If you think inflation will be rising and the economy will not be as bad going forward, you might expect rates to head higher soon. Of course, the Taylor Rule for rates and the actual rates don’t follow an exact track, but using data from the last quarter of 2009, we see a dramatic turnaround in the pressures on rates, based on the Taylor Rule… Full Story
There are 7 stages to executing a successful sting operation. Whether this is the modus operandi behind the Sultans of Swap operating in the $605 Trillion OTC Derivatives market or just simple coincidence, I will leave it to you shrewd reader to determine. The seven stages do however offer us an instructive theater guide to better understanding these murky instruments called Interest Rate Swaps. Full Story
HOW TO FILL the days, hours and minutes? It's now seven decades since John Maynard Keynes peered into the future and declared that, one day, trying to scratch a living would cease being "the permanent problem of mankind." Full Story
By: Adam Hamilton, Zeal Intelligence LLC - 19 March, 2010
Gold stocks continue to face a stiff psychological headwind. As measured by their flagship HUI index, they were ripped to shreds in late 2008’s brutal stock panic. In only 13 trading days, the HUI plummeted 49%! Many gold-stock investors simply gave up after seeing the HUI hit its worst levels in over 5 years. Full Story
By: The Gold Report and Jon Hykawy - 19 March, 2010
Lithium, the flavor of the year, is in high demand—powering everything from hybrid cars to laptops and cell phones. In this exclusive Gold Report interview, Byron Capital Markets lithium analyst Jon Hykawy discusses key drivers for lithium, as well as vanadium. He notes that the space is still small, while quickly adding "these are early days;" the opportunities emerging should benefit the producers and investors. Full Story
Summing up, the precious metals market appears to be ready to move lower (along with the general stock market) relatively soon, and based on today's (Friday) action it seems that the second part of the correction has just started. Full Story
In an Era of skyrocketing Sovereign Debt, ongoing Mega-Bank Bailouts and Taxpayer backstopping, and ever-increasing Wealth for the Mega-Bankers (but virtually nothing for the Middle Class worldwide or for local and regional banks), Cartel* Market Manipulation, and Bogus Official Statistics, determining what constitutes Authentic Wealth Enhancement, as opposed to that which is merely illusory, is difficult. Full Story
A few weeks ago we wrote about the true cause of hyperinflation, which is a major break or failure in the bond market. It has nothing to do with demand, bank lending or the velocity of money as many have suggested. It is a confidence issue. Full Story
Is a decade of rising gold prices already over? Or are we on ‘The Road to $5,000 Gold’ as my new book published on Amazon.com this week maintains. Full Story
By: Richard Daughty, The Mogambo Guru - 19 March, 2010
Bill Bonner here at The Daily Reckoning reports that “Even if America taxed 100% of all household wealth, it would not be enough to put its balance sheet in the black”, which I note seems exactly right to me, and I am able to corroborate Mr. Bonner’s analysis because it seems to me that I seem to remember that just the federal budget deficit – alone! – would consume all federal income taxes paid by people and businesses! Full Story
Goldman Sachs, AIG, JP Morgan Chase and the other big Cabal banks and financial institutions are paying huge million dollar bonuses to employees/team players. Recently, there has been much public outcry, uproar and dissatisfaction in the matter. Among others, Seekingalpha.com has had a recent article addressing this concern. Full Story
Years ago, when talk of an epic housing bust was considered looney-bin stuff, we predicted that deflation would cause home prices in the U.S. to fall by at least 70 percent. With prices roughly halfway there, there is no change in our outlook. But the question remains as to how the real estate market will eventually find a bottom. Full Story
By: David Galland, Managing Director, Casey Research - 18 March, 2010
These days it takes very little to set me off on yet another rant against the American political class – a proxy for governments the world over. On occasion, I’m tempted to apologize for these rants. Not so much for the message, but for the frequency. Unfortunately, when surveying the landscape on which our hovels rest, the king’s castle looms large in the foreground. Full Story
By: Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital, Inc. - 18 March, 2010
