Gold World News Flash

---

• The Russia “Sanction Spiral” Elegantly Spirals Out of Control
• Ukraine Crisis Implications For Gold
• Gold Stocks Golden Cross
• The Velocity of Money – Claudio Grass Interview
• The Stunning History Of "All Cash" Home Purchases In The US
• Gold Completes Golden Cross
• Take These Steps Today To Survive An International Crisis
• Mark Dow VS. Peter Schiff on Gold, Inflation & the Fed
• Beware the Ides of March: Silver Hits Five-week Low
• EU Agrees Banking Union – Bail-Ins Cometh …
• Petrodollar Death March Alert: Putin Prepares To Announce “Holy Grail” Gas Deal With China
• Gold Prices Drop 1st Week Since Jan., "Bullish Correction" Says UBS as US Fed Member Attacks Rate-Rise Forecast
• Friday Morning Links
• Sinclair to hold gold market seminar in Hong Kong on March 26
• Gold and Silver Probability, Predictability, Price and Forecasting
• U.S. Dollar Extends Gains After Jobless Claims Data, Trend Forecasts
• Gold Miners Red Alert Or All Clear?
• 2014 Gold Price "Ranging $1220-1390" Says HSBC's Steel
• 2014 Gold Price "Ranging $1220-1390" Says HSBC's Steel
• Official gold market to open in South Korea
• If You Give a Putin a Crimea…
• James Dines - Gold & The Next “Super-Major Bull Market”
• China gold researcher Koos Jansen's Internet site under attack
• The Gold Price Corrected $10.90 Closing at $1,330.50
• The Gold Price Corrected $10.90 Closing at $1,330.50
• Tumbling Chinese yuan sets off 'carry trade' rout, triggers derivatives contracts
• Why Copper Could Be A Challenge To The Gold Price
• Riley Martin -- The Alex Jones Show (VIDEO Commercial Free) Thursday March 20 2014
• Economic Collapse 2014 -- The Vast Majority Will Face Starvation -- Alasdair MacLeod
• China gold market researcher Koos Jansen interviewed by GoldSwitzerland
• Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Bucket Shops - Hidden Pricing In Electronic Bond Sales
• Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Bucket Shops - Hidden Pricing In Electronic Bond Sales
• Zero Hedge: How gold performs during FOMC weeks
• European central banks may drop gold sales limits since they're not selling anyway
• In The News Today
• Gold & The Last Financial Advice John Templeton Gave Me
• Gold Trading "Imminent" in China's New Shanghai Freezone
• Gold Trading "Imminent" in China's New Shanghai Freezone
• The Power Play to Eliminate the Petrodollar
• India "Eases" Gold Import Rules as Modi Victory Looms
• India "Eases" Gold Import Rules as Modi Victory Looms
• Gold Price Erases March's 5% Gain as Fed "Signals Endgame for Easy Money", Dollar Jumps
• Gold & Silver Stocks Breakdown Alert
• China’s gold policy Is one of the world’s most important developments.
• China’s gold policy Is one of the world’s most important developments.
• End Not Nigh? Soon, Then
• End Not Nigh? Soon, Then
• What Would Ben Graham Do?
• What Would Ben Graham Do?

The Russia “Sanction Spiral” Elegantly Spirals Out of Control Posted: 21 Mar 2014 10:41 AM PDT Wolf Richter   www.testosteronepit.com   www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter It bubbled up Wednesday evening that attorneys with the SEC’s Investment Management Division are exhorting managers of registered investment funds, such as your mutual fund, to disclose their holdings in Russia and warn of the risks associated with them, now that the Crimean debacle has turned into a magnificent sanction spiral. “Several people familiar with the matter” had been talking to Reuters. The SEC is apparently fretting that the funds aren’t truthful with investors and aren’t even thinking about how to respond to the possible outcomes of the crisis. Investment Management Division Director Norm Champ, when contacted by Reuters, didn’t even deny it. “We want to be proactive,” he said. The Division contacted asset managers on other occasions when civil unrest erupted or when things threatened to blow up; it wanted to make sure managers weren’t omitting or misrepresenting material information – for example, during the uprising in Egypt in 2011, when the Cairo stock market simply shut down. But this time it’s different: the lawyers at the Investment Management Division were joined by another group of SEC lawyers who focus on risk examinations. Would the White House be trying behind the scenes to give investors second thoughts about plowing money into Russia? Would it be trying to demolish Russian stocks, bonds, and the ruble? Naw. The efforts by the SEC, which started “over a week ago,” were accompanied by a White House announcement that 5 million barrels would be released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. WTI tanked. Russia, a huge energy exporter, depends on its oil and gas revenues, and knocking down the price of oil could wreak havoc on the Russian economy. It was a declaration that commodities would be used as a weapon against the Putin Regime.  Then on Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney launched another attack on the Russian markets at a press briefing. In light of the sanctions the US and the EU were slapping on Russia, its economy would pay the price, he said. “I wouldn’t, if I were you, invest in Russian equities right now, unless you’re going short.” Shaken to its roots by these threats, Russia annexed the Crimea and picked a new target: Estonia. A Russian diplomat told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday that Russia was “concerned” by the treatment of the ethnic Russian minority “in Estonia as well as in Ukraine” ... even while Vice President Joe Biden was in Lithuania to calm tattered nerves in the Baltics and the EU. On Thursday, German Chancellor Merkel announced in Parliament, shortly before the EU summit in Brussels, that the EU would come up with new sanctions, such as expanding the list of Russians subject to travel limitations and freezing assets. And if the situation escalates, there would be “without doubt” economic sanctions, she said. Russia was “largely isolated in all international organizations.” And the G-8, which includes Russia, and whose upcoming shindig has already been cancelled, “no longer exists.” She was immediately attacked by the parliamentary leader of the opposition Left Party, Gregor Gysi, who accused the government of double standards; the separation of Kosovo too had been a breach of international law, he said, but it had been supported by the German government at the time. The transitional Ukrainian government wasn’t legitimate, he said. “Fascists are part of this government, and we want to give them money?!” Under pressure from the US, Merkel was imposing sanctions on Russia to the detriment of Europe, he said. That’s “moral cowardice.” The “Putin Doctrine” was what SPD parliamentary leader Thomas Oppermann, who is part of Germany’s governing Grand Coalition, was fretting about. Under that doctrine, Russia could intervene if ethnic Russians were perceived to be in danger outside Russia. It would give Russia an automatic right to intervene anywhere, he said. “Such a right does not exist, and such a right cannot exist.” Hours later, President Obama announced he’d slapped new sanctions on a “number” of oligarchs, additional Russian government officials, and a bank that provides services to them. The White House was working “closely” with the EU “to develop more severe actions that could be taken if Russia continues to escalate the situation.” Then he urged US Lawmakers to approve the aid package for Ukraine and urged the IMF to put its aid package together pronto. Alas, read.... Aid for the Ukraine “Will Be Stolen” – Former Ukrainian Minister of Economy As Obama’s words were still echoing around the world, the Russian Foreign Ministry shot back: nine US officials, including Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, would be barred from entering Russia. And it published the list on its website. Delicious irony: that boring list with nine names on it, issued by a Russian ministry whose website rarely gets shared in the social media, lit up a mini-firestorm on VK.com, the second largest social network in Europe after Facebook, and one of the most popular sites in Russia. The list got, as I’m writing this, 538 VK “likes.” Not sure if Obama’s list got any Facebook likes. Not to be left out, Standard & Poor’s slammed Russia by lowering its outlook to Negative from Stable. “In our view, heightened geopolitical risk and the prospect of US and EU economic sanctions following Russia’s incorporation of Crimea could reduce the flow of potential investment, trigger rising capital outflows, and further weaken Russia’s already deteriorating economic performance.” The Sanction Spiral works in a myriad ways and performs, as we can see every day, outright miracles. It spirals elegantly higher and higher and takes on grotesque forms. And by the looks of it, no one at the top has a clue how to back out of it. Yet stock and bond markets in the US and Europe, stuffed to the gills with central-bank liquidity and intoxicated by free money, the only thing that really matters anymore these crazy days of ours, are blissfully ignoring the entire drama, and what may eventually come of it. The first official warning shot was fired. Not by a Putin advisor that can be brushed off, but by Alexey Ulyukaev, Russia’s Minister of Economy and former Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank. A major escalation. Read.... Kremlin: If The US Tries To Hurt Russia’s Economy, Russia Will Target The Dollar System

Ukraine Crisis Implications For Gold Posted: 21 Mar 2014 10:31 AM PDT There is a fascinating story from Robert Peston, the BBC's business editor about his interview with Hank Paulson, who was the US treasury secretary at the time of the Lehman crisis. Paulson said that he was told by the Chinese that they had a message from the Russians suggesting they club together to drive down the prices of Fannie and Freddie "to maximise the turmoil on Wall Street". The Chinese declined, but in doing so they made sure the Treasury was aware that China and Russia know that between them they have the power to break western capital markets.

Gold Stocks Golden Cross Posted: 21 Mar 2014 10:27 AM PDT The gold-mining sector is on the verge of flashing the fabled Golden Cross buy signal.  This is one of the most powerful and revered indicators in all of technical analysis.  When it arrives after the right conditions, it flags the critical transition from bear to bull markets.  And today’s gold-stock environment is perfect to spawn such a pivotal Golden Cross.  Seeing this milestone will accelerate capital flows back into gold stocks.

The Velocity of Money – Claudio Grass Interview Posted: 21 Mar 2014 10:00 AM PDT from Casey SoundMoney Podcast Andrew Duncan speaks with Managing Director of Global Gold, Claudio Grass, about the flows of precious metal from west to east, the likely hood of an upcoming global monetary collapse, and the chances of a global return to some form of gold monetary standard

The Stunning History Of "All Cash" Home Purchases In The US Posted: 21 Mar 2014 09:58 AM PDT Yesterday's news from the NAR that in February all cash transactions accounted for 35% of all existing home purchases, up from 33% in January, not to mention that 73% of speculators paid "all cash", caught some by surprise. But what this data ignores are new home purchases, where while single-family sales have been muted as expected considering the plunge in mortgage applications, multi-family unit growth - where investors hope to play the tail end of the popping rental bubble - has been stunning, and where multi-fam permits have soared to the highest since 2008. So how does the history of "all cash" home purchases in the US look before and after the arrival of the 2008 post-Lehman "New Normal." The answer is shown in the chart below. This should not come as a surprise to regular readers, who saw this chart, along with our analysis of it last August, as well as the correct forecast that mortgage origination is slamming shut for virtually all financial firms. For those who missed it, here it is again. * * * Remember when housing was the primary aspirational asset for a still existent US middle class, to be purchased with some equity down by your average 30 year-old hoping to start a family in his or her brand new home, and, as the name implies, aspire to reach the American dream? Those days are long gone. Back in those days the interest rate on the 10 Year bond mattered as it determined the prevailing marginal affordability of leveraged real estate. That is no longer the case, at least not for about 90% of Americans, because as Goldman shows, while before the great crisis only 20% of home purchases were "all cash", since then the number has soared threefold, and currently the estimated percentage of cash transactions (by count and amount) has hit a record 60%. In other words, less than half of all home purchases are debt-funded, and thus less than half of all home purchases are actually representative of what middle-class America is doing. Goldman's take: Exhibit 4 shows the estimated cash transactions as percent of total home sales both by transaction count and by transaction dollar amount. Relative to the pre-crisis years, percent cash transactions has risen by about 30 percentage points. This change is broadly in  line with the increases suggested by DataQuick data. The 30 percentage point increase in percent cash transactions explains almost the entire decline in the "mortgage per dollar transaction" series (with the remainder explained by small changes in average LTV ratios per mortgage). We do not have data to assess who these all-cash homebuyers are, but presumably investors who have been purchasing distressed properties and turning them into rental units have played an important role. The WSJ has a few thoughts to add: The surprisingly large cash-share of purchases helps to explain why home sales have jumped over the past two years despite more muted increases in broad measures of new mortgage activity, such as the MBA's mortgage application index.   There's no exact way to know who is responsible for all of these cash purchases, though they are likely to include some combination of investors, foreign buyers, and wealthy homeowners that don't want to go through the hassle of getting a mortgage before closing on a sale. Mortgage lending standards have sharply tightened up since the housing bubble, with banks scrutinizing borrowers' tax returns and bank statements to verify their incomes and the source of their down payment. Our personal thoughts: just like the stock market has been levitating on zero volume and virtually no broad distribution, so the entire housing market appears to have morphed into a "flip that house" investment vehicle used by the usual suspects (wealthy foreign oligarchs abusing the NAR's anti-money laundering exemption to park their stolen funds in the US, government sponsored firms such as BlackStone using near zero cost REO-to-Rent subsidies, and other 0.01%-ers) who piggyback on cash flows deriving from alternative cheap credit-funded investments and translate their profits into real-estate investments. It also means that if nobody used leverage (i.e., mortgages) to buy houses before, they certainly won't do it now, all the more so with interest rates soaring and purchase affordability imploding in front of everybody's eyes. Finally, due to the very thin marginal source of bidside interest (flipper flipping to flipper and so on), it means that most of America has not participated in this mirage "recovery", and all it will take to send the buoyant housing market crashing is for the one marginal buyer to become a seller. What they will next find, is that when dealing with a bidside orderbook that has zero depth, one indeed takes the escalator down from where the lofty heights achieved courtesy of Fed-funded stairs. * * * What is the implication of all the above? Simple: anyone hoping that bank profitability will surge on a steepening of the yield curve due to the imputed positive impact to Net Interest Margin will be disappointed for the simple reason that Americans increasingly refuse to borrow, either due to affordability of availability of credit constraints, and thus the borrow credit cheap, lend expensive arb trade for the banks will simply not work. Incidentally we wrote this in August of last year - since then banks have fired tens, if not hundreds of thousands of mortgage originators having arrived at precisely the same conclusion. Which also means that the only core driver of revenue, in addition to IPO and M&A fees now that bank fixed income and commodity, not to mention FX, flow trading revenues are crashing, was and remains prop trading, courtesy of the $2.7 trillion in excess reserves parked on bank trading books, which continue to be used as generously levered (think 20 times and above) initial margin with which to keep chasing risk higher.

