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- High gold price worsens global health damage from mercury – UN
- Top market timer DeMark: Get ready for another selloff
- SocGen's surprising gold forecast
- Aussie Dollar Explodes on ECB Positivity
- Corvus Gold’s Outlook 2013
- Gold miners, bullion and the currency war
- Record Q4 gold output bodes well for Centamin's Sukari mine future
- Silver Institute to offer $200 mln convertible senior notes
- So… you are scared and want to sell your Gold?
- There is an Exception to the Rule
- China prepares for paper apocalypse
- U.S. Mortgage-Fraud: The Next Chapter
- Tajikistan holds 100 tons of stream Gold reserves
- Borrowing From MasterCard to Pay For Visa-Gregory Mannarino
- Germany may invest in Reko Diq Gold project
- Pakistan imports Gold worth $16.387 million in Nov 2012
- Silver Mining Stocks Set to Explode as Market Forces Terminate Metals Manipulation
- 2013 Silver American Eagles as Low As $2.49 Over Spot
- India may rise Gold duty to 6% as imports surge again
- Silver price looking to close at second highest level of the year
- Price of Gold Ahead of Chinese New Year Buying, US Debt Ceiling Deadline
- US Debt Default Looms as Soon as Feb. 15
- Chinas appetite for gold marches on they snap up another gold mine in Australia
- Chinese Trade Surplus Jumps Ahead of New Year
- Gold Star's 2012 Ghana Gold output up 12%
- Gold price moves higher as the Bank of England decides to keep rates at historic lows
- My plan to wipe out the banksters in London is WORKING!!!
- CPM Platinum Market Analysis & Forecast for 2013
- Royal Australian Mint reproduces Holey Dollar and Dump
- Gold cools ahead of key ECB meet
- Silver gains popularity among investors amid economy fears
- Proprietary Trading, the Bogeyman That Didn’t Take Down Wall Street
- Tocqueville Gold Strategy Investor Letter: Fourth Quarter 2012
- Lawrence Williams: $1 Trillion Platinum Coin Hogwash
- $1 trillion platinum coin hogwash – if it should happen buy gold and silver
- India’s Gold Mania
- Gold & Silver Shares: Nightmare or Opportunity?
- Project S.H.A.M.E: The Recovered History of Charles Murray
- “Gold Correction Awaited” in India, US Monetary Policy “Gives No Reason to Change Bullish View on Gold”
- Former Deutsche Bank Employee Claims Bank Took Big Libor Bets During Crisis Because It Could Influence Rates
| High gold price worsens global health damage from mercury – UN Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:36 PM PST A leap in gold prices to almost $1,700/oz from $400 less than a decade ago has spurred a surge in small-scale gold mining in South America, Africa and Asia, a U.N. study showed on Thursday. |
| Top market timer DeMark: Get ready for another selloff Posted: 10 Jan 2013 01:12 PM PST From Bloomberg: The two-month rally in U.S. stocks will end as the advance in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index toward 1,500 depletes buyers, according to Tom DeMark, the creator of indicators to show turning points in securities. The benchmark index for U.S. equities will climb to an intraday high of 1,492.73 and form a sell signal on a daily Combo indicator, which is designed to identify market tops and bottoms, said DeMark, who has spent more than 40 years developing market-timing indicators. The S&P 500 will then fall at least 5.5 percent, he said. "This high could occur as early as tomorrow," DeMark wrote in an e-mail. "1,492.73 is just shy of psychological 1,500 as most traders are predisposed to look at markets in terms of round numbers and will expect 1,500 to be hit. And just to confound them, expect market to trade not quite to 1,500." The S&P 500 has rallied 8.4 percent from its November low as the Federal Reserve expanded its bond purchase program to boost the economy and lawmakers passed a bill averting most of the more than $600 billion of spending cuts and tax increases known as the fiscal cliff. The index rose 0.5 percent to 1,467.57 at 2 p.m. New York time today, above its highest closing level since December 2007. An advance to 1,492.73 would push the S&P 500 above a four-year intraday high of 1,474.51 reached Sept. 14 and help the index complete a "13 countdown" on the Combo chart, according to DeMark. DeMark's "countdown" study involves comparing a security's closing price to its highest or lowest levels two days earlier, with cycles of "exhaustion" forming when a pattern continues 13 times. 'Solo Move' DeMark, an adviser to Steven A. Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors LP, predicted that the S&P 500's retreat in 2011 would stop at 1,076. The index bottomed at 1,074.77 on Oct. 4, 2011. His Oct. 24 call for the S&P 500 to make a "solo move" and rally 5 percent to about 1,480 around the presidential elections didn't come true. On Dec. 4, he said the Shanghai Composite Index's decline below 1,960 signaled selling has climaxed. The Chinese equity gauge has jumped 16 percent since. DeMark provided consulting to hedge funds including George Soros's Soros Fund Management LLC and Leon Cooperman's Omega Advisors Inc. Market Studies makes money by charging traders for access to its indicators. It also sells subscriptions to the indicators on the Bloomberg Professional service for $500 a month. Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, takes a percentage. DeMark has a similar arrangement with Thomson Reuters Corp. DeMark won't say how many subscribers he has. To contact the reporter on this story: Lu Wang in New York at lwang8@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at lthomasson@bloomberg.net. More on technical analysis:       |
| SocGen's surprising gold forecast Posted: 10 Jan 2013 12:11 PM PST Societe Generale looks at the implications for commodities if there is a hard landing in China and comes to some interesting conclusions on gold, says Business Insider's Mamta Badkar. |
| Aussie Dollar Explodes on ECB Positivity Posted: 10 Jan 2013 11:20 AM PST Precious metals also responded very favorably to Draghi's comments this morning. Gold futures are up around $21 today while silver futures are up over 2%. Besides precious metals, natural gas is one of the stronger commodities on the board.  |
| Posted: 10 Jan 2013 10:46 AM PST Below is our interview with Jeff Pontius, founder & CEO of Corvus Gold.  |
| Gold miners, bullion and the currency war Posted: 10 Jan 2013 10:41 AM PST Chris Mancini, an analyst with the $400 million Gabelli Gold Fund, believes that gold will emerge the victor from the currencies war currently raging. An interview with The Gold Report. |
| Record Q4 gold output bodes well for Centamin's Sukari mine future Posted: 10 Jan 2013 10:40 AM PST Although some political problems may still be looming over its Sukari gold mine in Egypt, Centamin's Q4 results are impressive, exceeding guidance despite some disputes and stoppages. |
| Silver Institute to offer $200 mln convertible senior notes Posted: 10 Jan 2013 10:37 AM PST Silver Standard expects to grant the initial purchasers of the Notes an option to purchase up to an additional $30 million aggregate principal amount of Notes at any time on or before the 30th day after the initial closing of the offering. |
