Gold World News Flash |
- Gold and The Dollar Are In A Fight to the Death! -- Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
- Economic Collapse 2014 -- As The IMF Pushes Recovery War Propaganda With Russia Intensifies
- Daily Nugget – gold experts are bearish
- 40 Central Banks Are Betting This Will Be The Next Reserve Currency
- Silver Price Forecast 2014: Monetary Collapse and Silver’s Not So Orderly Rise
- Leeb sees petro-dollar fading; Boyd acknowledges gold price is 'managed'
- SEC lawyer, retiring, says agency too timid with Wall Street misdeeds
- Collapse Of The United States & A New Economic World Order
- Koos Jansen: China gold demand fell in last week of March but remains high
- John Crudele: Did Goldman use HFT to rig markets for the U.S. government?
- Agnico CEO: Stunning Reasons Gold To Smash Through $2,000
- Flashback: Counterfeit Gold – How to Protect Yourself
- Misconception grows over gold demand and Shanghai discount
- 40 Central Banks Are Betting This Will Be The Next Reserve Currency
- Russian Military Spending Soars
- Guest Post: Welcome To The Casino
- Triple Whammy Shocker: Goldman Shutting Down Sigma X?
- David Stockman's "Born Again Jobs Scam": The Ugly Truth Behind "Jobs Friday"
- Today the Gold Price also Closed Above its 200 Day Moving Average at $1,308.70
- Today the Gold Price also Closed Above its 200 Day Moving Average at $1,308.70
- Wise Investments in the Next Global Arms Race
- ECONOMIC COLLAPSE 2014 -- Dollar Is Dropped As Countries And Central Banks Declared Their Holdings In Yuan
- Gold Surges & Dow Swoons
- U.S. Headed for Neo-Communism - Mikkel Clair Nissen
- Why These 2 NYSE Gold Producers are Buying This Junior During a Bear Market
- A Way to Survive the World’s Next Debt Bubble
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Metals Take Back Their Levels, But Germany Can't Get Their Gold
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Metals Take Back Their Levels, But Germany Can't Get Their Gold
- 10 Questions About Gold Investing In 2014
- Stay Hedged with Precious Metals against Geopolitical Tensions and Monetary Policies
- Collapse Of The United States & A New Economic World Order
- Max Keiser Interviews Egon von Greyerz about Fed Policy, Dollar Devaluation and Gold Pri
- Marc Faber Warns Get Your Gold Out Of The US NOW!
- Deviant Gold Q&A
- Final Bubble Phase for the Stock Market: Final Capitulation for Gold
- Misconception grows over gold demand and Shanghai discount – Phillips
- Gold price rockets back over $1,300
- Second Endeavour Silver mineworker killed in Mexico
- The Real Reason the U.S. Dollar Has Value
- Bullish Indicators from a Forgotten Market Sector
- Spot Gold Touches 2-Week High as Dollar Falls Despite Ukraine Tensions, IMF Urges Eurozone QE, Shanghai Premium Returns
- Precious Metals Market Report with Franklin Sanders
- Monetary Insurance: Protect With Physical Silver Against The Financial Winter
- Gold Miners Index: Domed House and Three Peaks Chart Pattern
- U.S. bristles at China's infringement of its monopoly on currency market rigging
- What Gold Stock Insider Trading Tells Us
- What’s Abuzz About Gold?
- Putin’s Wrath Can Be Your Gain
| Gold and The Dollar Are In A Fight to the Death! -- Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Posted: 09 Apr 2014 12:30 AM PDT Dr. Paul Craig Roberts says, "The Federal Reserve's policies are irresponsible and reckless." They put four or five banks ahead of the entire American population. They are going to save them if they have to drive the rest of the American population into the ground." As far as Russia and other... [[ 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 -- As The IMF Pushes Recovery War Propaganda With Russia Intensifies Posted: 08 Apr 2014 11:48 PM PDT Spain lawmakers discussing and debating Catalonia Independence. Cyprus tax revenue down as unemployment rises. IMF reporting incredible growth and recovery for wealthier nations which is a complete fabrication of what is really happening. The percentage of people insured has not changed since Obama... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Daily Nugget – gold experts are bearish Posted: 08 Apr 2014 11:30 PM PDT by Jan Skoyles, TheRealAsset.co.uk
Bearish predictions on the gold price In a new report from Morgan Stanley, we learn that gold is their least preferred commodity as the factors that boosted gold in Q1 are, apparently, no longer evident today. One of those alluded to by analyst Joel Crane is the Ukraine situation that boosted safe-haven demand. Something that Morgan Stanlye believe will no longer be a major driver in this year's gold price. Having said that, tensions increased once again yesterday and the bank have increased their average 2014 price by 5% to $1,219/oz. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 40 Central Banks Are Betting This Will Be The Next Reserve Currency Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:52 PM PDT from ZeroHedge:
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| Silver Price Forecast 2014: Monetary Collapse and Silver’s Not So Orderly Rise Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:43 PM PDT Hubert Moolman | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leeb sees petro-dollar fading; Boyd acknowledges gold price is 'managed' Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:37 PM PDT 12:35a ET Wednesday, April 9, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: At King World News fund manager Stephen Leeb sees the world transitioning away from the petro-dollar into a mechanism pricing oil in a basket of currencies: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/4/8_Col... And Agnico-Eagle CEO Sean Boyd acknowledges that the gold price is "managed" by governments as part of their general intervention in currency markets: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/4/9_Agn... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer 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: Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Committee for Monetary Research and Education http://www.cmre.org/news/spring-meeting-2014/ 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 precious metals free of value-added tax throughout Europe Europe Silver Bullion is a fast-growing dealer sourcing its products from renowned mints, refiners, and distributors. Because of a legal loophole that will close soon, you can acquire the world's most popular bullion coins free of value-added tax throughout the European Union. You can collect your order in person at our headquarters in Tallinn, Estonia, or have it delivered in any of the 28 EU countries. Europe Silver Bullion is owned and operated by North American and European experts in selling, storing, and transporting precious metals. We have an extensive product inventory of silver, gold, platinum, and palladium, and our network spans the world. Visit us at www.europesilverbullion.com. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SEC lawyer, retiring, says agency too timid with Wall Street misdeeds Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:33 PM PDT By Robert Schmidt A trial attorney from the Securities and Exchange Commission said his bosses were too "tentative and fearful" to bring many Wall Street leaders to heel after the 2008 credit crisis, echoing the regulator's outside critics. James Kidney, who joined the SEC in 1986 and retired this month, offered the critique in a speech at his goodbye party. His remarks hit home with many in the crowd of SEC lawyers and alumni thanks to a part of his resume not publicly known: He had campaigned internally to bring charges against more executives in the agency's 2010 case against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The SEC has become "an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors," Kidney said, according to a copy of his remarks obtained by Bloomberg News. "On the rare occasions when enforcement does go to the penthouse, good manners are paramount. Tough enforcement, risky enforcement, is subject to extensive negotiation and weakening." ... ... For the full story: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-08/sec-goldman-lawyer-says-agency-... 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: Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Committee for Monetary Research and Education http://www.cmre.org/news/spring-meeting-2014/ 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 precious metals free of value-added tax throughout Europe Europe Silver Bullion is a fast-growing dealer sourcing its products from renowned mints, refiners, and distributors. Because of a legal loophole that will close soon, you can acquire the world's most popular bullion coins free of value-added tax throughout the European Union. You can collect your order in person at our headquarters in Tallinn, Estonia, or have it delivered in any of the 28 EU countries. Europe Silver Bullion is owned and operated by North American and European experts in selling, storing, and transporting precious metals. We have an extensive product inventory of silver, gold, platinum, and palladium, and our network spans the world. Visit us at www.europesilverbullion.com. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Collapse Of The United States & A New Economic World Order Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:30 PM PDT from KingWorldNews:
"Whether it was Saddam Hussein in Iraq, or Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, the United States intervened militarily and both of these men were 'eliminated' for threatening the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. he problem here for the United States is that they can't eliminate President Xi and militarily occupy China, and they can't eliminate Putin and militarily occupy Russia. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Koos Jansen: China gold demand fell in last week of March but remains high Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:27 PM PDT 12:25a ET Wednesday, April 9, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Updating the Chinese gold demand figures, gold researcher and GATA consultant Koos Jansen reports that demand for the last full week in March declined a bit over the year-to-date weekly average but remained high: http://www.ingoldwetrust.ch/chinese-gold-demand-559-mt-ytd-up-16 CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Silver mining stock report for 2014 comes with 1-ounce silver round Future Money Trends is offering a special 18-page silver mining stock report about how to profit with the monetary and industrial metal in 2014, and it comes with a free 1-ounce silver round. Proceeds from the report's sales are shared with the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts to expose manipulation in the monetary metals markets. To learn about this report, please visit: Join GATA here: Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Committee for Monetary Research and Education http://www.cmre.org/news/spring-meeting-2014/ 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 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| John Crudele: Did Goldman use HFT to rig markets for the U.S. government? Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:17 PM PDT Goldman Keeps Its 'Flash Boys' Under Wraps By John Crudele http://nypost.com/2014/04/07/goldman-keeps-its-flash-boys-under-wraps/ Yep, the stock market is rigged. I've been explaining this to you for nearly 20 years. But thanks to best-selling author 'Michael Lewis' intriguing book "Flash Boys," which comes to the same conclusion, a much wider slice of America is talking about it now. But Lewis' book -- as well-written and riveting as his best-seller "Moneyball" -- touched on only one way the stock market was rigged: through high-frequency trading (HFT). And the book deals only with how manipulation has been occurring in recent years. ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT Jim Sinclair to hold gold market seminar in Toronto on April 26 Mining entrepreneur and gold advocate Jim Sinclair's next gold market seminar will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 26, at the Pearson Hotel & Conference Centre at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, 240 Belfield Road, Toronto. For details on tickets, please visit Sinclair's Internet site, JSMineSet.com, here: http://www.jsmineset.com/2014/04/01/toronto-qa-session-announced/ I can't do justice to the "Flash Boys" storytelling here, but Lewis explains in depth how HFT uses faster computers, better cable lines, and closer access to stock markets to jump in front of regular people's trades. But to me, the very first line of the introduction of "Flash Boys" is the most intriguing thing in the whole book. Why do I think that? Because it's a topic I wrote about a number of times in 2009 when a guy named Sergey Aleynikov, who developed high-frequency trading programs, was arrested by the FBI for stealing computer code from his employer, Goldman Sachs. Lewis writes: "I thought it strange, after the financial crisis, in which Goldman had played such an important role, that the only Goldman Sachs employee who had been charged with any sort of crime was the employee who had taken something from Goldman Sachs." And -- this is the drumroll moment -- Lewis (as I did in my 2009 columns) quotes an FBI agent who said that in the wrong hands, the computer code Aleynikov allegedly stole could be used to "manipulate markets in unfair ways." "Goldman's were the right hands?" Lewis asked. As Lewis points out, everything the FBI agent knew about high-frequency trading he learned from Goldman. My question back then, as it is now, is: What was Goldman doing with this code? Why did it react so aggressively to the theft? And why did the FBI -- which has important stuff like murder and terrorism on its to-do list -- jump into the Aleynikov case within 48 hours of Goldman's complaint when the computer geek's actions really should have been handled in civil court by Goldman's lawyers? And did Goldman think there was a "fair way" to manipulate markets? Did Goldman think only it could manipulate markets? Lewis doesn't get into this, but I think Goldman by 2008 had been using its high-frequency trading program to rig the stock markets. And -- this is the most important part -- it was doing so with the blessing of Uncle Sam, hence the FBI's attentiveness. That's how Goldman could have made the case that there was a fair way to manipulate the markets. And that's probably what Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein meant when he oddly proclaimed in early November 2009 that he (or his company, he wasn't clear) was "doing God's work." What evidence do I have of this? Back in 2009, I looked through the phone logs of then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, formerly the chief executive of Goldman, and discovered many, many calls between him and Blankfein during the financial crisis. In a Sept. 29, 2009, column I reported that Paulson spoke almost as frequently with Blankfein during the worst part of the crisis as he did with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. And he hardly spoke to any other Wall Street executives. In the column, I wrote: "On Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008 ... the stock market performed horribly. By the end of the session, the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 449 points as investors worried about the nation's financial system. "The next morning, Sept. 18, Paulson placed his first call of the day at 6:55 a.m. to Lloyd Blankfein, who succeeded Paulson as CEO of Goldman. It's unclear whether the two connected because Blankfein called Paulson minutes later. "And then Blankfein placed another call to Paulson at 7:05 a.m. for what looks like a 10-minute conversation. By 9 a.m., 30 minutes before the markets opened, the two had connected or tried to connect three times. On Sept. 17 -- the day the market was collapsing -- there were five calls between the pair. It would have been extremely odd if Paulson and Blankfein hadn't talked about wanting to see market strengthen during those three calls early Sept. 18 morning. But the market didn't open strong on Sept. 18. Stock prices did, however, begin a miraculous recovery around 1 p.m. that day. By then rumors were starting to spread about a government bailout of banks, and the market turned on a dime. Market rigging? Probably, done in a number of ways -- through leaked information and heavy trading through HFT. Wall Street pals who could have purposely changed the momentum of the market. Was the computer code that Sergey Aleynikov was accused of stealing used during that day's trading? Is that why Goldman knew the code could manipulate markets? Is that why the FBI responded so quickly? I don't have answers, but those are all legitimate questions. Tim Geithner, who was head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank at this time (and later became treasury secretary) was quoted later in an interview that Washington "was forced to do extraordinary things and, frankly, offensive things to help save the economy." Was rigging the stock market one of them? Stay tuned. ----- John Crudele is business columnist for the New York Post. Join GATA here: Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Committee for Monetary Research and Education http://www.cmre.org/news/spring-meeting-2014/ 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: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Agnico CEO: Stunning Reasons Gold To Smash Through $2,000 Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:01 PM PDT  Today one of the top CEO's in the world told King World News that the price of gold will break $2,000, in spite of the fact that the price being actively "managed." This interview is tremendous and it will let KWN readers around the world see the gold market through the eyes of one of the greatest and well-respected veterans in the business. Below is what Sean Boyd, CEO of $5.4 billion Agnico Eagle, had to say in his powerful interview.This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Flashback: Counterfeit Gold – How to Protect Yourself Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:00 PM PDT by Mark Nestmann, Nestmann:
Then last fall, a report emerged that China’s central bank had discovered 400-ounce gold-plated tungsten bars among those it had recently received from bonded warehouses. Assays were said to reveal at least four counterfeit bars, all supposedly from sources in the United States. re-published with permission by the author. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Misconception grows over gold demand and Shanghai discount Posted: 08 Apr 2014 08:40 PM PDT by Julian Phillips, MineWeb.com:
Silver Today – The silver price closed at $19.88 up 4 cents on Friday's close, in New York. Ahead of New York's opening, it was trading higher at $20.14. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 40 Central Banks Are Betting This Will Be The Next Reserve Currency Posted: 08 Apr 2014 07:42 PM PDT As we have discussed numerous times, nothing lasts forever - especially reserve currencies - no matter how much one hopes that the status-quo remains so, in the end the exuberant previlege is extorted just one too many times. Headline after headlines shows nations declaring 'interest' or direct discussions in diversifying away from the US dollar... and as SCMP reports, Standard Chartered notes that at least 40 central banks have invested in the Yuan and several more are preparing to do so. The trend is occurring across both emerging markets and developed nation central banks diversifiying into 'other currencies' and "a great number of central banks are in the process of adding yuan to their portfolios." Perhaps most ominously, for king dollar, is the former-IMF manager's warning that "The Yuan may become a de facto reserve currency before it is fully convertible." The infamous chart that shows nothing lasts forever... Nothing lasts forever... (especially in light of China's recent comments)
As The South China Morning Post reports, Jukka Pihlman, Standard Chartered's Singapore-based global head of central banks and sovereign wealth funds (who formerly worked at the International Monetary Fund advising central banks on asset-management issues), notes that:
The US dollar remains in charge (for now)...but
As SCMP goes on to note, the rising popularity of the yuan among central bankers is probably mainly due to Beijing's extremely favourable treatment of them as it has sought to encourage investment in the yuan.