Gold Completes Golden Cross Posted: 21 Mar 2014 09:41 AM PDT For the first time in 13 months, gold's 50-day moving-average is above its 200-day moving-average. This so-called "golden cross" occurred in Feb 09 before gold surged over 100% in the following years (but also occurred 'falsely' in September 2012.     Some technicians are reflcting on the last big run that gold had...

Take These Steps Today To Survive An International Crisis Posted: 21 Mar 2014 09:20 AM PDT by Brandon Smith, Alt-Market: With the Crimea referendum passed and Russia ready to annex the region, the United States and the European Union have threatened sanctions. The full extent of these sanctions is not yet known, and announcements are pending for the end of March. If these measures are concrete, they will of course be followed inevitably by economic warfare, including a reduction of natural gas exports to the EU and the eventually full dump of the U.S. dollar by Russia and China. As I have discussed in recent articles, the result of these actions will be disastrous. For those of us in the liberty movement, it is now impossible to ignore the potential threat to our economy. No longer can people claim that "perhaps" there will be a crisis someday, that perhaps "five or 10 years" down the road we will have to face the music. No, the threat is here now, and it is very real. Read More @ Alt-Market.com

Mark Dow VS. Peter Schiff on Gold, Inflation & the Fed Posted: 21 Mar 2014 09:15 AM PDT from Peter Schiff:

Beware the Ides of March: Silver Hits Five-week Low Posted: 21 Mar 2014 09:00 AM PDT by Charlotte McLeod, Silver Investing News: "Beware the Ides of March" is a familiar quotation that's often tossed around lightly midway through the month of March. This year, however, silver investors would have done well to take it seriously. Why? As a quick look at a price chart for the metal reveals, silver hit $21.71 per ounce, its highest price so far this month, on March 14. Since then, it has been on the decline. Initially prompting that drop were the results of the Crimean referendum. iNVEZZ.com notes in a Monday report that while in past weeks the turmoil surrounding the peninsula "support[ed] the price of silver due to its safe-haven appeal," the referendum's outcome, which was widely anticipated, brought it down "in typical 'buy the rumour, sell the news' fashion." As a result, silver closed the day at $21.20. Read More @ SilverInvestingNews.com

EU Agrees Banking Union – Bail-Ins Cometh … Posted: 21 Mar 2014 08:35 AM PDT from Gold Core: Early this morning European Union politicians struck a deal on legislation to create a single agency to handle failing banks and bail-ins in the Eurozone after another all night negotiating marathon ahead of a summit of EU leaders starting in Brussels today. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was drawn into the talks around 0530 GMT as the negotiations dragged on into the night. The politicians emerged around 0715 GMT with the deal, which now will need formal approval by the European Parliament and by national governments. Negotiators persuaded nations that had been opposed to the proposed Single Resolution Mechanism and the legislation for bail-ins to agree. Read More @ GoldCore.com

Petrodollar Death March Alert: Putin Prepares To Announce “Holy Grail” Gas Deal With China Posted: 21 Mar 2014 08:28 AM PDT from ZeroHedge: While Europe is furiously scrambling to find alternative sources of energy should Gazprom pull the plug on natgas exports to Germany and Europe (the imminent surge in Ukraine gas prices by 40% is probably the best indication of what the outcome would be), Russia is preparing the announcement of the “Holy Grail” energy deal with none other than China, a move which would send geopolitical shockwaves around the world and bind the two nations in a commodity-backed axis. One which, as some especially on these pages, have suggested would lay the groundwork for a new joint, commodity-backed reserve currency that bypasses the dollar, something which Russia implied moments ago when its finance minister Siluanov said that Russia may regain from foreign borrowing this year. Translated: bypass western purchases of Russian debt, funded by Chinese purchases of US Treasurys, and go straight to the source. Read More @ ZeroHedge.com

Gold Prices Drop 1st Week Since Jan., "Bullish Correction" Says UBS as US Fed Member Attacks Rate-Rise Forecast Posted: 21 Mar 2014 06:59 AM PDT GOLD PRICES rallied overnight to touch $1340 per ounce lunchtime Friday in London, heading for their first weekly loss since January.   World equities, commodities and bonds also steadied after their mid-week drop following the US Federal Reserve's revised Wednesday outlook on interest rates.   The price of wholesale silver bullion bars mapped and extended the move in gold prices, bouncing 1.4% from Thursday's new 3-week low.   Losing 3.3% against the Dollar from last Friday's finish, gold prices fell less steeply across the week for UK, Eurozone and other non-US investors.   "This week's decline [in gold prices] is viewed as a correction within a bullish trend," says Swiss investment and bullion bank UBS, "with strong support offered by the trendline connecting the December/January lows, which intersects today at $1323.95."   "After several days of selling," agrees US brokerage INTL FCStone, "some support seems to be emerging.   "But it is too early to say for sure," the note continues, pointing to "the bearish undertow" following this week's revised interest-rate outlook from the US Federal Reserve.   Lone dissenter, the Minneapolis Fed's president Narayana Kocherlakota today issued a statement challenging this week's decision – a highly unusual step over what he calls an "unusually significant" policy statement.   Widely seen forecasting a rate-rise sooner in 2015, "The FOMC's new forward guidance does not communicate purposeful steps [for a] rapid increase of inflation," says Kocherlakota.   "[This] weakens the credibility of the Committee's inflation target, by suggesting that [it] views persistently sub-2-percent inflation as an acceptable outcome."   "With tapering of the Fed's QE now underway," says a note from London bullion market-maker and US investment bank Goldman Sachs, "US economic releases are back to being a key driving force behind gold prices.   "It would require a significant sustained slowdown in US growth for us to revisit our expectation for lower US gold prices over the next two years," says Goldman, repeating its end-2014 forecast of $1050 per ounce and saying the recent rally has outpaced the drop in real US interest rates.   "[This] key input into our forecasts and benchmarking of gold prices [suggests] potential for a meaningful decline."   Shorter term, "The market is concerned about the development in Russia," reckons Bernard Sin at Swiss refiners MKS, speaking to Bloomberg.   "There is a lot of uncertainty ahead. Gold will be a store of value."   Ukraine's interim prime minister Yatsenyuk today signed the European Union deal over trade and political support which former PM Yanukovych abandoned in November, sparking protests which led to pitched battles in Maidan Square and then his flight to Moscow last month.   Russia's President Putin meantime signed a treaty annexing the former Ukrainian territory of Crimea.   Russian equities dropped another 2.5% on Friday, up on the week in Rouble terms but nearly 15% down from a month ago.

Friday Morning Links Posted: 21 Mar 2014 05:39 AM PDT MUST READS Russian shares fall over sanctions – BBC Putin orders Russian CB to help sanctions-hit bank – AP Investors retreat from housing market as prices heat up – MarketWatch Whalen: The single biggest question facing the mortgage space – Housing Wire Yellen Drives Dollar Toward Strongest Week in Two Months – Bloomberg Fed to Entrepreneurs: Party Like It’s 1999 (While [...]

Sinclair to hold gold market seminar in Hong Kong on March 26 Posted: 21 Mar 2014 03:41 AM PDT 6:40p HKT Friday, March 21, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Gold advocate and mining entrepreneur Jim Sinclair, in Hong Kong next week to speak at the Mines and Money conference, will hold a private question-and-answer seminar on the gold market from 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 26, at a location to be announced to registrants. Only 50 seats are available. Admission will be US$150 to cover costs. Those interested in attending should e-mail jes.hk.qa@hotmail.com. CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. 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: 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/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference AT&T Performing Arts Center Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House 2403 Flora St., Dallas, Texas Saturday, May 31, 2014 http://stansberrydallas.com/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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 How to profit with silver -- and which stocks to buy now Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with 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...

Gold and Silver Probability, Predictability, Price and Forecasting Posted: 21 Mar 2014 03:37 AM PDT Investors and observers watching the drama unfold in the Ukraine should not be surprised at the short price action of the precious metals, mainly gold and silver. Throughout the crisis (and as matter of record with practically every other crisis) the metals are driven down by a system that becomes more sophisticated each day. The ramifications and consequences of events in the Ukraine and Crimea are dire and easy to imagine. These ramifications radiate and dovetail with the multitude of other potential and current hot spots in other energy strategic areas of the world.

U.S. Dollar Extends Gains After Jobless Claims Data, Trend Forecasts Posted: 21 Mar 2014 03:27 AM PDT The U.S. dollar moved higher against major currency pairs after better-than-expected initial jobless claims data. Earlier today, the Department of Labor showed in its report that initial claims for jobless benefits in the week ending March 15 rose by 5,000 to 320,000 from the previous week's total of 315,000 000, while analysts had expected an increase of 10,000. What impact did it have on major currency pairs? What is their current outlook? If you want to know our take on this question, we invite you to read our today's Forex Trading Alert.

Gold Miners Red Alert Or All Clear? Posted: 21 Mar 2014 03:16 AM PDT Its getting really bad when you can’t trust the criminals in power to do what you you think they are going to do!

2014 Gold Price "Ranging $1220-1390" Says HSBC's Steel Posted: 21 Mar 2014 02:57 AM PDT Gold prices being dictated by Fed policy and rumor, says HSBC's James Steel...   GOLD PRICE trading in 2014 will see prices move in a range between $1220 and $1390 per ounce reckons bullion bank HSBC's chief commodities analyst, James Steel, says Miguel Perez-Santalla at BullionVault.   "The investment side of gold is fairly bearish," said Steel, a 30-year veteran of precious metals and other hard assets, on my New York Markets Live podcast this week, "with a relatively positive outlook on global equities, while the counterbalance, the physical demand is bullish."   "There is still good demand in China, remarkably high, sluggish mine output, reduced scrap supplies, good coin and bar demand." Online Finance Radio at Blog Talk Radio with New York Markets Live on BlogTalkRadio   Previously running the New York research department for Refco, a large US commodities brokerage house, James Steel in 2006 joined HSBC (ticker: HSBC), now the world's largest bank by assets.   Holding some $2.7 trillion in assets, HSBC is a market-making member of the London bullion market, and a major commercial vault operator – building a dedicated vault last decade to house the gold needed to back shares in the giant SPDR Gold Trust fund ETF (ticker: GLD).   Steel has also worked for The Economist in the Economist Intelligence Unit, covering commodity producing nations.   This week, he and I discussed a broad range of topics around the future of gold prices, including the impact of Fed announcements, how silver compares to gold investment, the status of China as a large gold consumer, the health of the precious metals mining industry, and the historic role of gold as an alternative asset and recognized global currency.   "Gold prices are extremely sensitive to Fed policy and shifts in Fed policy," says James. "Rumors and market chatter about what the Fed would do last year in April and then in June led to the two biggest sell-offs in recent history in the gold price." Turning to silver, that market "has a larger retail component than gold," HSBC's chief commodities analyst explains. "Fifty per cent of the silver market is used for manufacturing or industrial processes. And the silver market is much smaller than gold in terms of capital size."   You can download and hear the full 29-minute show here...

