Gold World News Flash |
- David Morgan – The Matterhorn Interview Febr. 2014
- U.S. Mint Bullion Coin Sales for February 2014 Show Silver Up, Gold Down
- Gold Investors Weekly Review
- A Conversation between “Belangp” from Youtube and Argentus Maximus
- Recovery Coming, Not Anytime Soon: Rick Rule
- Guest Post: Why Keynesian Political Economy Is Theft
- Schlichter: "Bitcoin Is Cryptographic Gold"
- Get ready for a disorderly market in gold, von Greyerz tells KWN
- US Equity Futures Open Down 1% - Erase Friday's Melt-Up Close
- War In Ukraine & A Global Financial System Meltdown
- Koos Jansen: China's gold demand up 51% so far this year over same period last year
- Bloomberg Reports London Gold Fix Is Manipulated Although Evidence Exists For Many Years
- Gold Investors Weekly Review – February 28th
- Bitcoin the Perfect Scam, Price Does Not Reflect True Dangers of Holding Bitcoins
- Capital Shortage in Junior Mining
- Capital Shortage in Junior Mining
- Gold ETF Selling Now Ended?
- Gold ETF Selling Now Ended?
- Stock Market Trend Forecast Into Mid 2015
| David Morgan – The Matterhorn Interview Febr. 2014 Posted: 03 Mar 2014 12:29 AM PST “The Matterhorn Interview – Febr./March 2014: David Morgan”Financial journalist Lars Schall met up with David Morgan in February. Morgan is widely regarded as one of the best silver market analysts. In this video interview he reflects on the rigging of the silver price and tells why he’s still optimistic about silver in the long run. "Silver – The investment |
| U.S. Mint Bullion Coin Sales for February 2014 Show Silver Up, Gold Down Posted: 02 Mar 2014 11:24 PM PST Sales of bullion coins by the U.S. Mint were mixed in February with silver bullion coins showing an increase and gold bullion coins a decline. After hitting all time record sales in 2013 sales of the American Silver Eagle bullion coins are off to a slower sales pace in 2014. According to the U.S. Mint [...] |
| Posted: 02 Mar 2014 09:40 PM PST from Gold Silver Worlds:
Gold Market Strengths Gold is heading for a second month of gains, the longest such run since August. Bullion has gained more than 10% this year, rebounding from the biggest annual decline in more than three decades, even as the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a reduction in asset purchases at its past two meetings. |
| A Conversation between “Belangp” from Youtube and Argentus Maximus Posted: 02 Mar 2014 09:00 PM PST by argentus maximus, TF Metals Report:
Belangp’s videos are a great source of information, as they are cleverly put together and manage to deal with powerful fundamental forces upon the gold market, but he has a talent to clarify, and condense his information to a degree which is not often seen. We discussed gold and the petrodollar, natural gas “oil replacements” for the petrodollar, Freegold, pipeline politics, theoretical dual prices for gold in a hidden “international sovereign state market, the effect of a large above ground gold stock upon the gold price, and much more. |
| Recovery Coming, Not Anytime Soon: Rick Rule Posted: 02 Mar 2014 08:50 PM PST
Kitco News kicks off its PDAC coverage with Sprott’s Rick Rule to discuss mining stocks and gold. Rule says he thinks the current rally is a ‘false rally.’ “I do think we’ve put in a bottom…my suspicion is, however, that the bottom will be a longer process.” |
| Guest Post: Why Keynesian Political Economy Is Theft Posted: 02 Mar 2014 05:35 PM PST Via Monty Pelerin's World blog, The plague of our time is Keynesian economics. It has destroyed the economics profession and enabled the political class to obtain powers never intended. Keynesian economics provided the intellectual cover for the criminal class we politely call “government” to plunder its citizenry. In the beginning, clear-thinking, independent economists (not dependent on government largess) expressed objections to this “new economics.” There was little new in Keynes’ work and many errors that had been debunked decades before Keynes was even born. Bastiat’s parable of the “broken window” in 1850 is probably the best-known refutation, although similar arguments preceded Bastiat by a century or more. In the 1930s leaders were desperate and willing to try anything. Keynes General Theory was published in 1936, during the middle of the greatest depression the world had ever experienced. Politicians, more so than economists, welcomed his ideas as a new approach. The Austrian economists represented by Mises and Hayek saw the fallacies in this new approach immediately. Some of the Chicago School (Knight, Simons, Viner) did also. Ludwig von Mises, never one to mince words, described Keynesian economics in the following manner:
Mises likely was one of the few who saw the full ramifications of what Keynesian economics would provide for government. Most early criticisms were in terms of the economic unsoundness of the theory. To contrast the blatant differences between proper economics and Keynesian prescriptions, the following two prescriptions were offered early in this century:
It was proper that one of these men should have won the Nobel Prize in economics. It just happened to be the wrong one.  James Buchanan, Nobel Laureate In 1977 James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner wrote “Democracy In Deficit — The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes” (available online). It was the first comprehensive attempt to apply public-choice theory to macroeconomic theory and policy. According to Robert D. Tollison:
From Buchanan and Wagner came this judgment regarding Keynesian economics:
This fundamental confusion was responsible for the political acceptance of Keynesian economics. Politicians saw the potential for themselves in this new doctrine which advocated central control of the economy and fiscal irresponsibility as a necessary and patriotic thing. Giving them this gift was like providing matches and gasoline to an arsonist. (“I don’t want to spend money, but I have to otherwise the economy will tank.”) Once government took control of the economy, they needed economists to provide the analysis and justifications for their new policies. Many in the economics profession were procured in similar fashion used with prostitutes. Money and power were heady incentives for a profession that had rightly been consigned to a section in their own ivory tower. Justifying what government wanted to do and was doing was the only requisite. But, in order to qualify, it became necessary to convert to Keynesianism. Other branches of economics condemned government policies, at least on economic grounds. Economists more than most understand incentives. When the payoffs increase, some men in any profession find it easy to modify ethics and integrity. Buchanan and Wagner knew the damage that Keynesian economics had already inflicted and knew its potential was much greater. Thirty-seven years ago they commented:
They answered their own question:
Now, thirty-five plus years later, one may judge the merit in this book. Prescience, while not limited to them alone, was amazing. One must also marvel at the continuation and acceleration of the ruinous policies. Whether Buchanan and Wagner imagined things could go on for so long and to such an extent is not known. However, to appreciate these changes, this graph from Zerohedge shows the effects of Keynesianism and what it has done to governments around the world:
The deterioration in fiscal discipline was astounding and in line what they predicted. As this false economic theology known as Keynesianism runs its course, the following conclusions are probable:
When this flawed paradigm is finally exhausted, the world may enter a better place in terms of economics and limited government. Without this shift, poverty and misery will grow along with wars used as political diversions. One can only hope that the world avoids an Economic Dark Age when the collapse occurs. |
| Schlichter: "Bitcoin Is Cryptographic Gold" Posted: 02 Mar 2014 04:23 PM PST Submitted by Detlev Schlichter via DetlevSchlichter.com, The Bitcoin phenomenon has now reached the mainstream media where it met with a reception that ranged from sceptical to outright hostile. The recent volatility in the price of bitcoins and the issues surrounding Bitcoin-exchange Mt. Gox have led to additional negative publicity. In my view, Bitcoin as a monetary concept is potentially a work of genius, and even if Bitcoin were to fail in its present incarnation – a scenario that I cannot exclude but that I consider exceedingly unlikely – the concept itself is too powerful to be ignored or even suppressed in the long run. While scepticism towards anything so fundamentally new is maybe understandable, most of the tirades against Bitcoin as a form of money are ill-conceived, terribly confused, and frequently factually wrong. Central bankers of the world, be afraid, be very afraid! Finding perspective Any proper analysis has to distinguish clearly between the following layers of the Bitcoin phenomenon: 1) the concept itself, that is, the idea of a hard crypto-currency (digital currency) with no issuing authority behind it, 2) the core technology behind Bitcoin, in particular its specific algorithm and the ‘mining process’ by which bitcoins get created and by which the system is maintained, and 3) the support-infrastructure that makes up the wider Bitcoin economy. This includes the various service providers, such as organised exchanges of bitcoins and fiat currency (Mt. Gox, Bitstamp, Coinbase, and many others), bitcoin ‘wallet’ providers, payment services, etc, etc. Before we look at recent events and recent newspaper attacks on Bitcoin, we should be clear about a few things upfront: If 1) does not hold, that is, if the underlying theoretical concept of an inelastic, nation-less, apolitical, and international medium of exchange is baseless, or, as some propose, structurally inferior to established state-fiat money, then the whole thing has no future. It would then not matter how clever the algorithm is or how smart the use of cryptographic technology. If you do not believe in 1) – and evidently many economists don’t (wrongly, in my view) – then you can forget about Bitcoin and ignore it. If 2) does not hold, that is, if there is a terminal flaw in the specific Bitcoin algorithm, this would not by itself repudiate 1). It is then to be expected that a superior crypto-currency will sooner or later take Bitcoin’s place. That is all. The basic idea would survive. If there are issues with 3), that is, if there are glitches and failures in the new and rapidly growing infra-structure around Bitcoin, then this does neither repudiate 1), the crypto-currency concept itself, nor 2), the core Bitcoin technology, but may simply be down to specific failures by some of the service providers, and may reflect to-be-expected growing pains of a new industry. As much as I feel for those losing money/bitcoin in the Mt Gox debacle (and I could have been one of them), it is probably to be expected that a new technology will be subject to setbacks. There will probably be more losses and bankruptcies along the way. This is capitalism at work, folks. But reading the commentary in the papers it appears that, all those Sunday speeches in praise of innovation and creativity notwithstanding, people can really deal only with ‘markets’ that have already been neatly regulated into stagnation or are carefully ‘managed’ by the central bank. Those who are lamenting the new – and yet tiny – currency’s volatility and occasional hic-ups are either naïve or malicious. Do they expect a new currency to spring up fully formed, liquid, stable, with a fully developed infrastructure overnight? Recent events surrounding Mt Gox and stories of raids by hackers would, in my opinion, only pose a meaningful long-term challenge for Bitcoin if it could be shown that they were linked to irreparable flaws in the core Bitcoin technology itself. There were indeed some allegations that this was the case but so far they do not sound very convincing. At present it still seems reasonable to me to assume that most of Bitcoin’s recent problems are problems in layer 3) – supporting infrastructure – and that none of this has so far undermined confidence in layer 2), the core Bitcoin technology. If that is indeed the case, it is also reasonable to assume that these issues can be overcome. In fact, the stronger the concept, layer 1), the more compelling the long-term advantages and benefits of a fully decentralized, no-authority, nationless global and inelastic digital currency are, the more likely it is that any weaknesses in the present infrastructure will quickly get ironed out. One does not have to be a cryptographer to believe this. One simply has to understand how human ingenuity, rational self-interest, and competition combine to make superior decentralized systems work. Everybody who understands the power of markets, human creativity, and voluntary cooperation should have confidence in the future of digital money. None of what happened recently – the struggle at Mt. Gox, raids by hackers, market volatility – has undermined in the slightest layer 1), the core concept. However, it is precisely the concept itself that gets many fiat money advocates all exited and agitated. In their attempts to discredit the Bitcoin concept, some writers do not shy away from even the most ludicrous and factually absurd statements. One particular example is Mark T. Williams, a finance professor at Boston University’s School of Management who has recently attacked Bitcoin in the Financial Times and in this article on Business Insider. Money and the state: Fact and fiction Apart from all the scare-mongering in William’s article – such as his likening Bitcoin to an alien or zombie attack on our established financial system, stressing its volatility and instability – the author makes the truly bizarre claim that history shows the importance of a close link between currency and sovereignty. Good money, according to Williams, is state-controlled money. Here are some of his statements.