| So… you are scared and want to sell your Gold? Posted: 10 Jan 2013 10:30 AM PST $10,000 Gold And 'Monetary' Roots: From Kunta Kinte To Keynes According To The Bretton Woods Calculation, Gold Is Worth $20,000 Per Ounce Has this latest correction within the larger 1 year+ consolidation scared the bejesus out of you? Have you been thinking that maybe you should sell your Gold and buy Faceplant instead? Or better yet, something really safe like U.S. Treasuries? The above 2 links do a little bit of math, the first one concludes that if the Dollar were to be backed 100% by (supposed Ft. Knox) Gold it would need to be $10,000 per one ounce. The second says that with the current QE of $85 billion per month, under the original Bretton Woods plan the ratio would be $20,000 per ounce by 2015. Please keep in mind that these calculations are strictly done on U.S. money supply and not total indebtedness. $10,000, $20,000… what's the difference? What is the real pinpointed mathematical number? Does it really matter? In fact, one cannot even truly pinpoint a number because of total "future benefits and current guarantees", if these were used you would be looking at a 6 figure number. But, like I just said… "Does it really matter?" All we really do know is that the "ratio" of Dollars to Gold is MUCH higher than it is currently "fixed" at now. To put it bluntly, exchanging Dollars for Gold now is like "picking money up off of the street!" Have you ever done this? Walk down the street and found a $10 or even $20 bill just laying there? Did you pick it up, look around to see if someone was close by or digging in their pocket looking for lost money? Did you feel bad because someone lost it and you didn't know where to return it? THIS, right now is your opportunity to "pick money up off the streets" …and not feel bad about it! With this opportunity, no one "lost" the money. No, the global central banks have been trying to fool Mother Nature since the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement and all you would be doing is taking advantage or "their" so called free market. Yes I know, the markets… ALL markets are manipulated today but what says you can't take advantage of the situation? After all, isn't that exactly what "free markets" are all about? To get back to the $10,000/$20,000 numbers, are these for real? Yes, do the math yourself. Does it matter if you are "exact" in your calculations? No, not at all and in fact all you need to know is that the number is multiples of the market current price. Actually you cannot do a truly accurate calculation because the "numbers" provided by the government are probably not exactly correct AND we cannot accurately forecast what "money supply" will do going forward. Yes I know "going forward" doesn't come into the equation for "current" value but… wait, shouldn't it? If you knew that next year the Fed was going to double the size of their balance sheet and double money supply, wouldn't you need to give current Dollars a 50% haircut? Of course you would. This is akin to a PE ratio where stocks trade on a multiple of expected future earnings. No different really except that Gold had traded at a deeper and deeper "discount" to total debt and money supply from 1980 to 2001 until investors figured out the discount was too much. The pendulum has been swinging from too much of a discount and will probably not stop until it reaches the level where it fully "balances" with money and debt. This balancing act happened in 1980 and some would say also back in 1932 when it was revalued. Please keep in mind that Gold traded at "par" with the Dow Jones industrial average twice before, 1933 and again in 1980. In both of these eras, times were bad really bad. And now? Do you see "bad" times coming? Do you see bad times already here? If you don't… you should. The Dow is now 13,000 mas o menos, can you see it go higher in a hyperinflation? Of course you can, just look at the stock markets (in local currencies) of every nation that has gone through a hyperinflation, they go down first and then POW…they exploded higher because people wanted to put their money in "something"… ANYTHING, other than the local currency that was collapsing. So, relax and chill out. You don't know the "real" number, I don't know the real number… no one does. What you do know is that the real number is higher, MUCH higher and in fact multiples of where it is now. "Pick the money up off the street," only you can do this for yourself. No one is going to bend over, pick it up and hand it to you. THIS you have to do for yourself, do it with confidence!
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| There is an Exception to the Rule Posted: 10 Jan 2013 10:00 AM PST Gold isn't an investment, gold is money. If gold goes up 100% or 150% you really aren't ahead, but you can keep up with rising prices. That's the general perception of gold. But, as in all things, there is an exception to the rule. I'm going to tell you a story now, one that will show you how to take advantage of gold's rise in a way far more beneficial than merely "treading water." In late 2004, we finished paying off our mortgage on our home in St. Louis Park. This was the first time in our 40-year marriage that we had no debt. We bought a bottle of Champaign to celebrate. No more house payments! This was great. However, we were also very close to building a new house. Just a few months after being debt-free, I took out a million dollar plus loan to start construction on a new house in Deephaven. From no debt to over a million dollars in debt just like that. This was a real shock for Susan. She read Richard Russell every day and had a great deal of confidence in what he had to say – and Russell was saying the thing to do was eliminate all debt. How could we justify this? We had enough assets (primarily gold and silver, but for the sake of this discussion let's just say it was all gold) that could be sold and the proceeds used to pay cash for the new house. Why not follow Russell's advice, sell the gold, pay cash for the house and have no debt? That is the question I had to wrestle with. At the time, gold was $500 an ounce. I would have to sell 2000 ounces of my gold in order to buy the house without a mortgage. But my belief in gold and confidence that the bull market had a LONG way to go convinced me that it was foolish to sell the gold at that time and that the debt wasn't a bad thing (sorry Russell). Let's fast-forward to this summer and "assume" gold is $2,000 an ounce. That number makes the math easier. This summer I sell 500 ounces of gold and pay up the mortgage – not 2000 ounces that was required in the fall of 2005. Since I have a 10-year, fixed-rate, interest-only loan, I will have to pay it up or re-finance it in the fall of 2015. Sinclair's target for gold by then is at least $3,500. If I hold off until the note comes due, I should be able to pay up the loan with less than 300 ounces of gold, leaving me with a PROFIT of 1,700 ounces. Yes, there was a monthly mortgage payment (all interest) that cost me $840,000 over the 10-years, but I was also able to write most of it off on my taxes. And of course there will be a 28% tax on the gain when I sell the gold, but all in all, I was far better off holding onto the gold for a decade, paying the interest on the loan and the taxes on gold's gain. If it takes 300 ounces to pay off the loan, factoring in the 28% tax, I have to sell around 400 ounces to also cover the taxes. The 1600 free ounces times $3,500 is worth $5,600,000. Now that's a pretty hefty profit that was generated by using the bank's money to finance our home. I would say that I did just a bit better with the gold than treading water. But didn't I start this discussion saying that gold was just supposed to keep me even with rising prices? Yes I did, or more accurately that's what Richard Russell said. The exception to the statement is using low interest debt to lock in a price (in this case, of my home) and then pay it up with cheap dollars that you accumulate as gold rises. Now's a good time to take another look at Russell's chart, that I showed you in Monday's newsletter.
