Last week in an interview on CBS Network News, Economist Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody's, unwittingly revealed a central error of the global economic establishment. Zandi has made a career out of finding the middle ground between republican and democrat economic talking points. As a result of this skill, he has been rewarded with large quantities of airtime from media outlets that want to appear non-partisan, despite the fact that his supposedly neutral analysis often leaves listeners frustrated. Full Story
After a shocking upset in Greece’s parliamentary elections, the US dollar surged dramatically. Soaring 5.4% in May alone, the world’s reserve currency won legions of fans among traders. “King Dollar” was universally lauded, with everyone jumping on the strong-dollar bandwagon. But this dazzling strength was merely a short-term phenomenon. Zoom out a little, and today’s “strong dollar” is a fallacy. Full Story
Normally when articles talk about debt to GDP the reference is government debt to GDP. Overlooked is adding up all debt and seeing what that ratio is. The results were rather startling. That the western economies are overburdened with debt is not news. Long before the financial crisis of 2008 there were numerous warnings of an impending debt collapse. The warnings were largely ignored. Since then little has changed. Full Story
The world still needs gold and other natural resources, but we may need a new investment model to sustain them, says Byron King, writer and editor for Agora Financial's Outstanding Investments and Energy & Scarcity Investor newsletters and contributor to the Daily Resource Hunter. In this exclusive Gold Report interview, King shares his perspective on the practical and political future of gold mining in South Africa. Full Story
My wife forwarded this (A Terrifying Vision of the End Game) to me last week. It has gone viral after all (which is the only reason a finance-o-phobe like my wife - and like most normal people outside of geeks like you and me - would have seen it). It comes courtesy of Business Insider, which saw fit to pump the bear case at the exact moment that fear could not get any more palpable in US and global stocks markets. Full Story
It all started out great in 1949. The global economy had finished deleveraging from the great depression. The austerity of the long wave cycle winter season had burned off the results of earlier decades of debt buildup, overproduction, and economic excess. Bad debt had failed and been written off. The global long wave cycle of boom and bust had ended. On a 20-year compounded annual rate of return inflation adjusted stock prices bottomed in 1949. A broad global economic spring season had begun in earnest. Full Story
The financial future of the USA looks hopelessly bleak, with few credible prospects for changing the economic direction before the economy plummets to disaster. In hopes that there is still time, and that the politicians in power will rise to the level which the current crisis demands, this commentary offers one approach to restore the USA to economic health and prosperity. Full Story
Fed Vice-Chairman Janet Yellen’s “hint” of possible further QE on Wednesday, June 6, 2012 was followed by Ben Bernanke’s much weaker mere openness to the possibility, expressed on Thursday. It is thus no surprise that the Equities Markets Massively Rallied Wednesday. And also no surprise that the “Rally” petered out late Thursday. Full Story
George Mitchell, as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in 1966, began urging bankers to consider how "the computer can drastically change money and its use." In the early 1970s a nationwide electronic funds transfer system was envisioned. The system would use individualized electronic identification cards and digitized bank accounts with merchants connected to them by telecommunication links. Full Story
Europe’s debt problems are driving the world’s financial markets and investors are trying to figure out whether the single currency will survive. Furthermore, the mainstream media is currently awash with scary forecasts about the impending collapse of the Euro and many pundits are now predicting a Greek or Spanish default. Full Story
Today, we're accustomed to thinking of small greenish paper rectangles as the definition of money, and we think of the US government as the only source of money. To honestly discuss sound money, we need to realize where our current money customs came from. Full Story
My son doesn't know how to use a mouse. He doesn't even know what one is. As far as he's concerned, it's a furry animal he's only seen in books and running around the floor of the Newark airport. While I've known this for some time, it recently moved from the back of my mind to front and center following a brief car trip a few days ago. Full Story
SIX DAYS after they climbed back above $1600 an ounce, gold prices dropped back below that level on Thursday, as Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke appeared before Congress at the Joint Economic Committee. Full Story
Everyone has a favorite in this race. The World’s Dumbest Politician contest never has a lack of entrants and some days it’s tough to choose between all the contenders. No longer, however. The events in Greece have lifted one contestant so far above the rest that we simply have to declare him the winner. Full Story
