By: Mercenary Geologist Mickey Fulp with Cipher Research - 20 February, 2015
In a three part series on “The Real Cost of Mining Gold”, Mercenary Geologist Mickey Fulp and Cipher Research discuss the reasons why the major gold mining companies have not been profitable over a decade-long bull market for gold and propose a solution for the industry going forward. Full Story
By: Adam Hamilton, Zeal Intelligence - 20 February, 2015
The US stock markets’ latest record highs have left traders exceedingly euphoric and complacent. They are utterly convinced this stock bull will power higher for years to come. But their enthusiasm is very misplaced. In real inflation-adjusted terms, the US stock markets only just regained breakeven levels 15 years after the last secular bull peaked. Now the secular stock bear ever since is overdue for a new cyclical bear. Full Story
Sure, my job is to be even keeled, even when confronted with the daily crime scene manipulated “markets” have become. However, even I have my limits; and watching today’s “trading,” it was hard not to feel nauseous. I mean, today alone, we saw the Greek “negotiations” collapse, with just eight days until “ground zero.” Full Story
Precious Metals have had an interesting week. Both Silver and the gold stocks rebounded off their 50-day moving averages only to do a 180 the following day. Meanwhile Gold has given back most of its January gains. In this missive we consider the near term outlook for Gold and the gold stocks. Full Story
As recently as 9th January I wrote an article suggesting that 2015 would turn out to be the year of the slump. The title ended with a question mark, but today we are closer to removing it in favour of a definite statement. Full Story
By: Eric Coffin, HRA Advisories - 20 February, 2015
This last of three issues covering my thoughts about 2015 will focus on base metals and a couple of bulk materials with some guesses on major markets. The editorial was a long one and has been split into two parts of which this is the first. As you already know the news from this corner of the commodity universe has not been good. Full Story
Today marks the Chinese New Year, the day promised for unleashing forces from the East which complete the Global Paradigm Shift. Let it rain; let it pour. For a full generation, the Western central bankers have relied upon debt to solve debt saturation problems as well as economic slowdowns founded within the credit cycle. In the last four years, they have added reliance upon free cost printed money to solve debt saturation and insolvency problems. The USTreasury Bond market has vanished for all practical legitimate purposes, a harbinger of the USDollar death event. Full Story
By: Mickey Fulp with Cipher Research - 19 February, 2015
In a three part series on “The Real Cost of Mining Gold”, Mercenary Geologist Mickey Fulp and Cipher Research discuss the reasons why the major gold mining companies have not been profitable over a decade-long bull market for gold and propose a solution for the industry going forward. Full Story
The ongoing war between Martin Armstrong and all 10, 20, maybe 40 gold promoters probably needs some perspective. Every day on CNBC or Bloomberg you get at least 50 people a day promoting stocks or bonds. You may have someone promote gold once a week. Bears are at an all-time low in stocks. Margin debt is unimaginable and valuations are indefensible on any metric. As for gold, here is what we know about gold. Full Story
So the Federal Reserve is not raising interest rates in the near term, because the economy is still too fragile and weak to handle interest rates above (effectively) zero percent. Yet what they also fear is that this weak economy will generate stratospheric market prices (i.e. asset bubbles) that could be prone to sudden collapse, which could pose acute risks to the economy, global stability, and investment returns. Full Story
The Chinese New Year, which kicks off today, is the largest and most widespread cultural event in mainland China, bringing with it massive consumer spending and gift-giving. During this week alone, an estimated 3.6 billion people in the China region travel by road, rail and air in the largest annual human migration. Full Story
The S&P 500 made a new all-time high on February 18, 2015 closing over 2,100 for the first time. The NASDAQ also made new highs. The Dow Jones Industrials (DJI) and the Dow Jones Transportation (DJT) did not join the party. Maybe they will later. Since the lows of March 2009, the S&P 500 and the US stock markets have been in a relentless rise to higher prices. Three rounds of QE, operation twist and an extended period of record low interest rates can do that for markets. Full Story