According to Russell's figures, since 2005 the dollar has lost over 150% in purchasing power. Put another way, the million-dollar home was purchased for $400,000. But how do you buy a million dollar home for $400,000? You do it like I did it. You use the bank's money instead of selling your gold, and then, down the road, you sell the gold and pay up the house with "cheap devalued dollars." That's how I did better than merely staying even. The cost of the house, the bank loan, stays constant. Gold rises (because we are in a bull market, the rise is far greater than usual). The "profit," pays for the house. This "profit" is represented by Russell's chart. Actually, my gold rose from $500 to the current price of $1,650, which is a rise of 330%, not the 150% Russell's chart implies. I guess that's the "compounding" effect – the extra double is a result of compounding each years gain on top of the previous gains, for nearly a decade. The moral of this story is that if you use the bank's money now, and hold onto your gold, you will come out way ahead. You still have to make the monthly mortgage payment, but each year, as inflation eats away at the dollar, that monthly payment is easier to make than the year before. The payment is fixed, it stays the same. I earn more every year, and the gold goes up more every year, but the pay-off number stays the same. I'm sure glad I didn't listen to Russell and pay cash for our Deephaven home. I'll deal with that in the fall of 2015. Oh yeah, Russell also pointed out that he bought one-ounce gold coins in 1974 for $70 a piece. That's a multiple of 23.9 from 1974 to the present. In 1974 I sold a mint 1902 Luger Carbine with matching stock for $1,500. Six weeks ago one just like it sold for $51,750 at the Rock Island Auction. That's a multiple of 34.5 from 1974 to the present. This is a fair example that shows over a longer timeframe, gold does indeed hold onto its purchasing power. Pictured below is a cased 1902 Luger Carbine with stock and accessories that will be in the next Rock Island Auction this May. Note the "American Eagle Crest" on the chamber. This one was meant specifically for sale in the U.S. It will take more than $51,750 to buy it. But doesn't it "look nicer" than a pile of 30 Gold Eagles? The model 1902 Luger Carbine was a variation of the 4 ¾" Model 1900 Luger. It has an 11 ¾" barrel, adjustable sight up to 300 meters, a European walnut wooden forend and attachable matching shoulder stock. This turned the Luger into a rifle/carbine. The story goes that Georg Luger made it especially for Kaiser Wilhelm who loved to hunt deer on his estate, but had a crippled arm and a regular rifle was difficult for him to hunt with. The factory made 2,500 of this model and they were sold all over the world. It is usually the "center piece" in any high quality Luger collection. Very high quality and rare collectables, like the Luger pictured above, do hold their value over time – like gold does. But you have to own "the best." The same can be said for ocean front real estate in desirable locations. If you store a chunk of your wealth in things, instead of dollars, you will avoid much of the stress of future inflation. Gold is more liquid than the Luger Carbine or real estate. That is one of its greatest benefits. Gold is money (really it is – the BIS recently gave gold the same Cass 1 status as dollars and will now be a favored bank reserve). This lovely gun is a reminder to me just how much buying power the dollar loses over time. As the saying goes, it's easier to make money than to keep it. True – unless you "keep it" in gold or silver coins, high quality real estate or top-notch collectables. All of them will hold value over time.