The SS €uro is taking serious water. At the hastily called EU Summit Captains meeting on the Brussels Bridge, it was agreed that the best course of action, despite the worsening waves of bank runs, was to simply instruct the orchestra to continuing playing the same old familiar tune and order the rearrangement of the deck chairs. Full Story
We have all seen the newspapers headlines about the troubles in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and the entire eurozone. The situation in the U.S. is not much better, even if the press is ignoring it for the moment. In both blocks there is high debt and large, long-term entitlement programs for citizens without any clear notion of where the money to fund these programs will come from. (Hint—the printing press.) Full Story
Gold Prices have gone up for nearly 12 years now and have stabilized in recent months in a range around $1600 per troy ounce. This is up 18% per year on average since $250/oz. in 2001. Americans have yet to understand gold, or get on board the 12 year bull market that started in 1999 and 2001. Full Story
This weekly chart courtesy Stockcharts.com features the gold price rising within the blue channel and the Accumulation/Distribution line at the top. The green boxes show the historical connection between the gold price and the A/D line. Whenever the A/D line rises (as now), price usually follows. The fact that the A/D line has been moving up since the beginning of 2012 puts pressure on the gold price to ‘get in step’. Full Story
For his money—and the portfolio he offers investors is also his own—Ron Hera, founder of Hera Research, wants uniquely good companies. In an exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Hera shares why he is bullish on gold, finds silver volatile but worth investment and encourages new investors to dig a little to find hidden possibilities. Full Story
My New England road trip brought me to the St. Johnsbury, Vermont home of an old friend, Neil Raphel. A marketing consultant with degrees in English literature and law, Neil worked for a while as president of the trading firm of Wall Street legend Victor Niederhoffer. In the guest commentary below, he summarizes the most important things he learned about trading from Victor. Full Story
The main fundamental drivers of the gold price are central bank buying by the emerging nations together with Chinese and Indian retail demand. The motives behind this buying are very different from what we see in the developed world, with the exception of buying into gold Exchange Traded Funds. But buying gold for monetary reasons is a concept that usually doesn’t come into the consideration of gold investors. Full Story
Man-made financial phenomena imitate nature, but more importantly they are subject to the powerful laws of economic nature. The Wall Street financial engineers have built vast structures, which tragically are crumbling and soon will fall to the ground. Vast illusory wealth will be lost, never truly garnered. The fiat currency system has required tremendous efforts not only to build the financial skyscrapers ever higher each year, but also to provide support structures that prevent their topple. With the aid of the subservient press, an illusion of wealth, prosperity, and stability has been fashioned and defended. Full Story
After spending the last month consolidating (around 8:1) the Dow/gold ratio broke down on Friday to close at 7.47. This is a major shift, as the upward trend line in favour of the Dow since September has been broken with a significant drop. This is a significant event that should trigger the selling of the boarder equity sector as money moves out of the Dow and S&P and into gold and related equities Full Story
The apparent end to momentum in the 12-year bull market in the gold price is a carefully coordinated exercise in perception management. J.P. Morgan and a handful of the world’s largest banks have been permitted the right to originate contracts for forward sales and purchases of various commodity products far in excess of what is produced of each commodity annually. Full Story
It may feel like I'm out of touch with the precious metals markets to broach the subject of a mania today, but I think the table is being set now for a huge move into gold and silver. There are, however, very valid reasons to reasonably expect a mania in our sector. For one thing, manias have occurred many times before, but the main issue is that a mania in gold and gold stocks is the likely result of the absolute balloon in government debt, deficit spending, and money printing. Saying all that profligacy will go away without inflationary consequences seems naïve or foolish. Inflation may not attract investors to gold and silver as much as force them to it. Full Story
Bob Chapman was one of GoldSeek.com’s first contributing authors going back to the late 1990’s. We were privileged to have Bob as a weekly guest on GoldSeek.com along with his many article contributions. Bob devoted his life to spreading a wealth of information on a wide array of subjects. Full Story
A GOLD SOVEREIGN coin is within the UK tax authority's definition of investment gold. But would a new one pass the tests of fairness which government rightly demands of the investment industry? Probably not. It retails from the Royal Mint for £495 on a day when its gold content is worth £244.78. Sovereign gold costs more than twice its real value. It is a wonder they can sell sovereigns at all, but they can, because of a tax anomaly. Full Story