2014 Gold Price "Ranging $1220-1390" Says HSBC's Steel Posted: 21 Mar 2014 02:57 AM PDT Gold prices being dictated by Fed policy and rumor, says HSBC's James Steel...   GOLD PRICE trading in 2014 will see prices move in a range between $1220 and $1390 per ounce reckons bullion bank HSBC's chief commodities analyst, James Steel, says Miguel Perez-Santalla at BullionVault.   "The investment side of gold is fairly bearish," said Steel, a 30-year veteran of precious metals and other hard assets, on my New York Markets Live podcast this week, "with a relatively positive outlook on global equities, while the counterbalance, the physical demand is bullish."   "There is still good demand in China, remarkably high, sluggish mine output, reduced scrap supplies, good coin and bar demand." Online Finance Radio at Blog Talk Radio with New York Markets Live on BlogTalkRadio   Previously running the New York research department for Refco, a large US commodities brokerage house, James Steel in 2006 joined HSBC (ticker: HSBC), now the world's largest bank by assets.   Holding some $2.7 trillion in assets, HSBC is a market-making member of the London bullion market, and a major commercial vault operator – building a dedicated vault last decade to house the gold needed to back shares in the giant SPDR Gold Trust fund ETF (ticker: GLD).   Steel has also worked for The Economist in the Economist Intelligence Unit, covering commodity producing nations.   This week, he and I discussed a broad range of topics around the future of gold prices, including the impact of Fed announcements, how silver compares to gold investment, the status of China as a large gold consumer, the health of the precious metals mining industry, and the historic role of gold as an alternative asset and recognized global currency.   "Gold prices are extremely sensitive to Fed policy and shifts in Fed policy," says James. "Rumors and market chatter about what the Fed would do last year in April and then in June led to the two biggest sell-offs in recent history in the gold price." Turning to silver, that market "has a larger retail component than gold," HSBC's chief commodities analyst explains. "Fifty per cent of the silver market is used for manufacturing or industrial processes. And the silver market is much smaller than gold in terms of capital size."   You can download and hear the full 29-minute show here...

Official gold market to open in South Korea Posted: 21 Mar 2014 02:18 AM PDT By Cho Ki-won The Hankyoreh, Seoul Friday, March 21, 2014 http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/629279.html On Mar. 19, two gold bars were brought to Ilsan in Gyeonggi Province and deposited in the safe of the Korea Securities Depository, an organization that stores gold for the gold market. For the gold market to open, there needs to be actual gold to be bought and sold, and this was the first gold bullion to arrive at the safe. The gold bars, which have a purity of 99.99%, weighed 1 kilogram each, and a security label was attached to the bottom bearing the mark of the Korean Mint. The bars had been produced by a Korean metal refinery. "One importer has asked us to store 15 gold bars. Once they are certified by the Mint, those bars will be placed here as well," said Seong Bo-kyung, head of the gold storage payment team for the depository. ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT Safe and Private Allocated Bullion Storage In Singapore Given the increasing risks in financial markets, it is more important than ever to own physical bullion coins and bars and to store them in the safest vaults in the world in the safest jurisdictions in the world. Gold advocates Jim Sinclair and Marc Faber have recommended Singapore. Now, with GoldCore, you can own coins and bars in fully insured, segregated, and allocated accounts in Singapore with the ability to take delivery. Learn more by downloading GoldCore's Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Singapore: http://info.goldcore.com/essential-guide-to-storing-gold-in-singapore And for more information call Daniel or Sharon at +44 203 0869200 in the United Kingdom or at +1 302 635 1160 in the United States. Or email them at info@goldcore.com. The depository announced that, once the gold commodities market takes off, it is expecting to handle an average of 4-7 tons, or 4,000-7,000 gold bars, each day. The public is now able to trade in gold on the market, just as they can with stocks. This is made possible by the KRX gold market, which will open on Mar. 24. The market enables ordinary investors to buy and sell gold through accounts with securities companies or futures trading companies. The idea behind setting up a gold market is to make sales of the precious metal more transparent by having them take place at an official exchange. In the past, transactions in gold took place off the exchange and were not recorded, making them a popular method of tax evasion. The opening of the gold exchange is connected with the current administration's policy of bringing the underground economy into the light. "With rings and other kinds of jewelry, we are trying to create added value in terms of product competitiveness, and for trading in gold as an investment, we want transactions to be made transparently on the exchange," said Gong Do-hyun, head of the gold market team at the Korea Exchange. The method of trading in gold was designed to be similar to the stock market. Trades can be made between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., starting one hour after the stock market opens. "We decided to start trading an hour after the stock market to match the working hours of people in the jewelry industry," Gong explained. The method chosen for making contracts is single-price sales, taking place between 9 a.m. (when bidding begins) and 10 a.m. and from 2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. This kind of trading means that transactions are not made each time an order comes in but rather that orders are pooled for a set amount of time and then sales are made at a certain time for a single price. Outside of these times, deals can also be made through the continuous trading method, which involves individual competition and multiple prices. Just as with the stock market, information about the prices and volume on the gold commodity market will be made available in real time, while fluctuations in prices will be limited to a 10 percent change from the previous day. For one year investors will not be charged any fees to use the exchange. "Once the gold market gets going, we expect that the practice of dodging the value-added tax through illicit sales will disappear, which will lead to around 300 billion won in tax revenue," the depository said. "The market will also guarantee a swift and reliable supply of gold as a raw material, contributing to the development of the South Korean jewelry market." Some concerned analysts point out that, even after the establishment of the gold market, there is no telling whether individuals and jewelers who have been relying on paperless transactions in gold and not paying taxes will enter the market, as this would mean exposing their transactions to the government. The Korea Exchange believes that about a year will be required for the gold commodity market to become fully active. * * * 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/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference AT&T Performing Arts Center Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House 2403 Flora St., Dallas, Texas Saturday, May 31, 2014 http://stansberrydallas.com/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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

If You Give a Putin a Crimea… Posted: 20 Mar 2014 11:19 PM PDT If You Give a Mouse a Cookie is a fine piece of children’s’ literature. A little boy offers a cookie to a mouse, who then promptly asks for a glass of milk to wash the cookie down. The mouse continues asking for things: a straw to the drink the milk, a mirror to make sure he hasn’t gotten a milk mustache, and clippers to fix his hair that he noticed was too long when he looked in the mirror. That pattern continues until the story comes full circle and the mouse requests another cookie—the moral being that as long as the boy is willing to give, the mouse is all too happy to take. As any parent of a young child will attest, giving in to someone’s demands with hopes of appeasing them rarely achieves the desired result. The most famous historical example of this, of course, is the West’s appeasement of Hitler leading up to World War II—specifically, when Britain and its future allies kowtowed to Hitler’s demand to annex the Sudetenland. As belligerents always do, Hitler had a justification for invading the Sudetenland: three million ethnic Germans lived there. Not a surprising rationale, given that Hitler’s murderous worldview stemmed from the notion that a person’s heritage was the most crucial part of his being. Germans good, Jews bad. Aryans good, Poles bad. So by annexing the land beneath those ethnic Germans, Hitler was merely restoring unity to his beloved Aryan race. After all, the Sudetenland was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As an aside, I wonder what the Nazis would have done with me back then. German is my dominant heritage, and I look the part of an Aryan: 6’1” with blonde hair and blue eyes. But I converted to Judaism last year just before getting married. I imagine Hitler would categorize me as a traitor… I’m thankful that I’ll never know for sure. Anyway, weary from the previous world war, the soon-to-be allies refused to oppose Hitler militarily and so conceded the Sudetenland to him. The Sudetenland was part of Czechoslovakia, but not just any old part. It contained most of the country’s important stuff—66% of its coal, 70% of its iron and steel, and 70% of its electrical power. As a result, Czechoslovakia’s loss of the Sudetenland effectively neutered its military and economy. And we know what happened from there. As Putin tightens his grip on Crimea, it’s instructive to remember this bit of history. Putin is no Hitler, and he’s also no mouse—although he only stands at a slight 5’5”, which somehow makes him seem a bit less menacing, and also makes his shirtless escapades even funnier, at least to me. But Putin’s actions do share some striking similarities with Germany’s 1938 annexation of the Sudetenland: Putin’s justification for his takeover of Crimea is that the region’s population is 60% ethnic Russian. (If that’s all it takes, certain parts of Brooklyn should be on high alert as the next potential targets.) Crimea was once part of the Soviet Union and of Russia. Eastern Ukraine, including Crimea, contains the bulk of the country’s natural resources and is wealthier than the western part. Crimea is also Russia’s only warm-water port on the Black Sea. In other words, most of the good stuff is in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is focusing its efforts. Europe and the US offered zero resistance to Putin’s maneuver. My comparing Putin’s actions to Hitler’s isn’t meant to be a Reductio ad Hitlerum, nor am I trying to paint Russia as the bad guy or the US as the good guy in this conflict. That would be a gross oversimplification or, depending on your perspective, downright backwards. The parallels are important, though, because Hitler’s gambit set off a nightmarish chain of events leading to World War II. So the real question is: Is Russia’s takeover of Crimea the end of Putin’s plan or the beginning? Neville Chamberlain and his allies made a grave error in assuming that Hitler would stop once he got the Sudetenland. Most of the world assumes the same about Putin. But what if most of the world is wrong? Territorial expansion certainly fits with Russia’s history—it didn’t become the world’s largest country by accident. During its Tsardom era, Russia grew at a blistering pace of almost 140,000 square miles per decade from 1550 to 1700. That’s the equivalent of adding a Montana every decade for 15 straight decades. Only in the last 60 years or so has Russia backed off its imperial ambitions. Might Crimea be the spark that reignites them? Casey Research Chief Economist Bud Conrad tackles that question right now. I’ll check back in afterwards with an update on Casey Research’s storytelling contest. Political Brinksmanship, Energy, and Financial War: How to Navigate the Geopolitical Chessboard Bud Conrad, Chief Economist The crisis in Ukraine is serious, and Putin’s renewed confidence will affect our future in profound ways. Let’s discuss the most important ones. Consider this an appetizer—I’ll have much more to say in the upcoming Casey Report. Political Brinksmanship Putin’s takeover of Crimea was predictable. The US’s strategy of encircling Russia finally compelled him to take action to maintain Russia’s long-standing control over and access to its only warm-water port. I think this confrontation between Russia and Western powers is the beginning of a new Cold War. Russia made a power move, and the US responded by slapping Russia on the wrist with a few minor sanctions—a response so meek that Russia need not even respond. There’s debate about whether Putin will now move against other regions. I think he will, and he’ll start by making Crimea a showplace to advance the image of Russian takeover. Because Putin succeeded so easily at asserting his position, he may continue doing so until he meets resistance. I don’t expect NATO or the EU to do much since Europe is dependent on Russian energy. So the question is, “Who’s next?” We got one clue yesterday, when Reuters reported that Russia signaled concern over Estonia’s treatment of its large ethnic Russian minority. Russian officials compared the Estonian government’s language policy to certain Ukrainian calls to prevent the use of Russian in that country. China has offered mild support for Russia’s actions in Crimea, announcing that it will deal with Crimea after the vote. China also abstained from the US-sponsored UN condemnation of the Crimea vote. This suggests Russia and China may be forming closer ties. All of these recent events follow on the heels of Putin’s first win in Syria, when he was able to dissuade the Obama administration from turning the country into a bomb crater. Putin feels he just won another important round. Energy Drives Many Political Decisions Energy resources are not in short supply, but distribution of those resources is complex. Russia’s recovery is due in large part to its energy resources, as it ranks with Saudi Arabia and the US as one of the top three energy producers in the world. Europe gets 30% of its natural gas from Russia, and most of it comes via pipelines that cross the Ukraine. As a result, Europe has to toe the line with Russia for fear of seeing its energy supply severely curtailed. Unfortunately for Europe, the US exporting its excess natural gas via LNG tankers is still a dream and several years away at best. Even then, shipping LNG across the ocean could very well prove to be uneconomical. In other words, Europe needs Russia’s energy. Financial Wars Could Be Dangerous Kremlin aide Sergei Glazyev announced that if the US were to impose sanctions on Russia, Moscow may drop the dollar as a reserve currency and refuse to pay off any loans to US banks. He went on to say that Moscow might recommend that all holders of US Treasuries sell them if Washington froze the US accounts of Russian businesses and individuals. He added, “An attempt to announce sanctions would end in a crash for the financial system of the United States, which would cause the end of the domination of the United States in the global financial system.” Them’s fightin’ words. The discussion of financial warfare brings up some basic questions about the petrodollar, which was given special status when Kissinger convinced the Saudis and others to accept only US dollars for oil. Anything that calls the petrodollar arrangement into question could introduce dramatic economic upheaval. The worst case-scenario would be a coordinated bond sell-off by China and Russia. The effects of such action would be earth shattering. So Russia isn’t bluffing by pointing out that the US could be shooting itself in the foot with financial attacks on a big oil exporter. So far, US and European sanctions have been so limited that derision was the only response from Russian commentators. But as I write, Obama just issued new sanctions, including ones on Bank Rossiya (the 5th largest in Russia), and 20 more individuals. As with any conflict, the risk is that responses may keep escalating until they get out of hand. Some Data to Gauge the Landscape for Russia Russians like Putin, as a survey by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center reported on March 16. His general approval rating is high, as is the approval rating of his actions in Crimea. The fear of an unknown outcome in Crimea has weighed on the Russian ruble, which in the past few days has managed a small recovery. That suggests the short-term resolution in Crimea restored a bit of confidence in the Ruble. Going forward, the path of the ruble will depend on confidence in Russian policies. Even more interesting is the Russian stock market’s steep decline of about 30%... followed by its retracement of about a third of that collapse. In conclusion, we’ve just witnessed some major shifts in the balance of power on the Grand Chessboard of international politics. So far, Russia looks to have emerged stronger, while the US seems weaker, and its strategy looks flawed. But this story is far from over. I have much more to say about potential investment opportunities around this crisis, which I look forward to presenting in the upcoming April issue of the Casey Report. To get my in-depth analysis hot off the digital press, sign up for a risk-free trial to The Casey Report to get my analysis hot off the digital press. Remember, you risk nothing by giving it a try—if you’re not 100% satisfied, simply cancel within the first 3 months for a full and prompt refund. Dan again. If you’ll recall, Casey Research held a storytelling contest in January and February. We received almost 100 submissions, and many of them were fantastic. We’ve informed the winner and sent his prize—a beautiful 1924 St. Gaudens Double Eagle gold coin—off to him yesterday. I’ll announce the winner and run the winning article in next week’s Room. Today, however, I’d like to share with you one of the contest finalists that didn’t win, but came close. Subscriber Brian Nobee wrote about his thrilling experience attending Putin’s Inauguration in 2000, and his account is perfectly apropos with the Putin-dominant world headlines today. If you like to listen to music while you read, Brian suggests “Dangerous” by Within Temptation—which he listened to while he wrote the piece. The American Who Snuck into Putin’s Inauguration By Brian Nobee The two soldiers walked toward me, hands on their machine guns. My heart raced. This was a huge mistake. Only a 19-year-old guy could have come up with such a boneheaded idea. Here I was in Russia, May 7 of 2000, and I came up with the brilliant idea to sneak into President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration. But now it looked like I would instead be “sneaking” into a dank, cold prison cell (hoping there was no Russian equivalent of “Bubba” looking for “companionship”). Here I had already penetrated the first ring of security, but wasn’t going to make it any farther. That morning, I decided that I wanted to see Putin’s inauguration. It was a historical moment touted in the press as “the first peaceful transfer of power in Russia in 1,000 years.” That seemed an odd label to me. After all, Putin was already the president, having succeeded Boris Yeltsin on New Year’s Day this year. He was “transferring” power from himself to… himself? Being at a university, I asked one of my professors about it. She said that today he was part of Boris Yeltsin’s presidential regime and was now passing power to his own regime. She waxed ecstatic about how historical this was, since most power transfers in Russia’s past were quite violent. She then talked about how he was going to restore order and stability to Russia. I nodded and thanked her for explaining the “peaceful power transfer.” Still a silly assertion, I thought to myself. No matter. His inauguration was supposed to be a grand affair. He was to reinstitute the grand military revue and weapons parades famous during the later Soviet years but discontinued by Yeltsin. I wanted to see that. It was closed to the public, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me! I needed a plan. I picked up that day’s version of the English-language “Moscow Times” to see where the street and Metro closures were. It seemed that the streets would be easier to negotiate than the bowels of the Metro system, so I started there. My university being very near the center of town, it was only about a 15-minute walk to the first barricade. Gruff, dour-looking soldiers were spaced several feet apart in front of steel fences. I looked to the right and the left. No openings or spaces anywhere in sight. OK. Not a surprise. I didn’t think it would be that easy. So I went up to the youngest-looking, least-intimidating soldier (he looked even younger than I). He was still pretty menacing, but maybe I could explain to him what I wanted to do, and as a non-threatening, unarmed student, maybe I could get in. Slowly, as non-threatening as I could (he had no less than three guns on his person at the time), I approached him. His cold stare pierced my optimism. I was about to turn around when he addressed me in Russian: “What is your business here?” I hesitated before choppily responding (in Russian), “I am a student and wanted to see the inauguration of Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin).” He shot that down pretty quickly. “This is a restricted area. You cannot come in.” I could have given up at that point, and that would have been the safe, conservative thing to do. But I was a teenage guy. Prudence and safety were not part of my vocabulary! On to plan B: the Metro. The three stations closest to Red Square were closed, as they were within the first security perimeter. So I hopped on the Metro at the station closest to me. It was much less crowded than usual, but not empty. The first closed station was two stations down from my current location. The computerized female voice sounded over the intercom (in Russian): “Careful. Doors are closing.” I sat down and thought about what I was going to do. I wasn’t sure what this was supposed to accomplish. Was I seriously going to pry open the Metro doors and jump off the moving train as it went past a closed station? No. Not likely. Luckily for me, the Metro actually stopped at the closed station and the doors opened. I jumped out into the closed station without thinking any further. No one else got off. The train rolled away, and here I was in a dark, empty station in subsurface Moscow. I could hear slowly dripping water behind me. My steps quietly echoed as I moved toward the station exit. The escalator to go up had a barricade in front of it, but no one was guarding it. So I jumped over it and started walking up the escalator. I smiled to myself. I had done it! I was inside the outer security perimeter! I got to the top of the escalator and looked around. I had never seen the streets around Red Square this empty. Usually everything here was so packed that it was hard to move without running into someone. But not today. That’s when I saw them. Two soldiers noticed that there was a bumbling university student inside their security perimeter. Hands on their machine guns, they started walking toward me. I froze. Any sudden move could bring a hail of lead my way. Both of them were older than the first soldier I approached, probably in their late thirties or early forties. The first one asked me in Russian, “This is a restricted area. What are you doing here? How did you get in?” Not wanting to appear to be hiding anything whatsoever, I explained my entire morning to him, as the other one gave me a full TSA-style aggressive pat-down. The two soldiers whispered among themselves for a minute as I sweated, wondering what my fate was to be. What a stupid idea this was! The first one, whom I’ll call “Dima,” turned back to me and said “Come, follow me.” The other soldier followed behind. I quietly pondered what kind of dank cell I was to be calling my home tonight, and perhaps for the foreseeable future (I wonder if you get one free phone call here?). He led me to one of the Red Square gates. For those of you who haven’t been there, Red Square is open on the side of St. Basil’s Cathedral, but somewhat enclosed on the side opposite by buildings and a gate. Dima led me up to the gate. To my surprise, there were about 20 other people in front of the gate. Not soldiers, but civilians. Several of them gave me odd stares, as if to say, “Who are you and what the hell are you doing here?” There were no other Americans in this group—they were all Russian. Dima spoke to me. “You may watch from here. Do not take any pictures. If you do, I will confiscate your camera. Do not leave this immediate area. If you do, you will be considered a security threat. I will tell you when it is time to leave and then you must go.” I meekly said, “Understood.” I’m still not sure who those other people were. Maybe friends and family of the small detachment of soldiers patrolling Red Square? I actually couldn’t see much. I was expecting to see the full Soviet-style weapons paraded right past the gate, but that didn’t happen. I could see activity in the distance, but most everything was behind the Kremlin walls (Red Square is just outside of the Kremlin). After an hour or so, Dima told me it was time to leave. He escorted me to the security perimeter. As we walked, he said to me, “I am not sure whether to admire your courage or laugh at your foolishness. You are lucky that I found you. Someone else may have shot you on sight. When I was 15, I actually snuck into the Kremlin during one of Brezhnev’s ceremonies. I was discovered and spent two nights in prison. Be careful here. Don’t try anything like this again. It i

