of physical gold by China and other countries to a much lesser degree, disappearing gold reserves by COMEX and LBMA, how the demand for physical ounces of gold by paper holders is at its highest number ever, etc, etc, etc. All of the very valid demand side numbers that has had zero impact on the price of gold. Most of this article is presented in generalities, on purpose. There are any number of other sites that go to great effort to present graphs, details about gold and silver depletion, the number of coins bought and sold by various countries, the number of tonnes China has imported, guesses on how much gold China owns, predictions on where the price of silver and gold will be next week, next month, pick a price, pick a time frame, they are all over the place. The graphs are presentable, the facts/figures are accurate, but the results are of no practical use and have not been for the past two years.
Because the natural laws of supply and demand does not apply to gold and silver, the only way we can track the influence of endless paper supply on the market is through the most reliable source, the market itself, and the best way to track the market is through charts. As an important aside, when we reference charts, we are not talking about traditional technical analysis that uses artificial tools like moving averages, RSI, endless broken trend lines, Bollinger Bands, whatever. Instead, we apply the most important factors that best capture market activity: price and volume. Both of the larger time frames, the Annual and Quarterly on the left side, below, suggest a lower low is more than likely. One does not have to happen, but odds favor at least a nominal lower low in 2014. The Quarterly chart looks bottom heavy for the past 3 Qtrs, and the last Qtr shows a lower high, lower low, and lower close. The monthly chart, on the right side, shows a labored decline over the past 5 months, and the last 6 months have all been inside June's wide range. We often mention how a wide range bar will often contain subsequent bars, for whatever time frame, this one monthly. The lower end close for December also increased the probability of a lower low, next month, January. Here are two separate forms of market activity that provide for reasonable expectations into the future, not predictions, but expectations. The wide range bar of June was the market telling us to expect price containment over the next several months, and that is what developed for the past half-year. There was also a wide range bar in April, when a similar supply of paper contracts was dumped onto the market, just as happened in June. Price was contained for only 1 month, but the trend carried the market lower. The second piece of market information is the location of the close on the Annual, the Quarterly, and the monthly. All indicated a higher degree of probability for a lower low in the next time period. With this information, one would know not to be in a hurry to establish a long position in futures because a lower price was likely. It does not matter what the fundamentals say. The market is providing a clue or clues in what to expect. It may not always happen, but we are dealing in probabilities that tend to be fairly consistent. Gold annual returnsGold annual returns
Price did make a nominal low on the weekly, and it held the support area established in June. With the close located in the middle of the down channel, while price can still rally, it is unlikely to break upside, at this juncture.
Last week, given the market structure, we said a nominal low was likely. One occurred on both the weekly and daily, but we confined our comment to the daily, [See Sharply Higher Prices? Be Careful What You Wish For, first paragraph after first chart]. The down channel has been broken on the daily chart, but of all the time frames discussed, the higher time frames are more controlling than the daily. It could turn out that the daily activity will lead to change on the weekly, then from weekly to monthly, etc, but what we know most about market trends is that they take time to change direction. Friday's bar was the smallest of the last three rally bars, and that tells us demand has weakened. With the location of the close near high-end on the bar, sellers were weaker than buyers. What needs to be watched closely, next week, is how price reacts on any pullback. If the bars are wide range lower on increased volume, expect more continuation to the downside. If the bars are relatively narrow in range and volume is less, then we have a stronger indication to expect the pullback to be brief and lead to another rally attempt. We do not have to know ahead of time, nor do we need to predict. Instead, knowing how price and volume could develop, day by day, we just need to be prepared for how price may develop, and react accordingly. The market will give us the information needed on what to expect.
Silver is a slightly different story, according to the charts. It would not be unreasonable to expect a lower low from the annual chart. The last Quarter, 2013, was the smallest range in the past 4 years. What matters is where it appears: at the lower end of the correction. The reason why the range is small is due to lack of sellers, combined with buyers meeting the effort of sellers sufficiently to prevent the range from extending lower. It does not preclude a lower low, next Quarter, but a rally could occur first. The monthly shows how labored the decline was relative to the wide range August rally. Here, again, we see a wide range that contained the price activity for the next several bars. December was a small range, letting us know, just like the Quarterly, selling was weak, and buyers were meeting the effort of the sellers. The buyers were able to keep the range from extending lower, and also to close just slightly above November. The trend has not changed, but we are seeing little pieces of information that alert us to potential change.
The trend being down, and combined with bearish spacing, we know that silver has a lot of overhear resistance that will likely stop initial rally efforts from current levels. Until price moves out of the box, up or down, the TR remains intact. Last week's reversal from lows, with a strong close, did not rally much above the previous week's close. This is a small red flag that the rally could be meeting resistance. There is a cluster of closes over the last 7 weeks. This signals either continuation lower or a reversal of the immediate trend. Until price rallies and closes above the high of the box or declines and closes under, there is no confirmation to be positioned, either way.
In the first box, left, it looked like price would rally higher toward the end of October. Price gapped lower, instead, and created a lower box TR, the current one. This is why we said there needs to be confirmation, even though the weekly close in the above chart "appears" as though the rally will continue. The daily chart, below,is an example of why one needs to wait and let the market be the best guide, eliminating guesswork and having to predict. The conclusion we reach from the gold and silver charts is that price may be forming a bottom, but it will take more time before a change will take place, and that could take weeks, months, even Quarters.
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| Gold and Silver Released from the Year End Clamp Down Posted: 04 Jan 2014 03:28 AM PST There was quiet trading as the northeastern US was digging its way out of Winter Storm Hercules. Gold and silver have been rallying since the end of the December clamp down, but they most certainly have not yet broken out on the charts. |
Hello from the airport in Cancun,
¤ Yesterday In Gold & Silver
Gold is a nearly perfect form of money. It is one of the few things on planet earth that contains all of the following attributes; beauty, scarcity, virtual indestructibility, and is also transferable and divisible. However, even after five thousand years of utility as a store of wealth, gold is still completely misunderstood by most on Wall Street.
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