Just after I signed the publishing agreement for my first book, The Colder War, I realized how much research I was going to end up doing, specifically in areas that I never thought would be so integral to my subject area: energy and mining. Along the way, I came across some fascinating events that were completely out of my area of expertise but gave me a better sense for the unintended consequences in an historical perspective of the events that led to where we are today. Full Story
As I wrote last time on data from the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), in week 2 of 2015 withdrawals from the vaults of the SGE (that equal Chinese wholesale demand) came in extremely high at 70 tonnes; the third highest amount ever. In week 3 (January 19 – 23), though, the Chinese withdrew even more at 71 tonnes, up 0.89 % w/w, and a new third highest amount ever. Full Story
International Man is all about making the most of your personal freedom and financial opportunity around the world. To do this, by definition, you must minimize the amount of money any government takes from you. Full Story
Gold has performed very well under the circumstances of declining inflation and a surging US$ index. Since 2014 the US$ index is up nearly 18% while Gold is up 3%. Since Gold’s November low the US$ index is up over 10%. Had we known that at the time, we’d have thought Gold would be headed for $1000 and not the $1300 it recently hit. At present, the US$ index appears ripe for a correction or major pause in its uptrend. Given that Gold is priced in US$ and that Gold has shown strength in real terms, sustained US$ weakness could be a major boon for Gold and precious metals as a whole. Full Story
Globally, the bond bubble is $100 trillion in size. And sovereign bonds (the ones the EU doesn’t want to restructure) are used as the senior most collateral backstopping the big Eurozone banks’ derivatives portfolios. Put another way, the €12 trillion in collected EU nation sovereign debt, is backstopping over €100 trillion in derivatives trades on the banks’ balance sheets. Full Story
A week ago we learned that the king of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, passed away at the age of 90. Following the announcement, crude oil immediately spiked 2.5 percent over uncertainty of how this might affect the Middle Eastern kingdom’s position on keeping oil production at current levels. Full Story
I’ve been following the activities of Syriza for a long time. They started putting up big numbers in the polls in Greece three or four years ago. Syriza has a message that’s very popular with Greeks: Screw Germany. The word they use to describe what’s happened to Greece during the period of time since the debt crisis is “humiliation.” Full Story
Cambridge House presents an exclusive interview with the President & CEO of Victoria Gold Corp., John McConnell. He discusses several topics with interviewer Vanessa Collette including: - The Company's Eagle Gold Project is Fully Permitted and Shovel Ready - Exploring a Variety of Financing Options - Olive and Shamrock Deposits Are Also Interesting Full Story
Cambridge House presents an exclusive interview with the President & CEO of Wellgreen Platinum, Greg Johnson. He discusses several topics with interviewer Vanessa Collette including: - New Management Team, New Investors, New Resource - Power and Infrastructure in the Yukon - Exploration Potential is Still Huge for this Unique Asset Full Story
Cambridge House presents an exclusive interview with the President & COO of Western Copper & Gold Corp., Paul West-Sells. He discusses several topics with interviewer Vanessa Collette including: - Their Casino project has a 19% IRR and NPV of $1.6 Billion at these Prices - The Financial Challenges with Progressing Such a Large Project - Permitting and Working with First Nations Full Story
Going into the Fed statement released as at 2 pm on Wednesday the 27th of January, it seems many gold investors were expecting the Fed to change its language on the imminence of raising short term interest rates, which the markets expect around the middle of this year. The economic news had been turning sour and markets were looking shaky. The bet was that a signal indicating a weakening of Fed resolve to raise rates would push gold higher, which it would have. Full Story
By: Rick Ackerman, Rick's Picks - 30 January, 2015
If you felt the sting of yesterday’s selloff, take encouragement from the fact that it looks merely corrective on the daily chart. That’s because the recent high at 1307.80 managed to exceed a prior ‘external’ peak recorded back in August before bulls took a breather. Healthy rallies tend to do this with each new thrust, creating fresh bullish impulse legs, while weak ones usually chicken out an inch shy of an earlier peak. The implication in this case is that when the presumptive correction ends, the next rally cycle could be good for as much as a $140 gain. Full Story
By: Julian D. W. Phillips, Gold/Silver Forecaster - Global Watch - 29 January, 2015
In the past [even the recent past] investors have often ‘parked’ their funds in a ‘safe-haven’ currency, when fears about the dollar or other currencies rose. The leading candidates have always been the Swiss Franc and the Yen, with gold, in the last three years usually being excluded, because of its declining trend against the dollar and the limited amount of stock relative to the availability of these currencies. While gold’s trend seems to have changed to the upside now, the developed world is still ‘out of gold’. Full Story
