We have been accused at times - rightfully so - of being largely focused on the trials and tribulations of the newfound political economy. Given its place as one of the biggest contributing factors to the performance of the investment markets these days, it makes sense. However, there is one area of the economy that continues to grow, largely unabated by the foolish risk-taking of investment banks and the constant flow of bailouts and "easing" - it's the technology sector. Full Story
Please read this article carefully because I’m disclosing for the first time that the U.S. government has given JPMorgan the green light to manipulate the silver market.This fact explains the shenanigans in the silver market.It answers all the questions and exposes this tawdry affair for all to see. Full Story
Gold stocks have recovered sharply following last month’s panic-like capitulation plunge. But this embattled sector still remains incredibly cheap relative to prevailing gold levels, which drive gold miners’ profits and hence ultimately their stock prices. While it is very challenging psychologically to buy in deeply-out-of-favor sectors, the panic-like gold-stock bargains out there today are simply amazing. Full Story
This morning, the Treasury Department almost gleefully and proudly announced that foreign holdings of US Debt had hit a record high during the month of April and that bond heavyweight China had upped its holdings after trimming for two straight months. This dovetails nicely with a story that was published earlier this week about the federal reserve and its own holdings of US Debt, which have increased over 450% in the past three years. Full Story
At the start of golden ages golden stories should be told. The Incas believed gold was the “Sweat of the Sun” and silver was “Tears of the Moon,” gold represented the glory of their sun god, Inti. Early Greeks thought gold was a combination of water and sunlight. Full Story
The U.S. Bond market has been “gamed” beyond belief and the only institution in the world with the means and motive to conduct this business is the U.S. Treasury [ESF] in conjunction with/acting through the New York Federal Reserve. As such, U.S. bond pricing and interest rates are set 100 % arbitrarily and today represent the BIGGEST FINANCIAL HOAX ever perpetrated on mankind. Full Story
If you thought you were looking at a roller coaster you might be right. With a real roller coaster it eventually comes to a dead halt at the bottom and hopefully with all passengers returned safely. With this roller coaster one can’t be quite be sure where the bottom is nor whether all of passengers would be returned safely. Full Story
There is no doubt that the elite have always sought to carefully manufacture news and to control the beliefs of the masses through their interests in funding education and in owning media distribution channels for centuries. There is a wealth of history that chronicles the elite’s desires to control and sway public opinion by manufacturing news versus the honorable journalism pursuit of reporting news in a fair and accurate manner. Full Story
An important related point is that increasing numbers of Investors are justifiably concerned that certain ETF’s may not hold all the Non-Hypothecated Precious Metals they claim they do. Indeed, there is also evidence that certain Bullion Banks have for years been selling Naked P.M. contracts in the Future Markets (i.e. selling Metal they do not have) in order to suppress prices. Full Story
Compare the long term thinking of Mother Nature, with her insistence on longevity and durability, to today’s highly leveraged banking system where even ‘steady’ commercial banks (Spanish Cajas anyone?) are often leveraged 20 times. We read of slow bank runs taking place in Spain and Italy, whilst they might not be quite so slow at the moment in Greece. Full Story
Ty Andros and Gordon T Long discuss how blatantly false and flawed the current GDP reporting of economic growth has become. This three part video series goes into significant detail on what the flaws are, how this has come to be and the consequences of the unfortunate lies and misinformation being propagated. Full Story
They say the proof is in the pudding. Upon first encountering the proposed market cycle matrix of the late market analyst PQ Wall, from the Kondratieff long wave down to the 20-week cycle, it was dismissed by this author and fellow market cycle researcher. It simply could not be true. The conclusions were clearly the results of an obsessive-compulsive disorder in an otherwise gifted financial market analyst. Full Story
The Indian gold investor still has one weakness –his understanding of the Rupee itself in pricing gold. As we are all guilty of, the Indian investor measures the price of gold in the Rupee and rarely measures the price of the Rupee in terms of gold. Consequently as the Rupee weakens, he sees the price of gold rising, when it is not. That’s the case in today’s market. Full Story
The big patterns in markets play out on a time-scale that is not intuitive for the human mind, as our “quotidian lives” play out on a day-to-day basis. So often we lose sight of the most important patterns – the really long-term ones, on the monthly chart. Full Story
In politics, it is the idea that counts. So also in philosophy, pop music, pedantry and philanthropy. The idea is everything. And between the idea and the reality, there lies that vast uncharted terrain of promises unfulfilled, of lies and deceit and of naked hypocrisy, all of which account for the failure of the public discourse and of public life. In short, this self-inflicted deception accounts for the failure of society. Full Story
