With the gold price hitting nominal highs last month, there is a lot of “mania” and “bubble” ranting going on in the gold community. Should we start selling? A bull market typically progresses through 3 phases: the Stealth Phase, in which early adopters start buying; the Wall of Worry Phase (or Awareness Phase), when institutions begin buying and every significant fluctuation makes investors worry that the bull market is over; and the Mania Phase when the general public piles on, driving prices beyond reason or sustainability. Full Story
By: Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital, Inc. - 10 December, 2010
This week Washington displayed the kind of "bipartisanship" that will bankrupt our country and wreck our currency. Coming at a time when both parties say they want to address our long-term fiscal imbalances, the compromise extension of the Bush era tax cuts should be a wake-up call to anyone who somehow expected the American leadership to ever have an "adult conversation" about the country's long term economic health. Full Story
It used to be that America was the New World and Europe was Old. Now they both look frayed around the edges and the New World label seems to belong to China and other emerging market economies. This new growth has been accompanied by a voracious appetite for the yellow metal. Full Story
Any way you slice it – precious metals data reporting on the part of American regulators is atrocious. Simple MATHEMATICS tells us a gold / silver ratio at 48:1 is EXTREMELY contrived and REEKS of manipulation on the part of the Federal Reserve and the Banks they are charged with regulating. Full Story
By: Daniel Aaronson and Lee Markowitz - 10 December, 2010
The United States’ financial situation is as dire as that of many European countries, yet the US Government’s actions contrast sharply with the austerity measures of European governments. In the last few weeks, the Federal Reserve boosted its quantitative easing program by $600 billion and Chairman Bernanke said that he was willing to increase bond purchases even further. Full Story
By: Adam Hamilton, Zeal Intelligence LLC - 10 December, 2010
Earlier this week, the flagship HUI gold-stock index powered up to new all-time record highs. While fantastic for gold-stock investors and speculators, such lofty achievements inevitably cement more big bricks on top of the wall of worries. At their highest levels in history, are gold stocks wildly overbought and doomed to correct hard? Provocatively, a strong case can be made that they actually remain cheap! Full Story
The Doomsday Scenario is certainly an increasingly likely Possibility. USA and Eurozone Debts are already unpayable without Devaluation (or Default for some Eurozone Nations). And while the so-called Key Emerging and Key Frontier Markets are in somewhat better shape than the USA and Eurozone, their Markets are nonetheless closely linked to the USA and Eurozone, so that all would plunge (and have in the past plunged) together in a Crash. Full Story
Increasingly we will see falling average grades being mined, mines becoming deeper, more remote and come with increased political risk. Extraction of metals from the mined ore will become increasingly more complex and expensive, even more so when one considers the effects of Peak Oil – the cost of technology innovation to power mining will be very high. Full Story
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - 10 December, 2010
Back in 2002 the top mutual fund manager in Canada and perhaps the world was Royal Bank's John Embry, but the 150 percent return of his gold fund that year didn't stop the bank from repudiating him publicly and then welcoming his departure after he issued a report concurring with GATA's complaints of gold price manipulation. Full Story
US mortgage rates have risen by 0.85 per cent since the Federal Reserve first signaled its intension to go for a second round of quantitative easing three months ago. And this week the yield on 10-year US treasuries is up 0.35 per cent to 3.3 per cent in a widespread global sell-off of T-bonds. Full Story
Many news reports, as read by persons interested in gold and silver, had a strange headline several days ago which read— “Want to Crash JP Morgan Chase? Buy Silver.” The backdrop for this message was a story from the London Guardian by Max Keiser which had a focus on the huge silver short positions at JP Morgan. Of course, this same idea would apply for gold and other commodities being manipulated by JP Morgan Chase and the other large Rothschild Cabal banks and institutions. Full Story
By: Richard Daughty, The Mogambo Guru - 10 December, 2010
The Financial Times brought up the interesting point that because bond prices are so insanely high (making bond yields so preposterously low), a one-percent change in yields would negatively impact the prices of bonds much more than a one-percent change if bond yields were higher, which I assume means in the normal 3-6% range. Full Story
In the last 30 day period, the price of gold has swung up and down like a yo-yo between $1,340 and ounce, and $1,420 an ounce, giving it a volatility ratio of 5.6%. Silver, in the same period traded between $25.38 and 30.50, which gives it a 16% volatility ratio. Oil’s volatility range over thirty days lies between $80.28 and $90.87, or 11.65%. Full Story