James Dines - Gold & The Next “Super-Major Bull Market” Posted: 20 Mar 2014 09:02 PM PDT Today a legend spoke with King World News about a new "Super-Major Bull Market" and what is happening in the gold market. KWN readers around the world will be stunned by what Dines has identified as the next "Super-Major Bull Market." Below is what legendary forecaster, James Dines, had to say in this remarkable interview. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

China gold researcher Koos Jansen's Internet site under attack Posted: 20 Mar 2014 07:53 PM PDT 10:50a HKT Friday, March 21, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Congratulations to China gold researcher and GATA consultant Koos Jansen, who reports that his Internet site, In Gold We Trust, has come under constant "distributed denial of service" attacks originating from the United States and China, attacks that increasingly befall Internet sites that get a little too close to the real issues of the gold "market." Jansen says he is taking security precautions in the hope of improving public access. In the meantime maybe he can find some consolation in knowing that certain people may not enjoy his work. Jansen's commentary is headlined "In Gold We Trust" under attack and it's posted at that Internet site here: http://www.ingoldwetrust.ch/gold-trust-attack CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- and which stocks to buy now Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with 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: 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/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference AT&T Performing Arts Center Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House 2403 Flora St., Dallas, Texas Saturday, May 31, 2014 http://stansberrydallas.com/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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 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