Point is, we have been following the correlation between gold and the 30-2 spread for many weeks now in NFTRH. The gold correction out of the hysterical phase of the euro crisis was very normal and indeed, expected. But the normal correction was then aided and abetted by the Fed's stated intention of Twisting (AKA 'sanitizing') its monetization of Treasury debt. Full Story
China is widely expected to overtake India as the world’s biggest consumer of gold this year with gold purchases rising by 10 per cent, according to the leading Chinese bank ICBC. Why? The Chinese are moving out of the dollar and into gold. That is what a seemingly ill-educated gold trader in the Sharjah Gold Souk told us earlier this year. Full Story
By: Rick Ackerman and Mario Cavolo - 14 June, 2012
From his new headquarters in a fashionable district of Shanghai, our friend and frequent contributor Mario Cavolo, a communications consultant, recently surveyed the passing parade. Bullish thoughts on the global economy ensued. For, who can doubt that the dawning Asian Century will help balance out the difficulties that seem likely to hobble the economies of the West? For an uplifting, long-term view with a global perspective, read his essay below. Full Story
While JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been credited for a confident and feisty performance today in front of Congress, he was careful to not criticize their efforts thus far to regulate the financial services industry. Given that JP Morgan has been on the receiving end of federal bailouts, this should not be surprising. Last week I showed no such reluctance when I testified in front of the Congressional House Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity. The fact that my firm is unlikely ever to receive a dime from government was undeniably liberating in that regard. Full Story
SO EUROPE might be facing deflation, and Greece might begin a firesale straight after this weekend's vote. Yet still €1.1 trillion doesn't buy what it used to. Last winter, the European Central Bank soaked the currency union's commercial lenders with cheap loans, lending them cash to lend in turn to their domestic governments by buying government bonds. But now Spain's 10-year bond yields are at a fresh Euro-era high of 6.73%. Italy's borrowing costs are back where they were before the second chunk of El Tro was unleashed in February. Full Story
“I guess I should warn you. If I turn out to be particularly clear, you’ve probably misunderstood what I’ve said,” Fed chief “Easy “Al” Greenspan used to say. Recognizing the fact that financial markets place a heavy value on each of their words, former Fed chiefs Arthur Burns and Paul Volcker, were known for blowing smoke, both literally and figuratively, when appearing before Congress, in order to prevent their words from becoming self fulfilling prophesies. They developed a language called “Fed-speak,” which is the use of ambiguous and cautious statements that are purposefully made to obscure the meaning of a statement. Greenspan is credited with turning Fed-speak into a “fine-art” form. Full Story
Mr. Hayes, a Chartered Accountant since 1997, is currently the Chief Financial Officer of Firestone Ventures Inc. and was previously the Chief Financial Officer of Shear Minerals Ltd. Mr. Hayes brings considerable experience to Northern Tiger Resources from both the public and private sectors. Working with international and Alberta-based accounting firms, he has serviced clients ranging from small, private businesses to multinational corporations. Most recently, Mr. Hayes has been providing financial consulting services to junior exploration companies. Full Story
By: The Gold Report and Charles Oliver - 13 June, 2012
Charles Oliver, a senior portfolio manager for Sprott Asset Management, is keeping the faith that gold and silver stocks will eventually benefit this year as Europe and the U.S. continue to print money. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Oliver says that an indicator that juniors are about to take off could be an improvement in bellwether mid-cap stocks. Full Story
The big news that the markets are attempting to digest this week is the €100 billion Spanish bailout. This action and the upcoming Fed FOMC meeting on June 19-20 will dictate the market’s action over the next two weeks and possibly for the remainder of the year. Full Story
The management of the Eurozone debt crisis is dysfunctional. In our assessment, to save the Euro, policy makers must focus on competitiveness, common sense and communication. If policy makers strived to achieve just one of these principles, the Euro might outshine the U.S. dollar. Full Story
Attention, Class: Silver and gold are static assets. They are constants. They don't actually move much. What happens is that the metrics by which we measure Silver and Gold jump around like horny ticks on a hot dog. It is the fraud of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Full Story
It seems not a terrible lot has changed since the 1400s. Leonardo da Vinci then stated, “There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” While we can't be certain of the percentages of each back then, certainly, today, those who do not see are the vast majority. Those who see when they are shown are very unusual. And those who see sometimes seem as rare as astatine - an element so rare that the total amount on Earth is thought to be less than 28 grams (1 ounce) at any given time. Full Story