As Pihlman explains, things are accelerating...
We leave it to a former World Bank chief economist, Justin Yifu Lin, to sum it all up...
It appears the world is beginning to listen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Russian Military Spending Soars Posted: 08 Apr 2014 07:10 PM PDT Submitted by Zachary Zeck via The Diplomat, Russia has announced that it will increase defense spending by some 18 percent this year despite its worsening economic outlook. According to a report in Jane’s Defence Weekly, the Russian Federal Treasury announced late last month that “Expenditure on National Defense” will rise from 2,101.4 billion rubles ($58.2 billion) in 2013 to 2,488.1 billion rubles in 2014. This is projected to be about 3.4 percent of Russia’s GDP but over 20 percent of government spending. Another 16.5 percent of the government budget will go to national security and law enforcement. By contrast, in 2010 defense spending only accounted for 12.6 percent of total state spending while defense and security only accounted for about 25 percent compared to the nearly 37 percent of spending they will make up in 2014. Jane’s notes that spending on “education, housing, social care and healthcare will all fall” as a result. The increase this year follows what some estimate to be a 31 percent increase in defense spending between 2008 and 2013. Moreover, Russia intends to continue expanding its defense budget in the years ahead. According to the Jane’s report, the Russian Federal Treasury anticipates the defense budget to grow by more than 33 percent over the next two years. Thus, according to current forecasts, by 2016 the Russian defense budget will be around 3,378.0 billion rubles ($95.6 billion). The rapid increases in defense spending are not unexpected. Indeed, Russia began trying to modernize its military forces in 2008, around the time of its war with Georgia, and announced a decade-long military rearmament program two years later. Under this rearmament program, Russia intends to spend 23 trillion rubles ($723 billion) over the next ten years to modernize its armed forces. The goal is to achieve a 70 percent modernization rate by 2020. Russia’s conventional military power rapidly deteriorated following the collapse of the Soviet Union, forcing Moscow to increasingly rely on its nuclear arsenal to meet its national security needs. Before assuming the Russian presidency for a third term, Vladimir Putin laid out the case for Russia’s military modernization in an article in Foreign Policy magazine. In the piece, Putin argued that given the current international environment, “Russia cannot rely on diplomatic and economic methods alone to resolve conflicts. Our country faces the task of sufficiently developing its military potential as part of a deterrence strategy. This is an indispensable condition for Russia to feel secure and for our partners to listen to our country’s arguments.” Nonetheless, it’s far from clear that Russia will be able to meet its military modernization goals given the darkening economic outlook for the country. Already, the massive military rearmament program has elicited significant criticism from certain sectors of Russian society. With a worsening economic outlook in the short-term due to Western sanctions, and in the long-term due to Russia’s excessive reliance on energy exports, it’s quite likely that the ambitious modernization goals set out for 2020 will not be realized.
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| Guest Post: Welcome To The Casino Posted: 08 Apr 2014 06:09 PM PDT Submitted by Shane Obata via Triggers, Fundamentals are always important over the long term. That said, it has become quite clear that company financials are not what’s moving this market. As you’ll see in the following chart, QE has been boosting the S&P 500 since 2009. If fundamentals mattered then the words and decisions of central bankers wouldn’t be the most important headlines. We’ve all seen the charts that compare the S&P 500 and the fed’s balance sheet. Since 2009, the correlation is almost perfect QE and zero interest rate policies are forcing people to chase for yield. It’s completely unfair to repress interest rates because it punishes savers. Right now, it’s expensive to hold cash because of inflation and low interest rates. By holding down rates, the fed is masking the risk of financial assets. People who would otherwise keep their money in a savings account are buying high yield bonds and stocks because they want to maintain their purchasing power. The following chart shows that the spread between high yield bonds and treasuries has been in decline since the financial crisis. This is a result of a high demand for income generating assets. n sum, the fed’s policies have caused stock prices to diverge from economic reality. Real median household income has been in decline since the late 90s. In contrast, stock prices have rallied dramatically since the financial crisis in 07-08. The purpose here is not to prove that the S&P 500 is going to drop 86% like it did from 1930 to 1932.
What we’re going to consider is the psychology behind the markets. I feel as though the markets have tended to move in similar waves because of how people think about stocks. Every market cycle is characterized by similar emotions such as greed and fear. The next chart depicts a market psychology cycle. At this point, it’s hard to dispute that we’re in the mid-late stages of the mania phase.
Simply put, the economic fundamentals do not support stock prices. Often times, in the later stages of a bull market stocks will melt upwards before falling abruptly. The next chart courtesy of www.bloombergbriefs.com compares today’s market with the 1929 crash and the Nikkei’s 1989 collapse. It’s important to note that the rate of increase in stock prices – was higher right before the subsequent fall. In other words, the slope was steepest immediately before the eventual downturn. In the next section we’re going to look at some momentum stocks – they’re stocks whose prices are so disconnected from their financials that no one really knows how much they’re worth. What’s interesting that a lot of these companies are exhibiting the same patterns that are often seen with bubbles. Before we continue let’s talk about the Williams %R Indicator. It is a momentum indicator that is commonly used to indicate overbought or oversold conditions. However, through learning the HPTZ Methodology I have considered another perspective. When the indicator reaches extreme levels (-20/-80) it suggests positive or negative pressure on the market that has been shown to sustain runs or trends. If you examine the writings of Williams he discusses the use of the indicator as overbought or oversold only after an extreme has been reached and after a certain number of bars have passed. First let’s take a look at $LNG. On the monthly chart we can see that Cheniere has been ramping up for a while now. Furthemore, the monthly williams %R has been trending up steadily for years. On the weekly chart the red arrows indicate 4 different slopes. Each new slope is steeper than the last which means that $LNG’s price is increasing at a faster rate. The Williams %R on the weekly is still above -20 which is indicative of positive pressure. The hourly chart shows that $LNG continues to rise steadily. On the daily chart we can see that the daily Williams %R is showing signs of positive pressure at -15.53. The next company that we’re going to look is is $CELG. On the monthly chart it looks as though it almost went vertical. Furthemore, the monthly Williams %R – which is at -49.02 – hasn’t fallen below -80 since the beginning of 2011. The weekly chart shows that after rising steadily from 2009 to the end of 2012, $CELG begin a rapid ascent at the beginning of 2013. It has pulled back since the beginning of 2014 and the Williams %R is at -99.21; this is the first time it has been below -80 since the summer of 2013. The hourly chart shows that Celgene has been selling off for a little over a month or so. On the daily chart we can see that after an orderly rise from April of 2013 to the beginning of 2014, $CELG has now fallen off a bit. Celgene is now falling at a faster rate and the Williams %R has fallen below -80 remains in a downtrend. The last company we’re going to look at is Gilead Sciences. It’s rapid ascent is best captured by the monthly chart. The monthly Williams %R is now at -38.42 – the lowest it has been since early 2012. On the weekly chart we can see that $GILD began to accelerate at the beginning of 2013. The recent downfall has sent the weekly Williams %R below -80 for the first time since the fall of 2012. On the hourly chart we can see that $GILD has been in a downtrend since the beginning of march. The daily chart shows that the Williams %R is at -92.83 and hasn’t been above -20 since late February. $LNG, $CELG, and $GILD are three examples of stocks that have made tremendous gains over the past few years. The takeaway point is that many stocks are trading above what most people would consider reasonable valuations. A lot of the time, these companies aren’t even profitable. On a trailing twelve month basis, $LNG hasn’t made a profit in the last 5 years. Both $CELG and $GILD are profitable, however their stock prices are growing at a much faster rate than their cash flows and net income are. Is this the top? There’s no way to tell. Do some areas of the market look like past bubbles once did? Without a doubt. The last step up before the fall is often characterized by a feeling that the market is invincible. Despite the S&P’s incredible run, it cannot continue to rally forever. Eventually, economic fundamentals will matter again and when that happens it’s likely that the market will sell off.
George Santayana once said that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
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| Triple Whammy Shocker: Goldman Shutting Down Sigma X? Posted: 08 Apr 2014 05:47 PM PDT Back on March 21, before the release of Michael Lewis' Flash Boys and before the infamous 60 Minutes interview, when Goldman COO Gary Cohn wrote his infamous WSJ Op-ed bashing HFT, it was clear that something was afoot. That something became promptly clear when it was revealed that Goldman is among the core backers of the pseudo dark-pool IEX exchange popularized as the protagonist in Flash Boys, and juxtaposed to the frontrunning, and faceless, HFT antagonist that Lewis maanged to demonize so well in the span of a few hundred pages, he promptly provoked a renewed investigation by the FBI, the SEC and DOJ into HFT. A few days later, the shocker became a double whammy when Goldman announced that in addition to turning its back on HFT which had served it so well for years, the firm would also say goodbye to the NYSE and its designated market maker post, the last remaining legacy of its $6.5 billion Spear Ledds & Kellogg acquisition from 2000. That Goldman was asking mere pennies on the dollar for the residual assets also showed just how "highly" Goldman valued said legacy operation. This is what we said at the time of the announcement:
Moments ago we got the third and final "shocker" in this series of stunning disclosures by Goldman, this time involving Goldman's own "unlit" venue - one involving its own Dark Pool - the infamous, and market dominant Sigma X, which according to the WSJ, is about to be shut down!
