By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - 25 January, 2013
The plaintiffs in the silver market rigging class-action lawsuit against JPMorganChase, tentatively dismissed a month ago by Judge Robert P. Patterson Jr. in U.S. District Court in New York -- this week refiled their complaint with what they hope will be additional specifics sufficient to persuade the judge to reinstate the suit. Full Story
ANYONE who knows me knows I am the type of person that sees the cup half full, writes Miguel Perez-Santalla, vice-president of business development at BullionVault's New York office. I always try to keep a positive attitude, even in times of struggle. But to me it is one thing to keep a positive attitude and another to over emphasize positive achievements. This is what's happening with the recent sovereign debt auctions in Europe. Full Story
By: Adam Hamilton, Zeal Intelligence - 25 January, 2013
The US stock markets have been surging in one heck of a January rally. The combination of the fiscal-cliff tax deal and generally solid Q4 earnings have propelled stocks to their best levels in 5 years. But these gains have been accompanied by stellar complacency. Traders are extremely bullish, convincing themselves this rally is only beginning. But high complacency near major highs really means serious downside risk. Full Story
Common sense dictates that when you need information or advice on something you're unfamiliar with, you consult with a professional. That's what people do, whether refinancing a home, choosing an insurance product, or fixing a broken heater. While professionals certainly have their own agendas, they still know more about their products or services than others, and can at least help them make more informed decisions. Full Story
By: The Gold Report and Alexander Medina - 25 January, 2013
The Gold Report caught up with Alexander Medina, the newly appointed director of mining for the Dominican Republic. With gold discoveries popping up all over Hispaniola—the country shares the metal-rich island with Haiti—Medina is a very busy government minister. But he was happy to spare a little time to talk to The Gold Report about what his office is doing to ensure that mining companies get the gold carpet treatment under the new administration. Full Story
The Market Price of virtually any Asset is arguably primarily a result of Competing Forces. But 2013 is Unique in that there are Especially Strong Forces impelling many markets up. And there are especially Strong Forces impelling markets Down, Catastrophically Down. Full Story
The above chart features the miners to other stocks ratio. The volume seen is not the volume of the ratio – there is no such thing – but it’s ratio of volumes (GDX ETF : SPY ETF). Here, the RSI level also flashed a buy signal based on Thursday’s decline. In other words, miners underperformed other equities so badly that the situation has become extreme. We saw a significant decline in the ratio and a high ratio of volumes between the miners and other stocks. It’s possible that a local bottom has been reached on Friday. Full Story
The label "the fiscal cliff" evoked the fear that something terrible was about to happen if the previously legislated spending cuts and tax increases came into effect. From my point of view, our nation's deficits and debt are growing at an alarming rate and need to be cut back. The reason these laws were enacted was to offer markets some hope that we would eventually work toward eliminating our serious deficits. But the prevailing opinion that such drastic decreases in our deficit would slow our economy and bring recession created the impression that this "cliff" must be avoided. Full Story
By: Julian D. W. Phillips, Gold/Silver Forecaster - Global Watch - 24 January, 2013
Bundesbank announced last week that they’ll repatriate 674 metric tons of their total 3,391 metric tonne gold reserves from vaults in Paris and New York to restore public confidence in the safety of Germany’s gold reserves. The transfer from the Federal Reserve is set to take place slowly over a seven year period and will only be completed in 2020. Full Story
By: Gary Dorsch, Editor, Global Money Trends - 24 January, 2013
Navigating a metals mining company through the treacherous seas of the global economy is no easy task. There are many headwinds that can capsize a mining company or steer it far off course, if the captain of the ship doesn’t read the signals of the marketplace correctly. And it’s not only shareholders that can get hurt from calamitous decisions, but also CEO’s, such as Rio Tinto’s boss, who was sacked last week, because of a string of $34-billion of write downs, stemming from ill-timed and over priced acquisitions of aluminum and coal mines. Full Story
The basic problem here is that the vast majority of the world’s economists don’t seem to even consider the possibility that a good portion of the demand (and, hence, strong economic growth) seen in the early-2000s and in prior decades has been debt-driven. Home equity driven consumer spending around the middle of the last decade is probably the best example of this and how anyone can just blindly extrapolate from this point to calculate “potential output” is beyond me. More importantly, having expanded credit about as far as it could go six or eight years ago before the wheels fell off of the global economy and financial system, we’ve surely come to the end of the road when it comes to strong credit expansions, yet few economists seem to acknowledge this reality. Full Story
The United States, Greece, France, Japan, and most other countries spend much more than they collect in revenue as calculated on a cash basis without accounting for the much larger unfunded liabilities promised to Social Security, Medicare, and Pension recipients. This means the official national debt increases rapidly – by about 12% per year for the last five years in the United States. Revenues are flat or slowly increasing, and debt is rapidly increasing! Congress acts as if this can continue forever. What could go wrong? Full Story