The Gold Price Corrected $10.90 Closing at $1,330.50 Posted: 20 Mar 2014 07:15 PM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1,330.50 Gold Price Close 14-Mar-14 : 1,379.00 Change : -48.50 or -3.5% Silver Price Close Today : 20.404 Silver Price Close 14-Mar-14 : 21.384 Change : -0.98 or -4.6% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 65.208 Gold Silver Ratio 14-Mar-14 : 64.487 Change : 0.720 or 1.1% Silver Gold Ratio : 0.01534 Silver Gold Ratio 14-Mar-14 : 0.01551 Change : -0.00017 or -1.1% Dow in Gold Dollars : $ 253.73 Dow in Gold Dollars 14-Mar-14 : $ 240.83 Change : 12.90 or 5.4% Dow in Gold Ounces : 12.274 Dow in Gold Ounces 14-Mar-14 : 11.650 Change : 0.62 or 5.4% Dow in Silver Ounces : 800.38 Dow in Silver Ounces 14-Mar-14 : 751.29 Change : 49.09 or 6.5% Dow Industrial : 16,331.05 Dow Industrial 14-Mar-14 : 16,065.67 Change : 265.38 or 1.7% S&P 500 : 1,872.01 S&P 500 14-Mar-14 : 1,841.13 Change : 30.88 or 1.7% US Dollar Index : 80.370 US Dollar Index 14-Mar-14 : 79.440 Change : 0.93 or 1.2% Platinum Price Close Today : 1,434.30 Platinum Price Close 14-Mar-14 : 1,469.00 Change : -34.70 or -2.4% Palladium Price Close Today : 772.00 Palladium Price Close 14-Mar-14 : 773.00 Change : -1.00 or -0.1% I won't be in the office tomorrow, so I am sending this weekly update today. Silver and GOLD PRICES both dropped today but only roughly to the levels seen in yesterday's aftermarket. From yesterday's Comex close the gold price dropped $10.90 to $1,330.50 while silver lost 39.6 cents (1.9%) to 2040.4c. GOLD/SILVER RATIO rose to 65.208. Really only one question hangs over gold and silver: was December's low really a double bottom, or now, after a rally, will they drop terrifyingly to a new low. Whichever outlook you take determines your opinion at this juncture. I'll tell y'all up front I believe the December lows were a double bottom, and so I expect this correction to be limited like a bull market rally. In other words gold will give back 38% to 50% and silver 62% to 75% of the foregoing gain, but the bottom will not drop out to hit new lows. Silver and gold prices probably hit the high of their rally off the December lows this week and began a correction. First let's look at some related markets. The gold stock indices XAU, GDX, and HUI have all broken down after strong rallies but remain above their 50 and 200 DMAs. The Gold/BKK Banking Stock Index has fallen sharply below its 50 DMA. Bank stocks jumped up strongly yesterday, probably on anticipation they will be sucking more blood out of us in the future, interest-wise. When Bank stocks outperform gold it means the public is willing to take on more risk. In what cannot be labeled good news for stocks, copper broke down below $3.00 and in spite of coagulating right under that breakdown, has not managed to come back. So gold stocks are falling in sympathy with their underlying value-giver, gold, while the public is reaching for more risk. Unhappily for the public, Dr. Copper is predicting more economic anemia, with perhaps violent puking in the wastebasket. The GOLD PRICE today ranged from $1,336.30 to $1,320.80. It hit that low about 9:30, then rose again to trade around $1,330 most of the day, about where it ended the day yesterday. On a chart this looks like a V bottom. That low came in not far from a 38.2% correction ($1,311.92). A 50% correction would take gold to $1,287.00. The gold price also broke through the lower boundary of its Dec - March upward trading channel. The 200 DMA stands at $1,301.44, and that offers another safety net to catch gold. I hope I'm not just imagining things in the chart, but the SILVER PRICE made a V-bottom today at 2014c between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 am, then rose to spend the rest of the day oscillating between 2045 and 2025c. A 62% correction would take silver to 2005c. It broke the 50 DMA (2056c). As I said, if this is a correction to a rally and the 2011-2013 correction has ended, we have seen falls just about far enough to satisfy that correction. The market will tell us. Stocks gained and lost more of the same ground this week than the British army in World War I, but ended a bit higher. Currencies all reversed. Mother Janet's first FOMC meeting added manic volatility to the mix, bless her heart. ("bless her heart" is a chameleon Southern expression that means, "Poor thing -- she just don't know no better.") In the train of the FOMC meeting the market understood, thanks to Mother Janet's loose lips in the press converence, that the Fed would raise interest rates much earlier than they mean to. Since interest rates primarily determine exchange rates (along with relative inflation rates), the dollar shot up out of the bullish falling wedge formed since the year began. Pretty tough to gainsay this breakout, since it has punched through the 20 day moving average (79.94) and reached the 50 DMA (80.46). Today the Dollar index rose another 22 basis points (0.27%) to 80.37. Dollar index needed to rise over 80 to prove it still had blood in its veins, and did that rather handily. This rally out of that falling wedge targets at least 81.50 and probably higher. Some I will forbear to call shallow thinkers will conclude this means that silver and gold cannot rise because the dollar is rising. They are wrong. Gold and silver's long correction ended with the double bottom in December. Now markets are in new territory, and now the Fed must deal with its loony actions since 2008. Lots of things can happen, but however it plays out, silver and gold will be rising again. The dollar's rise made a believer out of the euro. After feigning an upside breakout that carried to $1.3958, the dollar has again turned down. Euro fell like your brother-in-law's reputation when he showed up drunk for your uncle's funeral. Gapped down past the 20 DMA (1.3812) to close down 0.38% at $1.3778. 'Twould be logical to conclude that at last the Europeans had all of a high euro they could stand, so made a deal with the Fed to change places for a while. Meanwhile the Yen fell 0.02% to 97.65 cents/Y100, trapped in a sideways trading range. The 10 year treasury yield closed yesterday above its 20 and 50 DMAs and stayed there today. Closed up 0.11% to 2.775%. Needs to clear last high at 2.821% to claim it's rallying. What do you say about a market that loses 2/3 of 1% on day and turns and regains it the next? Central bank interference, but you can't be sure which way. The FOMC statement yesterday took the Dow down about 110 points, but today it came back 108.88 (0.67%) to 16,331.05, resting above its 20 DMA (16,275.14). Yet the chart remains a double top until it can close above 16,505.70, the last high. S&P500 rose 11.24, up 0.6% to 1,872.01. Here, too, it remains in a down trend until it can close above $1,874, and it is close. Dow in Gold and in Silver are receiving the correction I had expected earlier. Dow in silver rose 2.36% (18.56 oz) to 805.28 oz (S$1041.13 silver dollars). That's way aboev the downtrend line and above the 20 DMA and 50 DMA. Doe in gold also broke above its downtrend line and rose again above the 200 DMA (12.05 oz) and 20 DMA (12.10 oz). Floated up 0.85% to 12.3 oz ($254.26 gold dollars). Both must stop soon or continue to rise much higher. Y'all enjoy your weekend! 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 Corrected $10.90 Closing at $1,330.50 Posted: 20 Mar 2014 07:14 PM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1,330.50 Gold Price Close 14-Mar-14 : 1,379.00 Change : -48.50 or -3.5% Silver Price Close Today : 20.404 Silver Price Close 14-Mar-14 : 21.384 Change : -0.98 or -4.6% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 65.208 Gold Silver Ratio 14-Mar-14 : 64.487 Change : 0.720 or 1.1% Silver Gold Ratio : 0.01534 Silver Gold Ratio 14-Mar-14 : 0.01551 Change : -0.00017 or -1.1% Dow in Gold Dollars : $ 253.73 Dow in Gold Dollars 14-Mar-14 : $ 240.83 Change : 12.90 or 5.4% Dow in Gold Ounces : 12.274 Dow in Gold Ounces 14-Mar-14 : 11.650 Change : 0.62 or 5.4% Dow in Silver Ounces : 800.38 Dow in Silver Ounces 14-Mar-14 : 751.29 Change : 49.09 or 6.5% Dow Industrial : 16,331.05 Dow Industrial 14-Mar-14 : 16,065.67 Change : 265.38 or 1.7% S&P 500 : 1,872.01 S&P 500 14-Mar-14 : 1,841.13 Change : 30.88 or 1.7% US Dollar Index : 80.370 US Dollar Index 14-Mar-14 : 79.440 Change : 0.93 or 1.2% Platinum Price Close Today : 1,434.30 Platinum Price Close 14-Mar-14 : 1,469.00 Change : -34.70 or -2.4% Palladium Price Close Today : 772.00 Palladium Price Close 14-Mar-14 : 773.00 Change : -1.00 or -0.1% I won't be in the office tomorrow, so I am sending this weekly update today. Silver and GOLD PRICES both dropped today but only roughly to the levels seen in yesterday's aftermarket. From yesterday's Comex close the gold price dropped $10.90 to $1,330.50 while silver lost 39.6 cents (1.9%) to 2040.4c. GOLD/SILVER RATIO rose to 65.208. Really only one question hangs over gold and silver: was December's low really a double bottom, or now, after a rally, will they drop terrifyingly to a new low. Whichever outlook you take determines your opinion at this juncture. I'll tell y'all up front I believe the December lows were a double bottom, and so I expect this correction to be limited like a bull market rally. In other words gold will give back 38% to 50% and silver 62% to 75% of the foregoing gain, but the bottom will not drop out to hit new lows. Silver and gold prices probably hit the high of their rally off the December lows this week and began a correction. First let's look at some related markets. The gold stock indices XAU, GDX, and HUI have all broken down after strong rallies but remain above their 50 and 200 DMAs. The Gold/BKK Banking Stock Index has fallen sharply below its 50 DMA. Bank stocks jumped up strongly yesterday, probably on anticipation they will be sucking more blood out of us in the future, interest-wise. When Bank stocks outperform gold it means the public is willing to take on more risk. In what cannot be labeled good news for stocks, copper broke down below $3.00 and in spite of coagulating right under that breakdown, has not managed to come back. So gold stocks are falling in sympathy with their underlying value-giver, gold, while the public is reaching for more risk. Unhappily for the public, Dr. Copper is predicting more economic anemia, with perhaps violent puking in the wastebasket. The GOLD PRICE today ranged from $1,336.30 to $1,320.80. It hit that low about 9:30, then rose again to trade around $1,330 most of the day, about where it ended the day yesterday. On a chart this looks like a V bottom. That low came in not far from a 38.2% correction ($1,311.92). A 50% correction would take gold to $1,287.00. The gold price also broke through the lower boundary of its Dec - March upward trading channel. The 200 DMA stands at $1,301.44, and that offers another safety net to catch gold. I hope I'm not just imagining things in the chart, but the SILVER PRICE made a V-bottom today at 2014c between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 am, then rose to spend the rest of the day oscillating between 2045 and 2025c. A 62% correction would take silver to 2005c. It broke the 50 DMA (2056c). As I said, if this is a correction to a rally and the 2011-2013 correction has ended, we have seen falls just about far enough to satisfy that correction. The market will tell us. Stocks gained and lost more of the same ground this week than the British army in World War I, but ended a bit higher. Currencies all reversed. Mother Janet's first FOMC meeting added manic volatility to the mix, bless her heart. ("bless her heart" is a chameleon Southern expression that means, "Poor thing -- she just don't know no better.") In the train of the FOMC meeting the market understood, thanks to Mother Janet's loose lips in the press converence, that the Fed would raise interest rates much earlier than they mean to. Since interest rates primarily determine exchange rates (along with relative inflation rates), the dollar shot up out of the bullish falling wedge formed since the year began. Pretty tough to gainsay this breakout, since it has punched through the 20 day moving average (79.94) and reached the 50 DMA (80.46). Today the Dollar index rose another 22 basis points (0.27%) to 80.37. Dollar index needed to rise over 80 to prove it still had blood in its veins, and did that rather handily. This rally out of that falling wedge targets at least 81.50 and probably higher. Some I will forbear to call shallow thinkers will conclude this means that silver and gold cannot rise because the dollar is rising. They are wrong. Gold and silver's long correction ended with the double bottom in December. Now markets are in new territory, and now the Fed must deal with its loony actions since 2008. Lots of things can happen, but however it plays out, silver and gold will be rising again. The dollar's rise made a believer out of the euro. After feigning an upside breakout that carried to $1.3958, the dollar has again turned down. Euro fell like your brother-in-law's reputation when he showed up drunk for your uncle's funeral. Gapped down past the 20 DMA (1.3812) to close down 0.38% at $1.3778. 'Twould be logical to conclude that at last the Europeans had all of a high euro they could stand, so made a deal with the Fed to change places for a while. Meanwhile the Yen fell 0.02% to 97.65 cents/Y100, trapped in a sideways trading range. The 10 year treasury yield closed yesterday above its 20 and 50 DMAs and stayed there today. Closed up 0.11% to 2.775%. Needs to clear last high at 2.821% to claim it's rallying. What do you say about a market that loses 2/3 of 1% on day and turns and regains it the next? Central bank interference, but you can't be sure which way. The FOMC statement yesterday took the Dow down about 110 points, but today it came back 108.88 (0.67%) to 16,331.05, resting above its 20 DMA (16,275.14). Yet the chart remains a double top until it can close above 16,505.70, the last high. S&P500 rose 11.24, up 0.6% to 1,872.01. Here, too, it remains in a down trend until it can close above $1,874, and it is close. Dow in Gold and in Silver are receiving the correction I had expected earlier. Dow in silver rose 2.36% (18.56 oz) to 805.28 oz (S$1041.13 silver dollars). That's way aboev the downtrend line and above the 20 DMA and 50 DMA. Doe in gold also broke above its downtrend line and rose again above the 200 DMA (12.05 oz) and 20 DMA (12.10 oz). Floated up 0.85% to 12.3 oz ($254.26 gold dollars). Both must stop soon or continue to rise much higher. Y'all enjoy your weekend! 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.

Tumbling Chinese yuan sets off 'carry trade' rout, triggers derivatives contracts Posted: 20 Mar 2014 07:07 PM PDT By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard The Telegraph, London Thursday, March 20, 2014 China's yuan has suffered its biggest one-week fall in 20 years, nearing key trigger levels that threaten a wave of forced selling and mounting stress for those with dollar debts. The jitters come amid reports of fire sales of Hong Kong property by Chinese investors desperate to raise cash, some slashing their prices by 20 percent for a quick sale. A liquidity squeeze in mainland China has already led to the collapse of Zhejiang Xingrun real estate this week with $570 million of debts, the biggest property failure so far. The yuan weakened sharply on Thursday to 6.23 against the dollar and has now lost 3 percent since January, a clear break with China's longstanding policy of slow appreciation. Geoffrey Kendrick, from Morgan Stanley, said the currency has broken through the 6.20 level, where a cluster of structured products are triggered. These are known as losses on target redemption funds. The losses have already hit $3.5 billion. ... ... For the full story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/10712339/Tumbling-Chin... 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: 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/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference AT&T Performing Arts Center Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House 2403 Flora St., Dallas, Texas Saturday, May 31, 2014 http://stansberrydallas.com/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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 How to profit with silver -- and which stocks to buy now Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with 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...

Posted: 20 Mar 2014 03:04 PM PDT In 1999, 15 European central banks agreed to restrict the central bank gold sales to 400 tonnes over the course of the following five years. Five years later, a similar agreement was implemented, with a small difference that gold sales restriction was increased to 500 tons. In 2009, five years after the second agreement, 17 central banks in Europe, along with Sweden and Switzerland, extended the agreement with a 400 tonnes restriction. Now, five years after the third agreement, it seems there will be no renewal, according to Wall Street Journal who referenced top German central banker Thiele. “The negotiations are still ongoing,” Deutsche Bundesbank board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal. “No one can see into the future, and therefore it is currently under discussion whether it should be continued,” he added. The Bundesbank currently holds around 3,400 metric tons of gold. Mr Thiele indicated that one reason the agreement may not be extended is because over the past five years central bank gold sales have decreased significantly. Instead, central banks around the globe have increased their holdings in the aftermath of the financial crisis. In previous years, it has only parted with four-to-five tonnes, which it gave to the Finance Ministry to use for making gold coins. We don’t expect this to have an impact on gold demand nor the gold price. Our view is not to read too much in this news. By contrast, we believe the German gold repatriation case could be much more impactful in the gold market. Unless there is a specific reason in German Bundesbank board member Thiele’s hidden agenda …

Why Copper Could Be A Challenge To The Gold Price Posted: 20 Mar 2014 02:41 PM PDT This is a guest post by Alhambra Partners. Go to the website for information on Alhambra Investment Partners' money management services and global portfolio approach to capital preservation. Gold has seen a healthy run since the first incidence of QE taper, again conforming to the idea that gold is tail risk insurance unrelated to inflation perceptions. That included a January rebuke to the collateral pressure/selloff pattern that we saw too much of in 2013. In the past few days, gold prices have come down a bit and that has coincided (somewhat) with another bout of forward rate incrementalism, bringing back the collateral pressure question. There is any number of possibilities here, including profit taking from speculators, that would offer a compelling explanation for the past few days' gold trading. However, it would be wrong, in my opinion, to simply ignore the recent change in GOFO. Since forward rates began rising nearly a month ago, any collateral relationship would appear to be far weaker than previously observed. With that in mind, I can't help but think that there is a spreading illiquidity that might tie gold to copper, and thus China. In some ways, if this is correct, it may have been inevitable given the dollar situation there (more on that in another post). You would have to believe that as dollar liquidity worsens, the more broadly dollar shorts would appeal to keep funding their positions, even if it meant rehypothecating gold claims or leasing gold itself. There is little doubt that a large quantity of physical metal has made its way eastward across the Pacific, so it may be, in theory, available for liquidity alternatives to copper and the PBOC. I think that is underscored more than in passing fashion by the slight backwardation in copper futures out to July. Such a short tenor of backwardation is the hallmark of collateral issues and liquidity strains. It is, unfortunately given the paucity of direct observation or even inference, a factor that bears closer scrutiny and further analysis before rendering any harder conclusions. With Chinese dollar shorts in clear dysfunction, there may be further gold spillover ahead, particularly as copper gets hammered. Will the safety bid under gold, evident since QE taper, be enough to offset some or all of this copper/China mess?