While Fitch’s was prudently downgrading 18 Spanish banks on Tuesday, U.S. stocks were thundering higher, recouping about two-thirds of Monday’s sharp losses. Wall Street’s irrational exuberance aside, news sources around the world seem to be catching on to the fact that rising share prices do not necessarily portend a solution to Europe’s deepening financial crisis. Our favorite headline of the day came from the London Globe and Daily Mail, atop a column written by one Michael Barad: Uh oh, Italy swears it doesn’t need a bailout. Full Story
Morgan Stanley has just issued a solid report on Indian Gold demand and its shape. We at Gold Forecaster believe it gives very good insight into the Indian gold investors’ thinking. The addition of some background on the Indian culture helps us to get a perspective of Indian gold investor psyche and to his social structure and how it contributes to his attitude to gold. Morgan Stanley conducted a survey of 2,019 urban and rural gold buyers across 16 Indian cities for urban consumers and 8 Indian states for rural consumers. Full Story
This time last week, I was at the Cambridge House World Resource Investment Conference in Vancouver, BC. Usually the show is quite hopping, but this time, while there was the usual mob and there was standing room only at several of the events Doug, the Casey crew, and I participated in, the mood was decidedly low-key. Full Story
By: Charles Hugh Smith and Gordon T Long - 12 June, 2012
Charles Hugh Smith and Gordon T Long run out of time in this 21 minute presentation to discuss all the peaks their Intermediate to Long-Term charts are flagging. Since the time of the Tower of Babel man has looked for growth to heavens, however nature has taught him and continues to remind him, that trees simple do not grow to the sky! Full Story
The most dramatic change to the world economic structures in recent history has been globalization and it’s only several decades old. The Financial Times said in an editorial this week that “those who worry that the old continent no longer has influence on world affairs are wrong. The impact of Europe’s inability to sort out its problems is clearer by the day, and the diagnosis is indisputable: the entire world is now contaminated with the eurozone virus.” Full Story
"Investors are getting tired," he said. "There's only so much plaster you can put on a crumbling wall." - Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago on CNBC news, June 11, 2012. Italy is the 3rd largest economy in Europe, and it seems to be next in line to ask for bailout money. Italy is also the largest issuer of government debt in Europe. Institutional analysts feel the European Central Bank needs to come up with a much bigger solution, but it seems unlikely to happen before the Greek election takes place on June 17. A municipal workers’ strike is planned for June 16, and that could delay the entire election. Europe seems to be almost out of control. Gold is always the preferred asset to own when uncertainty becomes the dominant theme. Full Story
Latin America continues to be the most popular destination for exploration investments in the world. According to the latest “World Exploration Trends” by the Metals Economics Group, 25% of total exploration investments worldwide were headed to Latin America in 2011 (in contrast to 10% in 2003), whereas 15% of all spending worldwide went to 3 countries: 1. Mexico (6%), 2. Chile (5%) and 3. Peru (4%).n Full Story
To paraphrase Einstein, not everything worth measuring is measurable and not everything measurable is worth measuring. The purchasing power of money falls into the former category. It is worth measuring, in that it would be useful to have a single number that consistently reflected the economy-wide purchasing power of money. However, such a number doesn't exist. Full Story
I was, admittedly, drinking heavily, courageously trying to get drunk enough so that 1) I would have a handy excuse for being so incoherent and belligerent, and 2) I would not have to think about the inflationary horrors in prices that will be the ruinous price we pay for the inflationary horrors in the exploding money supply thanks to the treachery and stupidity of the Federal Reserve and the loathsome Obama administration. Full Story
By: The Gold Report and Michael Berry - 12 June, 2012
I think we're close to a bottom here. Gold is too important. The long-term secular bull markets, such as we've seen in gold and silver and in fact in many of the metals, do not end this way. They end with a parabolic move upward. That is why I don't think this is the end of the gold bull market at all. I think it's probably a welcome reprieve. But ultimately, if we are not at the bottom, we're fairly close to it. Full Story
We speculated here yesterday that the latest eurobailout, a $125 billion package for Spain’s zombified banks, would prove too chintzy to ignite much of a celebration on Wall Street. As it turned out, that was putting it mildly. Once the OPM-mongering dolts who sent stocks soaring in Europe and Asia had finished jerking their knees, the party lasted for all of about 20 seconds in U.S. markets — as much time as it took for the pros to fleece short-covering bears Sunday night with a vicious gap-up opening in the index futures. Full Story
I manage one of my mother's IRA accounts, and when it comes to investing, she doesn't like to take a lot of risks. I guess the same would be true for most of our mothers – and maybe for many of us as well. Unfortunately, after surveying today's investment landscape, I see numerous risks – stock markets seem propped up and vulnerable, many major economies have low or suspect growth, and many currencies are being actively devalued or weakened by government actions. Even the number of options to park money is limited since investors can't earn a reasonable interest rate. Full Story