Williams reveals a striking lack of historical perspective here. Money-printing, central banking and any form of what Williams calls “currency management” are very recent phenomena, certainly on the scale that they are practiced today. Professor Williams seems to not have heard of Zimbabwe, or of any of the other, 30-odd hyperinflations that occurred over the past 100 years, all of which, of course, in state-managed fiat money systems. Williams stresses what a long standing concept central banking is, citing the Swedish central bank that was founded in 1668, and the Bank of England, 1694. Yet, human society has made use of indirect exchange – of trading with the help of money – for more than 2,500 years. And through most of history – up to very recently – money was gold and silver, and the supply of money thus practically outside the control of the sovereign. The early central banks were also very different animals from what their modern namesakes have become in recent years. Their degrees of freedom were strictly limited by a gold or silver standard. In fact, the idea that they would “manage” the currency to “spur” economic growth would have sounded positively ridiculous to most central bankers in history. Additionally, by starting their own central banks, the sovereigns did not put “trust and faith” behind their currencies – after all, their currencies were nothing but units of gold and silver, and those enjoyed the public’s trust and faith on their own merit, thank you very much – the sovereigns rather had their own self-interest at heart, a possibility that does not even seem to cross William’s mind: The Bank of England was founded specifically to lend money to the Crown against the issuance of IOUs, meaning the Bank of England was founded to monetize state-debt. The Bank of England, from its earliest days, was repeatedly given the legal privilege – given, of course, by its sovereign – to ignore (default on) its promise to repay in gold and still remain a going concern, and this occurred precisely whenever the state needed extra money, usually to finance a war. Bitcoin is cryptographic gold “Gold is money and nothing else.” This is what John Pierpont Morgan said back in 1913. At the time, not only was he a powerful and influential banker, his home country, the United States of America, had become one of the richest and most dynamic countries in the world, yet it had no central bank. The history of the 19th century US – even if told by historians such as Milton Friedman and Anna Schwarz who were no gold-bugs but sympathetic to central banking – illustrates that monetary systems based on a hard monetary commodity (in this case gold), the supply of which is outside government control, is no hindrance to vibrant economic growth and rising prosperity. Furthermore, economic theory can show that hard and inelastic money is not only no hindrance to growth but that it is indeed the superior foundation of a market economy. This is precisely what I try to show with Paper Money Collapse. I do not think that this was even a very contentious notion through most of the history of economics. Good money is inelastic, outside of political control, international (“nationless”, as Williams puts it), and thus the perfect basis for international cooperation across borders. Money was gold and that meant money was not a tool of politics but an essential constraint on the power of the state. As Democritus said “Gold is the sovereign of all sovereigns”. It is clear that on a conceptual level, Bitcoin has much more in common with a gold and silver as monetary assets than with state fiat money. The supply of gold, silver and Bitcoin, is not under the control of any issuing authority. It is money of no authority – and this is precisely why such assets were chosen as money for thousands of years. Gold, silver and Bitcoin do not require trust and faith in a powerful and privileged institution, such as a central bank bureaucracy (here is the awestruck Williams not seeing a problem: “These financial stewards have immense power and responsibility.”) Under a gold standard you have to trust Mother Nature and the spontaneous market order that employs gold as money. Under Bitcoin you have to trust the algorithm and the spontaneous market order that employs bitcoins as money (if the public so chooses). Under the fiat money system you have to trust Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and their hordes of economics PhDs and statisticians. Hey, give me the algorithm any day! Money of no authority But Professor Williams does seem unable to even grasp the possibility of money without an issuing and controlling central authority: “Under the Bitcoin model, those who create the software protocol and mine virtual currencies would become the new central bankers, controlling a monetary base.” This is simply nonsense. It is factually incorrect. Bitcoin – just like a proper gold standard – does not allow for discretionary manipulation of the monetary base. There was no ‘monetary policy’ under a gold standard, and there is no ‘monetary policy’ in the Bitcoin economy. That is precisely the strength of these concepts, and this is why they will ultimately succeed, and replace fiat money. Williams would, of course, be correct if he stated that sovereigns had always tried to control money and manipulate it for their own ends. And that history is a legacy of failure. The first paper money systems date back to 11th century China. All of those ended in inflation and currency disaster. Only the Ming Dynasty survived an experiment with paper money – by voluntarily ending it and returning to hard commodity money. The first experiments with full paper money systems in the West date back to the 17th century, and all of those failed, too. The outcome – through all of history – has always been the same: either the paper money system