Gold is taking us on a roller coaster ride that I’m sure has many people concerned. However, long-term gold bulls can rest assured that this is not the type of price action typical of bubbles; when bubbles pop, they don’t retest highs for many, many years. Gold on the other hand is making new highs, correcting, then making new highs. If anything, the price action suggests a big thrust upward once we get this correction behind us. Full Story
Greetings, I would like to talk about a subject of which I believe to be of great importance. It is to do with the devaluation of our currency. The continual and increasing issuance of U.S. dollars has steadily eroded its value. This has been particularly pronounced since abandoning the final vestige of the Gold Standard some forty years ago. Full Story
By: Richard Daughty, The Mogambo Guru - 9 December, 2010
I naturally wanted to get my two-cents in about Ben Bernanke’s interview on 60 Minutes where he answered softball questions by explaining that everything will be fine and there is no cause for alarm because he and the Federal Reserve were “on the job,” although things will probably get worse for a long time, while he is “100 percent” certain that he could prevent inflation in prices by (get a load of this!) raising interest rates! Full Story
By: Michael Campbell and Greg Weldon - 9 December, 2010
Gold and silver have been hit hard this week, so it is probably a good time to remind ourselves that the factors that have been driving bullion prices higher for the last decade are still very much in place – are indeed more powerful than ever. In the following interview, Greg Weldon of Weldon Financial explains why this is so. Full Story
By: Julian D. W. Phillips, Gold/Silver Forecaster - Global Watch - 8 December, 2010
There appears to be just over one week left for the Eurozone Finance Ministers to resolve the Eurozone debt crisis or face a collapse of confidence in it and the euro. This need not lead to a collapse of the two though. In perhaps an underestimated situation, the discord among the members of the “Europe United” bloc, the seeming inability to permanently resolve the crisis is well on the way to that end. Full Story
By: Gary Dorsch, Editor, Global Money Trends - 8 December, 2010
In a taped interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired on December 5th, Federal Reserve chief Ben “Bubbles” Bernanke tried to brainwash the American public, into believing that “Quantitative Easing” (QE), is absolutely necessary in order to prevent further losses of jobs, and tried to assure his listeners that he has the skills to keep inflation under control. The US-jobless rate would have risen far higher, “something like it was in the Depression, at 25%,” -- had the Fed not provided tens of trillions in loans to Wall Street banks and other financial companies, he said. Full Story
The gold-silver ratio is perhaps one of the first indicators traders looked at to comprehend the state of the precious metals market and accordingly acquire positions. Indeed, it has been out of favor among modern investors who believe that this is one ratio even his barber is tuned in to and a simple sinusoidal movement does not often work. Full Story
In Europe, concerns about the euro remain prevalent. According to Financial Times Deutschland, the European Central Bank and several Euro-zone nations are asking Portugal to follow Ireland’s lead by applying for bailout. Tensions on the Korean peninsula further boosted the appeal of the greenback. Full Story
By: Bob Chapman, The International Forecaster - 8 December, 2010
Policy makers within the Treasury and the Fed are only interested in delaying and extending the timeline trying to find and extricate themselves from one of the most dangerous fiscal and monetary failures of all time. They know they and their controllers have no solution. QE1 and QE2 have temporally saved them financially, but have not saved any economy, especially the American economy. In addition it has added to the severity of the crisis. Full Story
By: John Browne, Senior Market Strategist, Euro Pacific Capital - 8 December, 2010
Despite America's economic problems, the US dollar has maintained its respected status the world over - and has even managed to maintain value in comparison to other currencies. It appears that the dollar will likely finish 2010 at the same levels that it started. Even today's announcement of more tax cuts and stimulus, which will guarantee widening federal deficits for years to come, could not put a dent in the dollar. The dollar's charmed life stands in strong contrast to the euro, which is currently suffering from its internal flaws and the Europeans' unfortunate recognition of reality. Full Story
As we have discussed at length in The Casey Report, while the eurozone is back in the soup just now, Japan could very well be the next black swan to lay an egg on the global economy. Full Story
In past commentaries, I've written about my favorite form of technical analysis. That is intermarket analysis. Intermarket analysis takes traditional technical analysis much further. Normally, we'd look at a market by itself. We'd look at its price action, potential patterns and its momentum. Intermarket analysis takes this a step further by comparing the market at hand to various other markets. It gives us an idea of what is really going on and where market leadership is. Full Story