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| China prepares for paper apocalypse Posted: 10 Jan 2013 09:00 AM PST Chart Of The Day: Chinese November Gold Imports Soar To 91 Tons; 2012 Total 720 Tons |
| U.S. Mortgage-Fraud: The Next Chapter Posted: 10 Jan 2013 08:58 AM PST In the first decade of this century, the Wall Street crime syndicate perpetrated the largest crime-wave in human history in terms of the number of acts of fraud: its serial mortgage fraud. This initial crime-wave was conducted in order to facilitate an even larger crime-wave (by dollar value): the "securitization" of these fraud-tainted mortgages. None of the ring-leaders of this crime-wave have even been charged, let alone prosecuted, let alone convicted. An estimated 60+ million U.S. mortgages (more than half of all outstanding mortgages) have been tainted by Wall Street mortgage-fraud – primarily through the invalid/illegal use of their own, private "land registry" (known as "MERS"), as opposed to the official/legitimate land title registry required by law. The Wall Street fraud-factories never even sought permission to bypass official registry requirements. They simply collectively and unilaterally flouted the law, partially to "streamline" (i.e. evade) processing fees and requirements, but mostly to facilitate the $trillions in mortgage-related fraud which Wall Street built atop their original crime-wave. It's important to take a moment here to note that we are talking about "fraud" on numerous levels. The fraudulent registering of approximately 60 million "MERS" mortgages was only one facet of this fraud. There were millions upon millions of other acts of fraud connected with these mortgages. The fraud-chain began with the "liars' loans" – primarily instigated at the lenders' end – where mortgage applicants were assured that no one told the truth on these documents, and thus applicants were free to fill in whatever numbers the mortgage-broker told them would help to facilitate purchase. On top of the Liars' Loans, on top of the 60 million fraudulent entries in the MERS pseudo-registry; the Wall Street crime syndicate piled on 10's of millions of additional acts of fraud. This primarily revolves around the "robo-signing" scandal: serial, deliberate fraud, where the Wall Street crime syndicate literally "manufactured" fraudulent documents to create entirely separate, fallacious paper-trails for these already fraud-tainted mortgages. Indeed, some of the individual foot-soldiers for these fraud-factories are known to have committed thousands of acts of fraud per month. The corrupt U.S. judiciary has willfully blinded itself to this organized, serial fraud; rubber-stamping 100's of thousands (millions?) of illegitimate foreclosures, with the result being that the Big Banks illegitimately took possession of these properties based on known, fraudulent documents and without ever proving they had the right to take possession of these properties in accordance with the law. It is with this context in front of us that we must view the extremely offensive headline from the propagandists at Reuters: Bank of America, other banks move closer to ending mortgage mess Obviously the initial paragraphs of this article indicate that nothing has "ended" regarding this "mortgage mess". Sixty million properties are still tainted with MERS-fraud alone. Many of those properties have been tainted with multiple acts of additional fraud, and some properties outside of the MERS registry have also been tainted with this additional fraud. |
| Tajikistan holds 100 tons of stream Gold reserves Posted: 10 Jan 2013 08:52 AM PST According to Tajikistan's chief geologist Azim Ibrohim, prospective stream gold reserves in the country make about 100 tons. |
| Borrowing From MasterCard to Pay For Visa-Gregory Mannarino Posted: 10 Jan 2013 08:30 AM PST Financial analyst Gregory Mannarino says, "The Fed cannot and will not stop printing. . . If they do that, overnight the system would collapse. . . . They are in desperation mode." Mannarino thinks the U.S. should be cutting spending and not raising the debt ceiling. He contends, "By raising the debt ceiling, we are [...] |
| Germany may invest in Reko Diq Gold project Posted: 10 Jan 2013 07:55 AM PST Pakistan's gold rich Reko Diq came into news again as country's supreme court declared amendments to it's exploration and mining agreements illegal. |
| Pakistan imports Gold worth $16.387 million in Nov 2012 Posted: 10 Jan 2013 07:36 AM PST Gold imports in November 2012 stood at $16.387m against those of $3.957m and $30.006m in November 2011 and October, 2012 respectively. |
| Silver Mining Stocks Set to Explode as Market Forces Terminate Metals Manipulation Posted: 10 Jan 2013 07:30 AM PST By SD Contributor SRSrocco: While it is true that the gold & silver miners have underperformed the bullion… I believe we are going to see a different story in these stocks in the next several years. Right now, you can't give the da*n things away. Of course, it's not as bad as the end of [...] |
| 2013 Silver American Eagles as Low As $2.49 Over Spot Posted: 10 Jan 2013 07:28 AM PST DOC'S DEAL OF THE DAY 1OZ 2013 AMERICAN SILVER EAGLES AS LOW AS $2.49 OVER SPOT!! CLICK HERE OR CALL 614-300-1094 TO ORDER!! 1000+ OUNCES ONLY $2.49 OVER SPOT 500-999 OUNCES ONLY $2.59 OVER SPOT 100-499 OUNCES ONLY $2.89 OVER SPOT 50-99 OUNCES ONLY $3.09 OVER SPOT 1-49 OUNCES ONLY $3.29 OVER SPOT ANY SILVER PURCHASE [...] |
| India may rise Gold duty to 6% as imports surge again Posted: 10 Jan 2013 06:40 AM PST Analysts attributed the sudden rise in gold imports to brisk buying by traders as they rushed to place orders ahead of an expected rise in the import tax. |
| Silver price looking to close at second highest level of the year Posted: 10 Jan 2013 06:32 AM PST After the beat-down in silver in the week before the new-year the silver price has been grinding higher for the past 5 trading sessions. Just like in gold, as we noted this morning, silver has... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]           |
| Price of Gold Ahead of Chinese New Year Buying, US Debt Ceiling Deadline Posted: 10 Jan 2013 06:00 AM PST "Quantitative Easing is not the only bullish factor for gold," says January's Metal Matters Monthly from bullion-bank Scotia Mocatta. "The financial system is drowning in debt and there seems no end in sight to ongoing massive budget deficits…Confidence in the financial system and in the fiat government paper that facilitates it will remain low." "The [...] |
| US Debt Default Looms as Soon as Feb. 15 Posted: 10 Jan 2013 05:41 AM PST Gold inched higher on Thursday, as market watchers await a rate decision by the European Central Bank at 12.45 GMT. European Bank Chief, Mario Draghi's news conference is at 1330 GMT. The Bank of England continued ultra-loose monetary policies today by keeping interest rates at 0.5%  |
| Chinas appetite for gold marches on they snap up another gold mine in Australia Posted: 10 Jan 2013 05:38 AM PST The Chinese desire to gobble up as much gold as possible shows no sign of letting up. Despite already being the biggest gold producer on the planet internally, this doesn't seem to be enough for the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]       |
| Chinese Trade Surplus Jumps Ahead of New Year Posted: 10 Jan 2013 05:23 AM PST Wholesale London gold rose back to Wednesday's 4-session high this morning, trading above $1,664 per ounce. Currencies were little moved, with "no change" decisions on interest rates expected in both the UK and euro zone.  |
| Gold Star's 2012 Ghana Gold output up 12% Posted: 10 Jan 2013 05:17 AM PST The 2012 figure represents a 12% increase over the 301,120 ounces produced in 2011. |