Riley Martin -- The Alex Jones Show (VIDEO Commercial Free) Thursday March 20 2014 Posted: 20 Mar 2014 01:28 PM PDT On this Thursday, March 20 edition of the Alex Jones Show, Alex covers a variety of topics from the current collapse of the mainstream media to the rise of tyranny from local city councils. A new report reveals that the White House screens questions from reporters BEFORE press conferences,... [[ 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! ]]

Economic Collapse 2014 -- The Vast Majority Will Face Starvation -- Alasdair MacLeod Posted: 20 Mar 2014 01:22 PM PDT After our amazing call with writer and researcher Alasdair MacLeod officially ended, we kept on talking! This bonus conversation includes the entirety of that conversation which covers the very real possible outcomes that may result from a worldwide banking collapse. Alasdair is concerned... [[ 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! ]]

China gold market researcher Koos Jansen interviewed by GoldSwitzerland Posted: 20 Mar 2014 01:16 PM PDT 4:09a HKT Friday, March 21, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Chinese gold market researcher and GATA consultant Koos Jansen has been interviewed for Matterhorn Asset Management's GoldSwitzerland Internet site by the German financial journalist Lars Schall. Jansen sees the growth of China's gold market as the manifestation of the shift of economic power from the West to the East. He explains how Western news and research reports about Chinese gold demand underestimate it. The interview is 29 minutes long and can be heard at GoldSwitzerland's Internet site here: http://goldswitzerland.com/chinas-gold-policy-is-one-of-the-worlds-most-... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT Safe and Private Allocated Bullion Storage In Singapore Given the increasing risks in financial markets, it is more important than ever to own physical bullion coins and bars and to store them in the safest vaults in the world in the safest jurisdictions in the world. Gold advocates Jim Sinclair and Marc Faber have recommended Singapore. Now, with GoldCore, you can own coins and bars in fully insured, segregated, and allocated accounts in Singapore with the ability to take delivery. Learn more by downloading GoldCore's Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Singapore: http://info.goldcore.com/essential-guide-to-storing-gold-in-singapore And for more information call Daniel or Sharon at +44 203 0869200 in the United Kingdom or at +1 302 635 1160 in the United States. Or email them at info@goldcore.com. 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/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference AT&T Performing Arts Center Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House 2403 Flora St., Dallas, Texas Saturday, May 31, 2014 http://stansberrydallas.com/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Bucket Shops - Hidden Pricing In Electronic Bond Sales Posted: 20 Mar 2014 01:13 PM PDT

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Bucket Shops - Hidden Pricing In Electronic Bond Sales Posted: 20 Mar 2014 01:13 PM PDT

Zero Hedge: How gold performs during FOMC weeks Posted: 20 Mar 2014 01:07 PM PDT 4:07a HKT Friday, March 21, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Zero Hedge notes the peculiar inverse correlation between the gold price and the last seven weeks during which the Federal Open Market Committee has met. Of course GATA has noted many similar inverse correlations over the years and they can be only mere coincidences or signs of central bank intervention in the currency markets. As Zero Hedge says, "Welcome to the centrally planned world where the announcement of ongoing trillions in fiat dilution constantly crushes the price of undilutable money" -- except, of course, gold can be diluted in several ways, from paper gold to high-frequency trading in gold futures and other derivatives undertaken or underwritten by central banks in secret. Zero Hedge's commentary is headlined "How Gold Performs During FOMC Weeks" and it's posted here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-19/how-gold-performs-during-fomc-w... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- and which stocks to buy now Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with 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: 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/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference AT&T Performing Arts Center Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House 2403 Flora St., Dallas, Texas Saturday, May 31, 2014 http://stansberrydallas.com/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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 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

European central banks may drop gold sales limits since they're not selling anyway Posted: 20 Mar 2014 12:56 PM PDT European Central Banks May End Restrictions on Gold Sales By Hans Bentzien The Wall Street Journal Thursday, March 20, 2014 FRANKFURT, Germany -- European central banks may end a 15-year-old restriction on sales of their gold holdings this year, a top German central banker said. "The negotiations are still ongoing," Deutsche Bundesbank board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal. ... Mr. Thiele indicated that one reason the agreement may not be extended is because over the past five years central bank gold sales have decreased significantly. ... ... For the full story: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230380210457945070341... 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: 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/ Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference AT&T Performing Arts Center Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House 2403 Flora St., Dallas, Texas Saturday, May 31, 2014 http://stansberrydallas.com/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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 How to profit with silver -- and which stocks to buy now Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with 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...

In The News Today Posted: 20 Mar 2014 12:42 PM PDT Jim Sinclair’s Commentary Gold is debt.   US Pacific Fleet commander warns Asia it risks Crimea-like crisis By Ben Bland in Jakarta March 19, 2014 11:35 am The commander of the US Pacific Fleet has hit out at China's "revanchist tendencies" and warned that Asia-Pacific nations must forsake "unilateral actions and inflammatory rhetoric" or risk... Read more » The post In The News Today appeared first on Jim Sinclair's Mineset.

Gold & The Last Financial Advice John Templeton Gave Me Posted: 20 Mar 2014 12:29 PM PDT With continued volatility in major markets, today one of the savviest individuals in the business spoke with King World News about gold, China, and the last financial advice the great John Templeton gave him. What Templeton had to say will surprise KWN readers around the world. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Gold Trading "Imminent" in China's New Shanghai Freezone Posted: 20 Mar 2014 12:03 PM PDT No.1 producer & consumer "must fight for voice" in international gold trading...   GOLD TRADING is "imminent" in China's new international freezone, according to press reports, with the Shanghai Gold Exchange seen leading the internationalization of financial markets in the world's second-largest economy.    With Beijing still tightly controlling inflows and outflows of currency, the launch of a gold trading contract for foreign holders of so-called "offshore Yuan" has been rumored for Shanghai's free-trade zone since January.   Now the People's Bank of China is said to be reviewing specifications for a trading contract from the Shanghai Gold Exchange, "and an imminent approval is expected" says the South China Morning Post, citing officials.   "Gold will be an ideal trading product to spearhead the efforts to internationalise all kinds of exchanges in the free-trade zone," the SMCP quotes Industrial Bank analyst Jiang Shu.   Twice in the last decade, senior figures from the People's Bank have told the London Bullion Market Association how gold trading "plays a very important role" in the politburo's long-term plans for China's financial market system, most recently at the LBMA's 2012 conference in Hong Kong.   Now gold trading "could trigger a large turnover when the international players come," says Jiang.   The world's No.1 in both gold demand and mining output, "China must fight for a voice in the international gold market," says Tan Weihuan, chief researcher at the state-approved China Gold News site.   Comparing the planned Shanghai offer with London's bullion market – part of the UK capital's "international financial center" – "Gold trading settlement must be flexible, convenient and fast," says Tan.   What's more, "Gold is denominated in US Dollars." So if the Shanghai freezone's gold trading "offers only Renminbi [aka Yuan] settlement, at least for now the scale will be limited."   Globally, said the SWIFT payments processing association earlier this year, the Chinese Yuan is used for only 0.8% of transactions.

Gold Trading "Imminent" in China's New Shanghai Freezone Posted: 20 Mar 2014 12:03 PM PDT No.1 producer & consumer "must fight for voice" in international gold trading...   GOLD TRADING is "imminent" in China's new international freezone, according to press reports, with the Shanghai Gold Exchange seen leading the internationalization of financial markets in the world's second-largest economy.    With Beijing still tightly controlling inflows and outflows of currency, the launch of a gold trading contract for foreign holders of so-called "offshore Yuan" has been rumored for Shanghai's free-trade zone since January.   Now the People's Bank of China is said to be reviewing specifications for a trading contract from the Shanghai Gold Exchange, "and an imminent approval is expected" says the South China Morning Post, citing officials.   "Gold will be an ideal trading product to spearhead the efforts to internationalise all kinds of exchanges in the free-trade zone," the SMCP quotes Industrial Bank analyst Jiang Shu.   Twice in the last decade, senior figures from the People's Bank have told the London Bullion Market Association how gold trading "plays a very important role" in the politburo's long-term plans for China's financial market system, most recently at the LBMA's 2012 conference in Hong Kong.   Now gold trading "could trigger a large turnover when the international players come," says Jiang.   The world's No.1 in both gold demand and mining output, "China must fight for a voice in the international gold market," says Tan Weihuan, chief researcher at the state-approved China Gold News site.   Comparing the planned Shanghai offer with London's bullion market – part of the UK capital's "international financial center" – "Gold trading settlement must be flexible, convenient and fast," says Tan.   What's more, "Gold is denominated in US Dollars." So if the Shanghai freezone's gold trading "offers only Renminbi [aka Yuan] settlement, at least for now the scale will be limited."   Globally, said the SWIFT payments processing association earlier this year, the Chinese Yuan is used for only 0.8% of transactions.

The Power Play to Eliminate the Petrodollar Posted: 20 Mar 2014 11:16 AM PDT Anthropology isn't the profession that springs to mind when wondering how to turn a buck in the financial markets. But the marauding armies of antiquity may tell you more about the shifting Saudi-US alliance than you can read about in The Wall Street Journal. The petrodollar standard couldn't exist, after all, without the example of Rome. …it's like the Jones family took over Texas and started calling it Jones' Texas. Throughout history, cash markets – money itself – arose through war. This is linked to the premise that it is credit, not money, which is the main constant in human affairs. We wish we could lay claim to this idea, but it's not ours. It belongs to David Graeber, an anthropologist, who wrote the intriguing book Debt: The First 5000 Years: "Say a king wishes to support a standing army of 50,000 men. Under ancient or medieval conditions, feeding such a force was an enormous problem… On the other hand, if one simply hands out coins to soldiers and then demands that every family in the kingdom was obliged to pay one of those coins back to you [to pay taxes], one would, in one blow, turn one's entire national economy into a vast machine for the provisioning of soldiers, since now every family, in order to get their hands on the coins, must find some way to contribute to the general effort to provide soldiers with the things they want." One of the themes of Debt is that the history of the world can be broken into yin and yang periods of dominance between credit style economies and bullion/cash ones. Money springs up, Graeber argues, in periods of generalised violence. "For much of human history, then, an ingot of gold and silver, stamped or not, has served the same role as the contemporary drug dealer's suitcase full of unmarked bills: an object without a history, valuable because one knows it will be accepted in exchange for other goods just about anywhere, no questions asked." Graeber says money as we know it today came into existence first and foremost through tax and tribute policies. These were designed to provision soldiers and finance the warmongering of different States. Fast forward to today. Graeber speculates it's no coincidence that, with the exception of China, most of the US federal debt is in the hands of countries that are protectorates of the US military. This leads him to the question of whether these are loans at all, or what they look like: tribute to the muscle of Empire, like the barbarians sent to Caesar. No one has benefited more from this muscle than the House of Saud. The Saudi Royal family is essentially backed by the US military, or at least by arms sold to the Royal family by the American military industrial complex. Go back to early maps of the area and it's called Arabia. The 'Saud' comes from Ibn Saud, the father of the modern nation you might say. As analyst Richard Maybury likes to say, it's like the Jones family took over Texas and started calling it Jones' Texas. It's not a complicated arrangement. US muscle keeps the Saudi monarchy in power. In return, the Saudis price oil in US dollars. Pricing oil in dollars reinforces the dollar's status as the reserve currency of the world. This arrangement has pleased both sides for the last 50 years, although it may be less pleasing to countries that must buy dollars in order to buy oil from Saudi Arabia. But the arrangement may be ending. Currency Wars author and analyst James Rickards, one of the key note speakers at our upcoming World War D conference, pointed out in December that "The petrodollar system is collapsing for two reasons. The US has abused its privileged reserve currency position by printing trillions of dollars in an effort to create inflation." "More recently," Rickards continues, "President Obama has taken steps to anoint Iran as the regional hegemon of the Middle East, and to ease the way, in stages, toward Iran's possession of nuclear weapons capability. This is viewed as a stab-in-the-back by the Saudis and the Israelis and will lead quickly to Saudi Arabia obtaining nuclear weapons from Pakistan." Maybe it won't be long before we're all talking about the petroyuan. In other words, a 50-year status quo in the world's most dangerous region with the world's largest proven oil reserves is coming unstuck because of US monetary policy. Rickards writes that, "There is also a newly emerging alliance among Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, and Russia. The new alignment will have no particular use for US dollars and no reason to support them. This turn of events marks the beginning of a significant diminution in the role of the dollar in the international monetary system." A key fact at play here is that China is now the largest importer of oil in the world. When the Saudis go looking for a new security patron, they won't have to look far. Maybe it won't be long before we're all talking about the petroyuan. China's currency is rising in trade finance too, according to global transaction services organization SWIFT. With an 8.66% market share it's not quite up there with the dollar at 81.08%, but the trend looks up from here as China's economic power grows. And if the economic power grows, so will China's military power. At the Third Plenum recently, the Chinese Communist Party made no secret that defense spending is a priority for the regime. Byron King, who will also be speaking at World War D next week, has written in these pages that China is flexing its muscle in the Pacific and will continue to do so. He sat down for a chat with Dan Denning this week and gave us a taste of what to expect come next year at World War D. He says the government of China formally establishing the 'East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone' (ADIZ) to cover the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands… and the recent annexation of Crimea are meaningful and powerful signals of a major geopolitical shift. The long version will no doubt get fleshed out at World War D. The short version is the next arms race has begun. Regards, Callum Newman for The Daily Reckoning Ed. Note: For an even better understanding of the global financial system, and how you can parlay that into huge gains for your portfolio, sign up for the FREE Daily Reckoning email edition. Every issue comes packed full of insightful commentary and analysis, as well as regular opportunities to discover real, actionable stock picks. Sign up for FREE, right here, and start getting the whole story.