Recent rhetoric from Washington has put the economic relationship between the U.S. and China squarely on the front burner, and Krugman is demanding that we crank up the flame. This week 130 members of Congress sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner demanding that the Obama administration designate China as a "currency manipulator". Full Story
When I first learned that I would not be invited to the March 25 CFTC public hearing on precious metals position limits, I admit that I was more than a bit surprised and disappointed. After all, this was my signature issue, one on which I had pressed the CFTC and the exchanges for more than 20 years. Full Story
The U.S. borrows and spends beyond its means and almost everyone realizes that tough policy choices must be made to avert disaster. However, rather than confront the imbalances that have resulted from U.S. profligacy by ending U.S. profligacy, there is the growing threat that policy makers are in search of ‘magical’ alternatives. One such alternative is trying to force China to stop ‘manipulating’ its currency. Full Story
By: The Gold Report and Mike Kachanovsky/ Mexico Mike - 18 March, 2010
Over the course of the last 12 months, many analysts and newsletter writers have been discussing precious metals stocks as an alternative to fiat currencies. What opportunities remain—new and old—in Mexico, Colombia and elsewhere for investors? Full Story
Summing up, based on how gold prices have behaved, as measured by the Gold ETF (GLD), it points to a further pullback after which PMs are likely to rally strongly. During the similar situation in the past the stochastic, RSI and price were all aligned this way the prices retreated back to make another short-term bottom before returning back to its uptrend. Full Story
With tax time right around the corner, investors of all types are preparing their finances to determine their final tax burden. While some investors are paying as little as 15% on their capital gains, precious metals investors are stuck paying 28% – but perhaps not for long. Full Story
Bloodied bears should ponder the chart below before they surrender to the notion that stocks will continue to rise more or less forever. The first thing to notice is that the crash that followed October 2007’s all-time high came at a time when the Dow average had just pushed into the ozone, moving decisively above 14000 for the first time. Full Story
AS THE AGE-OLD Golden Rule puts it, "He who has the gold makes the rules" – an historical fact proven most recently by the United States' dominance of global monetary politics since WWII. Full Story
By: Bob Chapman, The International Forecaster - 17 March, 2010
The past week the Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal sued Moody’s Investors Services and Standard & Poor’s over falsified debt ratings. This suit is the first of its kind against rating agencies under the state’s unfair trade practices law. The AG is seeking penalties and fines that could reach into billions of dollars. Full Story
We remain long gold and silver, currently with trading stops equivalent to the minor-profit low $1,080s for gold and the no-loss $15.90s-equivalent for silver. We are still of the mindset to allow for more than normal volatility with these fledgling trades, but we are unwilling to allow our “winners” to become losers and will step to the sidelines if stopped. Full Story
Last week I hypothesized that the markets are “On the Brink of an Asset Explosion”. If this is going to play out then we can probably expect to see runaway moves develop in virtually all assets soon. The rally out of the `06 bottom to the February `07 mini crash is a classic example of a runaway move (chart below). Note the brief measured corrections. Needless to say, if something like this develops soon, one doesn’t want to get caught on the bearish side of the tracks. Full Story
By: Jason Hommel, Silver Stock Report - 17 March, 2010
I will be flying out to Washington DC for the CFTC Public Meeting. I have invited two congressmen and a senator to join me; my representative, Tom McClintock, former presidential candidate Ron Paul, and senator Jim DeMint. Please invite your own congressmen and senators to attend this historic event. Seating capacity is limited to about 100 people in the hearing room, and only about 40-50 for "overflow". The event will be webcast as well. Full Story
The ongoing bull-market in global stocks is gathering steam and over the past few days, the momentum has shifted in favour of the West. Yesterday, the S&P500 Index closed at a 17-month high and we expect further gains over the following weeks. Over in Asia, our preferred markets are performing well, with India leading the way. Full Story
By: Richard Daughty, The Mogambo Guru - 17 March, 2010
