Early summer is the weakest time of the year seasonally for gold, silver, and their miners’ stocks. With traders’ attention diverted to vacations and summer fun, their precious-metals interest and investment demand wane considerably. Thus this entire sector, and often the markets in general, suffer a seasonal lull this time of year. But these summer doldrums offer the best seasonal buying opportunities of the year. Full Story
Finally! Not only is this a great day for Texas it is a great day for anyone that wishes to store their gold outside of their own possession. If you’re comfortable, or have enough gold to store elsewhere this may be an option to consider. Full Story
Chris Martenson from PeakProsperity.com, author of Prosper! says the global macroeconomic outlook is dire. Given the downturn in the long-running credit cycle, considerable QE efforts will be required via CB monetary policy to maintain the status quo. CB, QE operations oftentimes result in unexpected consequences, in particular, runaway inflation, which bodes well for precious metals investors. Full Story
When I was a young lad, there was a classmate (let's call him "Frankie") in the very early years of my education whose behavior was quite often deemed as "peculiar" and while I found him immensely entertaining, the teaching staff and my fellow students did not entirely agree. Frankie was the kind of kid who would bang on our doorknocker on a frigid winter morning just before sunrise, fully clad in hockey skates, gloves and stick, and ask if he could skate on our frozen backyard hockey rink. The fact that it was a school day made it not exactly the brightest of decisions but my Dad would invariably say "Alright. You two boys have got 20 minutes then back in your houses to get ready for school." Full Story
Europe’s many fault lines are spreading once again, bringing the endless euro crisis saga back in 3-D realism. Italy gained a new anti-establishment government last week, even as Spain elected a new Socialista government that could crack Catalonia off from the rest of Spain. All of Europe fell under Trumpian trade-war sanctions and threatened their own retaliation. And Germany’s most titanic bank got downgraded to the bottom of the junk-bond B-bin. Full Story
The EU as a political construction is in a state of terminal decay. We know this for one reason and one reason alone: its core principal is the state is superior to its people. A system of government can only work over the longer term if it recognises that it is the servant of the people, not its master. It matters not what electoral system is in place, so long as this principal is adhered to. Full Story
There’s no telling how much longer this insanity can persist this time around. But it brings to mind Hemingway’s description of how to bankrupt as conveyed in “The Sun Also Rises” – “Two ways: gradually then suddenly.” By the way. Keep an eye on gold. The majority of the market looking to the sky for stocks and down over the cliff for gold, we could get a surprise move higher in precious metals and mining stocks. Full Story
The fundamental drivers for Gold and the US Dollar are similar and that is why they typically trend together. Negative and/or falling real rates drive Gold and the same drives the greenback though with respect to differentials between the other competing currencies. When real rates are rising or strong in the US that is bearish for Gold and bullish for the US Dollar. The opposite is also true. And with the US Dollar being the global reserve currency, it naturally competes with Gold, which is an alternative. All being said, history as well as recent action suggests that weakness in the stock market is more crucial to Gold’s future than weakness in the US Dollar. Full Story
For almost 7 years now, I have been actively engaged in the online community relating to investing opportunities. In fact, my first public article about a specific asset was when I called for a top in gold back in the summer of 2011, when most were certain we were about to easily eclipse the $2,000 mark. However, my expectation was that the $1,915 region would likely put a cap to this rally, despite the parabolic rally we were experiencing in gold at the time. And, as we now know, gold topped at $1,921 about a month after my top call. Full Story
Ask me what I am currently most enthusiastic about in the markets, and I’ll tell you it is the underpricing of rate hike expectations. Let me elaborate on why, what it means for investors’ portfolios and how to possibly profit from it. Full Story
Turning points in a financial system usually occur in discrete phases. At first, new information that contradicts existing preconceptions is dismissed as unimportant. But as more such data accumulates, a growing number of people come to expect the new trend to continue. In economist-speak, “expectations” change, and these become self-fulfilling prophecies, leading people to behave in ways that anticipate — and thus cause — more of the same. Full Story