Last week the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued its annual long-term budget outlook report, and the 2012 numbers are not promising. In fact, the CBO estimates that federal debt will rise to 70% of GDP by the end of the year-- the highest percentage since World War II. The report also paints a stark picture of entitlement spending, as retiring Baby Boomers will cause government spending on health care, Social Security, and Medicare to explode as a percentage of GDP in coming years. Full Story
With more than $1 trillion outstanding and growing at a rate of over $100 billion a year, student loans have leaped past the credit card and auto loan markets in size. The students will not be the only ones paying, however, for the exploding volume of student loans may contribute to a reduction in the future standard of living for tens of millions of retirees and retirement investors. Full Story
The fundamentals for silver and gold are very strong, and with all the massive bailouts, which are increasing debt levels, they are just getting stronger. Until a significant portion of these debts is repaid or defaulted on, it would be foolish to talk about a top in precious metals. Full Story
In the early days of this bull market many prominent analysts and leaders from the bullish camp noted that the juniors would be the way to best leverage the bull market. The thinking was that juniors were a call option on Gold and senior producers because of their lack of exploration in the previous decade would need to acquire the juniors to replaces reserves and grow production. From 2002 to 2007 the juniors performed quite well. Yet, five years and two cyclical bear markets later, the juniors have lost their luster while Gold has nearly tripled in the same period. In this missive we look at some charts to decipher time to buy juniors and when they should be avoided. Full Story
And so here we are; at a potential pivot point. The US dollar is over owned by people righteously convinced that the system is in big trouble and asset markets are at risk. Well yes, they have been at risk for years now, which is why the folks at Policy Central stand ready to do all they can to inflate, only to promote another blown gasket down the road. Full Story
Peter Schiff has written a riveting guide on what to do about our snowballing social, financial, and economic problems. Inasmuch as he recommends freeing people from government, his solutions are far from pain-free and consequently will not be popular with the political class or their dependents. Well, it’s time they got over it. As Schiff writes in his introduction, it’s as if we’re headed down an icy hill with politicians in the driver’s seat accelerating toward the bottom. Full Story
Another eurobailout, this time for Spain. Here’s how two politically useful idiots who cover business news for the Associated Press – Paul Wiseman and Peter Svensson — saw it, abetted by just the right quote from a third: ”This move will come as a relief to the Obama administration as it suggests that European leaders are finally beginning to take significant actions to ease the intensifying pressure on the euro zone’s peripheral economies” such as Spain and Portugal,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University. Finally? Full Story
Eurozone finance ministers panicked this weekend and agreed to a preemptive announcement of a $125 billion bailout for the Spanish banks, bringing the grand total for bank bailouts to $600 billion when Ireland, Portugal and Greece are added. Full Story
Gold’s recent sell-off seems to be a continuing pattern of major price movements and directional changes after a significant policy event or any announcement by the Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was in front of congress again this week and provided no material news or change in policy, but he did leave the door open to more easing if needed. This was enough to cause the sell-off in gold. Full Story
European leaders launched the euro project in the last century as an experiment to see whether political hope could become economic reality. What they have done is create one of the most dysfunctional economic systems in history. And the distortions inherent in that system are now playing out in an increasingly dysfunctional social order. Today we look at some rather disturbing recent events and wonder about the actual costs of that experiment. What type of "therapy" will be needed to treat the dysfunctional family that Europe has become? And maybe I'll throw in a "fun" item to finish with, so let's get started. Full Story
In an outline posted Friday at Zero Hedge, fund managers Lee Quaintance and Paul Brodsky make the case for resolving the world debt crisis with an asset monetization and revaluation based on the upward revaluation of gold by 800 to 1,000 percent, creating lots of money with which government debt could be liquidated and bringing hopeless mortgages and the banks that issued them back to solvency... Full Story
What a whippy week it was. Volatility spiked and then subsided into the end of the week which meant it was a great day-trading environment but then that petered off as ranges tightened for markets and stocks into the end of the week. Full Story
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