collapsed in hyperinflation, or, before that happened, the system was returned to hard commodity money. We presently live with the most ambitious experiment with unconstrained fiat money ever, as the entire world is now on a paper standard – or, as James Grant put it, a PhD-standard – and money production has been made entirely flexible everywhere. This, however does not reflect a “longstanding bond between sovereign and its currency”, as Williams believes, but is a very recent phenomenon, dating precisely to the 15th of August 1971, when President Nixon closed the gold window, ended Bretton Woods, and defaulted on the obligation to exchange dollars for gold at a fixed price. The new system – or non-system – has brought us persistent inflation and budget deficits, ever more bizarre asset bubbles, bloated and unstable banking systems, rising mountains of debt that will never be repaid, stagnating real incomes and rising income disparities. This system is now in its endgame. But maybe Williams is right with one thing: “If not controlled and tightly regulated, Bitcoin — a decentralized, untraceable, highly volatile and nationless currency — has the potential to undermine this longstanding bond between sovereign and its currency.” Three cheers to that. |
| Get ready for a disorderly market in gold, von Greyerz tells KWN Posted: 02 Mar 2014 03:09 PM PST 6:09p ET Sunday, March 2, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Swiss gold fund manager Egon von Greyerz today tells King World News that he doubts that Western central banks have any gold left and that when they run out there will be panic and disorder in the gold market. "For the privileged few there is still time to buy physical gold and protect wealth," von Greyerz says, "but that time is running out." An excerpt from the interview is posted at the King World News blog here: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/3/2_The... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- 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 http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Canadian Investor Conference 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: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit: http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata |
| US Equity Futures Open Down 1% - Erase Friday's Melt-Up Close Posted: 02 Mar 2014 03:06 PM PST Surprise! The pump on Friday afternoon has given way to the 5th 'dump' in 5 days as US equity futures have crumbled back top Friday's lows and are catching down to USDJPY's early weakness. Gold is up $10 at $1,338.
Charts: Bloomberg |
| War In Ukraine & A Global Financial System Meltdown Posted: 02 Mar 2014 02:56 PM PST  As the world waits to see if war breaks out in Ukraine, today a 40-year market veteran sent King World News a powerful piece which states that war in Ukraine may overwhelm the Fed and implode the entire global financial system. Robert Fitzwilson, founder of The Portola Group, put together the following tremendous piece below exclusively for King World News.This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Koos Jansen: China's gold demand up 51% so far this year over same period last year Posted: 02 Mar 2014 02:50 PM PST 5:45p ET Sunday, March 2, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Gold researcher and GATA consultant Koos Jansen calculates today that China's gold demand is up 51 percent so far this year compared to the same period last year. "The longer this insatiable demand continues," Jansen writes, "the more I start to ask myself where this gold is coming from. We know from Swiss refineries they're having a very hard time to source this much gold for China." Jansen's commentary is headlined "Chinese Physical Gold Demand YTD 369 Tonnes, Up 51% Year over Year" and it's posted at his Internet site, In Gold We Trust, here: http://www.ingoldwetrust.ch/chinese-physical-gold-demand-ytd-up-51 CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Jim Sinclair plans seminars in Los Angeles and San Diego Gold advocate Jim Sinclair's next market analysis seminars will be held in Los Angeles from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, and in San Diego from 2 to 6 p.m. the following day, Sunday, March 9. Details, including registration information, are posted at Sinclair's Internet site, JSMinset.com, here: http://www.jsmineset.com/qa-session-tickets/ Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Canadian Investor Conference 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: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT 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. |
| Bloomberg Reports London Gold Fix Is Manipulated Although Evidence Exists For Many Years Posted: 02 Mar 2014 12:37 PM PST It was only a week ago when we wrote that the Financial Times removed the article "Gold Price Rigging Fears Put Investors On Alert" from their website, a couple of hours after being published. We were able to dig up the original article in Google’s caching memory and took screenshots of the removed article. Less than a week later, it is Bloomberg releases the article “Gold Fix Study Shows Signs of Decade of Bank Manipulation.” From Bloomberg (source):
The remainder of the article does not add particularly interesting information. We have no interest in analyzing the findings of the research. Readers interested in a critical analysis should read Ross Norman’s comments, managing director of bullion company SharpsPixley in London (read analysis). We would like to point out how Bloomberg’s news is no news at all. In the past two years, we released several articles in which gold and silver price manipulation was discussed at length, based on facts and figures, without any bias. Obviously, there was no reference from the mainstream media to any of these findings on our site or on similar precious metals sites (think of GATA, Goldseek, and the likes). First, on November 30th 2012, a year and a half ago, we released an interview with statistical researcher Dimitri Speck. We explained that his research showed evidence of central banks influencing systematically the price of gold as of August 1993. Mr. Speck’s conclusion comes from intraday price statistics, where he observed several anomalies. First, since 1993, the price has been falling systematically during the trading session of COMEX in NY. Another trading anomaly is that during the PM fix the price systematically tends to drop significantly. The following chart is the result of 16 years of recording intraday data. The sudden price drops are so sharp and systematic, that it can only point to intervention.