That this is a momentous development, if true, needs no explanation. Because while Sigma X may or may not be the top dark pool in the industry - a claim that Credit Suisse can possibly make alongside Goldman- Sigma X, which we have written about extensively over the past five years, certainly provides Goldman with not only extensive daily revenue but also gives the firm an inside look into what happens in the institutional marketplace, since the bulk of hedge funds and most mutual funds transact almost exclusively on dark pools now in an attempt to avoid precisely the parasitic HFT algos that have been the topic of so much discussion in recent days. And if Goldman is willing to exit not only HFT, not only legacy lit markets entirely, but also its dark pool, then something truly big and transformational is coming to not only the existing market structure, but something that will be so disruptive, that for once we can't wait to find out just what Goldman has up its sleeves, sleeves which also happen to house the key lawmakers in the Beltway. Why is Goldman doing this now? We don't know. It is worth noting however that on page 234 of Flash Boys, Michael Lewis cites Ron Morgan and Brian Levine, Goldman Partners and co-heads of Goldman's global stock markets, who said that "Unless there are some changes, there's going to be a massive crash, a flash crash times ten."
Goldman exiting virtually all venues except the upstart IEX is certainly a major change. Another thing that is certain: take a long, hard look at the market as you know it today, because in less than a year it will be history. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| David Stockman's "Born Again Jobs Scam": The Ugly Truth Behind "Jobs Friday" Posted: 08 Apr 2014 05:06 PM PDT Submitted by David Stockman via his Contra Corner blog, The mainstream recovery narrative has an astounding “recency bias”. According to all the CNBC talking heads, the 192,000 NFP jobs gain reported on Friday constituted another “strong” report card. Well, let’s see. Approximately 75 months ago (December 2007) at the cyclical peak before the so-called Great Recession, the BLS reported 138.4 million NFP jobs. When the hosanna chorus broke into song last Friday, the reported figure was 137.9 million NFP jobs. By the lights of old-fashioned subtraction, therefore, we are still 500k jobs short—notwithstanding $3.5 trillion of money printing in the interim. The truth is, all the ballyhooed “new jobs” celebrated on bubblevision month-after-month have actually been “born again” jobs. That is, jobs which were created during the Fed’s 2002-2007 bubble inflation; lost in the aftermath of the September 2008 meltdown; and then “recovered” during the renewed bubble inflation now underway. Stated differently, back when the NFP jobs count first clocked in at 137.9 million in the fall of 2007, the talking heads assured us that we were in a permanent “goldilocks economy” thanks to the brilliant management skills of the Fed. So here we are nearly 7 years later, still a half million jobs short, and the talking heads are gumming once again about the same old illusory “goldilocks”. Who actually pays these people to bloviate! Setting aside the utterly superficial recency bias, its not hard to see the dire reality lurking in the actual trends. To be precise, 75 months into the post-2000 cycle the US economy had generated 5 million net new jobs—that is, it was way above its prior high water mark. Likewise, 75 months on from the 1990 peak, it had produced 10 million net new jobs. So the fact that we are still in negative jobs territory this far into a recovery cycle is literally off-the-historical-charts. And the fact that we are already in month 57 of this business expansion when the ten expansions since 1950 have averaged only 53 months in duration is even more telling. Notwithstanding Bernanke’s hubristic proclamation of the Great Moderation, the Fed has not abolished recessions—so this time the cyclical clock may run out long before many actual “new jobs” are created. Indeed, by any reasonable standard, an economy which has gained 10 million new working age citizens during the past 7 years, but has generated not a single net new NFP job is failing badly. The Friday report, like the dozens before it, should have been a cause for alarm, not celebration. In fact, the true story is even worse for two reasons. First, as shown below the quality-mix of even these “born again” jobs has deteriorated sharply. Secondly, the 7 million jobs that were recovered since the official recession bottom in June 2009 had virtually nothing to do with the massive money printing campaign of the Fed or, for that matter, the rest of the Washington stimulus spree of bailouts and boondoggles. Consider first the quality deterioration, and the fact that when it comes to economics the proper metric is surely not one-job-one-vote. About half of the jobs in the NFP consist of “breadwinner” jobs in the core sectors—–manufacturing, construction, the white collar professions, FIRE, transportation and trade, information services and media and business management and support services. According to the BLS establishment survey data, these positions generate an annualized pay rate of about $45k—-marginally enough to support a family in many areas of the country. As shown below, the Breadwinner Economy has been trending south for this entire century! There were 72-73 million of these jobs in 2000; no growth happened during the entire Greenspan Bubble; a thundering collapse occurred during the Great Recession; and there has been only a tepid, fractional recovery since. In fact, among the 5.7 million Breadwinner Economy jobs lost by the time the recession officially ended in June 2009—- only 37 percent have been recovered during the nearly five years since then. And that’s notwithstanding the ritual proclamations about “progress” on each and every “Jobs Friday”.  Breadwinner Economy – Click to enlarge As shown below, jobs in the Breadwinner Economy pay 2.5X those in the Part Time Economy and 30% more than the HES Complex. So the implications for economic growth and living standards are self-evident. The Breadwinner Economy with half the NFP jobs accounts for more than two-thirds of aggregate wage and salary income. Accordingly, it is not surprising that the real median household income has fallen 7% since 2000. The breadwinner jobs which support it have trended sharply downward and today clock in at only 68.3 million—a level that was first reached during Bill Clinton’s second term. Yes, there has been some recovery since the recession bottom, but the rate of gain has been tepid and underscores the borrowed time point. At the rate of recovery since June 2009—-about 37,000 per month—it would take until 2024 to get back to the 73 million Breadwinner Economy jobs posted at the time that Florida’s hanging chads were being recounted after the 2000 election. Digging deeper into the Breadwinner Economy only darkens the picture. The very highest paying jobs in this broad category are in the “goods-producing” sector— construction, mining/energy and manufacturing. The NFP count for goods-producing industries in 2000 was 24.6 million. By contrast, the number reported last Friday was 18.9 million—-23% below its level 14 years ago. And don’t look for the gap to be filled any time soon. Only 9,000 jobs per month have been created in good-producing since June 2009. So by the lights of pure arithmetic, it would take until the year 2067 to regain the January 2000 high water mark! Another big chunk of the Breadwinner Economy jobs is accounted for by what we have termed “Core Government” jobs, and it includes employment at all levels of government excluding the Post Office and Education. There were 11 million of these jobs–paying upwards of $60,000 on average— in Friday’s report and that is virtually the same figure reported for December 2007. So we are at “peak jobs” in the Core Government sector, and if anything the number of these high paying jobs will also shrink during the years ahead. That prospect is owing to the inexorably tightening fiscal vice in which the public sector is now impaled. To wit, the massive growth of transfer payments due to baby boom retirements and the failed economy’s pressure on the safety net is squeezing out all other government spending—-and most especially jobs-intensive public sector service delivery. On the other side of the ledger, publicly-held debt of government at all levels is nearly $16 trillion or 95% of GDP and rising rapidly. This means that spending growth to hire more bureaucrats will be virtually impossible—-even with borrowed money. That leaves about 38 million jobs in all the other Breadwinner Economy industries mentioned above such as FIRE, trade and transportation, business services etc.—a category we have termed “core private business services”. Even here, the March print was still 425,000 below the December 2007 peak, and, more importantly, still less than 4% above its turn of the century level of 37 million jobs. Stated differently, this category is the only part of the Breadwinner Economy which has been growing, but the rate of job creation over the last 14 years has been just 8K per month. And this points to the real scam embedded in the “Jobs Friday” celebrations. Overwhelmingly, the job count gains being reported are in the Part Time Economy. This category encompasses about 38 million NFP jobs, and consist of bell-hops, bartenders, waiters, maids, nail salons, shoe repair, street vendors, retail clerks, temp jobs and the like. According to the BLS data, these categories generate an annual full-time pay equivalent of just $20,000. These are ”survival” jobs at best, yet they account for fully one-half of all the born again jobs reported since June 2009 (3.4 million out of 7 million).  Part Time Economy – Click to enlarge Unlike the Breadwinner Economy, this sector has recovered its December 2007 high water mark of 37.2 million jobs and then some. Last Friday’s report showed 38.1 million jobs in the Part Time economy for a net gain of about 3% over the past seven years. Yet even here the story is hardly reassuring. To be precise, the Part Time Economy has gained 915,000 jobs since December 2007 and 968,000 of them—more than 100%– have been in bars, restaurants, resorts, race tracks, theme parks and other places of amusement. In short, what has materialized is a Bread & Circuses economy. The BLS category containing the above industries, called “leisure and hospitality”, posted 11.7 million jobs in January 2000. The figure for March 2014 was 14.5 million. Thus, Bread & Circuses accounted for fully 40% of the entire total of 6.9 million NFP jobs created in the American economy during the 21st century. The balance and then some is attributable to the final broad NFP category we have labeled the HES Complex, which consists of health services, education in both private and public sector and social services including day care. As shown below, this has been the growth engine of the NFP. The 31.5 million jobs in the HES Complex reported for March 2014 represented a 2.3 million gain from the December 2007 peak, and a gain of 6.8 million jobs or nearly 30% from January 2000. Yet there are more than a few skunks in this woodpile, as well. Nearly 75% of the gain in HES Complex jobs this century occurred before December 2007. That robust gain of 4.9 million jobs, however was heavily concentrated in education, nursing homes, hospitals, home health care and social assistance—which accounted for 80% of the pick-up. The common characteristic of these categories is obviously that they are heavily fiscally dependent. With the exception of hospitals, all of these categories derive 75% or more of their revenues from local, state and Federal coffers, and even in the case of hospitals, Medicare, Medicaid and other public programs account for upwards of one-half of receipts. Needless to say, the fiscal vice has been tightening steadily ever since the financial crisis. Accordingly, education jobs have been flat since December 2007 and hospital and nursing homes employment has risen at only a 1% annual rate. Overall, the rate of HES Complex job growth has thus slowed sharply—-from 51K jobs per month during the Greenspan Bubble to 43K per month during the Great Recession to just 26K since June 2009.  Health, Education, and Social Service Complex Jobs – Click to enlarge Not only has the rate of HES job growth slowed markedly in the face of peak fiscal debt, but even the job growth that has occurred has been in the lowest paying parts of the sector. That is, the gains have not been among doctors, skilled nurses or medical technicians. In fact, about 1.2 million or 80% of the HES Complex job gains since June 2009 have been among home health aids, day care workers and nursing home staff. Increasingly, what is left of the HES Complex growth machines amounts to a Bed Pan, Home Companion and Baby Sitters Brigade. Indeed, annual pay rates for the entire HES Complex average just $35,000 according to the BLS data. Obviously, the growth in recent years has been among categories where compensation is substantially lower. So this is what the Hosanna Chorus is celebrating—-a job machine that is broken and generating part-time and low-end positions that still do not add up to the 2007 high water mark. Moreover, as will be shown in the next installment, the Fed’s furious money printing has had virtually no role in generating even the “born again” jobs which have been so joyously welcomed on Jobs Friday. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Today the Gold Price also Closed Above its 200 Day Moving Average at $1,308.70 Posted: 08 Apr 2014 04:42 PM PDT