Dow Theory is one of the oldest forms of technical market analysis. The theory was originally devised by Charles Dow, founder of the Wall Street Journal, over 100 years ago. While there are six major tenets of the Dow Theory, the most famous one states that both the Dow Jones Industrials and the Dow Jones Transportation Average must confirm each other in order for a bull market to be legitimate. Full Story
By: Rick Ackerman, Rick's Picks - 24 January, 2013
Our very short-able target in Apple has been $461 or lower. Last week, however, with the stock in the throes of a steep rally, we moved to the sidelines. As we explained in a headline at the time, We’ll Sit Out the Short Squeeze. And so we did, as Apple rallied from a 30-percent-correction low of $483 last Tuesday to a high yesterday afternoon of $528. That peak proved fleeting, however, to put it mildly, since one could have bought the stock just 90 minutes later for as little as $457. Full Story
AMID the brouhaha over Germany's gold reserves at the Bundesbank, there's another central bank using gold actively to bolster its currency and financial stability. The strategy looks the same – sitting on big stockpiles of the stuff. But the aim differs, because gold is much closer to the everyday financial system. The tactics differ too. Because the central bank hasn't bought and paid for this gold. Private citizens have. Full Story
By: The Gold Report and Paolo Lostritto - 23 January, 2013
After months of turmoil that has lasted longer than investors could have imagined, the mining world has been divided into haves and have-nots. There are gold companies that managed their balance sheets wisely and there are those that burned through cash and are left begging for financing. It's a great time for those flush companies that don't need handouts to take advantage of the resulting valuation differential, says Paolo Lostritto, the director of research and mining and metals analyst at National Bank Financial. Full Story
Ultimately, the fatal flaw in the bankers’ paradigm of paper money is the hubris of central bankers themselves. Economists had convinced themselves that by printing money, they could achieve full employment (Keynes), that without gold, free market forces would stabilize currencies (Friedman) and that by sufficiently expanding the money supply a deflationary collapse in demand, i.e. depression, could be prevented (Friedman) and/or safely offset by increased borrowing (Keynes). Full Story
NYSE ARCA: SPPP The Trust was created to invest and hold substantially all of its assets in physical platinum and palladium bullion. Its purpose is to provide a secure, convenient and exchange-traded investment alternative for investors who want to hold physical platinum and palladium bullion without the inconvenience that is typical of a direct investment in physical platinum and palladium. The Trust does not speculate with regard to short-term changes in platinum and palladium prices. Full Story
By: John Browne, Euro Pacific Capital - 23 January, 2013
A particularly interesting aspect of the announcement that has been largely ignored is the extraordinarily lengthy seven year time period in which the Germans expect to receive back their gold. The 300 tons they're repatriating from the New York Fed reflects just five percent of the more than 6,700 tons held there. It strikes many as unusual that the Fed would need so much time to deliver what should be a manageable withdrawal. Full Story
Gold is the largest component of my currency basket—which is made up of an ever-changing list of paper currency longs and shorts. While this isn’t the first time that I have added the Ruble, I have a hunch that this is the start of something bigger for me. The Russians are increasingly getting their act together and in a race to the bottom, they may be the only ones who decide not to get involved in that race. Full Story
Our ever-popular Periodic Table of Commodity Returns has been updated through 2012. Investor Alert readers love this chart as it shows a decade of results across 14 different commodities, providing strikingly rich information in a very familiar format. Full Story
Many of you have probably filled out one of the "retirement planner" forms available online. Plenty of tax and accounting programs also have "Lifetime Planner" sections for folks to determine if they can afford to retire. Full Story
A number of Western central bankers are issuing strong statements now, highlighting their concerns about actions just taken by the Bank of Japan (BOJ). The BOJ doubled their inflation target, to 2%, and announced they would begin open-ended QE in 2014. Of even greater importance, they announced the bank would begin a new era of coordinating policy with the Japanese government. Jens Weidmann, head of the German central bank, sounds particularly vocal, in condemning that cooperation. He believes the BOJ is risking a global fiat currency war, which is great news for gold investors! Full Story
Last three months were sort of a roller coaster for precious metals investors – gold and silver hit a local bottom at the beginning of November and it looked like nothing could stop a strong rally to follow. Yet the fears concerning the “fiscal cliff” issue seem to have won and stopped the prices at the end of November. Moreover, gold & silver correlations structure that used to propel the rally got distorted and even though the dollar weakened and the general stock market got stronger, precious metals were unable to react. Full Story