By: Gary Dorsch, Editor, Global Money Trends - 29 January, 2015
The theater of the absurd became even more bizarre on Jan 22nd, when the European Central bank desperate to extract the Euro-zone’s economy from the quagmire of deflation and stagnation, decided it would try its hand at the magic elixir of “quantitative easing,” (Q€). Starting on March 1st, the ECB will inject €60-billion of liquidity into the Euro-zone’s money markets, each month until the end of Sept 2016. Full Story
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - 29 January, 2015
Who is buying gold and who is selling it mean nothing to the metal's price trend, nor does it matter where the metal is coming from, financial letter writer Steve Saville maintains this week in commentary headlined "Looking for (Gold Price) Clues in All the Wrong Places," posted at his Internet site, the Speculator Investor. That's not how the U.S. government sees it. To the contrary, the U.S. government considers gold's location to be of supreme importance to the country's standing. Full Story
By: John Mauldin and Gary Shilling - 29 January, 2015
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” says my friend Gary Shilling as he kicks off today’s Outside the Box. He’s referring to his investment themes for 2015. He first gives us 11 reasons to continue favoring long Treasury bonds. That’s an obvious play for him if you know his view, but it’s nevertheless a compelling one this year and one that you should think through, given the specter of deflation about in the world, the firing up of QE in Japan and Europe (which gives folks money to buy … Treasurys), and the safe-haven status of the US dollar. Full Story
Can the dollar and gold continue to rise in tandem for long? The last three months have seen a very peculiar dollar/gold anomaly. Since mid November, gold (and silver) have “acted” very differently. We have seen “outside days” and even an outside week. Gold has moved nearly $160 of its lows for a rise of nearly 15%. This has happened while the dollar has rallied furiously versus foreign currencies (with the exception of the franc). From a “textbook” sense, this should never happen. Full Story
Cambridge House presents an exclusive interview with The Mercenary Geologist, Mickey Fulp. He discusses several topics with interviewer Vanessa Collette including: - Copper’s Fundamentals Remain Strong - Gold’s Recent Positive Correlation with the Dollar - The Uranium Market, Clean Energy, and the Oil Price Full Story
Cambridge House presents an exclusive interview with editor of Disruptive Discovery Journals, Michael Berry. He discusses several topics with interviewer Vanessa Collette including: - Why the US Needs to Reduce Debt, Stabilize, and Achieve a Normal Yield Curve - Why He Does Not Think the Fed Will Raise Rates This Year - We are in a Recovery World in Which the US is the Best of the Worst Full Story
Cambridge House presents an exclusive interview with Yukon Premier, Darrell Pasloski. He discusses several topics with interviewer Vanessa Collette including: - The Yukon Has a Great Plethora of Minerals - First Nations and Building of Infrastructure - Energy Options from Diesel to Hydro to LNG Full Story
As I sat in my office with tears streaming down my cheeks, my wife walked in and asked, “What’s wrong?” After a short sniffle, I blurted out, “I just deleted Dad!” The absurdity of my remark hit us both, and we burst out laughing. Dad had been dead for over two years. Full Story
Elliott Wave theorists, and there a lot of technical chartists that follow their work too, argue that gold still needs to put in one last low price before it can be said to have completed the classic wave formation and then power upwards in a big price spike. If so how could this happen? If we look back to how gold behaved in the 2008-9 Global Financial Crisis then the answer is pretty clear. In a really big market sell-off gold will tumble out of bed along with everything else. Full Story
Cambridge House presents an exclusive interview with the Chairman of Sprott US Holdings, Rick Rule. He discusses several topics with interviewer Vanessa Collette including: - Trying not to be too cautious - Lending has been a Great Source of Revenue for Sprott - Buy the Best of the Best in Every Way Full Story
Cambridge House presents an exclusive interview with the President of Goldsource Mines, Yannis Tsitos. He discusses several topics with interviewer Vanessa Collette including: - Company Merged to bring a Great Asset Together with a Great Team - Eagle Mountain in Guyana has Very Good Economics - Fully Financed and Starting Construction Soon Full Story
Cambridge House presents an exclusive interview with the Chief Executive Officer of SilverCrest Mines, Scott Drever. He discusses several topics with interviewer Vanessa Collette including: - Transitioning Santa Elena Underground - La Joya is still at least a few years away - Santa Elena Still has a lot of Room for Growth Full Story
By: Steve St. Angelo, SRSrocco Report - 29 January, 2015
According to USGS, U.S. gold production declined 11% in October compared to same month last year. This was due to lower seasonal production in Alaska and lower grades at Rio Tinto’s Bingham Caynon Mine in Utah. U.S. gold production in October was 16.8 metric tons (mt) compared to 18.9 mt last year. Even though domestic U.S. gold production was down significantly in October, it has trended lower throughout the year. Full Story