| Gold price moves higher as the Bank of England decides to keep rates at historic lows Posted: 10 Jan 2013 04:55 AM PST The gold price has popped nicely this morning after the Bank of England has kept interest rates at historic lows. Over the past few weeks we can see that gold in terms of £s has outperformed gold... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]       |
| My plan to wipe out the banksters in London is WORKING!!! Posted: 10 Jan 2013 04:31 AM PST Hi Max, This is the biggest online retail bullion company in the UK. Bullionbypost.co.uk All silver bars are out of stock for the next 3-4 weeks………never seen this before. Thanks William "I only date Silver bugs." |
| CPM Platinum Market Analysis & Forecast for 2013 Posted: 10 Jan 2013 04:07 AM PST Violent strikes and supply disruptions in South Africa put platinum in the headlines last year, and the metal spent 2012 selling at a discount to gold. Is a platinum discount the new normal? How will the market shift in the labor strike fallout?  |
| Royal Australian Mint reproduces Holey Dollar and Dump Posted: 10 Jan 2013 03:32 AM PST The bicentenary of Australia's first coins, the Holey Dollar and Dump, has been recognised on Australia's first coin of the year in the traditional coin strike on New Year's Day at the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra. |
| Gold cools ahead of key ECB meet Posted: 10 Jan 2013 03:00 AM PST Gold for immediate delivery was seen trading at $1656.41 an ounce at 12.00 noon Singapore time while US gold for February was seen trading at $1656.58 an ounce on the comex division of nymex. |
| Silver gains popularity among investors amid economy fears Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:31 AM PST  Worries about the challenge of reviving the sluggish US economy and dealing with the Eurozone debt crisis have prompted nervous investors to find safe havens to put their money. Gold has been long considered a safe-haven asset, but investors are now being attracted to silver. The BBC's Leisha Chi has been finding out why some bullion experts believe silver will outperform over the next few years. The 1:54 minute embedded video starts off on the wrong foot when it mentions the fact that the JM 100 oz. silver bar shown is worth US$40,000. In actual fact, it's probably worth US$3,200 maximum at today's current price. |
| Proprietary Trading, the Bogeyman That Didn’t Take Down Wall Street Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:31 AM PST  [This story refers to the one posted directly above. - Ed] Bloomberg's Max Abelson today reports on Goldman Sachs's Multi-Strategy Investing unit — in effect a hedge fund within the bank that bypasses the Volcker rule's limits on proprietary trading. It's a great story. It also raises a question: Is prop trading really the problem with Wall Street? Before you answer, remember what caused the collapse of Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings during the financial crisis, as well as the massive losses at Merrill Lynch and other banks. Obviously all of them took stupid risks with their own capital. It's just that the risks didn't come from the sort of trading the Volcker rule addresses. |
| Tocqueville Gold Strategy Investor Letter: Fourth Quarter 2012 Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:31 AM PST  The bull market in gold remains intact. The metal rose approximately 7.14% in 2012 in US dollar terms and has increased in each of the last 12 years. Negative real interest rates incentivize capital to move into gold. It is difficult to imagine a world of positive real interest rates, absent a significant shift in monetary and fiscal policy in the Western democracies. Gold and gold shares historically have been positively correlated. However, during the past few years, gold mining stocks have underperformed the metal due a host of issues that we have discussed at length, including our website article A Golden Mulligan. Although the article was published a few years ago, the issues afflicting gold mining stocks mentioned then still hold true. |
| Lawrence Williams: $1 Trillion Platinum Coin Hogwash Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:31 AM PST ¤ Yesterday in Gold and SilverNothing of importance happened during the Far East trading session on their Wednesday...and the high of the day [around $1,666 spot] came at 9:00 a.m. in London. The gold price stayed in positive territory until about 9:00 a.m. in New York...five hours later. Then down went the price, with the low price tick [$1,650.60 spot] coming about forty-five minutes before the Comex close. The price recovered a bit from there, but from around 2:15 p.m. Eastern time, it began to trade sideways into the close of electronic trading. The gold price finished the day at $1,658.00 spot...down $2.80 from Tuesday's close. Net volume was light...around 106,000 contract. It was pretty much the same story in silver. The high tick [around $30.60 spot] at 9:00 a.m. in London...followed by the 9:00 a.m. selloff in New York. The low price tick of $29.98 spot came at 10:45 a.m. Eastern...about fifteen minutes before the London close. The silver price chopped sideways from there...but rallied slightly once the Comex closed, before trading sideways from 2:15 p.m. Eastern onwards. Silver finished on Wednesday at $30.36 spot...down a nickel from Tuesday. Volume was around 39,500 contracts. The dollar index opened the Wednesday trading session in the Far East at 80.31...and then rallied slowly and steadily to its high of the day which came minutes after 9:30 a.m. Eastern time. From there it chopped sideways before fading a bit into the close. The index finished the Wednesday session at 80.61...up 30 basis points when all was said and done. Once again the price activity in the precious metals on Wednesday had no co-relation to what was going on in the currency markets. The gold stocks started off in positive territory, but got sold into the red very shortly after the equity markets opened in New York. The low tick came minutes after 10:30 a.m. Eastern...even though the low price for gold came several hours after that. From there, the stock prices moved very slowly higher...and the HUI finished down 0.55% on the day. The silver stocks finished mixed, but managed to close in positive territory...and Nick Laird's Intraday Silver Sentiment Index finished up 0.40% on the day. (Click on image to enlarge) The CME's Daily Delivery Report showed that only one lonely silver contract was posted for delivery on Friday within the Comex-approved depositories. There were no reported changes in either GLD or SLV...and there was no sales report from the U.S. Mint, either. There was more big activity over at the Comex-approved depositories on Tuesday. They received 905,715 troy ounces of silver...and shipped 180,686 ounces of the stuff out the door. The link to that action is here. Here's a chart and some commentary about gold that Washington state reader S.A. stole from somewhere yesterday. The commentary included with the graph was as follows... "As you can see, over the entire 12-year precious metal bull market, gold has bottomed in January seven times...but only once after April amidst the 2008 global meltdown...when the cartel viciously attacked to mask gold's "once and future" roll as a safe haven...only to see it recoup all such losses by February 2009." The chart below arrived in my in-box courtesy of Nick Laird. Nick's calculations showed that China imported 63 tonnes of gold through Hong Kong in November on a net basis. The cumulative imports, the thick black line, shows that China has imported 