Sorry I missed y'all yesterday, all the more since it was a near perfect day for silver and GOLD PRICES. The GOLD PRICE rose today $10.70 (0.8%) to $1,308.70 while silver held its hand and rose 15.1 cents (0.8%) to 2004.2c. Gold price's little correction yesterday was picture perfect. Friday it broke through resistance at $1,295 after several tries, but closed below $1,305 resistance at $1,303.20. Yesterday it closed down at $1,298, lower but still holding solidly above $1,295 support, and closed ABOVE $1,305 resistance at $1,308.7. May I warble further? Today the gold price also closed above its 200 DMA ($1,296.90) and, yet there is more. Gold has now rallied out of the Dec-February upside down head and shoulders, broke through the neckline of that formation in a rally to $1,392.60, corrected back to the neckline for a final kiss good-bye last week, and now 'tis climbing again. THIS would be the place to buy. Although I have not yet decided yet whether the correction is complete, or whether we will see one more up and down, but I doubt any later leg down will drop lower than what we have seen. Above the 20 DMA lurks at $1,319.82. Crossing that will bring out many more of gold's fair weather friends. The gold price has seen its bottom for a while. The SILVER PRICE stands a gnat's eyelash from flashing an MACD buy signal, the full stochastic is turning up, rate of change is rising, AND (I'm almost out of breath) it bounced off its post-April 2013 downtrend line at end March. Yet for all in its favor, silver must yet close above 2015c. We ought to witness that tomorrow. By the way, silver's performance yesterday was as good as gold, with a retreat to support at 1975c and bounce back today. GOLD/SILVER RATIO today ended at 65.298, and is not dropping from its March peak as quickly as I would like, but what would I do with without something to fret about? On to stocks, yesterday the Dow dropped only ten points while the S&P500 plunged a massive 20.5 (1.1%). That trashed the S&P500 chart. A two day waterfall took it from 1897.28 to 1845.04. This also was a completed key reversal. Today it cut into but closed above the 50 DMA (1,840.57), and flopped back 6.9 (0.38%) to 1,851.96. The S&P is breaking down. Thus sayeth its position on the chart thus screameth its key reversal. Unless Wall Street's friends in the Plunge Protection Team, the Nice Government Men, step up quick the blood will be flowing up to the horses bridles. Off a new all time intraday high on Friday, a push into new high territory, the Dow closed much lower, nearly 1%. That key reversal was confirmed yesterday with another drop and close below the 20 day moving average at 16,245.87. Today it bounced like a dead cat off the pavement, up 10.27 (0.06%). As with the S&P500, the MACD indicator has flashed a big red SELL signal. Much lower prices like ahead. Dow in Gold has plunged in the last three days and today closed at 12.42 oz (G$256.74 gold dollars). This hints but does not confirm that the correction that began mid March has peaked. DiG is about to cross below its 20 and 50 DMAs. Close below 11.62 oz (G$240.21) takes it below the low of the Dec-March fall. Dow in Silver dropped 0.93% today to 810.38 oz (S$1,047.76 silver dollars). It hovereth above its 20 DMA (805.93), first tripwire of a decline. MACD has turned down, and full Stochastics are confirming a downturn. Today currency markets overthrew expectations. The Bank of Japan, contrary to the market's expectation, vowed it would hold off on monetary easing -- central-bank-speak for "inflating" -- in the short term. All the folks short yen promptly puked in their wastebaskets and splurted out orders to cover their short positions. Yen gapped up massively, above its 20 and 50 DMAs, from 97 to 98.5 at the widest. Closed up 1.34% at 98.29 cents/Y100. Dollar took this news like a rockhammer in the teeth. Dropped a huge 50 basis points or 0.62% to 79.83, wiping out all its gains since mid-March. Considering how the US Dollar has struggled since bottoming in March, and now crashes through its 20 and 50 DMAs, it hath little hope for the future. It appears to have successfully transformed a nascent rally into Waterloo. 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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Today the Gold Price also Closed Above its 200 Day Moving Average at $1,308.70 Posted: 08 Apr 2014 04:42 PM PDT
Sorry I missed y'all yesterday, all the more since it was a near perfect day for silver and GOLD PRICES. The GOLD PRICE rose today $10.70 (0.8%) to $1,308.70 while silver held its hand and rose 15.1 cents (0.8%) to 2004.2c. Gold price's little correction yesterday was picture perfect. Friday it broke through resistance at $1,295 after several tries, but closed below $1,305 resistance at $1,303.20. Yesterday it closed down at $1,298, lower but still holding solidly above $1,295 support, and closed ABOVE $1,305 resistance at $1,308.7. May I warble further? Today the gold price also closed above its 200 DMA ($1,296.90) and, yet there is more. Gold has now rallied out of the Dec-February upside down head and shoulders, broke through the neckline of that formation in a rally to $1,392.60, corrected back to the neckline for a final kiss good-bye last week, and now 'tis climbing again. THIS would be the place to buy. Although I have not yet decided yet whether the correction is complete, or whether we will see one more up and down, but I doubt any later leg down will drop lower than what we have seen. Above the 20 DMA lurks at $1,319.82. Crossing that will bring out many more of gold's fair weather friends. The gold price has seen its bottom for a while. The SILVER PRICE stands a gnat's eyelash from flashing an MACD buy signal, the full stochastic is turning up, rate of change is rising, AND (I'm almost out of breath) it bounced off its post-April 2013 downtrend line at end March. Yet for all in its favor, silver must yet close above 2015c. We ought to witness that tomorrow. By the way, silver's performance yesterday was as good as gold, with a retreat to support at 1975c and bounce back today. GOLD/SILVER RATIO today ended at 65.298, and is not dropping from its March peak as quickly as I would like, but what would I do with without something to fret about? On to stocks, yesterday the Dow dropped only ten points while the S&P500 plunged a massive 20.5 (1.1%). That trashed the S&P500 chart. A two day waterfall took it from 1897.28 to 1845.04. This also was a completed key reversal. Today it cut into but closed above the 50 DMA (1,840.57), and flopped back 6.9 (0.38%) to 1,851.96. The S&P is breaking down. Thus sayeth its position on the chart thus screameth its key reversal. Unless Wall Street's friends in the Plunge Protection Team, the Nice Government Men, step up quick the blood will be flowing up to the horses bridles. Off a new all time intraday high on Friday, a push into new high territory, the Dow closed much lower, nearly 1%. That key reversal was confirmed yesterday with another drop and close below the 20 day moving average at 16,245.87. Today it bounced like a dead cat off the pavement, up 10.27 (0.06%). As with the S&P500, the MACD indicator has flashed a big red SELL signal. Much lower prices like ahead. Dow in Gold has plunged in the last three days and today closed at 12.42 oz (G$256.74 gold dollars). This hints but does not confirm that the correction that began mid March has peaked. DiG is about to cross below its 20 and 50 DMAs. Close below 11.62 oz (G$240.21) takes it below the low of the Dec-March fall. Dow in Silver dropped 0.93% today to 810.38 oz (S$1,047.76 silver dollars). It hovereth above its 20 DMA (805.93), first tripwire of a decline. MACD has turned down, and full Stochastics are confirming a downturn. Today currency markets overthrew expectations. The Bank of Japan, contrary to the market's expectation, vowed it would hold off on monetary easing -- central-bank-speak for "inflating" -- in the short term. All the folks short yen promptly puked in their wastebaskets and splurted out orders to cover their short positions. Yen gapped up massively, above its 20 and 50 DMAs, from 97 to 98.5 at the widest. Closed up 1.34% at 98.29 cents/Y100. Dollar took this news like a rockhammer in the teeth. Dropped a huge 50 basis points or 0.62% to 79.83, wiping out all its gains since mid-March. Considering how the US Dollar has struggled since bottoming in March, and now crashes through its 20 and 50 DMAs, it hath little hope for the future. It appears to have successfully transformed a nascent rally into Waterloo. 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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wise Investments in the Next Global Arms Race Posted: 08 Apr 2014 04:19 PM PDT In late March, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin announced he’s reinstating a Stalin-era fitness program called Ready for Labor and Defense. “It hasn’t been revealed what the modern version of the program will consist of,” Time magazine informs us, “but back in the USSR, it required comrade citizens to enter competitions in sports like running, jumping, skiing, swimming and, well, grenade throwing. Tests were set and those who passed were given gold and silver badges that were worn with pride on proletarian chests.” We’re not sure which is worse… Russians anticipating the return of a “Stalin-era fitness program”… or Americans enduring Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign. But then, Putin is a variety of leader with whom Americans are generally unfamiliar. To overcome this knowledge gap, a few folks around the office here put together the following video. No, that’s not true: They put together this tongue-in-cheek video to generate some Web traffic. We guarantee you’ll be no better informed after watching it than before. But we trust you’ll be entertained. [Ed. note: If you notice a resemblance to the viral "Honey Badger" video of a few years back, that was on purpose. Well, we did our best to make the language comport with the Presbyterian standard -- Agora Inc. founder Bill Bonner's guideline that we should be comfortable showing anything we write to our mothers.] “The situation in Ukraine is a looming disaster for Western interests,” says our military affairs expert Byron King, in all seriousness. The irony is that in Ukraine, “Western interests are abstract, and the ability to enforce a ‘Western’ position is absent.” On that score, we’ll interrupt Byron long enough to share the results of a public opinion poll. In late March The Washington Post commissioned a survey of 2,066 Americans, asking them what they think the U.S. government should “do” about Ukraine. But in an online twist, the pollsters also asked them to locate Ukraine by clicking on a high-resolution world map. Each of the 2,066 responses are plotted here, the most accurate in red and the least in blue.
“The farther their guesses were from Ukraine’s actual location,” write the pollsters, “the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene with military force.” The pollsters did not disclose whether they included any members of Congress in their survey. Heh… “Ukraine is a pathetic basket case,” says Byron — getting us back on track one more time. “If nothing else, Ukraine ought to be rich in agricultural potential; it ought to be a wealthy breadbasket, certainly in a world where food is getting more valuable every year. But the fact is that Ukraine is broke and has been horribly misgoverned over the past two decades since it fell out of the breakup of the former Soviet Union.” Crimea? “Russia’s incorporation of Crimea and Sevastopol is over. It’s a fait accompli. We’ve just watched history get made, and stand by… there may be more of that history stuff yet to come.” The West has little stake in Crimea, but “control of Crimea is certainly a Russian national interest,” Byron goes on. “Yet pretty much the entire leadership caste of the West was caught flat-footed by Russia’s rapid takedown of Crimea.” The Wall Street Journal says U.S. intelligence services got none of the typical warnings that precede this sort of news. Then again, “How much intelligence gathering does it take to confirm that people running Russia — certainly Mr. Putin — believe strongly in pursuing Russia’s long-term security interests?” “For investors, implications run deep,” says Byron. “We live in a time of new crisis when the dollar may strengthen due to its safe-haven status but inflation is hiding in plain sight — as close as the next federal budget or Federal Reserve meeting. “In general, I like hard assets like precious metals, key industrial metals and energy supplies. Then there’s also leading-edge technology, for which the world will always provide a market. “With what we’re seeing,” he adds, “I anticipate a new arms race.” Byron once thought Asia would be the focus of that arms race, given China’s run-ins with its neighbors. “Now I suspect that the arms race will go global. The shock waves of Ukraine and Crimea will ripple out to touch markets and investors everywhere.” Near term, if U.S. intelligence really was caught flat-footed by Crimea, that means more spending for satellites and surveillance — good news for the “Big Five” defense contractors. Regards, Dave Gonigam Ed. Note: Longer term, it means big money flows to some very small players. And in today’s issue of The 5 Min. Forecast, Dave gave readers a chance to learn more about a handful of them. And that’s just one of the many real profit opportunities he relays in every single issue. Check it out for yourself, right here. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 08 Apr 2014 03:47 PM PDT Dollar Is Dropped As Countries And Central Banks Declared Their Holdings In Yuan : The housing bubble is now showing signs of popping with mortgage origination's plunging to their lowest level. Another banker commits suicide. The US government is now pushing their agenda of disarming the American... [[ 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! ]]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 08 Apr 2014 03:43 PM PDT Graceland Update | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. Headed for Neo-Communism - Mikkel Clair Nissen Posted: 08 Apr 2014 03:35 PM PDT Danish author says that the American economy is being deliberately destroyed to move it even farther left, on thoughts on why the EU & US is heading towards Neo-Communism or Corporate-Communism.The Dane spends 80% of every dollar on tax.What we in America are living in right now Lars is a... [[ 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! ]]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Why These 2 NYSE Gold Producers are Buying This Junior During a Bear Market Posted: 08 Apr 2014 02:56 PM PDT Gold is gaining strength as it may soon close above the 50 day after reversing above the 200 day moving average after falling below that level last week. That may have been a shakeout of weak hands below the 200 day as it appears in 2014 money has been moving from the overbought equity market into the undervalued commodities in the form of junior miners. Look for a close above the 50 day at $1310.
Investors may be preparing for the eventual reinflation, which may have been sparked by Yellen’s taper. The U.S. dollar and general equity market appears to be forming a rounding top while gold, silver and the junior miners are seeing increased accumulation a higher lows typical of new bull market moves. The key now is asset preservation in a rising interest rate, inflationary environment. I still believe gold, silver and the industrial metals specifically PGM’s, nickel and uranium could soar.
These are the areas that I believe are the safest to be when interest rates are negative and when Central Banks are continuing to fire up the printing press engines. The overbought social media and marijuana stocks with no earnings could be just beginning to bust. Look at all the IPO’s in social media and pot stocks reminding us of the Dot.Com craze. While these stocks come back to earth the junior miners could actually soar as The Fed may have to reverse their taper moves and actually increase quantitative easing to deal with the aftermath of the tech/marijuana bubble bursting. The junior sector has been beaten down for almost seven years on fears of deflation and a slowing global economy especially in China. Other sectors have reinflated real estate, financials and technology to ridiculously high levels. I believe the opportunities exist in the junior miners especially the gold explorers in Nevada. Canamex Resources (CSQ.V or CNMXF) recently announced that Gold Resource Corporation (GORO) has funded the company for the next major drilling program. This investment means that Gold Resource Corp will join Hecla (HL) as a strategic partner. When you see two large NYSE gold producers take significant positions it is time to pay full attention as they did plenty of due diligence in this company which is way undervalued and not yet discovered by the retail market.