I got a disturbing email from Bianco Research which showed a chart of “Private Credit Market Debt” which they say shows “Total credit market creation not including Treasury Debt, Municipal Debt and Agency Debt”. Full Story
At yesterday’s top, the Dow Industrial Average was a mere 239 points shy of equaling the 18-month bear rally that followed the 1929 Crash. The blue chip average peaked at 10694 on Tuesday, but it will need to hit 10933 to equal the fervently delusional, 77% retracement of the Great Crash. Full Story
In a speech I recently gave at The Empire Club of Toronto , I referred to gold as the "anti-currency." Gold is not and never has been a currency. Gold is something entirely different and far more valuable. It is money. Full Story
Forty years ago, it was a small town on the Persian Gulf, merely one of seven sheikdoms joined in federation in 1971 to create the United Arab Emirates. Basically, there was nothing there but sand. Yes, oil had been discovered under that sand, and the city/state was enjoying its first economic boomlet. From about 60,000 in 1968, population tripled by 1975, doubled in the next ten years, and nearly doubled again by 1995. Full Story
The I.M.F. liquidity injection outlined above was designed to replace the maturing Central Bank Swap Lines – which coincidentally had brought a great deal of scorn on the U.S. Federal Reserve. Do you all remember how the maturity of the Central Bank Swap lines without renewal was sold [as in a bill of goods] in the mainstream financial press as a sign of a global financial recovery? The reality is that temporary liquidity measures were made permanent – thanks to the benevolence of the I.M.F. Full Story
The US and criticizes China over is reluctance to let the Yuan appreciate and indirectly blame some of its woes (increasing budget deficits) on China keeping the Yuan pegged to the dollar. Let’s stop for a moment. Is this not the pot calling the kettle black syndrome? The US is debasing its currency and a mind boggling rate, printing new dollars to the tune of 1 plus trillion a year, and yet we have the nerve to call on China to revalue its Yuan. Full Story
I have been keeping an eye on natural gas and I love the way the chart looks right now for a trade. But trying to find a way to play it without going into the futures market exposes the problems with our current financial markets. The fraud is too prevalent and the instruments are too opaque. I don't want to invest in natural gas stocks, but rather I want to invest in natural gas itself as a trade. Full Story
All eyes will be on the Federal Reserve interest rate statement tonight, and whether or not the rate actually rises there can be no doubt that ultra-low interest rates are not going to last forever, even if financial markets sometime seem to behave as though this was the case. Full Story
By: Steven Saville, Speculative Investor - 16 March, 2010
The reason that a large increase in the yield-spread (a pronounced 'steepening' of the yield curve) tends to be bullish for gold is that it indicates either rising inflation expectations (if the yield-spread is being driven upward by rising long-term interest rates) or falling financial-market liquidity (if the yield-spread is being driven upward by falling short-term interest rates). The large increases in the yield-spread that occurred over the past decade were driven by falling financial-market liquidity; or, to put it another way, by increasing risk aversion. Full Story
By: The Gold Report and John Kaiser - 16 March, 2010
Perhaps something akin to prospectors rushing from around the world in the grips of gold fever to California in the middle of the 19th century, thousands flock to the annual PDAC (Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada International Trade Show & Investors Exchange) to pan for nuggets for their organizations or for themselves. For this exclusive interview, The Gold Report caught up with Kaiser Bottom-Fish Report editor John Kaiser on the last day of the 2010 PDAC last week in Toronto. Full Story
By: Richard Daughty, The Mogambo Guru - 16 March, 2010
There was an interesting item in The 5- Minute Forecast which read, “Within 12 years, the largest item in the federal budget will be interest payments on the national debt,” which is pretty scary for guys like you and me, especially if you are, like me, a paranoid, frightened and angry little man who sees nothing but complete catastrophe looming up... Full Story