Having failed in its attempt earlier this month to move above $1,300 an ounce, gold is once again looking for sustainable support under the technically and psychologically important $1,200 level. How quickly things can change in world financial markets: just a few weeks ago, it looked like gold might breakout on the upside on the back of bullish geopolitical and global economic developments – and establish a new floor price around $1,300 an ounce. Full Story
By: Richard (Rick) Mills, Ahead of the herd - 19 February, 2015
The US Dollar, on a slippery slope for years, has reversed and broken out against every major currency and developing economy currency. A global wide quantitative easing (QE) is happening. Almost every central bank (Sweden's Riksbank became the 14th central bank to ease monetary policy in 2014) is now creating money as fast as they can potentially leading to a global liquidity storm. Full Story
There are many financial and geopolitical events all coming together, culminating or beginning within the next couple of weeks. The two most notable are what will happen in Greece and Ukraine. There have also been many other clues pointing to some sort of event coming to pass. In southern drawl, you might say “somethin’s fixin’ to break”. Full Story
If you want to fail as an investor, the possibilities are endless. Buying stocks on a whim, holding on to the losers for too long, and dumping winners too soon are just a few ways to start. Full Story
Despite continued front-page fears over Greece’s threatened exit from the euro and the military encroachments of the terrorist group known as ISIS, investors apparently aren’t sufficiently worried enough to sell equities. If anything, adage about the “wall of worry” has been the driving force behind recent equity market gains as the front-page fears have been largely ignored. Full Story
The latest numbers from the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) demonstrate a little over 59 tonnes have been withdrawn from the vaults in week 6 of 2015, down 0.35 % w/w. SGE withdrawals, which are often used as a proxy for Chinese wholesale gold demand, account for an amazing 374 tonnes year to date, up 17 % y/y. Full Story
In two musings last November, I explored the correlations of metals and oil prices with the US dollar index (Mercenary Musings November 14, 2014; November 24, 2014). My treatment documented strong negative correlation coefficients for DXY with world-exchange traded commodities from mid-July thru late November. I will update the data and present current thoughts below. Full Story
Last weekend, in a segment titled Gold Obsession & Ephemeral States of Mind NFTRH 330 talked about a growing presence that seems to follow Martin Armstrong’s anti ‘gold promoters’ theme. This theme seems to be – coming as it does in a gold bear market – something of a promotion itself; just as the over-the-top inflationist gold bug stuff was during the bull market. Full Story
The coming crisis will not be another 2008. It will be something much much worse. The 2008 Crisis was caused by an implosion of the Credit Default Swap market. At that time, the entire CDS market was roughly $50-60 trillion in size. The interest rate based derivatives market is TEN TIMES larger in size: north of $555 trillion. Full Story
By: Mickey Fulp with Cipher Research - 18 February, 2015
In a three part series on “The Real Cost of Mining Gold”, Mercenary Geologist Mickey Fulp and Cipher Research discuss the reasons why the major gold mining companies have not been profitable over a decade-long bull market for gold and propose a solution for the industry going forward. Full Story
On February 18, 1943, German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels delivered a rousing speech at the Berlin Sportpalast, asking the German people, "Sind Sie bereit für totalen Krieg?" or "Are you ready for total War?" Germany had planned for Blitzkrieg and a short war and was unprepared for a world war as the combined military forces of the United States, England and the Soviet Union crushed the Reich relentlessly and systematically. Although the people and economy rallied in defense of Germany, total war only prolonged the horrors of war and delayed their inevitable defeat. Full Story
The bottom is in, says Gwen Preston, founder of the Resource Maven, but the next bull market in gold hasn't yet arrived. In this interview with the The Gold Report, she argues that investors should concentrate on finding likely takeover targets and explains that these companies are often distinguished by strong investor and institutional backing. Full Story
As a gold analyst who’s spent every day of the last seven-plus years watching this market, I can’t let this pass. I’m sure gold will not fall to $700, much less $250-$400—not in real terms (who knows if the US dollar will even exist in 2020?… Or maybe there will be new dollars with several zeros cut off). Full Story