The bottom line is that sentiment is very definitely aligned in a bearish risk vs. reward structure now. But this condition can endure and people who are invested should at least be aware that the backdrop is becoming unhealthy in its over bullishness. It is possible that a good interim correction will come along and clean up the sentiment backdrop. In that event we will be open to a more bullish 2013, if other components of the analysis indicate a positive view. Full Story
As the Global financial crisis rises to intense levels MAIN STREAM investors and the public at large sit on the buffet table for the predator classes known as Bankers, Crony Capitalists, special interest elites and leviathan government. The depression continues to unfold in REAL terms; nominally it APPEARS we are recovering. If you DISCOUNT OFFICIAL government ministry of truth statistical lies and Keynesian illusions created by unsound money. Developed world economies and living standards WILL continue to TUMBLE into the abyss. There is no avoiding this OUTCOME. Full Story
Viewing the chart above, a six-year old child could tell you that investing in physical gold and gold mining stocks (as indicated by the AMEX HUI gold bugs index) yielded returns from 2001 to 2012 far superior to the returns of the US S&P 500 Index over the same time period. In fact, the truth of this statement is so self-evident, that if this same child was asked what asset classes he should have been invested in over the past decade by viewing the above chart, the simplicity of that question might lead him to think that one is asking a trick question. Full Story
Readers of this website may recall the wise words of gold market veteran Jim Sinclair late last year warning that the bullion banks were pulling the gold price down but only to reposition their own holdings ready for the next spike up. Goldman Sachs warned its clients that the bull market in gold ‘might be over’ at the time. This week the same bank is pressing its clients to buy gold again because it sees a pop in the gold price to at least $1,825 this year before another set back. Full Story
By: Rick Ackerman, Rick's Picks - 22 January, 2013
Are T-Bond futures breaking down? It’s important that we get it right, since, if they are and market forces are about to lay bare the biggest financial shell game in history, we want to be watching from the sidelines when the inevitable panic erupts. From a technical standpoint, the key number to watch is 143^29, a “Hidden Pivot” derived from our proprietary runes. If this support were to fail we would infer that the selloff had significantly further to go, presumably to at least 141^09, before bulls would have a chance of reversing the tide. Full Story
The Gold Report's first-ever survey of fund managers who invest heavily in junior gold mining stocks reveals cautious optimism on the sector's performance in 2013. The historical performance of gold in the year following a U.S. presidential election, the devaluing of the U.S. dollar and current low valuations for gold miners all bode well for an upturn this year, but some doubts remain. Learn how professional investors decide which companies are worth investing millions of dollars in this year. Full Story
When I went to the post office the other day it felt like a ghost town. There was only one person behind the desk and the place seemed darker than usual. Because I was the only customer in line I breezed right through, but it made me think of the old days when we were all forced to wait in long lines to mail a package or buy stamps. Full Story
Last Wednesday the Bundesbank released a statement to the effect that 300 tonnes of Germany’s gold will be moved from New York and 374 tonnes from Paris. This should be a simple operation: rail or trucks from Paris, and a few military planeloads (or ships) from America – as soon as they have somewhere to store it. Instead they plan to do it over the next seven years, which is a postponement. Full Story
I suspect the reason for repatriating the gold has more to do with a shift in German politics than any sudden concern about the intentions of the Fed, any sudden questions about the faith and credit of a central bank, or any desire to re-monetize gold in Germany. Readers from Germany are encouraged to write me if they disagree. Full Story
By: Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Precious Metals - 21 January, 2013
In an article entitled "Ignore the 'buy gold now' crowd" on CBS MoneyWatch this Monday, columnist and equities analyst Larry Swedroe criticizes forecasters who remain bullish on gold despite its monumental decade-long run. He links to an interview in which I forecast that gold will rise above $5,000/oz before this bull market ends. Unsourced, Swedroe modifies my prediction to $2,300/oz by the end of 2013. Full Story
One fine day on the streets of Washington D.C. the ghost of Charles Ponzi struck up a conversation with the ghost of Cassandra. He was a charming devil and assumed she would find him irresistible so he began with “It is ironic, I think, that I am a thief, while you see and speak the truth, but the people believe me and scorn you.” Full Story
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - 21 January, 2013
For journalistic arrogance and disinformation it is always hard to top The Economist, which never asks questions but rather simply presumes that, by definition, it knows. Such was the case again this week as the magazine's M.C.K. commented obliviously on the Bundesbank's attempt to repatriate a little of its gold vaulted abroad. Full Story
Gold bugs can hardly have missed the GFMS Gold Survey for 2012 that reported global central banks bought more gold in 2012 than at any time in the past 50 years, a net 536 tonnes of the yellow metal. The global money printers clearly know the value of the one money that they cannot create from thin air. Full Story
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