The first major secessionist movement in American history depended on many things for its success, not the least of which was an unemployed, twice-married tax collector from Thetford, England who had dropped out of school at age 12 to apprentice in his father’s stay-making business. As an adult he stumbled through various unsuccessful occupations while building a reputation as a beer hall debater. Full Story
Over the last 100 years the Fed has had many mandates and policy changes in its pursuit of becoming the chief central economic planner for the United States. Not only has it pursued this utopian dream of planning the US economy and financing every boondoggle conceivable in the welfare/warfare state, it has become the manipulator of the premier world reserve currency. Full Story
In the closing months of 2014, on numerous occasions the position was put forth that as the days of January stacked up, toward the end of the month and going into February, that the global financial structures would show severe strain, widespread disruptions, and possible signs of cracks in breakdown. The forecasts were clearly stated and repeated. Even the present flow of events has been shocking, despite the expectation. The forecast certainly has proved correct. The disruptive events and pace of systemic breakdown are surely going to continue. Full Story
One key perk to working alongside investing seers is the opportunity to ask them the big questions. Wondering what lies ahead, I asked Casey Research Chief Economist Bud Conrad and technical analyst Dominick Graziano to share their views on what investors should expect in 2015. Full Story
In my previous missive, I tried to illustrate the supply side of gold and how the movements of inventory have recently changed. In this part, we will look more to the demand side with a wrap up of why it truly matters “whether the gold is there” or not. From a demand perspective, we already know China is buying the entire global mine supply of gold on their own. We also know India is very big buyer purchasing almost 40% of global supply. Adding just these two together we come up with 140% of new gold being spoken for. Full Story
I have worked to keep this piece readable, and as brief as possible. My grave diagnosis demands the evidence and reasoning to support it. One cannot explain the collapse of this currency with the conventional view. “They will print money to infinity,” may be popular but it’s not accurate. The coming destruction has nothing to do with the quantity of money. It is a story of what happens when interest rates fall into a black hole. Full Story
By: Steve St. Angelo, SRSrocco Report - 28 January, 2015
U.S. gold exports to Hong Kong and China jumped significantly in October. Not only were U.S. gold exports strong in October, they were the second highest for the year. Shipments of gold out of the U.S. spiked in January, declined in February and March and remained subdued during the summer months. Full Story
Women aren't necessarily better than men, but men and women on boards together make better decisions that lead to higher returns, according to a new study on the impact of women on the boards of mining companies. As a matter of good governance, Amanda van Dyke, chair of Women in Mining (UK), analyzed the performance of companies open to new ideas, including moving beyond the old boys' network, and found that they excelled in profitmaking, environmental and social sustainability, and a host of other factors. Full Story
Cambridge House presents an exclusive interview with the President, CEO & Director of Balmoral Resources, Darin Wagner. He discusses several topics with interviewer Vanessa Collette including: - Drilling this Winter to Advance the Grasset Discovery - Martiniere is Also Looking Promising - Quebec is a Great Place to have an Asset Full Story
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - 27 January, 2015
In an essay headlined "Decoding the Gold COTs: Myth vs. Reality," market analyst Dan Norcini notes that futures markets have a huge influence on commodity prices and that market participants often place trades there first in anticipation of placing trades in the cash market. But Norcini disparages complaints by "gold bugs" that the gold futures market particularly is corrupt. But of course central banks and their agents, the huge investment banks -- entities that create or have access to essentially infinite money -- also recognize the influence of the futures markets and exploit it in pursuit of their objectives. Does Norcini really not understand this? Full Story
It’s hard to think of a topic where following the conventional wisdom can be more dangerous. And that topic is banking. It’s generally accepted as an absolute truth by the public and most financial experts that putting your money in a domestic bank is a safe and responsible thing to do. After all, if anything were to go wrong, your deposits are insured by the government. Full Story
As painful as it may be, I'd like you to please take a moment and imagine yourself as resident CNBS stock huckster, Jim Cramer. As ole Jim is often wont to do, let's pretend that you've found an undervalued equity with strong fundamentals. A potential home run that has been beaten down by years of aggressive selling and short-selling. Full Story
I am hard pressed to find a single article calling for lower lows in the metals. Everywhere I look, there is consistent certainty that the final lows have been struck, and the bull market is back in full force. To me, market sentiment can be summed up with a Yogi-ism – “it’s déjà vu, all over again.” Full Story