Let’s start with a pair of pictures; which, when viewed together, describe exactly how Central banking gone wild has destroyed capital markets. Certainly, for a generation; and if the worse-case scenario ultimately unfolds, permanently. On the left is the Baltic Dry Index, from its inception in 1985 through today. Actually, the 556 price pictured on the chart – representing an all-time low - is a week old; as this morning, it is down an additional 7%, to 516. For those not aware of what the Baltic Dry Index measures, it is the broadest global measure of seaborne trade activity, incorporating both the volume and price of shipping. Full Story
Both houses of Congress passed legislation approving the Keystone Pipeline last week, but it’s headed for a certain Obama veto. “As we have made clear, the president will veto this bill,” said the White House. The Keystone Pipeline, however, isn’t the only pipeline that President Obama wants to kill. Obama hasn’t vocalized his opposition, but his secret wish is to kill the Trans-Alaska pipeline. Full Story
By: Steve St. Angelo, SRSrocco Report - 18 February, 2015
The U.S. and West are in serious financial danger as the highly leveraged debt-based fiat monetary system becomes weaker each passing day. You wouldn’t know this was the case by the way the paper price of gold and silver are trading today. It doesn’t seem to matter the disaster ready to unfold in Europe if (probably when) Greece makes its exit. Full Story
Last week I attended the Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town, South Africa, as both a presenter and a student seeking opportunities. One of the highlights of the conference was former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s keynote address, during which he offered some crucial advice to African governments: To attract and foster a robust mining sector, a commitment to fiscal stability must be made. Full Story
“Putin is the biggest gold bug”, was the title of a recent Bloomberg op-ed by Leonid Bershidsky the founding editor of Vedomosti, Russia’s top business daily. He explains why the Russian central bank has accumulated almost 100 tons of gold in the last four months of 2014. It is an acceleration of the gold buying program which started in 2007, a year before the Lehman collapse. Full Story
Today's feature is a special treat: a peek into the brain of one of the most successful speculators of all time. In what follows, Doug Casey talks to Louis James about what to expect in 2015. Doug weighs in on today's most important issues, including ISIS, oil, Putin, and the stock market. He even sticks his nose out to make a bold call on gold. Full Story
So we got a sell signal on the January Barometer this year yet again, with stocks being down on the month; however, as speculated previously, it may not be a contrary indicator this time around. As you may know, the stock market was down Friday because of a hawkish statement out of a chief Fed mouthpiece, James Bullard. The question then arises, why did he do this if he knew stocks would not like what they heard? Full Story
A remarkable new paper by a Cornell law professor and CFTC staff counsel suggests that many aspects of high frequency computer trading (HFT) may be, in fact, illegal under various provisions of basic commodity law. Heretofore, it was generally assumed that HFT was legal, but disabused and impacted markets in disruptive manner on occasion. Many, like myself, never looked on HFT favorably, but few have tried to make the legal case against it. The author, Gregory Scopino, writes in his personal capacity and not on behalf of the CFTC. Full Story
Sorry to start today’s article with an intense blast of “manipulation proof”; but in a world of where reality has – temporarily - been so thoroughly usurped by lies and fraud, someone has to discuss reality. Not that I’m the only one, of course; as aside from the Miles Franklin Blog, a handful of others – from GATA, to Eric Sprott, John Embry, James Turk, Bix Weir, Harvey Organ, and Turd Ferguson, to name a few – discuss it regularly. As well as those reporting the reality of surging physical demand and plunging supply, like Andrew Maguire, Koos Jansen, and Steve St. Angelo. And oh yeah, Elke Koenig, the President of Germany’s top securities regulator – who last year said “the manipulation of currency and precious metals is worse than Libor-rigging.” Full Story