There are many reasons these top miners are investing in Canamex. Canamex’s Bruner Project is located in Nevada which is probably the top gold mining jurisdiction in the world on 500 acres of private land. This means they may have a shorter permitting timeline. Canamex has excellent infrastucture with grid power only 12 miles away and access to a highway. The metallurgy is excellent with high extractions using lower levels of reagents. They have a historical resource which is growing with a recent drill intercept of 57.9 meters of over 5 g/ton. Canamex is diamond drilling five core holes to test this feeder zone.
The stock sold off as they got back the first hole which did not hit. However, one should realize four more holes are coming from this area alone. In addition they will have more than fifty or so further drill holes to assay.
Gold Resource Corp and Hecla did not invest millions of dollars for one drill hole. There is still a lot more from this drilling program to report. More drilling is expected from the historic resource before the core drill is moved to the Penelas East discovery where another RC drill will be coming in mid-April. Do not forget about Penelas East on a different part of the property where they hit 110 meter of over 4 g/ton material. Could they be connected with high grade feeder systems?
The investment by NYSE listed Hecla and Gold Resource Corp may signal that they feel there may be a good chance. Don’t panic from the first drill hole which was disappointing. Now with cash in hand Canamex has commenced diamond drilling at Bruner. Over 10k meters of drilling will take place in 2014 following up on the high grade feeder zone in the historic resource and the Penelas East Discovery. The company could have good news flow over the next six months as they are putting together a major drilling program in 2014. See my recent interview with Canamex (CSQ.V or CNMXF) CEO Bob Kramer by clicking on the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MGwSvidbTo Please call Canamex CEO and Director Robert Kramer for further information: 604.336.8621 Disclosure: I am a shareholder and the company is a website sponsor. ___________________________________________________________________________ Sign up for my free newsletter by clicking here… Sign up for my premium service to see new interviews and reports by clicking here… Please see my disclaimer and full list of sponsor companies by clicking here… Accredited investors looking for relevant news click here… Please forward this article to a friend. To send feedback or to contact me click here… Listen to other interviews with movers and shakers in the mining industry below or by clicking here… Listen to internet radio with goldstocktrades on BlogTalkRadio
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| A Way to Survive the World’s Next Debt Bubble Posted: 08 Apr 2014 02:26 PM PDT China is the greatest construction boom and credit bubble in recorded history. An entire nation of 1.3 billion has gone mad building, borrowing, speculating, scheming, cheating, lying and stealing. The source of this demented outbreak is not a flaw in Chinese culture or character — nor even the kind of raw greed and gluttony that afflicts all peoples in the late stages of a financial bubble. Instead, the cause is monetary madness with a red accent. Chairman Mao was not entirely mistaken when he proclaimed that political power flows from the end of a gun barrel — he did subjugate a nation of one billion people based on that principle. But it was Mr. Deng's discovery that saved Mao's tyrannical communist party regime from the calamity of his foolish post-revolution economic experiments. Just in the nick of time, as China reeled from the Great Leap Forward, the famine death of 40 million and the mass psychosis of the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Deng learned that power could be maintained and extended from the end of a printing press. And that's the heart of the so-called China economic miracle. Its not about capitalism with a red accent, as the Wall Street and London gamblers have been braying for nearly two decades; its a monumental case of monetary and credit inflation that has no parallel. At the turn of the century credit market debt outstanding in the US was about $27 trillion, and we've not been slouches attempting to borrow our way to prosperity. Total credit market debt is now $59 trillion — so America has been burying itself in debt at nearly a 7% annual rate. But move over America! As the 21st century dawned, China had about $1 trillion of credit market debt outstanding, but after a blistering pace of "borrow and build" for 14 years it now carries nearly $25 trillion. But here's the thing: this stupendous 25X growth of debt occurred in the context of an economic system designed and run by elderly party apparatchiks who had learned their economics from Mao's Little Red Book! China's giant credit bubble is the most massive malinvestment of real economic resources… ever known. That means there was no legitimate banking system in China — just giant state bureaus which were run by party operatives and a modus operandi of parceling out quotas for national credit growth from the top, and then water-falling them down a vast chain of command to the counties, townships and villages. There have never been any legitimate financial prices in China — all interest rates and FX rates have been pegged and regulated to the decimal point; nor has there ever been any honest accounting either — loans have been perpetual options to extend and pretend. And, needless to say, there is no system of financial discipline based on contract law. China's GDP has grown by $10 trillion dollars during this century alone — that is, there has been a boom across the land that makes the California gold rush appear pastoral by comparison. Yet in all that frenzied prospecting there have been almost no mistakes, busted camps, empty pans or even personal bankruptcies. When something has occasionally gone wrong with an "investment" the prospectors have gathered in noisy crowds on the streets and pounded their pans for relief — a courtesy that the regime has invariably granted. So in two short decades, China has erected a monumental Ponzi economy that is economically rotten to the core. It has 1.5 billion tons of steel capacity, but "sell-through" demand of less than half that amount — that is, on-going demand for sheet steel to go into cars and appliances and rebar into replacement construction once the current pyramid building binge finally expires. The same is true for its cement industry, ship-building, solar and aluminum industries — to say nothing of 70 million empty luxury apartments and vast stretches of over-built highways, fast rail, airports, shopping malls and new cities. In short, the flip-side of China's giant credit bubble is the most massive malinvestment of real economic resources — labor, raw materials and capital goods — ever known. Effectively, the country-side pig sties have been piled high with copper inventories and the urban neighborhoods with glass, cement and rebar erections that can't possibly earn an economic return, but all of which has become "collateral" for even more "loans" under the Chinese Ponzi. China has been on a wild tear heading straight for the economic edge of the planet — that is, monetary Terra Incognito — based on the circular principle of borrowing, building and borrowing. In essence, it is a giant re-hypothecation scheme where every man's "debt" becomes the next man's "asset". Thus, local governments have meager incomes, but vastly bloated debts based on stupendously over-valued inventories of land. Coal mine entrepreneurs face collapsing prices and revenues, but soaring double digit interest rates on shadow banking loans collateralized by over-valued coal reserves. Shipyards have empty order books, but vast debts collateralized by soon-to-be-idle construction bays. Speculators have collateralized massive stockpiles of copper and iron ore at prices that are already becoming ancient history. So China is on the cusp of the greatest margin call in history. Once asset values start falling, its pyramids of debt will stand exposed to withering performance failures and meltdowns. Undoubtedly the regime will struggle to keep its printing press prosperity alive for another month or quarter, but the fractures are now gathering everywhere because the credit rampage has been too extreme and hideous. Maybe Zhejiang Xingrun Real Estate which went belly up last week is the final catalyst, but if not there are thousands more to come. Like Mao's gun barrel, the printing press has a "sell by" date, too Of the more than US$562 million (RMB3.5 billion) that it owed to debtors, US$112 million was borrowed from 98 private parties with annual interest rates of up to 36%, according to recent revelations from Chinese media. Under that kind of pressure, the only surprise is that the default didn't happen sooner. The company struggled to find capital for years; the chairman is suspected of borrowing up to US$38.6 million with "fake mortgages." But before Xingrun gets branded as China's worst small, private homebuilder, it's important to understand how it ended up in the mess in the first place, and what specific factors brought the operation down, or at least to the brink of collapse (local government officials insist it hasn't officially defaulted yet). Xingrun's business in Fenghua, a county-level city that is part of Ningbo in a manufacturing belt on China's east coast, ran into trouble through a renovation project starting in 2007, Chinese media pointed out. The company attempted, after securing government support and taking over for another distressed local property company, to build high-rise apartment blocks in a village called Changting. The project required the company to build homes for the original residents before the existing village could be torn down and the new buildings built. Construction was slated to start in the first half of 2012. Xingrun projected that it could pay off its debts within three years. The project never got to the construction phase. In fact, the small village homes are still standing. Xingrun built the replacement homes for the villagers but there's no sign of its main housing product, high-rises. Nothing has happened because the residents of the village have tangled the project and the company in a lawsuit that has stretched for years. That explains why Xingrun was unable to pay back its loans. But why has it come so close to keeling over now? Its troubles with the Changting project persisted for years but the company simply rolled over loans and borrowed at high rates from private lenders. One problem for capital-strapped developers in the Ningbo area is that private lenders no longer want to lend to highly risky companies. In fact, they are calling in their loans. This is just one of the problems afflicting Xingrun. The value of property in some areas of Fenghua is decreasing and that trend has lowered confidence in developers' ability to pay dizzyingly high interest rates. Banks aren't hot on lending to this kind of developer either. In the past, a developer such as Xingrun could ask the local branch of a commercial bank for more credit. The local branch would take that risk because loan officers there knew that, somewhere much higher up the chain, officials promoted the lending. That support exists no longer. Now, when small developers beg local banks for credit, they will likely be turned away. Local bank managers are reportedly being told that they may lend to risky borrowers if they wish, but they will be held accountable. High risk is something no one seems willing to stomach these days – in stark contrast to just a year ago. Fenghua is a small town, and Xingrun's reach beyond that area is limited. Analysts have come out strong in saying that such a default has little systemic risk. The bigger picture in the region, however, can't be ignored. Xingrun's woes are still the woes of the local authorities. The default will add US$305 million (RMB1.9 billion) to Fenghua province's non-performing loan portfolio, pushing up the rate of toxic assets to 5.27% and making it Zhejiang province's most indebted government, according to calculations by The Economic Observer newspaper. Add Fenghua's problems to those of the greater Ningbo region. The area reportedly has at least six years of housing stock either sitting empty or under construction. The massive buildout will put small developers under great pressure to pay back loans, especially if private debtors are calling in high-interest loans. A slowdown in property prices won't help either. Without a rescue from provincial-level banks, Fenghua won't be the last local government stuck in a jam. Regards, David Stockman Ed. Note: China will undoubtedly feel the negative effects of its massive expansion of money and credit. But it is by no means the only country to do so. The US is in a similar boat, and when that situation begins to unravel, it will leave plenty of investors battered and broken along the way. Don’t be one of them. Sign up for The Daily Reckoning email edition, for FREE to discover actionable ways to protect your wealth no matter what happens. For more great essays and insight, please visit David Stockman’s Contra Corner. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 10 Questions About Gold Investing In 2014 Posted: 08 Apr 2014 10:56 AM PDT In this article, author Gary Christenson provides answers on ten very common questions about investing in precious metals (gold in particular) in 2014. With the gold price 40% off its peak, 2.5 years in a declining pattern on the chart, there are a lot of questions about the true value of gold investing. The answers, though, could be surprisingly simple, at least for those who are willing to see in an unbiased way. "Gold has been going down since August of 2011. It is clearly in a bear market, so why tell me it will go up?"
"I bought gold near the high in 2011 and I'm tired of waiting for it to go up! I should have bought the S&P instead and I'd be far better off.”
"I see nothing but trouble in the financial and political world. I see potential war in the Middle-East, in the Ukraine, in the South China Sea, and maybe elsewhere. I see morons in high places doing silly things. I see bankers printing their currencies to excess, as in uncharted territory excess, and I can't see how this will end well for anyone, even the upper 1% of the political and financial elite. I want to buy gold and hunker down but I also know that gold prices are manipulated, controlled, and capped, so why should I buy gold?"
"If gold were in a bull market, it would be going up but gold is clearly going down, so why do you think gold is in a bull market?"
"Why are you always harping on gold? I shorted the NASDAQ in early 2000, covered a few points off the bottom, sold my house at the peak in 2006, and bought stocks in early 2009. I'm probably far better off than you broken-record gold bugs. Get a life and find a new topic to rant about."
You doom and gloom types have been wrong for years. The S&P is at an all-time high, gold is off 40%, silver is down nearly 60%, and the Fed will support the stock market with a Greenspan/Bernanke/Yellen "put." Why are you still talking about gold and silver when stocks are clearly the place to be?"
"I think silver is a better value than gold. I think gold is going up and silver is going up even more. I'm selling my gold and buying silver. What do you think of that plan?"
"China is buying all the gold they can find and the western central banks and governments are selling. Is this wise for the western world?"
"I'm putting my trust in God and my money in 3 month Treasuries. I think you should also. Go ahead, admit it, you are a bit jealous."