The last week was a full Federal Reserve soap opera, full of events and action that should appear suspicious to most anyone. First, the Federal Reserve complies with a request to release information about its emergency lending and monetary policy actions during the financial crisis, at which point it is found the Fed was willing to hand cash to just about anyone. Next, Bernanke comes out on 60 Minutes, a very popular and watched program, to discuss quantitative easing three. Has the chairman gone mad? Full Story
JULIA: Welcome to tonight's show. I'm Julia Sanders. We have with us Mr. Thomas Lloyd. It's great to have you here with us tonight. LLOYD: Thank you Julia. I'm very glad to be here today. JULIA: OK. So, as an investment banker with ABC Wealth Management, you must be very familiar with the nature of financial markets. Full Story
By: Richard Daughty, The Mogambo Guru - 8 December, 2010
I was telling the doctor that I distinctly heard a popping sound inside my head when I saw that the foul Federal Reserve had created, last week alone, another $24.2 billion in Fed Credit, which was instantly turned into money when the Fed bought $24.2 billion of US government securities, and all in One Freaking Week (OFW)! It made a kind of “sizzling” sound. Full Story
By: Rick Ackerman, Rick's Picks - 8 December, 2010
Helicopter Ben said so many dumbfounding things the other night on 60 Minutes that we wouldn’t know where to begin if we were to go after him. His ostensible interviewer, Scott Pelley, was clearly out of his depth, so it looks like we’ll have to wait until Bernanke faces Rep. Ron Paul on Capitol Hill before we get a clearer picture of the issues the Fed chairman would have us believe he is managing. Full Story
Gone are the days of gold coated tungsten bars, shaved or skimped ounce rounds, or completely faked gold painted coins sold as replicas. Today's gold fakers are using alloys – not coatings – to produce some of the best fakes the physical gold market has ever seen. Full Story
This past Sunday on the CBS program "60 Minutes", Americans received a massive dose of mendacity from our Fed Chairman. Mr. Bernanke's shaky delivery, and even shakier logic may cause faith in America's economic leadership to evaporate faster than the value of our dollar. In particular, Bernanke delivered two massive distortions: Full Story
Warren Buffett recently remarked that you can't value gold like an oil company or farmland, so we should forget gold and buy equities. But he misses the point! Gold doesn't produce value because it is value; in other words, gold is money. Full Story
The five day weekend. Readers should know I refer to Friday as “report card day” and Monday as the start of your “five day week-end.” Some questioned that reality, but as I write this sentence at about 4 am Tuesday morning, Gold, Silver, the GDX, and the GDXJ have all taken out, upside, their $1424 “correction area” highs. What’s your bottom financial line? Your five day weekend is underway, and has been since Monday morning! Full Story
Essentially what is happening, is a process of monetizing the debt. This is often a final phase before a currency collapses. The Federal Reserve creates electronic money to credit banks, which in turn use the money to purchase U. S. treasury bonds. In short, the central bank of the United States, is creating money to loan to the government, but is doing so through the banking system. Full Story
By: Nu Yu, Ph.D. with Lorimer Wilson - 7 December, 2010
Technical analyses of the future direction of the U.S. dollar, the price of gold and the American and Chinese stock markets suggest that the near term pattern for each should be somewhat choppy but with a favorable upward bias for gold and the markets. Let me illustrate my findings with the following charts and explanations. Full Story
In his interview with “60 Minutes”, Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested it is a myth that quantitative easing implies printing money. With all due respect, Mr. Bernanke, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck! Full Story
A bill, which seeks to provide greater Congressional oversight for circulating coin compositions, may have implications for the quantity of United States Mint gold and silver bullion coins that are available to precious metals investors. Full Story
Many investors are aware of the price movement in gold and silver of late, but have you looked at Palladium? Palladium has exploded right past the entire field of commodities along with the little sister of Gold, which is Silver. Both precious metals have logged sizzling 80%+ gains, year to date. Palladium related mining stock North American Palladium Ltd (PAL:AMEX) has done even better than the little brother of Platinum, with a year to date gain of 90%. Full Story
The news of Hungary effectively seizing private pension fund assets to pay for the debt obligations of the state last week should come as yet another reminder of the urgent need to get tax-sheltered retirement savings away from the clutches of the state before it's too late. Hungary is just the latest country to decide that it's citizens retirement savings are the property of the state. Full Story
By: Steven Saville, Speculative Investor - 7 December, 2010
The most vociferous commodity bulls tend to be China bulls, and rightly so given that the price gains achieved across the industrial commodity complex over the past 12 months can only be justified by making the assumption that China will continue its rapid growth. China's importance to the commodity world stems from the fact that the bulk of its growth involves fixed-asset investment, which means that the growth is commodity-intensive. Full Story