My very simple perspective is this: In round numbers the US government debt increased by about $1,000,000,000,000 ($1 Trillion) in the single year between October 1, 2013 and October 1, 2014. Government revenue plus borrowed money were spent on the military, social security, Medicare and so much more. But that money is gone and producing NO future revenue, unlike debt that purchases a business which generates income to service the debt. Full Story
When I recently told my subscribers to go into light “sell mode” for gold at $1305, I wasn’t calling a top. After staging an enormous rally of about $130 an ounce, gold had simply arrived at sell-side HSR (horizontal support and resistance). Professional gold investors must book light profits regularly. They also need to rebuy those positions on significant price weakness, without making wild statements about the major trend. Full Story
Very strange happenings in all things financial, perhaps the most strange is located within the COMEX. First, for the last year and a half or more, we watched as gold and silver open interest steadily rises for several months and then suddenly falls in collapse fashion. The rise and collapse in open interest have not been parallel in gold and silver, often times they have been directly inverse as they now are currently. Full Story
Recently Thomson Reuters GFMS released its global gold demand figures for 2014 in which they stated Chinese demand was 866 tonnes. I briefly expanded on why I didn’t agree with this number by a humongous margin in my post from January 30 – as Chinese supply was at least 1,834 tonnes. Followed by a post released January 31 on the fact that GFMS again had double counted Chinese gold volume traded on the Shanghai Gold Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange. However, this quarrel does not exclude the World Gold Council and CPM Group. Full Story
Gold surged more than 10% in January, but lost a lot of ground on news of continued strong jobs growth. Peter argues that Obamacare going is skewing the employment data. To avoid the additional costs of full-time employees, businesses are cutting workers to part-time hours while hiring additional staff. But “job sharing” is a double-edged sword that will mean even bigger lay-offs when the market retrenches. Full Story
There is growing consensus in the market that an unspoken currency war has broken out. This is a result of many countries facing zero interest rates and binding fiscal constraints. With such constraints, the only policy tool at their disposal to stimulate growth is targeting a weaker exchange rate. While a weak currency might provide a short-term boost to the countries engaging in currency devaluation, the fact that so many countries are concurrently engaging in these tactics will likely mean we may end up with higher foreign-exchange volatility. In such a scenario, gold is increasingly looked upon as the currency of choice. Full Story
In summary, should GLD remain below 120, pressure will remain to the downside in metals. Should we see 120 broken to the upside before GLD completes all 5 waves down in the leading diagonal, then we have a strong presumption that we are heading back towards the January highs, with the potential to exceed them to complete a larger degree b-wave in GLD and larger wave iv in silver. That would then be a shorting opportunity. Full Story
Summing up, although the demand for gold dropped in the 2014 reflecting partially the slowdown in China, there are some indications that the gold market fundamentals are improving. Actually, the Q4 2014 demand grew by 6 percent and the beginning of 2015, full of important events, has witnessed ETF inflows so far. Full Story
By: Rick Ackerman, Rick's Picks - 17 February, 2015
Yale’s Robert Shiller believes a bond crash is coming, although he stops short of saying when or why. In a recent interview with CNBC, the Nobel Prize-winning economist offered no rationale for a collapse in T-bonds other than that yields are too low. Well, yes, they’ve been held near zero by the Federal Reserve for several years, and there is nothing normal about that. Obviously, something’s got to give. As the late Herb Stein famously said, if something can’t go on forever, it will stop. But when? And why? Shiller’s interviewer did not think to press him for an answer, although he’s a full-fledged oracle in a mainstream-news world where anyone who uses the word “crash” risks being treated like a circus freak. Full Story
Dr. Leeb points to possible inflection points emanating from Ukraine and or Greece. A Grexit could result in a Bretton Woods Agreement II. The argument that the domestic economy is in full recovery mode is a non sequitur. Gold ETFs are reporting the largest monthly inflows in years, hinting at an increased affinity by retail investors. Gerald is convinced that every aspect of our lives is manipulated, from the media to the markets, the spin is ubiquitous. Most of the funds earmarked for new mortgage loans are being diverted instead to corporations, which promptly purchase their own shares. Gerald refutes The Big Lie, the Fed's new mantra, "Deflation is Bad." Full Story
