With each passing rally hope has bloomed that the bear market in precious metals may be over. The long and deep “forever bear” has to end but it hasn’t yet. Under the surface, the bear market is getting weaker and Gold is growing stronger. It’s showing strength against foreign currencies and has broken its downtrend relative to equities. These are very positive developments and a precursor to the birth of a new bull market. However, the weak rebounds in the metals coupled with the potential for a US Dollar breakout advise us to continue to remain patient and cautious. Full Story
Dr. Lacy Hunt joins FRA Co-Founder Gordon T. Long in an in-depth discussion on the current debt dilemma and the decisions of the Federal Reserve. Dr. Lacy H. Hunt, an internationally known economist, is Executive Vice President of Hoisington Investment Management Company, a firm that manages over $5 billion for pension funds, endowments, insurance companies and others. Full Story
I recently watched a movie called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which some of you may have seen. In this film the lead role, played by Brad Pitt, is born as a decrepit old man and gets steadily younger until he eventually died of old age as a baby. To say that it’s ridiculous is the understatement of the millennium. Yet many people come away from watching this film thinking “How wonderful, if we all kept getting younger!” As a contrarian I instead found myself wondering about the catastrophic effect on the cosmetics industry, as the market for anti-aging creams would collapse. Full Story
By: Adam Hamilton, Zeal Intelligence - 29 January, 2016
Recent years have seen countless claims that gold and silver prices have to head far lower, implying demand is low or supply is high. But the actual data continues to prove this false, showing precious-metals bearishness is rooted in sentiment and not fundamentals. One fascinating microcosm of gold and silver demand comes in the form of the US Mint’s sales of its popular American Eagle bullion coins. Full Story
I want to start out by getting your take on the 2016 Presidential election cycle, especially given your first-hand experience in the whole process. We're seeing an anti-Washington voter revolt of sorts… it's the anti-establishment candidates that have been getting all the momentum. This is especially true on the Republican side, where we see an outsider like Donald Trump currently leading and guys like Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and others having garnered a lot of support. Full Story
Chris welcomes back to the show, Marin Aleksov, CEO of Rosland Capital. Our guest says the recent market volatility, domestically as well as in Asia, which could lead to a 2008 style market crisis, halting the FOMC rate hikes. In addition, the collapse would increase appeal of safe haven assets such as precious metals. Marin Aleksov is primarily concerned with the return of his wealth and less so with the return, on his portfolio. Full Story
Every once in a while it is a good thing to review something we already know and have known for quite a while. What we're talking about are derivatives and the very basics of how they work... or not. We have seen massive volatility since the Fed raised rates last month. The humor (tragedy), admitted to yesterday by the Fed, the 4th quarter saw slowing economies all over the world and "Nobody Really Knows Anything Right Now"! Full Story
To review our stance, which is years along now, the gold sector is not going anywhere until it becomes widely accepted that developed stock markets, including and especially those in the US, are in bear cycles. We have also drawn analogies to the Q4 2008 event that took place in what felt like a nanosecond compared to today’s long, drawn out process. For this reason, a better ‘comp’ has been the 1999 to 2001 time frame. That was a process as well. Full Story
The turnover or physical movement of metal brought into or taken out of the COMEX silver warehouses literally exploded over the last three weeks, as nearly 22 million ounces were moved and total inventories fell 4.5 million ounces, to 156.9 million ounces. I can recall only a few weeks over the past five years where more silver was physically moved. Please remember that I am speaking of physical movement and not paper work changes of metal being reclassified between the registered and eligible COMEX categories, on which so much is written. Physical turnover is just that – metal taken from warehouses and put on trucks and metal taken off trucks and put into the COMEX warehouses. Full Story
The Fed hike is not the end of the world. The U.S. economy experienced many tightening cycles. Actually, many analysts are citing past rate hike environments as a guide to the future. However, three things make this tightening cycle (if there are more hikes at all) unique. First, the U.S. central bank increased interest rates when the economy is actually decelerating and the manufacturing sector is in a recession. Full Story
Perhaps the only safe refuge from this insanity and from the systemic destruction headed our way is to move as much of your wealth out of the fiat currency based financial system and into the safe haven of precious metals. Of course, Wall Street and the Government-controlled propaganda disseminators – otherwise known as mainstream financial media – are doing their best to discourage investors from even learning how to spell “gold.” It’s the barbarous relic of cavemen which you can’t eat and doesn’t earn interest. It’s about as useful as a Pet Rock. Full Story