"I think aliens are to blame for all the ills in the world today. What do you think?"
For more academic and enlightening analysis, you might find value in: Nick Giambruno "Timing the Collapse" Alasdair Macleod: "Renewed estimates of Chinese gold demand" Bill Bonner: "Civilization Will Not Survive"
GE Christenson The Deviant Investor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Stay Hedged with Precious Metals against Geopolitical Tensions and Monetary Policies Posted: 08 Apr 2014 10:35 AM PDT It has been slightly more than two weeks since the price of gold soared to over $1380 an ounce on due to tensions between the US, Europe and Russia over Crimea. As to be expected the event did not escalate into a major global war and so much of the safe haven buying has dissipated for now. But, the problems in the Ukraine, both financial and social are far from resolved. On Monday, gold saw some new safe-haven as concerns that tensions in Ukraine may escalate after Ukraine sent additional police forces into its eastern regions to quell pro-Russian protesters who seized government buildings in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv this week. The Ukrainian government sent security forces to Kharkiv to clear the country's second-biggest city of separatists as Russia traded accusations with the U.S. and warned that its neighbour's crackdown risks sparking civil war. The pro-Russian protesters demanded a referendum on seceding from Ukraine, state-run Rossiya 24 television reported. The mayor of Kharkiv confirmed reports that several dozen other demonstrators seized the regional television transmission mast and demanded that more Russian channels be broadcast, according to Interfax. The regional government building in Kharkiv was freed of separatists today, with 70 people detained, according to Avakov. The country's National Guard and irregular forces of Pravyi Sektor, an umbrella organization that unites nationalist groups, were gathering in southern and eastern Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Last week, gold traders were focused mainly of the latest non-farm payroll report from the US as well as the actions of the European Central Bank (ECB). On Friday, gold prices rebounded after the release of the latest US non-farm payroll report, and after a string of lower prices seen in previous sessions. According to the U.S. Labour Department, 192,000 new jobs were created in March after a gain of 197,000 in February. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.7%. Economists polled by Reuters had expected employment to increase 200,000 last month and the unemployment rate to dip to 6.6 percent. In the last few sessions the price of the yellow metal found some solid support at around the $1280 an ounce level even as traders on Comex tried to push prices lower. In the wake of the report the price of spot gold rallied strongly and moved upwards by $15.50 an ounce to close out the week at $1302.30 an ounce. Gold traders mulling the latest data released by the US Labour Department believe that the weaker-than-expected job numbers may force the Federal Open Market Committee to curtail tapering of quantitative easing. On Monday, Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen, in her first public address since becoming Fed chair two months ago, said that she was totally committed to the U.S. central bank’s easy-money policies. Since the 2008 financial collapse, the Fed has effectively printed more than $3 trillion. It has kept interest rates near zero for more than five years, and this month said it will keep them there for a considerable time even after it ends its bond-buying program, which is to be wound down later this year. In her speech to some 1,100 people at a downtown convention centre, Yellen said the “recovery still feels like a recession to many Americans, and it also looks that way in some economic statistics.” She said “considerable” slack still exists in the job market and said further monetary stimulus could be effective. “I think this extraordinary commitment is still needed and will be for some time, and I believe that view is widely shared by my fellow policymakers,” Yellen said. Meanwhile, even if the Fed continues tapering its bond-buying stimulus program, other central banks around the world are pumping out cheap money. Japan is going to continue with its unprecedented monetary stimulus programme and now that the European Central Bank is under new deflationary pressures, it is likely to continue its monetary stimulus. Inflation in the Eurozone hit its lowest level since November 2009 in March raising expectations the European Central Bank will take radical action to stop the threat of deflation in the currency bloc. Inflation has been in the ECB’s 'danger zone" of below 1% for six consecutive months. Prices have been falling at a pace of 6.5% in Greece, 5.6% in Italy, 4.7% in Portugal, 3% in Slovenia and nearly 2% in Holland since September, based on annualised estimates of Eurostat monthly data. The rise of the euro against the dollar, yen, Yuan and the currencies of Brazil, Turkey and developing Asia, account for some of this imported deflation. Last week the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to keep the key interest rate at its record low of 0.25%, but Draghi signalled that it may be further lowered if inflation does not increase over the next months. At a press conference last Thursday, (ECB) chief, Mario Draghi said that over the next months the central bank will consider various options of ‘quantitative easing’ to counter a very low inflation rate Quantitative easing, popularly known as money printing, is the purchase of financial assets from banks to increase the amount of money in circulation when there is a risk of deflation. Draghi said there is still no risk of deflation, but stressed that the ECB was willing to act to counter low inflation, too, not just deflation. He also refused to give details of how the quantitative easing would work, saying just that “the ECB will work on different options, to see which would be the most efficient”. Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) maintained record easing, as an April sales-tax hike threatens to trigger the deepest one-quarter contraction since the March 2011 earthquake. The BOJ kept a pledge to expand the monetary base at a pace of 60 trillion to 70 trillion yen ($677 billion) per year. "We will adjust policy without hesitation if achieving 2% inflation becomes problematic or if smooth progress isn't made toward the goal," Kuroda told reporters after the decision. Kuroda said he saw no need to change policy now, saying a positive economic cycle is continuing and growth will exceed potential even though it will rise and fall due to the tax increase. Downside risks in the global economy have been falling since last year, he said. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is raising the sales levy to 8% in April from 5%, as he tries to rein in a debt load that the International Monetary Fund projects will be equal to 242% of the economy by the end of the year. Governor Haruhiko Kuroda is predicted to face the biggest obstacle yet to his bid to generate 2% inflation as the first sales levy increase in 17 years squeezes households and businesses. The economy is forecast to shrink 3.9% in the three months from April, according to a Bloomberg poll of economists, ending a projected six straight quarters of growth. According to Bloomberg Japan's biggest bullion retailer, Tanaka Kikinzoku has reported a fivefold increase in gold demand, in the first 27 days of March. Bloomberg reports, 'sales for the quarter through March 27 were 249% higher than the same in three months in 2013.' Not only has the impending tax rise spurred sales, but so has the decline in the gold price. On Monday, the executive chairman of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, Ahmed bin Sulayem, speaking at the opening of the annua Dubai Precious Metals Conference, said that Dubai has become the biggest transit city for gold in the world last year with around 40% of the global physical gold trade passing through the city at 2,250 tons. 'The Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum set us a target of 50 per cent when the DMCC started in 2002 and we are still a little short,' he said. 'Gold worth a total of $75 billion was moved through Dubai in 2013.' As the central banks of the world in particular the US, Japan and Europe, continue with their expansionary monetary policies, the race to the bottom in fiat currencies is not yet over. As the US Federal Reserve continues to prop up insolvent banks and buy US Treasuries, over time, they will not be able to end these ever-expanding programs. In Europe, the equivalent is the sovereign debt now found on the European Central Bank (ECB) balance sheet. And, if we include Japans ultra-aggressive policy of doubling the monetary base in just two years, I believe that this unprecedented monetary experiment will end in disaster. I have long advocated that individuals should own physical bullion as a protection against the monetary recklessness of these bankers. This creation of money out of thin air and the application of more liquidity than the productive economy actually needs has caused the purchasing power of these fiat currencies to evaporate. Stay hedged with precious metals. Gold chart
Gold prices have broken back above the $1300/oz. level and the 200 day MA. Prices look set to trade with an upward bias in the short-term. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Collapse Of The United States & A New Economic World Order Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:55 AM PDT  On the heels of continued uncertainty around the globe, today an acclaimed money manager told King World News that a "New Economic World Order" threatens to collapse U.S. supremacy and the dollar. Stephen Leeb also spoke about how this will have a powerful impact on the gold market in this fascinating interview.This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Max Keiser Interviews Egon von Greyerz about Fed Policy, Dollar Devaluation and Gold Pri Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:41 AM PDT Matterhorn AM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Marc Faber Warns Get Your Gold Out Of The US NOW! Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:35 AM PDT This is an incredibly crucial time. What I have called the most dangerous time in human history for capital. You could end up doing almost everything right in the end and still losing everything. 'How?' You ask. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:32 AM PDT Based on questions, opinions, and rants from several websites, these are some typical questions and my answers: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Final Bubble Phase for the Stock Market: Final Capitulation for Gold Posted: 08 Apr 2014 09:21 AM PDT After two hard days down in the stock market I'm going to take a contrary position and say that this is just a normal profit taking event and that stocks are going to recover and head back up to new highs. I still think this market needs to have a final blow off bubble phase before the bull can die. The final bubble phase for stocks should usher in the final capitulation stage of gold's 2 1/2 year bear market. For those like SMT subscribers that are sitting in cash, this final capitulation is going to represent one of the greatest buying opportunities of this generation. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Misconception grows over gold demand and Shanghai discount – Phillips Posted: 08 Apr 2014 08:48 AM PDT In his latest update, Julian Phillips delves into the meaning of the Shanghai gold discount and argues another metric shows real demand these days. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold price rockets back over $1,300 Posted: 08 Apr 2014 08:48 AM PDT Analysts and traders weren’t over-exuberant about gold’s striking move this morning – pointing to consolidation, stop orders but also Ukraine. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Second Endeavour Silver mineworker killed in Mexico Posted: 08 Apr 2014 08:48 AM PDT A worker at Endeavour Silver's El Cubo mine was killed on Saturday, barely a week after another fatality at its Guanacevi mine. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Real Reason the U.S. Dollar Has Value Posted: 08 Apr 2014 08:15 AM PDT I was at a conference when I took out a dollar bill and waved it in front of the audience. I asked, "Why does this piece of paper have value?" It's interesting the range of answers I got. One person said "gold," which has nothing to do with it. There was a time when you could demand a fixed weight in gold in exchange for a dollar, but those days are gone. Another said, "You can buy things with it" — an answer that only begs the question why that it so. "Faith," said yet a third. Not quite. The answer is one that (some) economists have known about for a long time. I'll tell you about it below along with three other counterintuitive and seemingly bizarre conclusions about the twisted world of modern money. I don't think you would draw it up this way if you had the chance — but it's the way the system works. Government debt… is a form of savings for the private sector. Tax liabilities give otherwise worthless paper value. The U.S. dollar has value because the government levies $3 trillion in tax liabilities annually and accepts only U.S. dollars in payment — which only it issues. And there is the credible threat of penalties if you don't settle up with dollars. In so doing, the government turns all of us into dollar chasers. It's how a state, any state, can turn worthless pieces of paper into valued currency. "The modern state can make anything it chooses generally acceptable as money," economist Abba Lerner wrote in 1947. "If the state is willing to accept the proposed money in the payment of taxes and other obligations to itself, the trick is done." Brilliantly devious, isn't it? A dollar is, essentially, a tax credit. Economists call this the tax-driven view of money, and it is at least as old as Adam Smith. It is also one of the core principles of Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT. (This is a macroeconomic school of thought that has taken the deep dive into the plumbing of how modern money works.) The principles of MMT have a certain forceful logic. And they can lead to some shocking and uncomfortable conclusions… One example is that government deficits increase financial savings. It sounds outrageous. How can government deficits increase savings? Well, how else is the nongovernment sector supposed to get dollars? The only way is for the government to spend more than it collects — thereby leaving money in the economy. Or think of it this way, as economist Warren Mosler puts it: "When the government spends, only two things can happen to that money… the money can be used to pay taxes, or it isn't used to pay taxes. In which case, somebody out there still has it." So deficit spending equals financial savings at the macro level. Government debt, then, is a form of savings for the private sector. Everywhere there is a Treasury security there is someone who owns it. For that holder, it is a part of his financial wealth, or savings. But aren't government deficits and debt too large? They can be too large, which then causes the dollar to lose value. However, in a fiat currency system, it is natural for the government to be in deficit, because the private sector usually wants to save something. In fact, there is a good argument that any attempt to balance the budget is futile. It will simply lead people to cut spending in an effort to get back to a desired savings level. This also has the effect of contracting the economy and driving tax receipts lower, thereby putting the government back into deficit. The trouble with budget surpluses is they take money out of the economy. That puts pressure on private-sector balance sheets. It may not be so surprising to learn, then, that economic depressions have followed every major surplus in U.S. history. Another conclusion is that Government doesn't need