Draghi stuck to his guns in today's press conference of the European Central Bank (ECB). Keeping the main refinancing rate unchanged, he discarded various proposals on how the ECB could bail out peripheral governments. Full Story
The dismal U.S. jobs report for May, released last Friday, caused the price of gold to soar as the market appears to be pricing in an ever-greater chance of “QE3” – another round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve (Fed). But given that 10-year government debt is already down at 1.5%, the Fed may dive deeper into its toolbox in an effort to jumpstart the economy. Investors may want to consider taking advantage of the recent U.S. dollar rally to diversify out of the greenback ahead of QE3. Full Story
At this moment, the news media is constantly clamoring about the "Three Ds" that are buffeting the markets: debt, deleveraging, and deflation. We intuitively sense that they're linked -- but how, exactly? Understanding this linking is critical; as debt has fueled the global expansion, it will also dominate its contraction. Full Story
On June 20th the Federal Open Market Committee is going conclude a two-day meeting and release a summary of their view of the economy, most likely including an ‘unwelcome’ decline in inflation. That of course would signal a dreaded deflation, which are the windmill ‘giants’ to our Dear (monetary) Leader’s Don Quixote… Full Story
GATA Chairman Bill Murphy was interviewed Sunday by Jonathan Roth at Cambridge House's World Resource Investment Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and commented at length on last Friday's astounding rally in the gold price. The interview is 13 minutes long and it's posted at YouTube here... Full Story
Today, short-term interest rates are set by the diktats of the central bank. And long-term interest rates are set in a “market” in which the central bank is obliged to keep coming back to buy ever more bonds, and speculators front-run the central banks to buy ahead of them. The result has been that, for 30 years and counting, the bond price has been rising, which is the same as to say that the rate of interest has been spiraling into the black hole of zero. When it gets there (and probably sooner) the entire monetary system will collapse. Full Story
By: Charles Hugh Smith and Gordon T Long - 6 June, 2012
Charles Hugh Smith and Gordon T Long discuss Crony Capitalism. What is it, the central issues it is presently causing and what can and must be done to stop its insidious and relentless expansion in America. Full Story
Veteran gold trader and a former adviser to the Hunt Brothers in the silver spike of 1980, Jim Sinclair is now saying boldly on his website jsmineset.com that ‘The end is not near, it is here and now’ in reference to the global economy. That means of course that the time for gold and silver prices to hit the roof is also very close, and much closer than anybody else is currently forecasting. Mr Sinclair is laughing at George Soros for saying that the euro has three months to sort itself out. He thinks it will be lucky to have three weeks. Full Story
Index futures were wafting higher Tuesday night, made buoyant, presumably, by the absence of volume and an apparent dearth of sellers. For DaBoyz who run this nightly carny game, such rallies present an opportunity to induce a short-covering panic. Just the thing to distribute shares to widows and pensioners who still don’t suspect that the stock market may have entered a bear market. Full Story
Today, the G7 is holding emergency meetings to deal with the imminent collapse of Spanish sovereign debt in the bond markets, even as Germany considers funding a bailout package for Spain, or possibly changing its position in favor of the Eurobond solution to the regional banking crisis. As Papa Hemingway emmingwayHewonce observed, bankruptcy happens two ways, “Gradually, then suddenly.” Full Story
In technical analysis, no price pattern implies a more violent move to the upside than a flag pattern. Please click here now. There’s a flag pattern in play on this gold chart, and it implies that a 2nd near-vertical jump could occur very quickly. Today, G7 politicians and central bankers are holding a key telephone conference call amongst themselves to battle the crisis in Europe. Public statements made after that phone call is completed could be the catalyst that activates this pattern. Full Story
There are a few technical tools like Fibonacci that we know can be uncanny in doing retracement predictions, as the market respects this natural growth and decay cycle. The issue however, as with many tools, is that you get several choices to choose from. The tools you use seldom give you one answer, but, like Fibonacci retracements, Gann levels, Bomar Bands, Moving Averages or Elliott Wave Principle, you get a series of levels of interest. Full Story
Longtime readers know that we are a huge fan of intermarket analysis which is a rather new field within technical analysis. I believe John Murphy developed this field, thanks to his book. Intermarket analysis is the analysis of the relationships between the major asset classes: stocks, bonds and commodities. Furthermore, evaluating and comparing the different sectors within those asset classes also counts as intermarket analysis. Full Story
Talk of QE and rumors of coming Central Bank Intervention pushed stocks and Gold higher on Monday. It’s odd to hear these rumors when every major Central Bank has in fact been clearly stating NO new stimulus is coming any time soon. Full Story