Some years ago I came to the conclusion that it would be wise to have a permanent footprint outside the U.S. It was a wise decision from many points of view. Living in more than one country allows you to vastly broaden your range of experiences, connections, and possibilities. Frankly, living in just one country is not just limiting. It’s potentially dangerous. The question is, which of the world’s countries is “best”? Full Story
Everyone knows that the U.S. officially holds a massive supply of gold in the Fort Knox Bullion Depository – about 147,000,000 ounces of gold. It hasn’t been audited in 60+ years, but let’s pretend it still exists. To put the debt, deficits and craziness into perspective, compare debt and deficits to ounces of gold and to the gold officially vaulted in Fort Knox. Full Story
Bonds, in contrast, are the bedrock of the entire financial system. They, specifically sovereign bonds, are THE asset class against which all risk is priced globally. This mess will take months if not years to unfold. Junk bonds were first, emerging market corporates are next, then maybe municipal bonds and eventually sovereign bonds. By the time the smoke has cleared, stocks will be at levels below even the March 2009 lows. Full Story
Chris welcomes Robert Kiyoaski, America's 'Rich Dad' back to the show, author of Second Chance: for Your Money, Your Life and Our World (2015). The Rich Dad book series author expects the US share slide to continue in earnest. He's convinced that the yellow metal has completed the bear market, which is why he's directing funds to the gold safe haven. Full Story
We were alerted on Tuesday to an interesting new development in the Physical Exchange Wars. While we all patiently await the arrival of the Allocated Bullion Exchange, the LBMA has clearly cast its lot and support behind something called Allocated Bullion Solutions. If this sounds fishy to you...well, you're not the only one. Full Story
Following on from the recent blog post “G4S London Gold Vault 2.0 – ICBC Standard Bank in, Deutsche Bank out“, which discusses the G4S precious metals vault located on Abbey Road in the Park Royal area of London, its instructive to also look at where the other London Gold Market vaults are located. Full Story
The 4 year bear market in gold has programmed traders to expect failure. That is 180 degrees the wrong attitude to have this late in a bear market. At this point instead of expecting failure you have to give every rally the benefit of the doubt. The longer this bear continues the greater the odds become that one of these intermediate bottoms will turn out to be THE BOTTOM. Full Story
The gold price has not yet risen to meet our fundamental price. The price was basically down all year after a blip in January. Our silver call turned out to be conservative. Silver closed the year at $13.84, which was below even our number. Our call on the gold-silver ratio was in the right direction, though the market did not move a lot. It went up about 1.6%. Full Story
In 2008 we were told that unless the people of this nation stood by and allowed the Federal Reserve (which gets it’s funding through the people by way of the Treasury) were not allowed to “save the banks” and transfer tens of trillions of wealth to the banks, there would be “tanks in the street” and “martial law”. This, of course, was just another lie by the lying thieves. What we are witnessing in 2016 is the culmination of “beginning with the end in mind”. Full Story
Let us take a pause and think about the current situation. Have we not seen this before? The theme is always the same, something bad is going to happen a stock market crash is imminent, take cover and run for the hills. Sure, in the short-term the markets have experienced some violent moves, but fast forward, in every case, the markets recouped and traded higher. Full Story
I was invited by Scotiabank to speak about Chinese gold demand at their commodities outlook conference on 12 January 2016 in Toronto. Of course I was thrilled to come over and share what I’ve been studying for the past years – thanks again Scotiabank for inviting me! In my 20-minute presentation I could clearly explain why I think Chinese gold demand is not what mainstream consultancy firms (GFMS, WGC, Metals Focus, CPM Group) would like you to believe. Full Story
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - 27 January, 2016
In summary, there is good progress in the alleged pace of repatriation. This is positive in our view. But there is still no proof for anything reported by the Bundesbank about Germany's gold. There are still many counterparty, storage, and accounting risks with Germany's gold reserves. So Germany's gold might be so compromised that it could not perform its natural role as the ultimate currency reserve in case of a fiat currency crisis that created a need for Germany to change to a partially gold-backed new Deutsche mark. Full Story
But, as we near the end of this long term correction, I beseech all of those who have held their metals positions for the last 4+ years through this decline that now is not the time to sell. While I still think there will be one more drop in price in this market, selling on the impending drop will likely see you sell at the bottom of the correction. If you have held this long, I suggest you now need to stay the course. But, for the future, you may want to find a reputable perspective that can guide you as to when and how to profit in this market, which is the cornerstone of all investing plans, and to ignore all the other nonsense which does not further your investing goals. Full Story