One of the hot political topics these days is income inequality, but one of the groups of Americans that’s the most mistreated by Washington DC is the millions of Americans who have responsibly saved for their retirement. Full Story
For over 30 years, sovereign nations, particularly in the West have been buying votes by offering social payments in the form of welfare, Medicare, social security, and the like. When actual bills came due to fund this stuff, Governments quickly discovered that current tax revenues couldn’t cover it (see the image below)… so they issued sovereign debt to make up the difference. Full Story
Gold was down 1.72 percent at the end of 2014, but things are looking up for the yellow metal. Last week I returned from presenting at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, where sentiment for gold was through the roof. And with good reason. Even though gold was down last year, it still ranked as the second-best-performing currency, following the U.S. dollar. The metal has risen about 10 percent year-to-date, and last Tuesday, for the first time since mid-August, it broke through the $1,300 mark. Full Story
“Is the gold really there”? This is truly the question of all questions and at the core of everything that’s about to come! Before getting into the topic itself, it is worth breaking the simple question itself down and into parts. What gold? Who’s gold? And Where? The answers are, your gold, your country’s gold, the gold claimed to be stored and backing various “receipts” like COMEX and GLD. Is the claimed gold really sitting in New York, London, Zurich, Dubai, Shanghai and all the rest? This is a hugely broad topic and I apologize if I miss something but the question itself is now more important than ever before, I’ll explain this in Part two. Full Story
I know it's easy to brush off those constantly mounting reports and stories of decay, destruction, and despair. I sometimes find myself ignoring as much bad news as possible, just to keep my sanity. Then I realize that heaping one atrocity after another onto my growing pile of information-overload is purposely designed to wear me out, so that I'll ignore new attacks on my Constitution and new betrayals from those I elected to office. They want me to grow weary of learning what's true, hoping I'll overlook what I recognize as lies. Full Story
Bank economists and bearish gold gurus continue to err, on their gold price predictions. The huge declines they promised in 2014 on the taper never materialized. They promised that 2015 would bring much lower prices. Instead, gold has already rallied strongly, as I told the gold community it would, because of the bullish news that consistently emanates from Asia. Full Story
Weakening confidence in currencies, central banks, and governments will focus attention upon real money, the money that has survived for thousands of years BEFORE AND AFTER the era of central bank promises, lies, manipulations, and monetary stimulation. Gold is making a determined come-back in financial markets because it is more real than paper fiat currencies backed only by the faith, credit, and the lies of insolvent central banks and sovereign governments. Full Story
India’s customs department, Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence & Statistics (DGCIS), just released the QUICK ESTIMATES FOR SELECTED MAJOR COMMODITIES for December 2014. According to the DGCIS the figures for December are provisional and subject to change, however, I’ve been tracking these quick estimates for months and they are reasonably accurate, compared to the official numbers that lag a few months. Full Story
This is the question to ask: What is similar between today’s economic environment and a two-month interval during the 2008-2009 banking debacle? I submit the answer is simply fearful investors in the marketplace. Over the past two months we have witnessed a variety of unsettling economic and geopolitical events including... Full Story
Until the ECB announcement of €1 trillion in QE, the equity markets were struggling to maintain their upside, near-vertical trajectory. The equity market Cycles seemed to have recently changed in character, and were at serious risk of rolling over and failing. And a failure at this point in the Investor Cycle, after such a massive and speculative bull market, would open the door to a significant decline and possibly even signal that the current great bull market was finally over. Full Story
This week we will cover the ECB QE action, Euro, USD and their implications for global trade. We’ll also update a still-intact rally in gold, silver and the miners along with some (NFTRH+) trade opportunities. But first let’s review December’s Semiconductor Equipment sector Book-to-Bill ratio, just out on Friday evening and discuss some of the dynamics in play with respect to the ‘b2b’ and the US economy. Full Story
When it comes to interpreting what current interest rates are telling us about the markets in various countries, I have to say that I do not think they mean what the market seems to think they mean. In fact, buried in that list of bond yields is “false information” – information so distorted and yet so readily misunderstood that it leads to wrong conclusions and decisions – and to bad investments. In today’s letter we are going to look at what interest rates actually mean in the modern-day context of currency wars and interest-rate manipulation by central banks. I think you will come to agree with me that an interest rate may not mean what the market thinks it means. Full Story