1,242 tonnes of gold via HK...with the vast majority of that occurring since May of 2011. (Click on image to enlarge) I have the usual compliment of reading material for you today...and the final edit is up to you. How long this 'watching paint dry and grass grow' episode in the precious metals continues, remains to be seen. Silver gains popularity among investors amid economy fears. John Hathaway: Tocqueville Gold Strategy Investor Letter: Fourth Quarter 2012. White House isn't ruling out the $1 Trillion coin idea. India's Gold Mania. ¤ Critical ReadsSubscribeSecret Goldman Team Sidesteps Volcker After Blankfein VowSitting onstage in Washington's Ronald Reagan Building in July, Lloyd C. Blankfein said Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) had stopped using its own money to make bets on the bank's behalf. "We shut off that activity," the chief executive officer told more than 400 people at a lunch organized by the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., slicing the air with his hand. The bank no longer had proprietary traders who "just put on risks that they wanted" and didn't interact with clients, he said. That may come as a surprise to people working in a secretive Goldman Sachs group called Multi-Strategy Investing, or MSI. It wagers about $1 billion of the New York-based firm's own funds on the stocks and bonds of companies, including a mortgage servicer and a cement producer, according to interviews with more than 20 people who worked for and with the group, some as recently as last year. The unit, headed by two 1999 Princeton University classmates, has no clients, the people said. The team's survival shows how Goldman Sachs has worked around regulations curbing proprietary bets at banks. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker singled out the company in 2009, saying it shouldn't get taxpayer support if it focuses on trading. This Bloomberg story was posted on their Internet site late on Monday evening...and I thank reader Jon Thone for our first story of the day. The link is here.  Proprietary Trading, the Bogeyman That Didn't Take Down Wall Street[This story refers to the one posted directly above. - Ed] Bloomberg's Max Abelson today reports on Goldman Sachs's Multi-Strategy Investing unit — in effect a hedge fund within the bank that bypasses the Volcker rule's limits on proprietary trading. It's a great story. It also raises a question: Is prop trading really the problem with Wall Street? Before you answer, remember what caused the collapse of Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings during the financial crisis, as well as the massive losses at Merrill Lynch and other banks. Obviously all of them took stupid risks with their own capital. It's just that the risks didn't come from the sort of trading the Volcker rule addresses. An excellent succinct discussion of the pattern comes in Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger's 2010 Pro Publica article about the huge mortgage losses at Merrill, now part of Bank of America Corp. Merrill's loss came from CDOs that the bank itself had packaged from mortgage-backed bonds. As Bernstein and Eisinger make clear, Merrill's mortgage traders were the buyers of last resort for derivatives that Merrill bankers had created and no one else wanted. That's not the proprietary trading that regulators fear. If anything, it's the opposite. Instead of letting traders freely choose their own investments, Merrill, like Bear and Lehman, had them stuff their portfolios with the mortgage bonds and CDOs that came out of the bank's own underwriting and derivatives business. As I said in parentheses at the top of this article, it's a follow-on piece from the Bloomberg story above it. It's courtesy of Washington state reader S.A...and the link is here.  MF Global judge nixes customer group's bid to depose CorzineA bankruptcy judge on Tuesday rejected a bid by former MF Global customers to depose the collapsed brokerage's former chief, Jon Corzine. In a written ruling in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Judge Martin Glenn said the Commodity Customer Coalition, which had sought permission to question Corzine and other former MF Global insiders, lacked standing because it is not a direct creditor in the case. The coalition, a grassroots group led by Chicago-based commodities trader James Koutoulas, bills itself as representing the interests of thousands of traders whose accounts at MF Global were frozen when the company went under. This Reuters piece was posted on the news.yahoo.com Internet site on Tuesday...and it's courtesy of Scott Pluschau. The link is here.  Charlie Gasparino Says There's Going to be a Blood Bath at Morgan Stanley on MondayCharlie Gasparino reports that Morgan Stanley is in for some deep cuts on Monday. Bloomberg is reporting 1,600 job cuts at the bank next week as well. None of this should come as a surprise. Morgan Stanley's CEO James Gorman has always made it clear that Wall Street had to downsize and that he wasn't afraid to have his own employees feel the pain. That goes for compensation (down 9% since last year) and layoffs. The truly ugly year was 2011, when the firm was running layoff scenarios in the several thousands. At the beginning of last year, Gasparino (again) reported that by June 5,000 more people would be gone. This Bloomberg article was posted on their Internet site mid-morning yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens for his first of many contributions in this column. The link is here.  Jonathan Weil: Finally, the SEC Goes After a Failed Bank's AuditorsThe Securities and Exchange Commission is finally doing something that desperately needed to be done: Suing the auditors of a failed bank that got caught cooking its books. Today the SEC's enforcement division accused two accountants at KPMG LLP of engaging in unprofessional conduct during their 2008 audit of TierOne Corp., a Lincoln, Nebraska- based lender that had about $3 billion in assets when it collapsed in 2010. The agency hasn't reached settlements with either of the men, John Aesoph, 40, and Darren Bennett, 35, and their lawyers didn't immediately return phone calls. The SEC's administrative order accuses the pair of "failing to subject TierOne's loan loss estimates -- one of the highest risk areas of the audit -- to appropriate scrutiny." It also said they "violated numerous PCAOB audit standards, failed to obtain sufficient competent evidential matter to support their audit conclusions, and failed to exercise due professional care and appropriate professional skepticism." This excellent commentary by Jonathan Weil, a Bloomberg columnist, was posted on their website just before lunch Eastern Time yesterday...and I thank Washington state reader S.A. for bringing it to my attention...and now to yours. The link is here.  Sterling crisis looms as U.K. current account deficit balloonsIs the UK heading for a currency crisis? It's the sort of problem you might have thought disappeared with the 1970s, but as the Coalition renews its wedding vows, that's the unsettling possibility raised by economists at both HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland. With fears of a eurozone break-up, a calamitous fiscal contraction in the US, and a hard landing in China now fast receding, it is possible financial markets will refocus their attentions on more conventional concerns. The failings of the UK economy might be prime among them. Some of the reasons for this need little explanation. Low growth has undermined attempts to reduce the fiscal deficit, which remains one of the highest in the OECD. This in turn is likely to lead to the loss of Britain's prized triple A credit rating this year, making the UK comparatively less attractive to overseas investors. What's more, capital flows from the eurozone to perceived "safe havens" such as the UK are slowing as the crisis eases. There is also evidence of elevated concern among investors about Bank of England money printing. This story was posted on The Telegraph's website late Monday evening...and is definitely worth reading if you have the time...