Social Security funds are drying up…will there be any money left when you retire? Social Security is America’s largest federal program. In 2015, it paid out $870 billion to more than 59 million Americans. Most Americans see Social Security as a retirement savings program. During your working life, you pay 6.2% of every paycheck to Social Security. In return, the government sends you a check every month after you retire. Full Story
The investing crowd seems to be split in half. There are those who believe that this is just another brief correction in the broader markets, as we saw last August, and that this is now the time to buy as markets will recover quickly. The other side fears that things are unfolding as in 2008 all over again given the significant losses that could accrue from oil- or China/RMB devaluation-related credit shocks. Many believe that the unprecedented interventions from central banks around the world have inflated all asset classes and that these bubbles are now deflating, with the FED content to sit this one out and let animal spirits play their course given US labor market strength. The result, they fear, is that equity markets will come crashing down once again. Full Story
During the calendar year to December 2015, the Bundesbank claims to have transported 210 tonnes of gold back to Frankfurt, moving circa 110 tonnes from Paris to Frankfurt, and just under 100 tonnes from New York to Frankfurt. As a reminder, the Bundesbank is engaged in an unusual multi-year repatriation programme to transport 300 tonnes of gold back to Frankfurt from the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), and simultaneously to bring back 374 tonnes of gold back to Frankfurt from the vaults of the Banque de France in Paris. Full Story
A reader recently sent me these charts. I do not know who put this collection together to give credit to but I do want to say these charts pretty much tell the WHOLE STORY! Please note each graph has grey shaded areas which identify recessions. What we need to focus on is what has happened since the last "official" recession of 2008/2009. I put the word official in quotation marks because it is clear something has gone very wrong since 2009, have we really recovered? Full Story
By: Steve St. Angelo, SRSrocco Report - 27 January, 2016
This has to be one of the most surprising movements of Comex Registered Gold inventories ever. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few months as the broader stock markets continue to crash while precious metal physical investment surges.It seems to me that this huge decline of Registered Gold Inventories suggests that the end of the Comex Exchange as a price setting mechanism is now even closer at hand. Full Story
The metals have begun the second leg up in this intermediate degree rally. Miners are on week one of a new intermediate cycle and should still have 5-7 weeks before topping. Full Story
Some stunning and sizeable moves within the Comex gold vaults today drops the total registered gold down to just 73,949 troy ounces, slightly more than just two metric tonnes. This raises the "Comex Bank Leverage Ratio" to a new all-time high of 542:1! What the heck is going on here? Full Story
There's something worse than giving up at the bottom... There's something worse than watching prices fall as you continue to add on the way down... It's giving up "three feet from gold," when if you had just stuck it out a bit longer, things might have turned your way. This tendency is part and parcel of human nature, and its effect is not to be underestimated. Way back in 1938, Napoleon Hill wrote about it in the classic book, Think and Grow Rich. Consider what his research uncovered. Full Story
My research into the Chinese gold market started in 2013 when I noted the significance of a number published on a weekly basis in the Chinese Market Data Weekly Reports on the website of the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) regarding the amount of physical gold withdrawn from the vaults. It appeared to me the total amount of gold withdrawn from the SGE vaults on a yearly basis exactly equaled total Chinese gold demand as disclosed in the China Gold Market Report. Full Story
Suppose you had a printing press in your basement along with a supply of perfect paper. You could slip down to your basement and print a batch of perfect $100 notes or 500 euro notes, but only in an emergency. I predict that you would find many emergencies. Suppose the government or central bank had access to that printing press (they do) and suppose they printed (and borrowed) ONLY in circumstances of economic need, political promises, war, necessary deficits, Presidential junkets, Wall Street bailouts, economic stimulus, vote buying, “emergencies,” and “special circumstances.” Full Story
All told, the “final pillar” of the Fed’s “recovery” propaganda is about to be cut right out from under its feet – comically, mere weeks after having the audacity to actually suggest the economy was strong enough to stand on its own, un-ZIRP-aided feet. Let alone, to achieve the mythical “escape velocity” that, amidst today’s unprecedented, parabolically rising debt levels; and collapsing economic activity; is mathematically impossible. Full Story
By: Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital - 26 January, 2016