It was not only us who released this information. Dimitri Speck’s own website had existed for much longer and his work was released by GATA long before. The gold price manipulation during the London Fix was clearly much longer visible. Bloomberg comes indeed very late with the “discovery” of gold price manipulation. Ironically, just two weeks ago, precious metals analyst Ted Butler explained here that Bear Stearns went bankrupt mainly because of excessive short positions on gold and silver in 2008. Butler wrote “What baffles me today is that no well-known journalist from outside the gold and silver world has yet picked up on what is an easy-to-document story of epic historical proportions. It's the story of why Bear Stearns went under, and how the gold and silver price manipulation continued since the day JPMorgan took over Bear.” Butler has provided evidence of gold and silver manipulation for several years. The key findings of Butler are based on COMEX gold and silver dominant positions by Bear Stearns and JP Morgan. Since the fall of Bear Stearns, JP Morgan has taken over those dominant positions in the futures markets, allowing them to set the direction of the price. Backed by evidence and facts from the official COT reports (released by the CME group), Butler wrote in JP Morgan’s Perfect Silver Manipulation Cannot Last Forever:
Moreover, in 2013 – The Year of JPMorgan, Butler discussed evidence of JP Morgan’s market corners in both gold and silver:
While the London Fix price manipulation was already known for years (for instance by research from Dimitri Speck documented on several sites including ours), it is the COMEX futures dominant positions of JP Morgan that is an even bigger act of price manipulation. As usual, the mainstream media are running behind the truth and are not able to report on the most relevant facts. |
| Gold Investors Weekly Review – February 28th Posted: 02 Mar 2014 09:10 AM PST In his weekly market review, Frank Holmes of the USFunds.com nicely summarizes for gold investors this week's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the gold market. The price of the yellow metal went lower after two consecutive weeks of gains. Gold closed the week at $1,326.44, up $2.16 per ounce (0.16%). The NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index fell 2.62% on the week. This was the gold investors review of past week. Gold Market StrengthsGold is heading for a second month of gains, the longest such run since August. Bullion has gained more than 10% this year, rebounding from the biggest annual decline in more than three decades, even as the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a reduction in asset purchases at its past two meetings. The rally in gold seems to be halting the 13-month outflow from the biggest ETF backed by the metal. Assets in the SPDR Gold Trust are poised for the first monthly inflow since December 2012.
Gold demand apparently remains very strong. China's January Hong Kong gold imports soared 326 percent year-over-year. The Hong Kong region exported a net of 83.6 tonnes of gold to the Chinese mainland in January, down slightly from December exports of 91.9 tonnes. Exports from Hong Kong to China last year in January were very low at 19.6 tonnes. Macquarie notes that Russia was the biggest buyer of gold last year, purchasing 77 tonnes of the metal. Kazakhstan added 28 tonnes, Azerbaijan 20 tonnes, South Korea 20 tonnes, and Nepal 12 tonnes for a total estimated central bank addition of 185 tonnes. Gold Market WeaknessesRecently, Shanghai gold premiums have moved from a slight discount to flat, partially ameliorating concerns over China's import appetite. Gold Market OpportunitiesWith the stronger gold performance this year we are seeing some analysts revising their price predictions higher. For example, UBS analyst Edel Tully has revised her gold one-month average forecast price from $1,180 to $1,280, and her three-month gold price prediction stands now at $1,350 vs. $1,100. Also, RBCCM's Toronto-based analytical team has revised its long-term gold and silver price assumptions to $1,400 and $23.50, respectively. The higher the price goes, the more likely commodity forecasters will start adjusting their price targets higher. For those investors that have thought bitcoins might be a viable alternative to gold, they have something new to consider. Mt. Gox, once the world's largest bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy after the company lost 750,000 bitcoins belonging to users and 100,000 of its own. The company blamed weak computer systems for the theft of bitcoins, focusing attention on the digital currency's risk. For digital currencies, security measures may leave a lot to be desired in comparison to the security one has of physical gold being locked in a bank vault. Gold Market ThreatsThe world's biggest macro hedge fund says Canada has a tough decade ahead of it, with Ray Dalio's Bridgewater Associates saying in its well-read daily note that the country's economy is just beginning a tough period of rebalancing. While this could be negative for the country as a whole, further currency weakness would likely be a positive for the gold miners which sell their production benchmarked to a U.S. dollar gold price. Rosa Abrantes-Metz, a professor at Stern's School of Business, and Albert Metz, a managing director at Moody's Investors Service, conducted a study on gold fixing and found signs of collusive behavior that need to be investigated. The gold fixing study revealed unusual trading patterns around 3:00 pm in London, during the time when the five biggest gold dealers actively work together to manipulate the benchmark. This likely is a bigger problem for the banks involved in the price fix, but could lead to more transparent markets for customers. |
| Bitcoin the Perfect Scam, Price Does Not Reflect True Dangers of Holding Bitcoins Posted: 02 Mar 2014 08:31 AM PST The Bitcoin USD price has recovered strongly by more than doubling from the crash low of $240 of 16th February in the wake of the collapse of the worlds largest Bitcoin exchange MTGox (Magic the Gathering) that declared bankruptcy a couple of days ago, though the current Bitcoin market price of $560 is still half the $1250 high of less than 3 months ago. |