taxes and bond sales to finance spending. Most people think that the government collects taxes and sells bonds to finance its spending. But remember, the government issues dollars. It can't run out. This sounds scary, but it's the naked truth of a fiat currency system. The U.S. government faces zero solvency risk. It can always meet all of its bills. Of course, there are consequences when government spends. If it spends "too much" relative to what dollars can buy and the desire to save, then the dollar can lose value. (Which is what's happened over the last century. I see no reason why this trend will end.) But the government clearly doesn't need to borrow or collect something it issues in order to spend. That's the point. Further, think about it from the beginning: What must a government do before it collects its own money in taxes? It has to spend the money first. That's how people get the dollars to meet the tax. So logically, spending precedes tax collection. There is a classic paper by Stephanie Bell (now Kelton) that demonstrates that "proceeds from taxation and bond sales are technically incapable of financing government spending" and that governments actually finance their spending by creating money directly. (See "Can Taxes and Bonds Finance Government Spending?"). It's a bit technical, but I believe it is correct and I mention it here in case you want to hunt it down. It's free online. There is another key insight that follows from this. The U.S. government never borrows from the Chinese to "finance" its budget deficit. The U.S. government is not at the mercy of foreign creditors. You've surely heard that the U.S. is in debt to China, because China holds some large amount of U.S. Treasury debt. Politicians even used this rhetoric around election time, saying how we are borrowing from the thrifty Chinese to pay for our lavish lifestyle. It's not true. And in fact, it can't be true. Let me cite economist L. Randall Wray, who put it in no uncertain terms: Those who claim that the U.S. government must borrow dollars from thrifty Chinese don't understand basic accounting. The Chinese do not issue dollars — the United States does. Every dollar the Chinese "lend" to the United States came from the United States…. The U.S. government never borrows from the Chinese to "finance" its budget deficit. Again, think through how the Chinese got the dollars. They sold stuff to Americans. Presumably, they did this because they wanted to acquire dollars. That can change, and the foreign exchange value of the dollar will change, too, to reflect the desire of foreigners to hold dollars. But the point I want to make is simply that the U.S. issues dollars; China and other foreign governments do not. Therefore, the U.S. doesn't rely on foreign creditors to finance its spending. As I told you, the world of modern money is a seemingly bizarre world, but it does have its own logic and principles. I've only touched on a few of the most surprising conclusions here. (I would humbly suggest that the best introductory guide to this monetary maze is Wray's Modern Money Theory: A Primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Money Systems.) At least you have a good answer why the U.S. dollar has value — albeit, a value that bleeds out over time. It's a currency, not an investment vehicle. Regards, Chris Mayer Ed. Note: As it stands, the US dollar is still incredibly valuable within global financial system. But eventually, that value will drop to zero. It might be 10, 100 or 1,000 years from now. But eventually, the dollar’s dominance will come to an end. Sign up for the FREE Daily Reckoning email edition, right here, to learn how to combat any future decline in the almighty dollar… and what to do in the meantime. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bullish Indicators from a Forgotten Market Sector Posted: 08 Apr 2014 07:56 AM PDT If you didn't own emerging market stocks back in 2007, you were considered a moron. A few years earlier, a Goldman Sachs analyst coined the term "BRIC" to describe the best emerging economies in the world at the time—Brazil, Russia, India and China. Thanks to this catchy bit of marketing genius, every investor wanted a piece of these markets. They all screamed higher in the years leading up to the financial crisis. However, since 2008, many emerging markets have been a complete disaster. The morons, as it turns out, were those who bought at the height of the frenzy. And since the current bull market kicked into gear five years ago, domestic stocks have trounced their emerging market counterparts. But all of that could change right now. Emerging markets are catching a bid. While U.S. stocks slide, now could be the perfect time to play a potential emerging markets bounce…
"Emerging market funds were absolutely clobbered in the first quarter. More than $50 billion in outflows from emerging market stock and bond funds illustrated a host of systemic issues for still-developing nations as investors took flight to safer assets," explains Rude researcher Noah Sugarman. "But emerging market funds saw $3.5 billion worth of inflows last week, with equities claiming $2.44 billion, and bonds seeing $1.06 billion. That's a welcome break for EM stock funds in particular, as it snapped a losing streaking that lasted an incredible 22 weeks." Someone flipped the switch… The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSE:EEM) is now down just 1% in 2014. Since its February lows, EEM has shot higher by more than 8%, compared to a 3.5% gain in the S&P 500.
"By themselves, these bullish indicators wouldn’t necessarily be indicative of a full-on turnaround, but emerging markets are beginning to show signs of life elsewhere," Noah continues. "Hard-hit currencies like the Indian rupee and the Indonesian rupiah have been seeing multi-month highs against the dollar that have remained largely under the radar. The MSCI emerging market index is also up almost 5% in the last month, too." Of course, a few weeks of solid performance doesn't negate all of our emerging market concerns. But it's important to remember that many emerging markets have been trading at crisis-level valuations for years. Markets lead. They're trying to tell us something here. While domestic stocks sag under the weight of falling momentum names, you could have the opportunity to take a shot at an emerging market rebound. Regards, Greg Guenthner P.S. While domestic stocks sag under the weight of falling momentum names, you could have the opportunity to take a shot at an emerging market rebound. Sign up for the Rude Awakening for FREE today to check out our new emerging market play… | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 08 Apr 2014 07:39 AM PDT SPOT GOLD for immediate delivery neared 2-week highs Tuesday in London, hitting $1314.30 per ounce but failing to move so sharply outside the US Dollar, which fell on the currency markets despite fresh tensions over eastern Ukraine. "We call for an immediate halt to military preparations which could lead to an outbreak of civil war," the Kremlin said in a statement to Kiev, which earlier claimed to have retaken regional government buildings in Kharkiv from pro-Russia separatists. Western stock markets edged 0.8% back but the spot gold price in Euros slipped below €950, unchanged for the week so far, as the Euro today rose to 1-week highs against the Dollar. The International Monetary Fund today warned that the 18-nation Eurozone faces deflation, and urged quantitative easing money creation from the central bank. "Frankly," ECB chief Mario Draghi said in last week's monthly press conference, "I would like the IMF to be as generous in its suggestions also with other monetary policy jurisdictions, like for example issuing statements just the day before a [Fed] meeting would take place." Tuesday saw the British Pound pushed spot gold 0.7% lower to £781 as it rose on the forex market following stronger-than-forecast UK manufacturing data. China's Yuan currency also rose against the Dollar, reaching a 2-week high but holding 2.5% weaker from mid-January's record high. Any move away from "allowing adjustment" and "a market-determined exchange rate" would raise "serious concerns" in Washington, an un-named Treasury official who apparently gave a press conference by phone is quoted today by Reuters. Re-opening after the Ching Ming bank holiday, the Shanghai Gold Exchange saw spot gold finish Tuesday equal to $1310 per ounce as the Yuan ticked higher. That equated to more than $1.50 per ounce over and above the international benchmark of quotes for London settlement at that time, the strongest Shanghai gold price premium since end-Feb. "Depreciation in the CNY has kept the Shanghai-London price differential [in spot gold] subdued," says ANZ Bank's commodity team today. One week after Beijing unveiled a "mini stimulus" plan, aimed at preserving 7.5% annual growth but financed by debt raised on the bond market, anyone expecting government cash injections will be "disappointed", says an article from official news agency Xinhua today, calling talk of stimulus "misleading". "Many of the factors that supported gold prices in the first quarter [will] dissipate," says Morgan Stanley analyst Joel Crane in a new client report. So "we believe the gold price is set to resume a declining trend," he says, nevertheless raising his average 2014 spot gold forecast by 5% to $1219 per ounce. Physical gold prices as dealt at the London Fix have so far averaged $1292.50 per ounce in 2014. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Precious Metals Market Report with Franklin Sanders Posted: 08 Apr 2014 05:00 AM PDT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monetary Insurance: Protect With Physical Silver Against The Financial Winter Posted: 08 Apr 2014 01:53 AM PDT As part of our research to unveil the best tactics and strategies to protect against the upcoming tsunami in monetary and financial markets, we have reached out to Charles Savoie, author and researcher, with a tremendous knowledge of precious metals history. Our question was how individuals and small investors can best protect during the hard times that are coming, which will most likely be characterized as turmoil and collapses (of all sorts of assets, including currencies, around the world). Charles Savoie wrote a very useful document for our readers. It is entitled “The Best Monetary Insurance”, counts 38 pages, and is a mix of practical tips embedded in an historical context. The key message of Mr. Savoie is to hold enough silver in physical form, ideally a mix of formats, but for sure silver dimes. In this article, we highlight the most actionable tips and tactics. The full document is embedded at the bottom, it can also be downloaded. Visit Mr. Savoie his two websites: www.nosilvernationalization.org and www.silverstealers.net. He offers all this information as a free service to the public. Silver has historically played an important role. It has been money, but, more than anything else, a metal of the elites. Consider this:
The best monetary insurance you can have is 90% silver dimes 1964 and earlier. Many gold bugs readily admit silver to be more depressed than gold. Ted Butler stated long ago that not even gold has a users association. The fact of the existence of this group is another of many proofs that synthetic money creators hate and fear silver even more than their loathing for gold. The Silver Users Association started out as the Silver Users Emergency Committee in World War II and in 1947 was renamed the Silver Users Association. Directors of SUA companies, especially the biggest silver users, are also since that time, directors of megabanks. 90% U.S. coins, historic money, facilitated many billions of transactions during their long history spanning many generations. Inasmuch as silver is so depressed relative to gold, personally, I advocate owning little or no gold; unless the investor cannot acquire silver. This is not disdain for gold, but more so, advocacy for acquiring the interest with higher potential. Silver can be swapped for gold at a later time if the ratio tilts to overvalue silver versus gold. Why buy 1 ounce of gold today versus 60+ silver ounces, when you may be able later on to swap those 60 + silver ounces for over 5 gold ounces? A silver dime at the mints started out with a content of .0723 oz silver (4 digits is enough!) Due to average circulated wear, the business typically uses the figure of .0715 ounce contained silver. You will be able to tell the difference from a dime with no wear and a dime with light wear and more so, a heavily worn dime. I feel that very worn dimes are better melted, except for collectors seeking an inexpensive "cull" or "filler" coin for a key date and mint mark. When you buy dimes, you're unlikely to get any with 89.24% silver, which were minted from 1796 to 1837. The clear advantage of Mercury dimes over Roosevelt is guaranteed identification of purity with no check of the date nor glance at the rim to look for telltale copper insides. Silver coins have a surprisingly large variation in surface tone, and you can't always rely on telling the surface tone of a cupronickel (sandwich dime, 1965 and later) from a silver dime. Of course, proof silver dimes (1992-2009) can be found in dates beyond the fabled 1964 date. These are good buys generally only if you chance to come by some in a batch of mixed date dimes, in which case, they won't be proof anymore, but will very likely stand way out due to newness and absence of wear. I am not saying buy silver dimes, and no other silver. I have all types except the 1,000 ounce ingots, which you can anticipate having to have assayed if you have these and decide to sell. Unless you're a larger investor and have intentions of using metal to buy land, stick with smaller units. Having smaller units wouldn't preclude their use in buying land; smaller units are more "maneuverable" as to utility in purchases. If dimes aren't available, try for quarters. It mostly comes down to two considerations. One, the 90% coins haven't been minted now for an entire half century—they get scarcer by the day, as some of these are always being smelted into bullion with silver scrap at refineries, and being melted in jewelers crucibles with some three-niner, in a proportion to yield .925 Sterling jewelry and Two, the silver dime is the most divisible, or the most fractionated, form of silver. You can go buy a 100 ounce silver bar. However, you can instead go for the same amount of silver, approximately, in 90% dimes. This equates to almost exactly 1,400 dimes (28 rolls of 50 coins) at the .0715 figure. In most cases, dealers have allowed me to cherry pick the dimes I wanted and the methodology I used was as follows. Tip: Avoid damaged coinsNever buy coins with damage such as hole drilled, bent, clipped, etched (vandalized) or shaved rims. There's the inevitable coin with red nail polish, best avoided. While date and mint mark checking is usually only practical in over the counter situations, and is unlikely to turn up anything of outstanding scarcity, it could help you in terms of being able to assemble some starter sets for sale to numismatic collectors. So while you aren't paying numismatic prices, you will be getting some numismatic values, as long as people want to collect coin series as a hobby or business. It pays to print out a list of these mint issues and be familiar with them Tip: Avoid high premiumsYou can buy .999 silver as half, quarter, and tenth of an ounce rounds. There is nothing wrong with these items. However, know two things—the collectible value will remain less, and when you buy 90% coin, you aren't paying for any manufacturing or minting premium. You will pay such premiums with the smaller three-niners. Seven dimes in nearly all cases can be considered a touch more than a half ounce of silver; and 14 dimes a full ounce. In terms of how much silver is out there as separate items each weighing less than one ounce, definitely at this time, there is more 90% coin than these newer bullion items. If your silver consists entirely of three and four-niner bullion—stop! Buy some dimes, or trade bullion for some dimes. These 