When will the global central banks press the button and start the electronic money printing presses rolling again? Will they first allow some hot air out of over-inflated stock markets or seize on a contracting global money supply as a reason to get on with it? Full Story
By: The Gold Report and Dave Kranzler - 4 June, 2012
Savvy investors and central banks in Asia are accumulating physical gold, the most stable form of value. In an exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Dave Kranzler, founder of Golden Returns Capital, contrarian gold investor and newsletter writer, shares his investment outlook and explains what he looks for when investing in gold miners poised to profit from economic turbulence. Full Story
When I talk about the Love Trade, India and China are frequently discussed since the two countries have been dominating world jewelry demand. Turkey’s love for gold, though, cannot be overlooked, as an estimated 5,000 tons have been accumulating in people’s homes for years. Full Story
I think it’s safe to say that Friday’s action took the short cycle scenario off the table (as well as the D-Wave continuation). Gold not only broke its intermediate trend line, but also formed a weekly swing. I think we have all the confirmation we need at this point to conclude that gold’s intermediate cycle bottomed two weeks ago. Full Story
The 30 minute chart is shaping up to a "Bull Flag" pattern. There is no confirmation of the pattern yet, which would be a breakout or liftoff from the top trendline in the flag on an increase in volume. Trading early in anticipation of breakouts is a mistake in my book. I would prefer to see liftoff from the flag during the Comex session. Full Story
Although we have come to expect every program created, touched or tweaked by the fine hand of government to eventually bog down in scandal, waste and bureaucratic inertia, the Obama administration has outdone itself with the student loan program. Recently it came to light that this trillion-dollar boondoggle is producing more and more borrowers who fail to graduate. Not only are they deeply in hock when they leave, they also lack the college degree that might enable them to land the jobs needed to pay off their loans. Full Story
Show Highlights: Headline news & the Market Weatherman Report. Spotlight Stock Picks. Featured Guests: Greg Hayes: President of Northern Tiger Resources Inc.; Gerald Celente: Trends Research Institute. Full Story
This is the first instalment of a four part infographic series on gold. Wars have been fought over gold. Love has been expressed by it. Gold has changed the landscape of civilizations and the world. But what makes gold so great? This infographic examines the history of gold from ancient history to the gold rushes of the centuries ago. It looks at its properties and how it became not only a currency, but the gold standard. Full Story
And it is about time! After a 40% bear market (the second worst of the secular Gold stock bull so far), the large majority of investors and speculators have been worn out or scared out. The mid-May bottom was THE bottom in my opinion and we have a long way to go on the upside. The metals will rise as well, but Gold stocks will outperform this time. Full Story
My experience and the charts tell me that silver prices are likely to head to $75 to $125/oz. in the next one to two years. That's about a 150% to 230% gain for those who buy silver under $30/oz. Full Story
As of the end of May 2012, gold suffered the indignity of its first “bearish” year after its long-term bull market began in 2001. Gold made almost no net progress in the past year, and although the gold price is still well above its long-term uptrend, on an intermediate-term basis it’s hovering only slightly above its year-ago level. There are reasons for believing that in the coming weeks, however, gold’s intermediate-term fortunes will change for the better. Full Story
Economists oppose the gold coin standard because they do not fully believe in the free market social order. They do not believe that voluntary exchange in a private property social order produces greater liberty, and therefore greater wealth, than government planning does, meaning planning by tenured committees. The gold coin standard is a threat, both in theory and practice, to modern economic theory as taught by the cartel of higher education. It is a standing testimony to the unwillingness of self-interested, arrogant, cartel-certified economists to extend what they say they believe about free markets to the two cartels that employ them: higher education and the fractional reserve banking system. Full Story
One of the more frequent questions I am asked in meetings or after a speech is whether I think we will have inflation or deflation. My ready answer is, "Yes." Then I stop, which I must admit is rather fun, as the person who asked tries to digest the answer. And while my answer is flippant, it's also the truth, as I do expect both outcomes. So the follow-up question (after the obligatory chuckle from the rest of the group) is for a few more specifics. And the answer is that I expect we will first see deflation and then inflation, but the key is the timing. Full Story
Markets took a tumble this week as I mentioned was likely last weekend and gold and silver are holding up very well as I also mentioned was likely last weekend, in fact, gold is breaking out nicely now to the chagrin of recent gold deserters! Full Story
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