Gold, silver, and copper were monetary metals – not chosen because some authority decreed it, but through trial, error, and successful application in everyday life. (Under certain situations, as when India briefly banned gold importation, platinum and silver demand as substitutes, spiked.) Today, cautious "stackers" don't widely advertise what they hold, not because they are doing something nefarious, but as a practical matter to avoid the possibility of being robbed! Full Story
Gold has firmed above $1300 in recent days and is holding comfortably above $1300 for now. We think the market will break to the upside sometime this year. The question is when. Here are 3 things to watch that will tell us if Gold is on the cusp of that break-out soon or later. Full Story
The market stands on a sinkhole, waiting for the next feather to drop. A feather that will bring down the system and send us into another economic crisis that will make the 2008 crash look like an opening act. For years, I and many others within the precious metals space have written about a hidden war unfolding behind the scenes. To those with wide open eyes, you can see it, you can feel it. Full Story
The opening salvos have been fired and the body count could soon start piling up. No, I am not talking about the steel and aluminum tariffs announced by Trump a couple of weeks ago (which seemed to be more of a ploy to try and encourage favorable NAFTA/trade negotiations rather than a real act of ‘war’). Rather, the sides doing battle now are the world’s two biggest economic guns – the U.S. and China! Full Story
The junior gold miners’ stocks have spent much of the past year grinding sideways near lows, sapping confidence and breeding widespread bearishness. The entire precious-metals sector has been left for dead, eclipsed by the dazzling taxphoria stock-market rally. But traders need to keep their eyes on the fundamental ball so herd sentiment doesn’t mislead them. The juniors’ recent Q4 results proved quite strong. Full Story
Bill Murphy of GATA.org returns with his perspective on the PMs sector. Savvy central banks around the globe recognize the strategic significance of bullion as sound money as seen by the continuing trend of PMs accumulation. Russia recently added several tons of 70 lbs. silver bars to the national stockpile. The silver bullion market is vulnerable to a short-squeeze, merely one billionaire could corner the silver market - according to Forbes, there are currently,425 billionaires, worldwide. Full Story
The movie “Thelma and Louise” was released in 1991. One theme it discussed was “crossing over” or going beyond the point of no return. The consequences were tragic. Markets occasionally experience “Thelma and Louise” moments when they “cross over” into a new phase. The results are usually traumatic. Full Story
There are a range of factors which drive the Kondratiev waves. Following Schumpeter, we have focused so far on technological innovations. However, debt cycles are also a key. What are they? The debt cycles are comprised of alternate leveraging and deleveraging of debt. The former occurs when people incur debt, increasing the debt-to-income ratio, or the debt-to-assets ratio. The latter is the opposite, so it means paying back the debts, which leads to the decrease in the amount of debt relative to wages or assets. Full Story
With interest rates continuing to creep up, there’s a changing of the guard at the Federal Reserve. In my travels and during conferences, I’ve spoken with many fixed-income investors who wonder how they can best prepare for the uncertainty these changes might bring. I’ll share my favorite idea below, but first, a few words on the new head of the Fed, Jerome Powell. Full Story
The stock market is more overvalued now than at any time in U.S. history. Sure, permabulls can cherry pick certain metrics that might make valuations appear to be reasonable. But these metrics rely on historical comparisons using GAAP accounting numbers that simply are not remotely comparable over time. Because of changes which have liberalized accounting standards over the last several decades, current GAAP EPS is not comparable to GAAP EPS at previous market tops. And valuation metrics based on revenue/earnings forecasts use standard Wall Street analyst “hockey stick” projections. Full Story
From his office in Puerto Rico, Peter Schiff, head of SchiffGold, Euro Pacific Capital, and Euro Pacific Gold Fund (EPGFX) returns with market commentary. Our guest graciously gifted hurricane relief in Puerto Rico via donations / contributions to help locals rebuild in the wake of the island's most devastating hurricane. Peter Schiff expects gold and silver to experience a renaissance in 2018. While gold remains the de facto safe haven asset, Bitcoin has competing aspects that are particularly appealing during political turmoil. Full Story
His hand didn’t shake. Powell hiked interest rates at the first FOMC meeting with him as the Chair. But the key factor for the gold market is what he signaled about the future path of the federal funds rate. The crucial word is “three”, not “four”. Full Story
Most of the precious metals community understands the importance of gold and silver for military use. This aspect of the precious metals has actually been one of the more realistic concerns I have held for a number of years. When the USGS stated a few years ago that silver could be the first element on the periodic table to go extinct that should get the silver bugs attention for a variety of reasons. One of the more serious reasons would be strategic use – the creation of killing machines, bombs and all things destruction. Full Story
So it's easy to conclude that this massive hoard of silver is not customer silver in storage nor is it held in custody as a part of the SLV. Instead, this is very likely JPM's own silver, against which JPM can issue contracts as an alleged hedge. Just as selling call options against a large equity position can yield an investor additional income, we believe JPM sells futures against this physical position. This allows them to manage price and consistently create profits for their commodity trading desk. Full Story
Big picture: you're going to see a LOT of volatility going forward. And we're going to see absolute insanity in asset prices. The reason? Every historic correlation/ relationship has been messed up by Central Bank interventions. Imagine a person who was a raging heroine addict and who contracted major illnesses during his addiction. Now imagine that person getting clean. Throughout the detox process all kinds of issues/ organ problems would develop as the body attempts to adjust to drug being removed. Full Story