We have shown so far that all ruble crises were accompanied by a strong U.S. dollar and low oil prices. We have concluded that Russia's current problems resemble those from 1998, though possibly even more severe than seventeen years ago, because the biggest country in the world is cut off from the international funding. But what about the following banking crisis in Russia? Full Story
It’s midday Sunday; likely, within 24 hours of Greece either making an historic stand for its rights, or giving in to a handful of financial sociopaths – and in doing so, forsaking last month’s mandate by the majority of Greek citizens. True, the outcome may not necessarily be “black versus white”; as no doubt, if an agreement is made between Greece and the Euro Group, it will be carefully couched in language proclaiming “success.” In other words, pure propaganda; in a desperate, last ditch effort to prevent history’s largest Ponzi scheme from imploding NOW. Unquestionably, the global fiat currency regime is in its final death throes – with the only question being, can it survive the current Greek crisis? And if so, for how much longer? Full Story
We do not have to look to Greece to find massively underfunded obligations. Here in the US we can find hundreds of examples, willingly created by politicians and businessmen who proclaim they are working for the public good. We call them pension funds, but they’re just another form of unfunded debt. A sovereign bond is a promise to pay a certain amount of money over time. A defined-benefit pension fund is a promise to pay a certain amount of income over time. The value of either is determined by the ability of the government or the pension fund (or its sponsor) to pay. Full Story
The synopsis of our HUI analysis is that price has pulled back to a confluence of support levels and then moved higher. The lows on Wednesday and Thursday tested these support levels: the 50 day EMA, the horizontal support / resistance zone, the sliding parallel to the blue Andrews pitchfork and the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level of the December to January rally (see the website for a chart showing the Fib. retracement). That’s a lot of support and price appears to be moving higher after the test. MACD remains in bull mode. Full Story
According to Gallup CEO Jim Clifton, if one hasn't been working for four weeks or actively looking for work, one isn't counted as unemployed. Also, if you work one hour a week, or get paid at least $20.00 a week, you aren't counted as unemployed. This explains why 30 million Americans are out of work or severely unemployed. Full Story
Nobel Laureate Professor Robert Shiller of Yale University is not the first person to warn that bonds are in a bubble and will certainly not be the last. But he comes with a flawless track record of spotting the dot-com crash and the subprime housing crisis as the last two major US investment bubbles. US 30-year treasury yields have been as low as 0.5 per cent recently. That’s off-the-scale historically. Yields are in an inverse relationship to bond prices, so that makes bonds their most expensive in history. Full Story
The changes going on in the world continue to accelerate, but changes that directly relate to gold and silver are hard to find and correlate to developing price activity. This was addressed in the first two paragraphs of last week’s article, Forget The News, so there is no need to repeat how fundamental news is not driving price. Full Story
Gold and the gold shares have been heading down. Our guess is that we have another week or so to go before the market signals a buy. We are sitting in cash and waiting for the spec long position on COMEX to signal this mini correction is over. Full Story
Well, here we go again. I do not know how many times over the past year or so I have noted what looked like a chart breakdown in the US long bond. By that I specifically mean a close BELOW the 50 day moving average. Generally, that will get technicians to sit up and take notice and begin to approach a market from the short side. Each time I have noted this however, the bonds have done a flip-a-roo and back up they have gone continuing the bull streak. Full Story
Markets and stocks acted great all week and later on, showed a change in behaviour to positive so I’m moving back into stocks now but a bit slowly. I’m mainly focused on leading stocks who’ve reported great earnings and showed us an earnings gap and held it and now setup a pattern to break higher. Full Story
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