Global financier, Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Economics rejoins the show with this latest market commentary. Despite the coordinated Herculean efforts of global central banks, low rate policies have failed to revive the economic patient. Pension funds and related retiree accounts have suffered through impossibly low rates, further compounding the difficulties facing already strapped retirees. Full Story
In 1913 congress approved The Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank which created dollar devaluation, massive unpayable debts, transfers of wealth to the financial cartel and more. This knife cut deep and caused huge economic blood loss. Full Story
Next week, the ECB will hold its monetary policy meeting. The bank was expected to start winding down its stimulus program at the end of 2018. However, Italian turmoil led some analysts to think that the ECB will remain cautious. Will the ECB withstand the pressure or funk? And what does it all mean for the gold market? Full Story
Gold’s breakout from its giant 5-year base pattern has had to wait for the dollar rally to run its course, which it now appears to have done, and this being the case, gold is now free to break out into a major bullmarket that looks set to dwarf all prior ones. We have in the past described gold’s base pattern from 2013 as a complex (multi-shouldered) Head-and-Shoulders bottom and while this description is still valid, it is perhaps more simply described as a Bowl or Saucer pattern, that is shown on its latest 10-year chart below. Full Story
You began investing in precious metals because they represent something honest. Gold and silver are tangible, scarce, and beautiful. People have always recognized them as such. Societies naturally gravitated toward using them as a trusted medium of exchange – money – almost as soon as societies were formed. Full Story
Silver has been money, and currency, longer than gold. The word “silver” actually translates to “money” or vice-versa in many countries around the world. Any true Christian knows that Judas sold out Jesus Christ for silver. Some theologians have reached the conclusion that Judas sold out Christ for approximately 30 pieces of silver. What would the value of 30 pieces of silver been in time of Christ? Full Story
The information provided by the BIS monthly statements is not sufficient to calculate a precise amount of gold-related derivatives, including swaps, used by the bank, but it appears that the bank's total exposure as of May 31 was around 415 tonnes of gold, which is essentially unchanged from April's 420 tonnes. Full Story
Now, I am not of that ilk personally. My closely held biases are that a) the market’s cycles can be interpreted and managed (although my bias also has led me astray at times, in my execution) and b) that the economy, and by extension the markets, are not normal; not your grandpa’s economy and markets because they are ginned and steroidally goosed by off-the-charts (i.e. experimental) central bank meddling. That’s my bias in line with my entire history of public writing since 2004. Full Story
It got me thinking, though, about the important role gold played in how the war was financed, as well as the U.K.’s daring efforts to prevent its gold holdings from falling into Adolf Hitler’s hands, should Nazi forces successfully invade the island and ransack its central bank. After all, Germany had done as much in a number of Central European countries before threatening the U.K. Full Story
As part of Merk's in-house research we regularly evaluate a consistent set of charts covering the economy, equities, fixed income, commodities and currencies. The aim is to keep our eyes open and to look through the noise of the headlines, avoiding the distractions of sensationalized click-bait. In sharing this content, we offer a cross-check to your own thinking and aim to add value to your own process. Full Story
Summing up, while the precious metals market is boring on a day-to-day basis and nothing seems to be going on, if we consider a slightly broader timeframe, we see that the signals are pointing to lower prices in the coming weeks, which is in tune with the current True Seasonal patterns. Moreover, let’s keep in mind that the analogies to what happened in gold and silver when the market was just as boring as it’s been recently suggest that if we get another very short-term and small move higher, it may be the final one before the move to the final bottom begins. The outlook for the precious metals sector remains bearish. Full Story
Inflation is a corrosive force that gradually – and sometimes rapidly – eats away at the nominal value of savings and investments. It is perhaps the biggest threat looming on the horizon for millions of retirees who have been steered into assets marketed as “conservative” – such as dollar-denominated money market accounts, bonds, and annuities. Full Story