| Capital Shortage in Junior Mining Posted: 02 Mar 2014 06:52 AM PST Gold and silver juniors are having to fight to raise funds right now... MICHAEL FOWLER, senior mining analyst with Loewen, Ondaatje, McCutcheon Ltd., has worked in the investment industry since 1987 as a base and precious metals mining analyst for numerous high-profile firms. Fowler's coverage list included the major North American gold mining companies, but is now focused on small- to mid-sized companies. Previously, he worked as a geophysicist involved in mineral exploration for 10 years. Involved in the discovery of the high-grade Cigar Lake uranium mine in Northern Saskatchewan in the early 1980s, Fowler is a member of the Institution of Materials in the UK and a member of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. Here, in this interview with The Gold Report, Fowler discusses how private equity is getting into the junior silver and gold-mining game... The Gold Report: In January, the exchange-traded fund SPDR Gold Trust outperformed its silver counterpart, the iShares Silver Trust, by about 6%. Should investors expect gold to outperform silver for the entire year? Michael Fowler: Gold and silver are going to perform in tandem this year. Gold is in a corrective phase at the moment. I expect it to average around $1300 per ounce and silver to average about $21 per ounce. We expect gold and silver prices to increase into 2015. TGR: We've seen a bevy of bought-deal financings to start the year. Some are financing below current market prices. Could you provide us with some insight as to what's happening there? Michael Fowler: There are about 1,800 resource companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange and a capital shortage. The demand for capital is huge, but the supply is low. Companies are taking advantage of the small bounce in the gold price last month. In terms of financings, a 10% to 15% discount over the share price is typical when you're trying to get a deal done in this kind of environment. TGR: Does that make you somewhat more optimistic? Michael Fowler: Yes, it is encouraging. However, it doesn't change my view that the industry is still in a mess. There continues to be a capital shortage. Companies spent money like drunken sailors in the past few years and the consequence is they have to cut costs significantly. TGR: What types of projects are getting money? Michael Fowler: The better-quality companies are being financed. There is a capital shortage, but that doesn't mean there's no capital. TGR: What makes a quality mining company in this market? Michael Fowler: The majority of these companies are still just exploring. Investors want production, good assets and strong management. TGR: Some recent reports suggest that there's as much as $10 billion in private equity looking to find its way into the undervalued junior mining sector. Is that changing how you evaluate companies in the junior gold mining and silver space? Michael Fowler: No, but if private equity finds the valuations of junior miners compelling, it means that these companies are extremely cheap. However, even private equity is having a hard time finding quality. There have been a few investments, but it's easy to get burned in this sector. Private equity firms are looking through the weeds and trying to find something of value. TGR: Please outline the must-haves for companies you think are going to move in 2014. Michael Fowler: Jurisdiction-wise, North America is hot right now. So we would recommend assets in that jurisdiction. Companies have to have quality assets. The grade of the deposit is important. The cost structures are important. Valuation needs to be inexpensive, with potential for growing cash flows. TGR: Your coverage universe has changed dramatically compared to the previous year. What constitutes the companies that you continue to cover? Michael Fowler: I'd encourage people to also invest in midtier gold companies, which would be my favorites. Our coverage only reflects our business, which is more speculative, but it's wise to be involved in midtier gold companies, too. TGR: You are presenting an upcoming workshop at the annual PDAC conference in Toronto, March 1, titled, "Investment Fundamentals: Understanding Mineral Exploration and Resource Development and the Relationship to Company Stock Prices." What are three things you hope investors take away from that workshop? Michael Fowler: It's a great course that's been going for nine years. There's a lot of seasoned mining professionals, consultants, engineers, etc. We always get good reviews and we keep on getting invited back to the PDAC conference to do this. It gives the attendees the basics of the business and the major risks in exploration and mining engineering. It goes through the mineral exploration cycle to development and production. It focuses on how consultants, analysts and engineers value mineral properties and companies and the techniques that they use. It tries to relate those valuation techniques to what is actually happening in the marketplace and the major drivers of company stock prices. The audience is very interesting. It's a mix of CEOs, accountants, lawyers, geologists, engineers, students and people from all over the world. TGR: Could you leave us with some thoughts on the cost cutting that's going on across the industry and how that's going to ultimately play out? Michael Fowler: This is a key issue. The cost cutting that's been going on is only a start. The industry wasn't doing so hot with gold at $1250 per ounce. What if it goes to $1150 per ounce? There will be some severe problems. The bottom line is that significant cost cutting is going to happen this year and there's going to be a lot of impairments as well. Reserves are going to be downgraded and write-offs are going to be in full swing in year-end results. TGR: Thanks, Michael. Michael Fowler: You're welcome. |