India "Eases" Gold Import Rules as Modi Victory Looms Posted: 20 Mar 2014 10:15 AM PDT Gold import licenses apparently granted to 5 banks to ease supplies as national elections begin...   GOLD IMPORT rules in India, former No.1 consumer nation, are being eased ahead of the national elections starting in April, according to local press.   Tightened since early 2012, when gold duty began rising from 1% by value to 10% today, India's import rules require one-fifth of new shipments to re-exported.   This so-called 80:20 rule caused such confusion when imposed in summer 2013, it effectively shut legal gold imports to India, then on track for a record year.   Spurring a surge in illegal flows, the 80:20 rule slashed the number of companies eligible to apply for gold import licenses. Because a potential importer had to show it had helped export gold sometime in the previous 3 years.   With a little over 3 weeks until national ballots begin, five other banks have now been allowed to apply for gold import licenses, says Reuters, almost doubling the number of potential suppliers.   "They have decided on [import] limits depending on the number of customers you have for exports," says Shekhar Bhandari, a senior executive at one of the banks named, Kotak Mahindra, and a long-standing advocate of India's huge gold industry – which directly employs perhaps 1.2 million people – assisting the current Congress government in trying to reduce gold bullion imports.   Opposition BJP leader Narendra Modi last September gave his support to jewelry manufacturers and retailers demanding easier rules, winning the support in return of trade body the Bombay Bullion Association (now the the India Bullion and Jewellers Association).   The Congress government says its anti-gold import rules have helped slash India's currenct account deficit (the gap between its financial inflows and outflows) from $88 billion in 2012-13 to $45bn this fiscal year.   But some estimates of illegal "gray market" supplies would add 20% to that deficit. Customs officials in Bengal seized 98 kilos of smuggled gold last week alone.   "Modi has said that any action on gold should look at the interests of the public and traders," says the Times of India, "not just economics and policy."   "The new government, likely to be led by Modi," says a separate report from global credit-ratings agency Moody's, "offers a chance for better governance."

India "Eases" Gold Import Rules as Modi Victory Looms Posted: 20 Mar 2014 10:15 AM PDT Gold import licenses apparently granted to 5 banks to ease supplies as national elections begin...   GOLD IMPORT rules in India, former No.1 consumer nation, are being eased ahead of the national elections starting in April, according to local press.   Tightened since early 2012, when gold duty began rising from 1% by value to 10% today, India's import rules require one-fifth of new shipments to re-exported.   This so-called 80:20 rule caused such confusion when imposed in summer 2013, it effectively shut legal gold imports to India, then on track for a record year.   Spurring a surge in illegal flows, the 80:20 rule slashed the number of companies eligible to apply for gold import licenses. Because a potential importer had to show it had helped export gold sometime in the previous 3 years.   With a little over 3 weeks until national ballots begin, five other banks have now been allowed to apply for gold import licenses, says Reuters, almost doubling the number of potential suppliers.   "They have decided on [import] limits depending on the number of customers you have for exports," says Shekhar Bhandari, a senior executive at one of the banks named, Kotak Mahindra, and a long-standing advocate of India's huge gold industry – which directly employs perhaps 1.2 million people – assisting the current Congress government in trying to reduce gold bullion imports.   Opposition BJP leader Narendra Modi last September gave his support to jewelry manufacturers and retailers demanding easier rules, winning the support in return of trade body the Bombay Bullion Association (now the the India Bullion and Jewellers Association).   The Congress government says its anti-gold import rules have helped slash India's currenct account deficit (the gap between its financial inflows and outflows) from $88 billion in 2012-13 to $45bn this fiscal year.   But some estimates of illegal "gray market" supplies would add 20% to that deficit. Customs officials in Bengal seized 98 kilos of smuggled gold last week alone.   "Modi has said that any action on gold should look at the interests of the public and traders," says the Times of India, "not just economics and policy."   "The new government, likely to be led by Modi," says a separate report from global credit-ratings agency Moody's, "offers a chance for better governance."

Gold Price Erases March's 5% Gain as Fed "Signals Endgame for Easy Money", Dollar Jumps Posted: 20 Mar 2014 07:16 AM PDT GOLD PRICE gains of 5% in March were erased by Thursday lunchtime in London as all asset prices fell against the US Dollar after the Federal Reserve was seen signaling "the endgame for easy money" as the Financial Times put it.   "The Fed meeting certainly injected uncertainty into gold prices," says George Gero at RBC Wealth Management.   Trimming another $10 billion from its monthly QE asset purchase program – but still "printing" $55bn in April, greater than the annual economic output of Bulgaria – the Fed also updated its economic projections, trimming the upper end of both its GDP and jobless-rate forecasts.   US equity markets fell hard late Wednesday, with world stock markets following on Thursday.   The gold price traded as low as $70 beneath Monday's 6-month high of $1392 per ounce.   Silver followed and extended the drop in gold bullion prices, losing 7.5% from last week's spike to dip below $20.20.   "The gold price remains under pressure amid profit-taking," reckons Germany's Commerzbank, widely reported to be expecting $1400 gold at year-end.   But despite "the shift in investor sentiment and gold's bullish breakout since the beginning of the year," counters precious metals analyst Robin Bhar in the latest Commodities Outlook from French investment bank and London bullion market-maker Societe Generale, "we continue to remain bearish about the gold price."   Raising SocGen's 2014 average gold price forecast from $1135 to $1180, but cutting his 2015 outlook to $1075 from $1100 per ounce, "The change in US monetary policy will continue to weigh on investor sentiment in the medium term," says Bhar, "as the US Federal Reserve continues to trim its stimulus measures and rate hikes start in mid-2015 amid stronger economic recovery."   The Euro currency meantime lost 1.5 cents against the Dollar from before the Fed's announcement.   The British Pound sank to 5-week lows beneath $1.65, and China's Yuan fell to a new 11-month.   China's Shenzen stock market lost 2.6% to hit last week's 2-month lows.   Prices at the Shanghai Gold Exchange fell hard on strong trading volume, but cut their discount to international prices to $5 per ounce from this week's multi-year record of $8.   Scrapping its previous 6.5% unemployment rate target for any discussion of raising interest rates, the Federal Reserve yesterday repeated its key promise of "maintain[ing] a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy...for a considerable time" after ending QE.   But while only one Fed policymaker now sees 2014 as "appropriate" for starting to hike interest rates – with 13 of the other 15 looking to 2015 – only 6 members of the FOMC now foresee US rates below 1.0% by the end of next, down from 10 members at the December meeting.   Ten-year US Treasury bonds fell in price, pushing the annual yield they offer 10 basis points higher to 2.78%, near 2014 highs and the widest spread since 2010 over comparable German, Japanese and other major economy debt, according to Bloomberg.

Gold & Silver Stocks Breakdown Alert Posted: 20 Mar 2014 06:45 AM PDT Briefly: In our opinion short speculative positions in silver (half) and mining stocks (full) are justified from the risk/reward perspective. The dollar’s rally and the precious metals’ decline were seen right after comments from the Fed about the planned $10 billion cut in asset purchases. They will now amount to “only” $55 billion per month. The dollar’s rally and the precious metals’ decline had been already seen in the charts and the Fed comments served as a catalyst.

China’s gold policy Is one of the world’s most important developments. Posted: 20 Mar 2014 06:13 AM PDT Matterhorn AM

China’s gold policy Is one of the world’s most important developments. Posted: 20 Mar 2014 04:46 AM PDT “The Matterhorn Interview – March 2014: Koos Jansen” Audio interview: on behalf of Matterhorn Asset Management, Zurich, Lars Schall talked with the young Dutchman Koos Jansen about Chinese gold policy. Koos Jansen, born 1981, worked as a sound engineer in Amsterdam, before he became disabled in 2013. "China’s gold policy – One of the world’s most important developments.” About Koos … Read the rest

End Not Nigh? Soon, Then Posted: 20 Mar 2014 04:20 AM PDT Debt bubbles always burst. This one will be no different. Are you prepared...?   The END WILL come – sooner or later – for the big bull market in US stocks...and for the debt bubble, writes Bill Bonner in his Diary of a Rogue Economist.   But it didn't come yesterday. Will it come today ortomorrow? We don't know. All we know is you want to be prepared. (Unlike bonds, gold has no counterparty risk.)   Today, we explore the time that land forgot. That phrase doesn't really make any sense, but we wanted to try it out anyway. We're talking about the space on the calendar filled by "eventually" and "sooner or later" – that part of the future where things that can't last forever finally stop.   Specifically, we wonder about when and how the biggest debt bubble in history finally blows up. Recall that Planet Debt added $30 trillion to its burdens in the last six years – a 40% increase. That can't continue forever. But how does it end?    Inflation...deflation...hyperinflation...hyperdeflation?   To make a long story short, a bubble can't blow up without a lot of "flation" of some kind. And with a bubble so big, it's bound to be a humdinger. Most likely, we will see "flation" in all its known forms. And maybe in forms we haven't heard of yet.   You can argue about what effect QE has had on the economy...and what effect it will have when it is withdrawn. But there is no doubt that microscopic interest rates have done their job.   People who could borrow at the Fed's low rates, did so. Washington borrowed more heavily than ever before – just to cover operating expenses. Corporations borrowed, too – mainly to refinance existing debt at lower interest rates and to buy back shares (raising the price of remaining shares and, coincidentally of course, giving management bigger bonuses).   The most recent figures we have are from the third quarter of 2013. Those three short months saw $123 billion of buybacks of US shares – up 32% from the same period a year before. If that rate were to persist throughout 2014, it would mean nearly half a trillion Dollars devoted to boosting corporate stock prices, coming from the same corporations that issued shares in the first place.   Is management stupid...or just greedy? The sage advice of "buy low, sell high" doesn't seem to have sunk in. At the bottom of the crash in 2008-09, reports Grant's Interest Rate Observer, hardly any US corporations availed of the opportunity to buy their own shares at a bargain price. Now, that prices are high again, almost all seem to want to buy.   Surely, that is something that must end too. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to foresee what will happen when it stops: Stock prices will fall.   First, credit expands, and asset prices rise. Then credit shrinks, and asset prices fall. Asset prices typically foreshadow consumer prices.   After so much inflation in credit, we'd expect to see a helluva deflation when the bubble bursts. All of a sudden the "wealth effect" would become the "poverty effect" – with consumers cutting back on expenses, investments and luxuries.   This would be normal, natural and healthy. A debt deflation doesn't create bad debts or bad investments. It just forces people to own up to their mistakes.   Businesses go broke; they can no longer borrow nearly unlimited funds at nearly invisible yields. People can once again default...and have plenty of company in doing so. The $5 trillion in paper wealth that came into being – almost magically – as the stock market rose...suddenly disappears from whence it came.   There is no mystery about the credit cycle. Wealth created "on credit" goes away when the credit is cut off. Then you find out who's made the most serious mistakes.   The open questions are: How big can this bubble get before it explodes? And how will central bank meddling affect the outcome?   The first question gets the obvious reply: Who knows? Central banks are still at it – led by the US and Japan. The corporate and government sectors are still willing borrowers. Corporations are still borrowing money at ultra-low interest rates and using it to buy back their shares. And asset prices, as near as we can tell, are still going up. It could go on for a while longer. No one knows how long.   Tomorrow, we take up the second question: When the end comes, what form will this new "flation" take?