Making their annual pilgrimage to the exclusive Swiss ski sanctuary of Davos last week, the world's political and financial elite once again gathered without having had the slightest idea of what was going on in the outside world. It appears that few of the attendees, if any, had any advance warning that 2016 would dawn with a global financial meltdown. The Dow Jones Industrials posted the worst 10 day start to a calendar year ever, and as of the market close of January 25, the Index is down almost 9% year-to-date, putting it squarely on track for the worst January ever. But now that the trouble that few of the international power posse had foreseen has descended, the ideas on how to deal with the crisis were harder to find in Davos than an $8.99 all-you-can-eat lunch buffet, with a free cocktail Full Story
The admission that the economy is so weak that it needs more QE is going to destroy the narrative that the U.S. economy is in great shape and it’s no longer going to be the safe haven for capital around the world…it’s going to prick the bubble in the dollar…and people are going to realize that we’ve never recovered from anything, the economy is sicker than ever, the Fed’s going to make it even sicker with more of its toxic monetary policy, the dollar’s going to tank and the price of gold is going to skyrocket – and people need to prepare for that now. Full Story
The carnage always comes by surprise, often on an otherwise ordinary Saturday morning… The government declares a surprise bank holiday. It shuts all the banks. It imposes capital controls to stop citizens from taking their money out of the country. Cash-sniffing dogs, which make drug-sniffing dogs look friendly, show up at airports. Full Story
By: Steve Saville, The Speculative Investor - 26 January, 2016
My final point is that the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was a foot in the economic door. Once the foot was in the door it was always going to be just a matter of time before the entire body had wormed its way in. The reason is that the powers of central banks grow in the same way as the powers of governments, with each intervention leading to problems that create the justifications for more interventions and with the occasional crisis providing the justification for a quantum leap in power. To put it succinctly, the mission creep was inevitable. Full Story
Plunging oil prices, rising market volatility, surging global debt—it’s all beginning to remind some investors of 2008. Earlier this month, billionaire former hedge fund manager George Soros warned of an impending financial crisis similar to the last major one, which sent shockwaves throughout global markets. Full Story
Japan is the global leader for Keynesian Central Banking insanity. The ECB and US Federal Reserve began implementing ZIRP and QE after 2008. The Bank of Japan has been employing both ZIRP and QE since 2001. Put simply, by the time the Great Crisis of 2008 rolled around, the Bank of Japan had nearly a decade’s experience seeing what QE, ZIRP, and the like could accomplish. Full Story
By: John Browne, Senior Economic Consultant at Euro Pacific Capital - 25 January, 2016
From a financial perspective, the New Year has been anything but happy. As of January 20th, the SPX had fallen over 9% since the beginning of the year, to levels not seen since 2014,reflecting a loss of some $2 trillion in market value. Compounding matters was the 30% collapse in oil prices, which brought crude down to the lowest levels in 13 years. The New Year has also seen further evidence of recession in the U.S., which has appeared in a string of bad manufacturing service sector data. Full Story
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - 25 January, 2016
While the huge naked short position in gold that is underwritten by governments implies the profitability of long-term gold ownership, GATA can't guarantee profit to anyone. Indeed, while GATA is often accused of being permanently bullish on gold, we are also ostracized by most of the monetary metals mining industry for conveying a message the industry is too terrified to address and for telling monetary metals investors what they are up against. Full Story
So it looks like troubles in China (Yuan devaluation) are going to cause larger short-term corrections in existing intermediate (now long) term trends, however with the number of confident idiots still populating the precious metals space (it’s become a speculative orgy = space), even if the broads have topped, at some point (after the spec gold COT shorts are burned off), they should still come crashing back down. Full Story
The best performing precious metal for the week was spot gold, up 0.84 percent. Gold held its ground, despite a second half of the week surge in the broader equity markets. Gold climbed higher as the week progressed on the back of global market turmoil spurring demand for the safe haven asset, reports Bloomberg. Weaker-than-expected Chinese economic data in December added to market uncertainty, with Citigroup even raising its forecast for gold prices in 2016. Full Story
This will be a brief report, as we’re focused on releasing our Outlook 2016 Report which is over 8,000 words of our assessment of the gold, silver, currency, and credit markets. Also, this was a holiday-shortened week (Monday was Martin Luther King Day in the US). But that did not stop the fireworks in silver on Friday. We will look at what happened below. Full Story
Paine had little in the way of formal education, yet his understanding of complex issues and his ability to articulate them clearly and passionately were without parallel in his lifetime, which is why he was the bestselling author of the 18th century. One of his most profound essays addressed the nature of paper money. Full Story