The effectiveness of various aspects of this policy may be questioned, but its general objective is plain, and to refute Weiner it is not necessary to understand fully every detail of the policy. For Weiner's primary assertion is as broad as it is unsupported: that central banks don't care about gold, even as practically every week produces new proof that they care desperately. Full Story
Collectively, the central bank sector claims to hold the world’s largest above ground gold bar stockpile, some 33,800 tonnes of gold bars. Individually within this group, some central banks claim to be the top holders of gold bullion in the world, with individual holdings in the thousands of tonnes range. This worldwide central bank group, also known as the official sector, spans central banks (such as the Deutsche Bundesbank), international monetary institutions (such as the Bank for international Settlements) and national monetary authorities (such as the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority – SAMA). Full Story
As investors continue to believe the stock market correction is over, the next big stop for the Dow Jones Index is 19,000. When the Dow falls below 19,000, all doubt will be removed as the best investment strategy would be to sell the rallies, rather than buy the dip. However, most investors buy at the top and sell at the bottom. So, it looks like investor carnage will continue for the foreseeable future. Full Story
Summing up, we have just seen a few additional reasons that make a decline in the precious metals sector likely to be seen before the end of the month – perhaps even before the end of the week. The self-similarity in silver and the breakdown to new 2018 lows in gold stocks and their ratio to gold all suggest that the wait for start of the decline is almost or completely over. Based on the way gold and silver declined in the past, it seems that the next 2-5 trading days will be quite volatile and that we’ll see new 2018 lows shortly. Full Story
Most gold investors are not focused enough on buying their favourite gold stocks in the current $21 buy zone for GDX. Instead they are trying to guess when a big parabolic price rise will occur. That type of price action starts at the end of an inflationary period, not the beginning of it. I will say that I’m particularly excited to see substantial insider buying take place now at major gold mining companies. These company directors obviously see the current time as one for major gold stock accumulation. I’ll dare to suggest gold bugs around the world need to follow that lead! Full Story
No doubt that the ten-year anniversary of the failure of the prominent investment bank, Bear Stearns, and its takeover by JPMorgan is cause for reflection. Bear Stearns was a force to be reckoned with and held a storied past on Wall Street and its fall was a seminal financial event. To that end, there have been any number of retrospective articles, most often offering the perspective of the major players involved and what the takeover meant to the acquirer, JPMorgan. Full Story
Rising inflation has hit the headlines, sparking some attention from journalists. What most mainstream investors don’t realize, though, is that history shows inflation can quickly get out of control, and not just in some mismanaged third-world country. Surprise spikes in inflation have occurred right here in the US—and given the massive amount of currency dilution around the world over the past decade, a jump in inflation could easily kick in again. Full Story
I have (somewhat cynically) noted that the less investors have been thinking, the better their investment performance must have been over the past decade. Could it be that our intellect actually gets in the way of making good investment decisions? When it comes to trying to project what influence politics has on investments, this may well be the case. Full Story
The precious metals sector is on a long-term buy signal. Short term is on mixed signals. A pullback is in progress. The cycle is down. COT data is supportive for overall higher metal prices. We are holding gold-related ETFs for long-term gain. Full Story
Weiner characterizes as "conspiracy theorists" those who complain about gold price suppression. Perhaps he will explain in his next commentary what it is when government officials meet secretly to decide and implement a course of action. Conspiracy is defined by the Federal Reserve Board's monthly meetings in Washington to the monthly meetings of the board of the BIS in Basle, Switzerland. Weiner should try attending one of those meetings. Full Story
The major long-term driver of the gold price is confidence in the official money and in the institutions (governments, central banks and private banks) that create/promote/sponsor the official money. As far as long-term investors are concerned the gold story is therefore a simple one: gold will be in a bull market when confidence in the financial establishment (money, banks and government) is in a bear market and gold will be in a bear market when confidence in the financial establishment is in a bull market. Full Story
In my last article I stated that we had the potential for a lasting bottom in the crypto market, starting with a low in most coins on February 6th. However, in that article I also gave the conditions for that bottom to fail. Full Story
The FOMC members will gather today for a two-day meeting. It will be the most important event this week, since Powell will chair the meeting for the first time. Gold investors want to get to know him better as the uncertainty makes them a bit nervous. What should we expect from the new Fed Chair? Full Story
Big gold and silver miners have a problem: They’re evaporating. Each year they take more metal out of the ground than they discover, which brings them ever-closer to the end of the road. They know it and their shareholders know it, which means their stock prices tend to languish in the shadow of falling production and depressed future earnings. Full Story
I often remind investors to look past the negative and find the positive. Last week provided no shortage of big splashy headline stories, from yet another high-profile personnel shakeup at the White House to a nail-biter special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, from Russia’s alleged nerve agent attack on a former double-agent spy to a tragic bridge collapse in Miami. Full Story