There is no end to speculation concerning the stock market at present, with everything from credible crash calls to major gold stock rallies lying directly ahead. So the question begs, as fortunes are at stake, which view is correct – which view is fiction and which is reality? In my view, and although more upside might indeed exist for stocks prior to a reckoning (due to the lagged effects of money supply growth), the fiction that has become our reality, which is our fiat currency economy, is now hitting the wall in terms of constraints, which will be the stock market’s undoing. Full Story
Some questions were raised by my article on unemployment of last week and so I want to continue the same subject. Unemployment has become the central issue of our day and perfectly illustrates the genius of Ayn Rand in putting the spotlight on altruism as the central concept which is destroying our society. Today (but not when Rand wrote) the conservatives have adopted the left-wing’s ideas on economics. They are screaming that Obama has failed because, after little over a year in office the unemployment rate is 10%. Full Story
The Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets eight times per year to discuss and set interest rate policy. The minutes of these meetings are not released for five years. This ensures that few people will ever read them. Furthermore, the minutes are heavily redacted and edited. Full Story
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - 15 March, 2010
GATA Chairman Bill Murphy was formally invited Friday by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to speak at its meeting in Washington on Thursday, March 25, to examine futures and options trading in the precious and base metals markets. Full Story
By: David N. Vaughn, Gold Letter, Inc. - 15 March, 2010
Presently there are about 5 billion ounces of gold floating around out there some where. More and more investors are adding gold to their portfolios as insurance. Gold has become the 3rd largest asset held by world central bankers. And many families are adding gold to their personal portfolios as they come to discover that all is not right in Alice in Financial Land. Full Story
Having faded Friday’s high in the index futures, we’ll be short the S&Ps when the stock market opens Monday morning. Is The Top in? It seems unlikely, given that the bear rally is entering its thirteenth month and acting like it’s about to get second wind. Still, it never hurts to keep trying to pick the top, especially when it’s possible to so without risking an arm and a leg. Full Story
1st Hour: Headline news & the Market Weatherman Report. Spotlight Stock Picks. Host Chris Waltzek & The International Forecaster discussion and listener's questions. 2nd Hour: Kevin Kerr, Kerrtrade.com Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital Full Story
By: Julian D. W. Phillips, Gold/Silver Forecaster - Global Watch - 14 March, 2010
We are hearing from some sources that the gold price will tackle previous highs then fall to $850. We did hear this before gold rose to $1,100, with many believing that then there would be a correction to $850, but it didn’t happen then either. What happened was that gold held its ground then broke upwards through resistance to set itself on track for higher prices. Full Story
We are finally starting to see some retaliation against those “too big to fail” institutions who are basically criminals who have robbed the middle class of their wealth and livelihood over time. Let’s hope it keeps up! Full Story
The Middle East could be enjoying another oil price boom much sooner than expected as Chinese inflation gathers pace after one of the biggest experiments in loose monetary policy in history. Full Story
By: Bob Chapman, The International Forecaster - 14 March, 2010
The dramatic and costly undertow of deflation continues unabated, as government via fiscal policy and the Federal Reserve, by creating money and credit out of thin air, proceed to overpower this deflation with massive inflation. Full Story
By: John Mauldin, Millennium Wave Advisors - 14 March, 2010
This week we do some review on a very important topic, the velocity of money. If we don't understand the basics, it is hard to make sense of the hash that our world economy is in, much less understand where we are headed. Full Story
There is no question that John Maynard Keynes was the most influential economist in the 20th century. Yet his influence has been different from what economists and the intelligentsia have believed. Full Story
By: Richard Daughty, The Mogambo Guru - 14 March, 2010
The Money Morning newsletter bills itself as “Essential investment news & insight from MoneyWeek.com” which makes me suspicious right away because of all the times I have been lied to over the years by people telling me that something is “essential”, which it seldom is, and it usually turns out to be a code word for, “It’s gonna cost ya, buddy!” Full Story
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