| Capital Shortage in Junior Mining Posted: 02 Mar 2014 06:52 AM PST Gold and silver juniors are having to fight to raise funds right now... MICHAEL FOWLER, senior mining analyst with Loewen, Ondaatje, McCutcheon Ltd., has worked in the investment industry since 1987 as a base and precious metals mining analyst for numerous high-profile firms. Fowler's coverage list included the major North American gold mining companies, but is now focused on small- to mid-sized companies. Previously, he worked as a geophysicist involved in mineral exploration for 10 years. Involved in the discovery of the high-grade Cigar Lake uranium mine in Northern Saskatchewan in the early 1980s, Fowler is a member of the Institution of Materials in the UK and a member of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. Here, in this interview with The Gold Report, Fowler discusses how private equity is getting into the junior silver and gold-mining game... The Gold Report: In January, the exchange-traded fund SPDR Gold Trust outperformed its silver counterpart, the iShares Silver Trust, by about 6%. Should investors expect gold to outperform silver for the entire year? Michael Fowler: Gold and silver are going to perform in tandem this year. Gold is in a corrective phase at the moment. I expect it to average around $1300 per ounce and silver to average about $21 per ounce. We expect gold and silver prices to increase into 2015. TGR: We've seen a bevy of bought-deal financings to start the year. Some are financing below current market prices. Could you provide us with some insight as to what's happening there? Michael Fowler: There are about 1,800 resource companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange and a capital shortage. The demand for capital is huge, but the supply is low. Companies are taking advantage of the small bounce in the gold price last month. In terms of financings, a 10% to 15% discount over the share price is typical when you're trying to get a deal done in this kind of environment. TGR: Does that make you somewhat more optimistic? Michael Fowler: Yes, it is encouraging. However, it doesn't change my view that the industry is still in a mess. There continues to be a capital shortage. Companies spent money like drunken sailors in the past few years and the consequence is they have to cut costs significantly. TGR: What types of projects are getting money? Michael Fowler: The better-quality companies are being financed. There is a capital shortage, but that doesn't mean there's no capital. TGR: What makes a quality mining company in this market? Michael Fowler: The majority of these companies are still just exploring. Investors want production, good assets and strong management. TGR: Some recent reports suggest that there's as much as $10 billion in private equity looking to find its way into the undervalued junior mining sector. Is that changing how you evaluate companies in the junior gold mining and silver space? Michael Fowler: No, but if private equity finds the valuations of junior miners compelling, it means that these companies are extremely cheap. However, even private equity is having a hard time finding quality. There have been a few investments, but it's easy to get burned in this sector. Private equity firms are looking through the weeds and trying to find something of value. TGR: Please outline the must-haves for companies you think are going to move in 2014. Michael Fowler: Jurisdiction-wise, North America is hot right now. So we would recommend assets in that jurisdiction. Companies have to have quality assets. The grade of the deposit is important. The cost structures are important. Valuation needs to be inexpensive, with potential for growing cash flows. TGR: Your coverage universe has changed dramatically compared to the previous year. What constitutes the companies that you continue to cover? Michael Fowler: I'd encourage people to also invest in midtier gold companies, which would be my favorites. Our coverage only reflects our business, which is more speculative, but it's wise to be involved in midtier gold companies, too. TGR: You are presenting an upcoming workshop at the annual PDAC conference in Toronto, March 1, titled, "Investment Fundamentals: Understanding Mineral Exploration and Resource Development and the Relationship to Company Stock Prices." What are three things you hope investors take away from that workshop? Michael Fowler: It's a great course that's been going for nine years. There's a lot of seasoned mining professionals, consultants, engineers, etc. We always get good reviews and we keep on getting invited back to the PDAC conference to do this. It gives the attendees the basics of the business and the major risks in exploration and mining engineering. It goes through the mineral exploration cycle to development and production. It focuses on how consultants, analysts and engineers value mineral properties and companies and the techniques that they use. It tries to relate those valuation techniques to what is actually happening in the marketplace and the major drivers of company stock prices. The audience is very interesting. It's a mix of CEOs, accountants, lawyers, geologists, engineers, students and people from all over the world. TGR: Could you leave us with some thoughts on the cost cutting that's going on across the industry and how that's going to ultimately play out? Michael Fowler: This is a key issue. The cost cutting that's been going on is only a start. The industry wasn't doing so hot with gold at $1250 per ounce. What if it goes to $1150 per ounce? There will be some severe problems. The bottom line is that significant cost cutting is going to happen this year and there's going to be a lot of impairments as well. Reserves are going to be downgraded and write-offs are going to be in full swing in year-end results. TGR: Thanks, Michael. Michael Fowler: You're welcome. |