By: Steve Saville, The Speculative Investor - 25 January, 2016
One of the reasons that the bear market in the gold-mining sector has been unusually long is that the general equity bull market has been unusually long. The general equity bull market is probably over, but very few people know it yet. Enough people to provoke a major trend change in the gold-mining sector will probably know it after the SPX makes a sustained break below the August-2015 low. Full Story
By: Steve St. Angelo, SRSrocco Report - 25 January, 2016
There’s a coming Perfect Storm in silver as surging demand will overwhelm falling supply. The beginning stages of this storm are already forming, getting ready to converge when the conditions are right. The timing of this storm will occur as the Fed and Central Banks lose control over the massive debt propping up the entire system. Full Story
CEO of Brazil Resources (BRI.V), Amir Adnani makes his show debut - Mr. Adnani has a reputation for moving projects rapidly into production. Fortune magazine lists Mr. Adnani in the prestigious ranks of “40 Under 40, Ones to Watch” North American executives. Nick Barisheff of Bullion Management Group (BMG), notes the Tobin Q ratio and the Shiller index indicate a high probability of a 50% stock market correction. The scenario presents an interesting contrarian opportunity for inventors to exchange overvalued stocks for undervalued gold. Full Story
CEO of Brazil Resources (BRI.V), Amir Adnani makes his show debut - Mr. Adnani has a reputation for moving projects rapidly into production. Fortune magazine lists Mr. Adnani in the prestigious ranks of “40 Under 40, Ones to Watch” North American executives. A top investment fund owns 17% of BRI shares - legendary precious metals investor, Rick Rule of Sprott Asset Management. Full Story
It’s time to check on how the venerable gold-silver ratio is doing since we last spoke on it. A look at the monthly OHLC price over the last twenty years is shown below with its 20 month moving average as well as the line chart of silver. As you can see, the formula for the last fifteen years is almost robotic. When the ratio hits around 80 and drops below its 20 month moving average, a silver (and gold) bull market is upon us. When the ratio stays above the 20 month moving average, a silver bear market persists. Full Story
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - 24 January, 2016
For whatever it's worth, your secretary/treasurer does not see China as any particular friend of gold. Rather, China almost certainly wants to have enough gold only so that it can start rigging the currency markets just as the United States long has been doing, gold being the prerequisite for currency market rigging. Full Story
While we in the West get used to writing “2016” on our documents, China is getting ready for its own Lunar New Year. Their calendar kicks off the “Year of the Monkey” next month. At the rate they are going, though, Chinese markets look more like that hapless rock band that can’t quite reach the main stage. Full Story
Last week the market plunged to arrive at the last ditch support level in the 1800 – 1850 zone on the SPX500 index that we had earlier defined as marking the lower boundary of the giant Head-and-Shoulders top. Once this level is breached, the full-on crash starts. Because it arrived at this support level in an even more oversold state than it was at the depths of the plunge last August, and because Smart Money has become bullish, it made it unlikely that it would break down and crash just yet, and sure enough the market has started to bounce, which means that the danger has probably abated, for now. Full Story
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - 24 January, 2016
Having helped to cripple the economy of the gold- and commodity-producing South American country of Suriname, the International Monetary Fund is on the way there to put a mortgage on the little multi-racial democracy's vastly undervalued natural resources. The IMF and Suriname's government announced the mission this week. Appended are the IMF's press release and a ham-handed English translation of a news report in De Ware Tijd (The True Times), the country's largest newspaper, based in the capital city, Paramaribo. Full Story
By: Richard (Rick) Mills, Ahead of the herd - 24 January, 2016
One of the places the decline in the Canadian dollar is most evident is in our grocery stores. The University of Guelph's Food Institute estimates the average Canadian household spent an additional $325 on food in 2015 with meat rising 5% and fruit and vegetable prices rising between 9.1-10.1%. Consumers should expect an additional annual increase of about $345 in 2016 with meat expected to increase up to 4.5%, fish/seafood rising up to 3% and dairy, eggs and grain rising 2%. Full Story
JMBullion details Gold's biggest USD GAIN and LOSS streaks dating back to Nixon's 1971 shutdown of Bretton Woods. As you will see by the data contained, gold price market volatility was much more extreme in the 1970s vs this 21st Century bull market. Perhaps this but yet one more signal of how much further this secular bull has to run. Full Story
We’re finally seeing the bounce in markets take place and we’ve got a good mix of leading stocks who are moving well and tend to give the best bang for the buck in these sharp moves in our portfolio now. I won’t be overstaying my welcome in these trades as they are likely to hit resistance by mid-week and I’ll lock in gains, and most likely look for short setups to move into. Full Story
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