The propaganda laced with bold lies is enveloping the media. The JOLTS report (Job Openings and Labor Turnover) released today alleges that the number of job openings in April hit a record. Of course, the April number was based on large revisions to previous data. The number reported is also “seasonally adjusted” and predicated on statistical inferences. In fact, 6.7 million allegedly vacant jobs is not only an all-time high but it also exceeds the number of “unemployed” in the Government’s monthly employment “report.” Full Story
The precious metals sector is on a long-term buy signal. Short term is on mixed signals. The cycle is up. COT data is supportive for overall higher metal prices. We are holding gold-related ETFs for long-term gain. Full Story
In the West, gold has rallied decently during five of the past seven recessions. I’ve suggested that the current situation in America is something like 1965 – 1970, when inflation began a long and strong up cycle. That’s partly why I’m adamant that it’s the best time in American history to own a portfolio (a global portfolio) of companies involved in precious metals mining and jewellery. Full Story
I wanted to see $7085 hold in bitcoin and $495 in Ethereum. On May 28, bitcoin hit $7075, a nominal break and ethereum $505. So far, those levels have held, and we appear to have set up bullishly. As long as they do, we have a very bullish setup - the five-wave pattern off the April lows, which suggests this wave ii we believe bottomed that proceeds a larger third wave rally. Full Story
The only remaining question at this point is wether anything will come from this or not. My pessimism says, currently, nothing will change. However, with all the uprising in both the U.K. and the U.S. I am hopeful that change will be realized in our lifetime and these criminal shenanigans will come to an end. Time will tell. Full Story
South African market analyst Nicholas Biezanek reports that whatever is represented by the explosive increase in use of the "exchange for physicals" mechanism to settle gold and silver contracts on the New York Commodities Exchange represents, it is not drawing down the inventory of metal vaulted in London. Full Story
The total U.S. public debt hit a new record high of $21.145 trillion on the last day in May. As the U.S. debt increased, so did the interest expense which jumped by more than $26 billion in the first seven months of the fiscal year. That’s correct; the United States government forked out an additional $26 billion to service its debt (Oct.-Apr) versus the same period last year. Full Story
Ready for inflation? Just days after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reassured markets that a trade war between the U.S. and China was “on hold,” the Trump administration announced that it would be moving forward with plans to impose 25 percent tariffs on as much as $50 billion worth of Chinese exports to the U.S. Beijing has already suggested that it will retaliate in kind. Full Story
Back in the late 1990s I interviewed for an analyst job with a value-oriented money manager. My main impression of our talk was how sad the guy was. The tech bubble was in full swing, any little nothing company with even a tangential relationship to the Internet was soaring, and this poor guy’s cash-rich, super-safe stocks were lagging so far behind the market averages that it was hard to see how he kept a single client. Full Story
TIMBER!! That is the standard cry in the forest industry among loggers who cut down giant trees, the warning to step aside for the great impact. GET READY FOR THE SIMULTANEOUS BANKING CRISIS IN THE THREE BIGGEST EUROPEAN ECONOMIES: GERMANY, FRANCE, ITALY. The United States and the London Centre will not be able to avoid the crisis. Full Story
The best performing metal this week was palladium, up 2.39 percent. In terms of gold, traders and analysts were bullish on the yellow metal this week after being split in the previous week, according to the Bloomberg weekly survey. The bullishness is driven by uncertainty over the future leadership of Italy and Spain, which could lead investors to gold. Full Story
Gold moved lower in May and it’s also down in June, but the price action is far from being spectacular. The overall volatility is still very low and the situation in the precious metals sector is simply extremely boring. But with May now being over and with a new month, new factors are likely to come into play and the odds are that this month will be anything but boring. Especially, if we see the continuation in the analogy that practically nobody seems to realize. Full Story
Bubbles in Nasdaq, bubbles in financial assets, bubbles in cryptos . . . bubbles are being reported everywhere. Moreover, more and more analysts are pointing to some financial crisis after another as each day goes by. Whether it is because of the cessation of QE, or because of the issues in Italy, or trade wars, etc., we are clearly not lacking for any reasons as to why this market should crash. Full Story