End Not Nigh? Soon, Then Posted: 20 Mar 2014 04:20 AM PDT Debt bubbles always burst. This one will be no different. Are you prepared...?   The END WILL come – sooner or later – for the big bull market in US stocks...and for the debt bubble, writes Bill Bonner in his Diary of a Rogue Economist.   But it didn't come yesterday. Will it come today ortomorrow? We don't know. All we know is you want to be prepared. (Unlike bonds, gold has no counterparty risk.)   Today, we explore the time that land forgot. That phrase doesn't really make any sense, but we wanted to try it out anyway. We're talking about the space on the calendar filled by "eventually" and "sooner or later" – that part of the future where things that can't last forever finally stop.   Specifically, we wonder about when and how the biggest debt bubble in history finally blows up. Recall that Planet Debt added $30 trillion to its burdens in the last six years – a 40% increase. That can't continue forever. But how does it end?    Inflation...deflation...hyperinflation...hyperdeflation?   To make a long story short, a bubble can't blow up without a lot of "flation" of some kind. And with a bubble so big, it's bound to be a humdinger. Most likely, we will see "flation" in all its known forms. And maybe in forms we haven't heard of yet.   You can argue about what effect QE has had on the economy...and what effect it will have when it is withdrawn. But there is no doubt that microscopic interest rates have done their job.   People who could borrow at the Fed's low rates, did so. Washington borrowed more heavily than ever before – just to cover operating expenses. Corporations borrowed, too – mainly to refinance existing debt at lower interest rates and to buy back shares (raising the price of remaining shares and, coincidentally of course, giving management bigger bonuses).   The most recent figures we have are from the third quarter of 2013. Those three short months saw $123 billion of buybacks of US shares – up 32% from the same period a year before. If that rate were to persist throughout 2014, it would mean nearly half a trillion Dollars devoted to boosting corporate stock prices, coming from the same corporations that issued shares in the first place.   Is management stupid...or just greedy? The sage advice of "buy low, sell high" doesn't seem to have sunk in. At the bottom of the crash in 2008-09, reports Grant's Interest Rate Observer, hardly any US corporations availed of the opportunity to buy their own shares at a bargain price. Now, that prices are high again, almost all seem to want to buy.   Surely, that is something that must end too. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to foresee what will happen when it stops: Stock prices will fall.   First, credit expands, and asset prices rise. Then credit shrinks, and asset prices fall. Asset prices typically foreshadow consumer prices.   After so much inflation in credit, we'd expect to see a helluva deflation when the bubble bursts. All of a sudden the "wealth effect" would become the "poverty effect" – with consumers cutting back on expenses, investments and luxuries.   This would be normal, natural and healthy. A debt deflation doesn't create bad debts or bad investments. It just forces people to own up to their mistakes.   Businesses go broke; they can no longer borrow nearly unlimited funds at nearly invisible yields. People can once again default...and have plenty of company in doing so. The $5 trillion in paper wealth that came into being – almost magically – as the stock market rose...suddenly disappears from whence it came.   There is no mystery about the credit cycle. Wealth created "on credit" goes away when the credit is cut off. Then you find out who's made the most serious mistakes.   The open questions are: How big can this bubble get before it explodes? And how will central bank meddling affect the outcome?   The first question gets the obvious reply: Who knows? Central banks are still at it – led by the US and Japan. The corporate and government sectors are still willing borrowers. Corporations are still borrowing money at ultra-low interest rates and using it to buy back their shares. And asset prices, as near as we can tell, are still going up. It could go on for a while longer. No one knows how long.   Tomorrow, we take up the second question: When the end comes, what form will this new "flation" take?

What Would Ben Graham Do? Posted: 20 Mar 2014 04:13 AM PDT The real thing vs. the stupid things which cheap money makes so expensive...   TRYING to time the markets is either next to impossible, or simply impossible. Either way, we don't try, writes Tim Price on his ThePriceOfEverything blog.   And since we don't short stocks, the path of least resistance when it comes to equity market investing is: Avoid obvious overvaluation; and Concentrate on apparently dramatic undervaluation. If in doubt, the best policy is always to ask "What would Ben Graham have done?" and then just do that. (And conversely, if Ben Graham would never have done it, then don't do it either.)   David Stockman isn't the only person who detects evidence of a bubble in Big 'Tech'. V. Prem Watsa of Fairfax Financial Holdings points to the highly speculative valuations currently on offer in the 'social media' and 'other tech / web' space. For example:     It's fairly safe to assume that Ben Graham would not have given ownership of these companies at current valuations his uninhibited endorsement. Indeed, as he once said, "Investors do not make mistakes, or bad mistakes, in buying good stocks at fair prices. They make their serious mistakes by buying poor stocks, particularly the ones that are pushed for various reasons. And sometimes – in fact, very frequently – they make mistakes by buying good stocks in the upper reaches of bull markets." So in summary, here are the cardinal errors: Buying rubbish (or speculative nonsense) Overpaying for quality. Avoiding the first error is relatively easy, subject to the vagaries of subjective judgment. Avoiding the second, however, may be difficult, perhaps impossibly so, when our monetary overlords at the central banks are hopelessly distorting the price of money.   The prudent response, we feel, is to lean that much more heavily on the side of caution by only even considering out-and-out deep value – at least within the context of the listed equity markets. And it is worth repeating Graham and Dodd's 1934 definition from Security Analysis: "An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and a satisfactory return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative." (Emphasis ours) Quite which operations in today's marketplace will turn out to be speculative is not yet known to anybody. But the law of gravitation, egged on by the madness of crowds, will doubtless reveal its secrets to us before too long. The 'social media and other tech / web space' seems as good a place as any to expect to see investment operations smashed against the rocks before the year is out.   But as we suggest, overpaying for quality may be an inevitable risk in a financial world in which hopes and fears over QE, Zero Interest Rate Policies and banking system solvency (and the threat of depositor bail-ins) dominate more objective fundamentals such as corporate profits growth (or lack thereof).   Groupthink alone is sufficient to cause unhealthy dislocations when gravitational forces ensue. We suspect that global megacap consumer brands may now be an unhealthily crowded trade – the sort of investment that makes sense at first glance given the problems highlighted at the beginning of this paragraph, but unhealthily crowded nevertheless. They certainly have been before.   Take the 'nifty fifty' growth stocks of the early 1970s. Coca-Cola was one such stock. When the forces of recession arrived on the back of the Russian gas embargo Arab oil embargo, Coke's stock managed to lose over two thirds of its value.     Coke wasn't alone. Over the same period, Disney also lost over two thirds of its value. Blue-chip IBM survived relatively unscathed: it only lost 57%. Note that this isn't a prediction for the next bear phase – but we would suggest that the social media sector, being inherently more flimsy, has that much further to fall.   Where are we currently finding 'deep value'? In pockets of the mid-cap market throughout Asia, notably in Japan, and also, ahem, in Russia, which we note has now replaced gold as the most reviled part of the global asset marketplace.   But we also note that gold seems to have turned a corner after its annus horribilis in 2013. As does its kissing cousin, silver. Since we bought both for very specific reasons, and the underlying fundamentals for holding both have if anything only strengthened even as their prices melted last year, we're unlikely to be selling either any time soon. And of course the miners of each have also seen their share prices recover some, though so far only some, of the ground they lost, but again we're in the sector for the long haul.   We think money printing is in and of itself inflationary. We also think that central banks may soon have to go 'all-in' in their fight against deflation. We think they are destined to lose control of the markets before they are ultimately proved wrong in any case, but who knows?   This is what happens when you allow economic policy wonks unfettered power to experiment on complex markets with unproven (and unprovable) models and make-it-up-as-you-go-along monetary policy on the hoof. Since this is destined to end badly, apart from diversifying sensibly into non-equity assets, it makes sense to seek shelter – in equity terms – in those things most worthy of Ben Graham's affection. Or in the words of Ben Graham's most celebrated acolyte, Warren Buffett, "We don't have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest...We don't get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we'll wait, we'll wait indefinitely."

What Would Ben Graham Do? Posted: 20 Mar 2014 04:13 AM PDT The real thing vs. the stupid things which cheap money makes so expensive...   TRYING to time the markets is either next to impossible, or simply impossible. Either way, we don't try, writes Tim Price on his ThePriceOfEverything blog.   And since we don't short stocks, the path of least resistance when it comes to equity market investing is: Avoid obvious overvaluation; and Concentrate on apparently dramatic undervaluation. If in doubt, the best policy is always to ask "What would Ben Graham have done?" and then just do that. (And conversely, if Ben Graham would never have done it, then don't do it either.)   David Stockman isn't the only person who detects evidence of a bubble in Big 'Tech'. V. Prem Watsa of Fairfax Financial Holdings points to the highly speculative valuations currently on offer in the 'social media' and 'other tech / web' space. For example:     It's fairly safe to assume that Ben Graham would not have given ownership of these companies at current valuations his uninhibited endorsement. Indeed, as he once said, "Investors do not make mistakes, or bad mistakes, in buying good stocks at fair prices. They make their serious mistakes by buying poor stocks, particularly the ones that are pushed for various reasons. And sometimes – in fact, very frequently – they make mistakes by buying good stocks in the upper reaches of bull markets." So in summary, here are the cardinal errors: Buying rubbish (or speculative nonsense) Overpaying for quality. Avoiding the first error is relatively easy, subject to the vagaries of subjective judgment. Avoiding the second, however, may be difficult, perhaps impossibly so, when our monetary overlords at the central banks are hopelessly distorting the price of money.   The prudent response, we feel, is to lean that much more heavily on the side of caution by only even considering out-and-out deep value – at least within the context of the listed equity markets. And it is worth repeating Graham and Dodd's 1934 definition from Security Analysis: "An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and a satisfactory return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative." (Emphasis ours) Quite which operations in today's marketplace will turn out to be speculative is not yet known to anybody. But the law of gravitation, egged on by the madness of crowds, will doubtless reveal its secrets to us before too long. The 'social media and other tech / web space' seems as good a place as any to expect to see investment operations smashed against the rocks before the year is out.   But as we suggest, overpaying for quality may be an inevitable risk in a financial world in which hopes and fears over QE, Zero Interest Rate Policies and banking system solvency (and the threat of depositor bail-ins) dominate more objective fundamentals such as corporate profits growth (or lack thereof).   Groupthink alone is sufficient to cause unhealthy dislocations when gravitational forces ensue. We suspect that global megacap consumer brands may now be an unhealthily crowded trade – the sort of investment that makes sense at first glance given the problems highlighted at the beginning of this paragraph, but unhealthily crowded nevertheless. They certainly have been before.   Take the 'nifty fifty' growth stocks of the early 1970s. Coca-Cola was one such stock. When the forces of recession arrived on the back of the Russian gas embargo Arab oil embargo, Coke's stock managed to lose over two thirds of its value.     Coke wasn't alone. Over the same period, Disney also lost over two thirds of its value. Blue-chip IBM survived relatively unscathed: it only lost 57%. Note that this isn't a prediction for the next bear phase – but we would suggest that the social media sector, being inherently more flimsy, has that much further to fall.   Where are we currently finding 'deep value'? In pockets of the mid-cap market throughout Asia, notably in Japan, and also, ahem, in Russia, which we note has now replaced gold as the most reviled part of the global asset marketplace.   But we also note that gold seems to have turned a corner after its annus horribilis in 2013. As does its kissing cousin, silver. Since we bought both for very specific reasons, and the underlying fundamentals for holding both have if anything only strengthened even as their prices melted last year, we're unlikely to be selling either any time soon. And of course the miners of each have also seen their share prices recover some, though so far only some, of the ground they lost, but again we're in the sector for the long haul.   We think money printing is in and of itself inflationary. We also think that central banks may soon have to go 'all-in' in their fight against deflation. We think they are destined to lose control of the markets before they are ultimately proved wrong in any case, but who knows?   This is what happens when you allow economic policy wonks unfettered power to experiment on complex markets with unproven (and unprovable) models and make-it-up-as-you-go-along monetary policy on the hoof. Since this is destined to end badly, apart from diversifying sensibly into non-equity assets, it makes sense to seek shelter – in equity terms – in those things most worthy of Ben Graham's affection. Or in the words of Ben Graham's most celebrated acolyte, Warren Buffett, "We don't have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest...We don't get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we'll wait, we'll wait indefinitely."

You are subscribed to email updates from Save Your ASSets First To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610