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it along. The link is here.  Irish house prices to fall another 20pc, warns FitchIrish house prices could fall a further 20pc and inflict stiff losses on holders of mortgage bonds, with a growing risk of property defaults across the eurozone periphery, according to Fitch Ratings. The agency said the foreclosure process was now at the mercy of politics in Ireland, as well as Greece and Spain, as each takes steps to prevent repossession of homes by lenders. This has already led to a surge in 90-day arrears to 11.3pc in Ireland, where distressed borrowers no longer feel constrained to pay their mortgages, knowing that they are safe and can expect big debt write-offs under new insolvency laws. "There is a moral hazard concern," said Fitch. A decree suspending home evictions has also raised the same risk for lenders in Spain, while Greece has suspended foreclosure sales on main homes. This Ambrose Evans-Pritchard commentary was posted on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site early Tuesday evening GMT...and it's also courtesy of Roy Stephens. The link is here.  Opposition in Berlin: Cyprus Bailout Could Fail in German ParliamentThe urgently needed bailout of the Cypriot banking industry is in danger of being vetoed by the German parliament. The opposition Social Democrats say they are leaning towards voting no, according to a media report. With Chancellor Merkel unable to rely on her own majority, that could be bad news for Cyprus and for the euro. Optimism has been in no short supply in the euro zone in recent weeks. Before the new year, both European Commissioner Olli Rehn and notoriously circumspect German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said they believed that the worst of the euro crisis had passed. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso joined the chorus late last week. But for crisis late-comer Cyprus, th |
| $1 trillion platinum coin hogwash – if it should happen buy gold and silver Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:31 AM PST  Far be it for me to argue with a Nobel prizewinning economist, members of Congress and however many thousands have signed the White House petition to mint it, but this whole idea of a trillion dollar platinum coin is ludicrous. It would have to constitute the most gigantic fraud ever perpetuated by a government and probably make the U.S. dollar and the U.S. economy the laughing stock of the world. If anything, it would trigger a huge investment surge into gold and silver as all faith in government-created money would evaporate! |
| Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:31 AM PST  Less than 1% of the world's gold is mined in India. The rest comes from somewhere else. Still, India can't get enough. It is the largest consumer of gold in the world, buying nearly a third of production in recent years. Some estimates say that 10% of all gold is held in India. Indians save roughly 30% of their income, as opposed Americans, who save 5%. Plus, Indians are getting richer all the time. Once a very poor country, the rich and middle classes now outnumber the poor in this nation of 1.2 billion. The country has the sixth-largest economy in the world. If people are left alone, high gold demand going forward is a lock. |
| Gold & Silver Shares: Nightmare or Opportunity? Posted: 10 Jan 2013 02:02 AM PST The last four or five years have been a nightmare for many investors, especially those of us investors in the natural resource stocks. Even though gold and silver rallied to new highs in 2011 most shares did not follow and have in fact greatly lagged in performance.  |
| Project S.H.A.M.E: The Recovered History of Charles Murray Posted: 10 Jan 2013 01:02 AM PST We are delighted to post the latest offering of Project S.H.A.M.E., a media transparency initiative led by Yasha Levine and Mark Ames, and now in partnership with NSFWCORP. Charles MurrayAuthor of The Bell Curve; Scholar at the American Enterprise InstituteCharles Murray is one of the most influential right-wing ideological architects of the post-Reagan era. His career began in a secret Pentagon counterinsurgency operation in rural Thailand during the Vietnam War, a program whose stated purpose included applying counter-insurgency strategies learned in rural Thailand on America's own restive inner cities and minority populations. By the late 1970s, Charles Murray was drawing up plans for the US Justice Department that called for massively increasing incarceration rates. In the 1980s, backed by an unprecedented marketing campaign, Murray suddenly emerged as the nation's most powerful advocate for abolishing welfare programs for single mothers. Since then, Murray revived discredited racist eugenics theories "proving" that blacks and Latinos are genetically inferior to whites, and today argues that the lower classes are inferior to the upper classes due to breeding differences. The recovered history of Charles MurrayThe Charles Murray Fan ClubPresident Bill Clinton: "He did the country a great service. I mean, he and I have often disagreed, but I think his analysis is essentially right. … There's no question that it would work," Clinton said in interview with NBC News in 1993. Billionaire Charles Koch: According to the Wall Street Journal, Charles Koch named Murray as one of the "authors who have had the most profound influence on his own political philosophy." (The respect is mutual: Murray admitted that he has "enjoyed a friendly acquaintance with both Charles and David Koch for more than 20 years" and continues "to admire their efforts on behalf of a cause that I share.") New York Times columnist David Brooks: "I'll be shocked if there's another book this year as important as Charles Murray's Coming Apart," wrote Brooks in 2012 about Murray's latest book, which argues that wealthy people are wealthy because they are genetically superior to the poor due to interbreeding. "I'll be shocked if there's another book that so compellingly describes the most important trends in American society." Reason.TV: In a 35-minute video tribute to Murray, Reason said: "Libertarian intellectual Charles Murray is perhaps America's most influential social policy thinker." New York Times columnist Ross Douthat: "'Coming Apart' is one of the strongest and most lucid explorations of the existing data on the long-simmering social crisis in working-class life," Douthat gushed in a piece headlined "What Charles Murray Gets Right". Among those things Murray "gets right" according to Douthat: crackpot eugenics, and the dubious notion that America is currently ruled by a meritocracy, disastrous wars and financial collapses notwithstanding: "'Coming Apart' offers a convincing account of how meritocracy has exacerbated the problems that Murray describes — encouraging the best and brightest to work and live and (especially) mate within the cocoons of what he calls the SuperZIPS, segregating Americans by intelligence to an unprecedented degree…" Cato Institute Senior Fellow Doug Bandow: "Murray does not ignore or sugarcoat the tough side of liberty," Bandow Posted: 09 Jan 2013 10:58 PM PST THE SPOT gold price hovered above $1660 per ounce