The set of sanctions that the U.S. began placing on Iran back in 2010 can be best thought of as a monetary blockade. It relied on deputizing U.S. banks to act as snitches. Any U.S. bank that was caught providing correspondent accounts to a foreign bank that itself helped Iran engage in sanctioned activities would be fined. To avoid being penalized, U.S. banks threatened their foreign bank customers to stop enabling Iranian payments or lose their accounts. And of course the foreign banks (mostly) complied. Being cut off from the U.S. payment system would have meant losing a big chunk of business, whereas losing Iranian businesses was small fry. Full Story
What happened? Well, it turns out that a big part of the apparent success of economies like Argentina and Indonesia came from their ability to borrow in international markets – frequently in US dollars – and use the resulting cash to build roads, bridges, airports, and soccer stadiums — that is, things that imply visible progress. Visitors came, saw all the “modernization,” went home impressed and hit “buy.” Full Story
It is my privilege now to welcome back Axel Merk, President and Chief Investment Officer of Merk Investments and author of the book Sustainable Wealth. Axel is a highly sought after guest at financial conferences and on news outlets throughout the world and it's great to have him back on with us. Full Story
Picture a scene in one of those action moves. Two guys are fighting for control over the steering wheel. The car is going 75mph, the road is narrow, and there is a drop over a cliff on one side. And there are lots of sharp curves. Full Story
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts from the Institute for Political Economy, author of several best-selling tomes, rejoins the show with solid news for PMs aficionados. The discussion begins with the new global trade War; although the US has suffered the loss of 500,000 manufacturing jobs per year for over a decade. Arch Crawford, head of Crawford Perspectives for 41 consecutive years, outlines his technical perspective on US shares, gold, silver indexes. Market volatility could explode next month; his work indicates June 6th through June 14th could be a difficult time in markets for traders / investors. Full Story
This might turn out to be a week to remember. No, stock markets globally haven’t crashed, but they have been shaken. International markets, particularly in the EU, were hit harder than U.S. markets. The trigger was the potential for another EU debt crisis—this time, not centered on Greece but on Italy, the world’s ninth largest economy. In 2011 the Dow Jones Industrials (DJI) fell almost 20% as the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain) debt crisis shook global markets. Full Story
A couple of decades ago, when the post-war baby boom generation was in its prime earning and tax-paying years, governments had a chance to guarantee the survival of their financial systems. But they blew it. Instead of controlling spending, running surpluses and banking the proceeds against the inevitable retirement of millions of boomers, most chose other priorities, whether military, social or (in the US case) both guns and butter. The result, in virtually every developed economy, is pretty much the same: Massive debts and little spare cash heading into the demographic tsunami. Full Story
Train wrecks and their financial analogues are a worldwide phenomenon. Europe, as I have written for several years, remains a giant accident waiting to happen—as Italy reminded us last week. You may have noticed the results when US trading resumed Tuesday. A wider crash may not be imminent but is certainly possible and will have worldwide effects if/when it happens. So now is a good time to review what’s already happened and what could be coming. Full Story
I’ve mentioned recently how important it is to have a game plan to follow so you know that when the charts change, then your game plan needs to be adjusted to the new information the charts are showing. Sometimes just a little adjustment is all that is needed and as long as your game plan keeps play out you just go with it until something changes. Full Story
These days opening the morning newspaper or switching on the evening news can be akin to an assault on mind and senses, as the media compete on a daily basis to see who will do the best job of ‘shocking and awing’ us. Quite often, we let that assault get the better of us – the blood pressure rises and the mood sours. Sandy McHoots, as Wodehouse describes him, harbored a healthy, well-cultivated disdain for that sort of thing. My guess is that McHoots was a gold owner. How could it have been otherwise? Full Story
While researching the current state of the gold market for an upcoming presentation, Mike Maloney came across some fascinating data - the 'Registered' gold stored in COMEX vaults has practically vanished. Mike's new presentation will be available in the coming weeks, stay tuned for details. Full Story
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