In our opinion speculative short positions (half) are currently justified from the risk/reward perspective. Gold’s rally took place along with the U.S. dollar’s rally and this was encouraging for gold bulls, but gold’s reaction after the 1,140 billion euro QE program was announced was very disappointing. Is the rally over and will the gold market plunge once again? Full Story
We have already suggested that falling oil and other raw materials prices may be the canary in the coalmine. The gold is, however, not only a commodity, but also a currency, so the yellow metal does not have to fall during bear market in commodities. Nevertheless, its behavior depends strongly on the U.S. dollar. So, what are the prospects for the greenback? Full Story
There has been some discussion about how the Swiss National Bank breakaway from the 1.20 peg to the Euro was a shot to the upside for gold. It appeared to us that the rally may have been sparked a few days ahead of the announcement, and last week’s mostly sideways aftermath was the froth on the rally. It may continue, but the narrower range could just as well lead to a pullback, discussed in last article, Timing Is The Most Important Element, Full Story
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - 26 January, 2015
In the first of a series of articles about the gold vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, GATA consultant Ronan Manly reports that the bank's documents indicate a huge decline over recent decades in the number of central banks vaulting gold there as well as the amount of gold vaulted. Further, Manly finds, the bank has gotten much more secretive about its gold vaulting over the years. Full Story
Five days ago silver broke out of an inverse H&S bottom that has temporarily reversed the downtrend. I measured the more conservative price objective using the higher low instead of the Swiss spike low which comes in around the 19.80 area on the log chart. It will be interesting to see if the Swiss spike low will be the ultimate low for the bear market or just a short to intermediate low. Sometimes big trends can end with one last shake out of the weak hands similar to the Swiss spike low. Full Story
Over the many years that I have been writing about the commodity futures markets, I have tried to make a point of homing in on the fact that it is the presence of high-powered speculative money flows that drive market action. Whenever commentators speak of fundamental factors that should go into determining the price of any commodity, they tend to generally speak in terms of demand for the physical product versus the amount of supply for that same product. More often than not, omitted from the discussion is the role that speculators play. Full Story
Economic manipulation schemes will come to an abrupt halt in 2015-2016, Dr. Martenson amid peak central bank credibility. Trillions of unregulated, interest-rate sensitive derivatives are threatening to topple the global economy; Over $250 trillion of CDS sit on the top 5 US bank's balance sheets. Chris Powell uncovers conspiracy facts regarding manipulation of the global financial system. Price discovery has been compromised, jeopardizing the foundations of the global edifice. Full Story
The new year has ushered in a remarkable and unexpected turn of events for gold. It is up significantly in four of the seven top currencies (the euro, British pound, Australian and Canadian dollars), up respectably in two others (U.S. dollar and Japanese yen) and down slightly in the last (Swiss franc). The significant gains in gold’s value in a very short period of time demonstrate amply the value of gold as a hedge, not just against inflation, but against sudden currency devaluation and systemic financial and economic risks as well. In short, it is important to see that gold owners in these countries got the protection they sought against adverse circumstances when they first purchased the metal. In short, gold has performed as advertised. Full Story
The US Dollar rally, combined with the ECB’s policies are at risk of blowing up a $9 trillion carry trade. When the Fed cut interest rates to zero in 2008, it flooded the system with US Dollars. The US Dollar is the reserve currency of the world. NO matter what country you’re in (with few exceptions) you can borrow in US Dollars. And if you can borrow in US Dollars at 0.25%... and put that money into anything yielding more… you could make a killing. Full Story
Throughout much of 2013 and all of 2014, there were numerous stories/reports out on what would have to be considered as very bullish prospects for the prices of gold and silver. There were calls for gold to rally anywhere from $3,000 to over $25,000 the ounce, $100 to over $500 the ounce for silver. Almost no one called for both metals to make new recent lows by the end of 2014, where gold was $1,180 and silver $15,50. This was a far cry from even the most conservative bullish calls for much higher prices by the end of 2014. Full Story
An absolutely massive week for leading stocks. I’ve talked recently about the ability to keep it small during the tough times and go heavy during the good times and things turned good this past week. After one leading company reported great earnings and gaped up large overnight other leading stocks and markets saw their behaviour change instantly to very positive. Full Story
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