Gerald Celente, founder of the Trends Research Institute, returns to the show with new commentary on the geopolitical arena and financial markets. Our guest is concerned that the US US could be drawn into a military conflict in the Middle East or with NK with potentially dire consequences. WolfStreet.com founder, Wolf Richter makes his show debut with cautionary comments on the US domestic economy. The national unemployment rate remains at 17 lows 4.1% and employers added 313,000 new jobs to the workforce last month. Full Story
The best performing metal this week was palladium, down just 0.41 percent. Holdings in ETFs backed by palladium have fallen by two-thirds in the last three years and are back to 2010 levels. However, this is not the sign of a depressed market. Hedge funds have been taking delivery of the metal and then loan the metal to the market at lease rates of 6 percent for just one week, twice the yield they can earn from 10-year Treasury bonds. Full Story
Debt is in the news again. Did it ever leave? The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central bank of the central banks (owned by 60 central banks), has published a report highlighting the debt levels of Canadian households (The Globe and Mail, March 12, 2018, “Canada’s growing debt levels putting credit markets at risk, report says.”) The report went on to say Canada’s household credit-to-GDP gap and its total debt-service ratio are coded red, meaning they exceed a threshold that points to a higher risk of a banking crisis in the coming years. Full Story
Gary Cohn resigned as President Donald Trump’s Chief Economic Advisor on March 6th. He and Trump didn’t see eye to eye on the recently imposed tariffs and the President selected CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow to replace him Wednesday. Perhaps it was Kudlow’s experience on television that got him the job. Full Story
Compound interest is an extraordinarily powerful financial tool, and reinvesting the cash flows received from investments has historically been the single most reliable way of building wealth over the long term. For many people, understanding the power of compound interest is the very heart of financial literacy. Compound interest is the reason why people are urged to begin investing for retirement in their 20s and 30s, because having an extra decade or two for interest earnings on interest earnings to work their magic creates a wealth building machine, and far larger savings than would be amassed by someone starting in their 40s or 50s. Full Story
Summing up, it seems that the first part of the big 2018 decline in the precious metals is already underway and we might see the next local bottom sometime this week. The self-similarity in silver and the breakdown to new 2018 lows in gold stocks both suggest that the waiting for the start of the decline is almost or completely over. Based on the way gold and silver declined in the past, it seems that the next 2-5 trading days will be quite volatile and that we’ll see new 2018 lows shortly. Full Story
At the top, we asked if this was a new trend. The silver fundamental price has trended sideways since last August. However, the gold fundamental has been trending up since the start of the year. Make of that what you will. We see it as one more sign of a weak economy. Silver has industrial as well as monetary demand. Industrial demand must be weak. Retail demand for coins and small bars of both metals is weak, but monetary demand for gold is more robust. Full Story
Most people are aware that GDP growth has been lower than expected in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 (GFC). For example, real GDP growth for the past decade has been closer to 1.5% than the 3% experienced in the 50 years prior to 2008. As a result of the combination of slow economic growth and deficit spending, most people are also aware that the debt/GDP ratio has been rising. Full Story
As the scheme is surreptitious and involves rigging markets, it means cheating nearly everyone around the world now and right through to its conclusion, which is why it is a cosmic wrong. But as Manly's history of the scheme suggests, proving its existence has become like proving a truism. Central banks and governments don't deny the scheme; they just refuse to discuss it and answer questions about it. Full Story
So many patterns that have held for decades seem to have broken down, leading to one of two conclusions: Either this time really is different in ways that appear to violate what used to be seen as iron-clad laws of finance, or those laws have been bent but will reassert themselves with a vengeance sometime in the future. Full Story
The Bonds segment of NFTRH 491 took a turn to tin foil territory to allow the letter writer to expose newer subscribers to his ideological views and thus, bias. #491 also got pretty talky on the precious metals as it did a thorough review of the sector’s status, with silver’s symmetry to 2016 a very key item. Hint: An ill-fated bounce like so many that have come after the 2016 top is not what we are looking for with the next rally, but it ain’t gonna be easy. Full Story
It’s been a week and I’m starting to recover from my post-SIC high. It’s a weird feeling. I love SIC, yet processing it all takes time. Imagine one of those brain maps that shows the neurons opening new pathways. That’s what SIC does. It opens connections that I didn’t previously have. Full Story
GATA's and gold's old friend Larry Parks, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education (FAME, http://fame.org), calls attention tonight to the third-quarter 2017 report of the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, which shows that just several government-insured U.S. banks hold $45 billion in derivative positions related to monetary metals. Full Story
While its details will not be new to those who follow GATA, Manly's report may be most significant for establishng again that the government of Russia, which owns RT, knows all about the gold price suppression scheme and has known at least since the deputy chairman of the Bank of Russia, Oleg Mozhaiskov, addressed the London Bullion Market Association about GATA's work during a speech in Moscow in 2004. Full Story
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