90% coins—in all denominations—are increasingly hard to source. More investors have caught on that whereas these coins are a half century and older, and the supply is constantly shrinking; bullion silver will be produced as long as mining and scrap can supply silver. The 90% silver, though not industrially pure as is, is nonetheless the scarcer form of silver. If buying on E-Bay, do avoid dealers with less than very high positive feedback. Be fairly quiet about your holdings—no boasting to anyone. Keep these precious items in several scattered, and unpredictable—locations. If a thief finds one cache, hopefully the others will be missed. Tip: Where and how to store your bullionIf you don't have a vault or safe, and plan to obtain one, you may consider paying cash, for clear reasons you can imagine yourself. If it needs to be delivered and installed, arrange to have someone photograph the delivery personnel and the vehicle, from several views. When my vaults were delivered to an off-site location I have, I remarked as they were finishing, "Now if I only had something worthwhile to store in them;" I then indicated I expected to inherit an antique gun collection in several years. It never hurts to be careful. Read "The Art Of War" by Sun-Tzu. Many major military blunders, costing so many lives. As always, check ratings first, and buy from the source with the best ratings. There's always the steel vault and loaded gun approach—which are quite reasonable. I advise going on EBay and buying some cheap synthetic rubies. Then, you make up a phony gemological appraisal showing a stone is worth lots of money. Next, you place these in a jewelry box (unlocked) on top of a dresser. A thief would think he's got a real haul, and maybe decide to stop searching. I suggest printing out articles making fun of silver as investment, and leaving these where you think it might mislead someone. If you use a keypad operated vault, consider acquiring a battery recharger and the http://www.ebay.com/bhp/solar in case the power grid fails and the stores close. If you find your battery operated keypad fails due to battery exhaustion, this device will solve the problem of accessing your money metal. Be sure you're using compatible batteries in the first place; they must be a size that matches the recharger, and must be rechargeable batteries. Keep backup batteries in a climate controlled environment where they'll last longer. Cover any vault/safe with a tarp or other use of drapery, such as a decorative item—even a Mexican style multicolored serape http://www.ebay.com/bhp/mex or even plain canvas. Whenever possible, place any type of objects of low value on top, around and in front of the safe. Tip: Check what you are buyingNever buy a bag, half bag, quarter bag or tenth of an ounce bag in a shop without first having it opened up and spread out, unless you have a long trust relationship with the dealer. Paper rolls, more than plastic tube rolls, should be checked. You aren't accusing the dealer of dishonesty, you are verifying contents, because errors can happen on anyone's part. Eventually, due to real variations in silver weight in bags, these will have to be sold by actual weight rather than by face value times a factor! Check ratings of Internet sellers before buying. Many unfortunates out there are stressed out due to the Tulving fiasco. I consider the 40% Kennedy halves (1965-1970) a poor choice as long as 90% is available. The war nickel series, 1942-1945, contains even less silver, at 35% but is a better buy, weight for weight, if similar rates for contained silver are offered. Those nickels are more historic. In closing, Charles Savoie says: “The suppression of the silver price is the most nagging and pestilential problem in world monetary history.” | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold Miners Index: Domed House and Three Peaks Chart Pattern Posted: 08 Apr 2014 01:03 AM PDT The Miners Index has made a perfect Domed House and Three Peaks Chart Pattern. This pattern, discovered by a stock market analyst, George Lindsay, can be found in multiple timeframes. On the following charts you can see the model of the Lindsay’s Domed House and Three Peaks Pattern, as well as the current chart of the Miners Index (HUI). You can notice that the HUI Index has made a perfect Domed House and Three Peaks Pattern during these last ten years. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. bristles at China's infringement of its monopoly on currency market rigging Posted: 08 Apr 2014 12:32 AM PDT US Warns China After Renminbi Depreciation By Robin Harding and Josh Noble The US has warned Beijing not to go back to manipulating its currency, following a sharp depreciation of the renminbi since the start of 2014. "If the recent currency weakness signals a change in China's policy away from allowing adjustment and moving toward a market-determined exchange rate, that would raise serious concerns," said a senior Treasury official ahead of this week's IMF, World Bank, and G20 meetings in Washington. ... ... For the full story: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3355dc74-bed7-11e3-a1bf-00144feabdc0.html 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: Porter Stansberry Natural Resources Conference Committee for Monetary Research and Education http://www.cmre.org/news/spring-meeting-2014/ 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 Silver mining stock report for 2014 comes with 1-ounce silver round Future Money Trends is offering a special 18-page silver mining stock report about how to profit with the monetary and industrial metal in 2014, and it comes with a free 1-ounce silver round. Proceeds from the report's sales are shared with the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts to expose manipulation in the monetary metals markets. To learn about this report, please visit: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What Gold Stock Insider Trading Tells Us Posted: 07 Apr 2014 11:48 PM PDT Despite the recent big gains in gold stocks, company insiders and institutional investors are still 2.5 times more likely to be buyers than sellers. According to Ted Dixon, co-founder and CEO of INK Research, this shows that those in the know are still quite bullish, despite the pullback in March. In this interview with The Gold Report, Dixon names the top insider buyers by dollar amount and by volume and explains how investors should interpret this data. The Gold Report: The price of gold fell more than 6% in March. To what do you attribute this? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 07 Apr 2014 11:33 PM PDT Recently I visited the breathtaking city of Hong Kong to speak at the seventh-annual Mines and Money conference, Asia-Pacific’s premier event for mining investment deal-making and capital-raising. During my time in Asia I had the additional privilege of addressing the audience of the Asia Mining Club, alongside my good friend Robert Friedland, Executive Chairman and Founder of Ivanhoe Mines. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Putin’s Wrath Can Be Your Gain Posted: 07 Apr 2014 11:28 PM PDT On March 4, I wrote a Daily Dispatch on the European dependence on Russian natural gas. Since then, Putin has annexed Crimea and is engaged in a new “Cold War” with the US and EU, which means the situation is about to get worse for the EU-27 countries, not better. Almost one month later, on April 1, Gazprom jacked up the natural-gas price for Ukraine by 44% overnight, and there’s a lot of talk within the energy sector that more price hikes may be on the way. With so much happening on the European energy scene right now, Doug Casey and I decided that it was time to take a look for ourselves. As Doug and I usually do when we find something interesting, we ring our travel agent (whom we have on speed dial) and get the next flight out. (I do have to give credit to her because we ask a lot from her; often our flights go to places few people have ever heard of.) This week, Doug and I will hit up five countries in seven days, and I’ll be visiting five major oil projects in Europe during the trip. Gazprom’s Death Grip on EuropeLast week, BusinessWeek ran an article stating that Russian Gazprom, the world’s largest natural-gas producer, “has tumbled three straight years in the stock market.” “Since [April 2007],” writes BusinessWeek, “no company among the world’s top 5,000 has suffered a bigger collapse in market capitalization than Gazprom, a $154 billion plunge that’s become emblematic of the malaise that has overtaken President Vladimir Putin’s economy.” What they seem to overlook is how much clout Gazprom has on the European continent, share price drop or not. Fact is, in the pie chart below you see the company’s clients—with Germany being Gazprom’s number one customer and Turkey, Italy, Poland, and the UK making up the rest of the Top Five Countries with Energy Thumb Screws. Even more alarming and shocking is other European countries’ dependence on Gazprom, seen below: On this fact-finding mission, Doug and I will be visiting Germany, Italy, the UK, and two other countries to meet with government officials, complete site visits where we will see the drill rigs turning, and find out which companies are in the best position to make a profit for our subscribers. Lord Browne Gets It!I firmly believe that Lord John Browne, the former CEO of BP and now the chairman of Cuadrilla Resources, will sometime in the near future be viewed as a visionary and hero by the people of England. After we recommended Cuadrilla Resources to our subscribers in late 2007 and early 2008, Riverstone Holdings, a large New York-based private equity firm, invested in the company, and Lord Browne made his comeback to the energy scene in a big way. Today, Lord Browne is fighting the good fight. He will prove that he’s right and that the shale gas development within Europe was a smart move. Thousands of jobs will be created, and the result will be a decreased reliance on Russian natural gas. The UK Parliament is fully supporting shale gas exploration and development in Britain, and in the coming months and years, more countries will follow the British model—not because they want to, but because they have to. In early March, natural-gas futures in both the UK and Germany popped over 10% as the Russians took over Crimea. Germany, Spain, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, and Denmark all have approved shale exploration in one form or another. Of course, it will take time for various shale oil and gas formations to be developed—and just like in North America, not all shale formations are the same—but it will happen. What’s happening right now in the unconventional oil and gas sector in Europe is similar to the North American Shale Gas Revolution in the early 2000s. And just like in North America, incredible fortunes will be made by those who bet on the right management teams exploring the right shale formations in Europe. The European Energy Renaissance Has StartedAt the most recent annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this past January, the main talking point was energy and the quest for energy independence. This is a topic every US president has talked about since the 1960s, but it wasn’t until shale oil and gas became a reality that America had the very real potential of achieving energy independence, or of at least decreasing its dependence on imports. The European nations—such as the UK, Germany, Spain, and Poland—are well aware of the success of the North American unconventional shale oil and gas sector. It has caused electricity prices to drop—something Europe desperately needs, as the citizens of most EU countries pay 100-300% more for electricity than the average North American resident. Cuadrilla’s Bowland basin shale project in Lancashire, UK, was a not a grassroots discovery. The model was actually quite simple. I know, because I was one of the largest investors in the deal before Lord Browne and Riverstone stepped in. The business plan was to apply modern North American technology and equipment to a known geological formation. With my experience through Cuadrilla, I have refined my investing model: Bring modern North American unconventional technology and equipment to past-producing, known oil and gas fields. This is why Doug and I are flying across the world, going to five countries in a week, and looking at five major oil and gas projects in Europe. We will not only have an update on our “Next Bakken” company after we visit the site and see the production results for ourselves—we will also put the final touches on our research report on one of the most important oil wells being drilled in all of Europe. We have done our homework using the Casey “8 Ps” as our guide; we’ve met with management and gone over all of the geology. Now we’ll meet the drillers on site who are currently drilling the project using one of Europe’s most modern drill rigs. We want to see how the drilling is going, and our Casey Energy Report subscribers will be the first to know what we expect from the drill results. This one story has the potential to return anywhere between 150% and 500% in the next 12 months, based on the current drilling alone. I don’t have any doubt that this may be the most important oil well drilled in all of Europe in 2014, and many major international oil companies will be watching. The Next Best Thing to Coming AlongThe best way to stay up to date on the exciting developments in the European Energy Renaissance is to give the Casey Energy Report a risk-free try today. Test my newsletter for the next 3 months. If you don’t like it or don’t make any money, just cancel within that time for a full, no-questions-asked refund. Upon signing up, you’ll receive instant access to the current and archived Energy Report issues, as well as subscribers-only special reports and portfolio updates. As a Casey Energy Report subscriber, you’ll not only receive a timely email update on our site visit analysis on the “Next Bakken,” you’ll also read all about the most important European oil well drilled in 2014, in a detailed analysis that I’m preparing for the next monthly issue. So if you want to get behind the real winners from the European Energy Renaissance and make some serious money from the inevitable bull market in oil, click here to get started now. |
Despite a sharp jump in equities and low demand in China, the 
As we have discussed numerous times, 
Leeb: "Eric, last week we spoke about the threat being posed by Russia, China, and the various BRIC nations, against the dominance of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. But if you look at the history of people who have challenged oil being priced in dollars, what happened is the U.S. has militarily wiped them off the face of the Earth….
In the last few months, I’ve noted increasing interest from clients wanting to take physical delivery of their precious metals holdings. This appears to be a worldwide trend. Colleagues in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Singapore have informed me that many of the wealthiest investors in Asia and Europe are now demanding delivery of their gold holdings from bonded warehouses in London, Chicago, and elsewhere.
Gold Today – The New York gold price closed at $1,296.50 up $10.20 on Friday last week the same as yesterday, in New York. Asia showed renewed vigor and lifted the gold price to $1,308 ahead of London's opening, after their holiday, before London lifted it over $1,312.00 ahead of the Fix. The gold price was Fixed in London at $1,314.75 up $21.25. In the euro, it Fixed at €955.14 up €11.393 as the euro was weaker at $1.3766 down from $1.3706: €1. Ahead of the opening in New York gold stood at $1,311.50 and in the euro at €950.36. 
The Casey Energy Team published Cuadrilla’s first-ever research report back in 2007. A cuadrilla, by the way, is the team of helpers that aid the matador in a bullfight; the founders of the company believed that production from shale gas would help Europe free itself from its addiction to Russian natural gas.| 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 |
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