Wednesday morning in London, slightly up on the week so far, before dropping through that level ahead of US trading. "[Gold] continues to consolidate last week's down move from $1694 to $1627," says the latest technical analysis from bullion bank Scotiabank. "Our bias remains lower with $1627 our next line in the sand." Gold buying in India meantime slowed Wednesday, dealers report. "The market has slowed as everyone is waiting for [a price] correction," says Ketan Shroff, director at wholesaler Penta Gold in Mumbai. A day earlier, premiums on gold imported by India hit a two-month high Tuesday, with bullion importing-dealers citing strong demand ahead of a possible import duty hike as well as supply constraints caused by reduced refining capacity over Christmas. Societe Generale meantime became the latest bank to lower its 2013 average gold price forecast Tuesday. SocGen analysts now say they expect gold to average $1700 an ounce this year, down from the previous forecast of $1800. Silver is forecast to average $31 an ounce, compared to the previous forecast of $34 an ounce. "The very poor price action of gold recently and lack of bullish triggers leads us to moderate our expectations for gold and silver prices," says a note from SocGen. "We remain moderately bullish, and are looking for a similar trajectory to our gold and silver forecasts, albeit at lower levels." "Monetary policy accommodation continues to paint a supportive backdrop for higher gold prices up ahead," adds a note from UBS. "We do not think that there has been any material change in the macro environment to warrant a change in the underlying bullish gold view… the reality is that the Fed's balance sheet is still expected to continue expanding for some time." Stock markets opened higher this morning before easing back, while US Treasuries ended this morning flat on the day, with most commodities were also little changed. Silver meantime failed to hold above $30.50 an ounce, despite news of strong coin sales and exchange traded funds demand. So far this month, the US Mint has sold nearly 4.3 million ounces of silver bullion American Eagle coins, which it produces specifically for investment purposes and sells to primary dealers. This compares to 6.1 million ounces sold in the whole of January 2012. The world's largest silver ETF meantime, the iShares Silver Trust (SLV), saw its holdings rise to 10,112 tonnes this week, their highest level since 23 May 2011. "The low silver prices are clearly being seen as an attractive opportunity to buy," says this morning's commodities note from Commerzbank, adding that overall silverETF holdings hit a record 18,990 tonnes yesterday. The United States will import less oil next year than at any time since 1987, thanks to adomestic supply boost from hydraulic fracturing as well as slower demand growth, according to projections from the US Energy Information Administration published Tuesday. Elsewhere in the US, economists are debating whether the government should consider minting a $1 trillion platinum coin as a way of continuing to borrow should Congress refuse to raise the $16.4 trillion federal debt ceiling. "By minting a $1 trillion coin, then depositing it at the Fed, the Treasury could acquire enough cash to sidestep the debt ceiling — while doing no economic harm at all," wrote Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in his New York Times column this week. "So why not?" "Wasn't that the plot of a Simpsons episode?" asked Michael Steel, spokesman for Republican speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner, when asked about the proposal last week. "There's no magic coin to duck the tough choices our nation faces," Steel added, "and the only way to stop spending money we don't have is to stop spending money we don't have." The US Treasury said last month the government on December 31, and has introduced extraordinary measures designed to keep debt below the threshold until February. Over in Europe, the Eurozone remained in recession for the final three months of 2012, according to GDP data published this morning. Ben Traynor Gold value calculator | Buy gold online at live prices Editor of Gold News, the analysis and investment research site from world-leading gold ownership service BullionVault, Ben Traynor was formerly editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the UK's longest-running investment letter. A Cambridge economics graduate, he is a professional writer and editor with a specialist interest in monetary economics. Ben writes and presents BullionVault's weekly gold market summary on YouTube and can be found on Google+ (c) BullionVault 2013 Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it. |
| Posted: 09 Jan 2013 09:58 PM PST The Wall Street Journal has an exclusive story based on a whistleblower leak, apparently with supporting transaction records. In 2008, Deutsche Bank made very large bets instruments linked to one, three, and six month dollar, euro, and sterling Libor, that differential between one month rates versus the three and six month tenors would widen as the crisis became more severe. The German bank reportedly made over €500 million on these trades. What is significant is that these were very large wagers, particularly at a time when most banks were desperate to shed risk. This is the guts of the story:
Naturally, Deutsche Bank officials deny the allegations. So as damaging and plausible as the charges seem (who would take such a big bet then if they weren't confident they had some sort of advantage?), unless the source can provide some sort of supporting evidence, this is "he said, she said," and the matter will shake out in the German bank's favor. One has to wonder why the bank is going to extreme lengths to disprove a conspiracy to manipulate rates. Again from the Journal:
Deutsche seems unusually concerned about liability, which gives the impression they have something to hide. Firms also vary a fair bit in terms of how openly staffers express themselves; one of the reasons that Congressional investigations of particularly toxic Goldman CDOs turned up comparatively little dirt is that Goldman has a very buttoned-down culture. The same deals at other firms would have had a lot more in the way of sniggers and trash talk about the deals and the clients dumb enough to buy them in the records. Libor diddling seemed to be sufficiently widespread in 2005 to 2007 that it seems unlikely that any Deutsche trader would have been careful about covering his footprints….but if one had wanted to be, I can imagine it would not have been hard (limiting discussions to face to face meetings, not using the firm phones, etc And that's the easy stuff. I had a probably deservedly paranoid buddy who did business in Russia go on about how to leave messages on Usenet groups in ways that no one could figure out the hidden communication). So as much as the pattern of Deutsche's activity looks sus, the whistleblower's claims are likely to be stared down by the banks unless others come forward reporting that they heard the same thing from managers in a position to know . Then, of course, the German bank would simply change course and try to depict them as simply being wrong, or if that failed, painting them as rogue actors. In other words, I don't see the odds as high that the source will be deemed to have the goods, even if what he is saying is completely accurate. I'm expecting these times to generate a new cliche, along the lines of "you can't beat City Hall" to describe the futility of trying to prove that a major bank really did engage in bad behavior.         |
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