| Posted: 02 Mar 2014 05:51 AM PST Gold sales from the big ETFs added 880 tonnes to supply last year... In 2013, the hope that the economic recovery would gain traction in the US caused a persistent trend of selling gold from US-based exchange-traded trust funds, writes Julian Phillips at The GoldForecaster. Last April, after Goldman Sachs forecast a heavy fall in the gold price, investor selling of these ETF shares led the trusts to unload around 400 tonnes of physical gold into the market in short time. The gold price buckled as a result. It pulled back to $1180 by end-June, and then recovered above $1200 over time in the face of many forecasts that it would fall to $1000 an ounce. Across the whole of 2013, persistent heavy selling from gold ETFs amounted to 880 tonnes. Institutions sold gold from these funds to turn to what appeared to be a far better prospect of profits. How do we know that it was financial institutions that were sellers? Because it was at the creation of these gold ETFs that allowed financial institutions to buy gold almost directly at cheap normal brokerage rates. Before that, they could not own gold bullion. With the gold ETF issuing shares against purchases of gold bullion, suddenly this market was opened to them. The tonnage sold through the year was around 20 to 30 tonnes a week. In total, the US supplied around 1,300 tonnes over the course of 2013. With total newly-mined gold supply at 2,969 tonnes and recycled gold supply at 1,371 tonnes – totaling 4,340 – the additional 30% supply from the US took supply up to 5,640 tonnes. But at the end of 2013, the supply from the US slowed to a trickle and looks like drying up now. While the focus of US investors in the gold market has been switching out of gold in the expectation it would fall further in price, most overlooked the fact that these funds would have a finite amount of gold to sell. Many investors in these funds are very long-term holders and will not contemplate selling their gold. The profit-seekers appear to have completed their sales now, and we're seeing US investors starting to buy gold back into these funds. The conclusion is that we're very close to if not at the point where the gold market has lost a 1,300 tonnes line of supply – huge for the market. This fact alone is changing the structure of the gold market and, we think, taking the gold price back to an uptrend. Please note that we haven't mentioned what's happening and is expected to happen on the demand side. |
| Posted: 02 Mar 2014 05:51 AM PST Gold sales from the big ETFs added 880 tonnes to supply last year... In 2013, the hope that the economic recovery would gain traction in the US caused a persistent trend of selling gold from US-based exchange-traded trust funds, writes Julian Phillips at The GoldForecaster. Last April, after Goldman Sachs forecast a heavy fall in the gold price, investor selling of these ETF shares led the trusts to unload around 400 tonnes of physical gold into the market in short time. The gold price buckled as a result. It pulled back to $1180 by end-June, and then recovered above $1200 over time in the face of many forecasts that it would fall to $1000 an ounce. Across the whole of 2013, persistent heavy selling from gold ETFs amounted to 880 tonnes. Institutions sold gold from these funds to turn to what appeared to be a far better prospect of profits. How do we know that it was financial institutions that were sellers? Because it was at the creation of these gold ETFs that allowed financial institutions to buy gold almost directly at cheap normal brokerage rates. Before that, they could not own gold bullion. With the gold ETF issuing shares against purchases of gold bullion, suddenly this market was opened to them. The tonnage sold through the year was around 20 to 30 tonnes a week. In total, the US supplied around 1,300 tonnes over the course of 2013. With total newly-mined gold supply at 2,969 tonnes and recycled gold supply at 1,371 tonnes – totaling 4,340 – the additional 30% supply from the US took supply up to 5,640 tonnes. But at the end of 2013, the supply from the US slowed to a trickle and looks like drying up now. While the focus of US investors in the gold market has been switching out of gold in the expectation it would fall further in price, most overlooked the fact that these funds would have a finite amount of gold to sell. Many investors in these funds are very long-term holders and will not contemplate selling their gold. The profit-seekers appear to have completed their sales now, and we're seeing US investors starting to buy gold back into these funds. The conclusion is that we're very close to if not at the point where the gold market has lost a 1,300 tonnes line of supply – huge for the market. This fact alone is changing the structure of the gold market and, we think, taking the gold price back to an uptrend. Please note that we haven't mentioned what's happening and is expected to happen on the demand side. |
| Stock Market Trend Forecast Into Mid 2015 Posted: 01 Mar 2014 10:00 AM PST The S&P 500 Index is most likely to be in a topping pattern with an upside bias that lasts for at least another 18 months. This provocative thought is based upon the collective technical analysis of the S&P charts at different time frames (Daily, weekly and monthly), alongside the Elliott Wave count. There has been a comparison to 1987 and more recently, 1929 analog charts that suggest a very sharp decline in the broad stock market indices. The chances of such a sharp decline occurring before 18 months (end of June 2015) is slim and more probable to occur at some point in September 2015. This time frame is based upon Elliott Wave analysis time considerations between wave structures from inter-market analysis. One of the main reasons that I examine gold, US Dollar, 3 currencies, oil, natural gas, AMEX Gold BUGS Index, AMEX Oil Index, S&P 500 Index, 10 Year US Treasury Index, Toronto Stock Exchange, Euro 350 iShares, Nikkei along with various exchange traded funds is to try and view the total picture of the landscape to see how everything is inter-related. |
In his weekly market review, Frank Holmes of the 
A few days ago I recorded a conversation with Belangp who has a very good channel on Youtube here: 
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