By: David N. Vaughn, Gold Letter, Inc. - 7 December, 2010
Inflation. Reminds me of the 800 pound purple gorilla in the room that everyone pretends is not there. Same with talk about inflation. Congress has been down playing inflation, can’t see it anywhere. Full Story
By: Richard Daughty, The Mogambo Guru - 7 December, 2010
John Mauldin of Frontlinethoughts.com reports that “the number of people on food stamps continues to rise. As of the end of August, a total of 42,389,619 people were receiving food stamps under the SNAP program. This was an increase of 553,379 people over July’s number, or an increase month-over-month of 1.32%.” Most horrifically, “The year-over-year increase was 6,147,762 people or 17%.” Full Story
By: Rick Ackerman, Rick's Picks - 7 December, 2010
Gold and Silver swept all obstacles aside Monday, pushing already steep rallies into hyperdrive. Even a firm dollar failed to check the buying spree. At the opening bell, we were looking for Comex February Gold to surge to at least $1425; however, by day’s end it had done even better, rallying $24 to peak intraday at 1429.40. And although March Silver fell 11 cents shy of our minimum projection of 30.465, there was such power behind the nearly $1.00 rally that the target seems all but guaranteed to be reached during the night session. Full Story
Global Resource Investments Founder Rick Rule is always generous in sharing his wit and wisdom. In this Gold Report transcript of his Friday, Dec. 3, webcast, he covers a lot of territory and provides plenty of tips for investors as they face the extreme volatility he foresees. Despite the volatility, Rick believes the secular commodities bull market will continue its charge. Full Story
Let's start with two quick questions for gold investors. We're going to assume, as will be illustrated in detail later in this article, that 10 to 15 years from now a dollar is worth a nickel, that after a tremendous bull market gold has returned to more or less its long-term average value in inflation-adjusted terms (meaning a far higher dollar price for gold than today), and that as governments struggle financially around the world, the future average marginal tax rate on gold profits is 50%. Full Story
It’s no secret Ron Paul is expected to chair the Monetary Policy Subcommittee starting next year, and that he intends to properly audit the Fed and US gold reserves as initial steps in attempting to return America to some degree of fiscal discipline. Because there can be little doubt an expanding bureaucracy has hit the limit in terms of what the system can take, which is why you will never see the Fed voluntarily abandon QE2. Full Story
To chart retail sales and present this as something good for the whole country is lunacy, the kind of lunacy knows as Keynesian economics. Retail sales are of interest to retailers. The country does not get any richer via an increase in retail sales. It must be asked, who is doing this extra buying and where are they getting the money? The answer, in this case, is easy. The Federal Reserve is printing the money out of nothing. Full Story
After the bottom of the 4-year cycle in September the stock market began what has been described, in the words of Samuel J. Kress, “the final cyclical bull market of the post-World War 2 expansionary era.” The months ahead could well be the last chance for individuals to prepare for the coming “winter” phase of the deflationary 60-year cycle which enters its final “hard down” phase in 2012 and bottoms in 2014. Full Story
Lost in the shuffle of the European debt woes, a second round of quantitative easing and gold’s record run has been the resurgence in global demand for oil. Global oil demand is strong; in fact, it has never been stronger. Oil demand during the third quarter of this year was up 3.7 percent, the fourth-straight quarter of growth. Full Story
Gold had a “remarkable” rise of some +30% since the beginning of this new decade. Silver even had a “sensational” year rising some +70%, which equals to silver outperforming gold 2.3-fold: so far - so good. Full Story
A few years ago, at a coin shop in Palo Alto I had a conversation with a thirty something year old. I asked him if he was looking at coins because he was concerned about the monetary system. His response: "There's plenty of money around. I did eleven billion dollars worth of deals last year." Full Story
By: Rick Ackerman, Rick's Picks - 6 December, 2010
The stock market shrugged off appalling jobs data on Friday to close higher, much as we might have expected. Although Beadledom’s best and brightest had been looking for unemployment to remain unchanged at 9.6% for November, it actually jumped to 9.8%, at least according to the official tally. (Shadowstats’ John Williams has offered convincing evidence that the true unemployment number is above 20%.) Full Story
1st Hour: Headline news & the Market Weatherman Report. Spotlight Stock Picks. Host Chris Waltzek & Bob Chapman, The International Forecaster discussion and answer listener's questions. 2nd Hour: Gerald Celente, Trends Research Institute CEO Brandon Rook, Batero Gold Corp. Full Story
By: Julian D. W. Phillips, Gold/Silver Forecaster - Global Watch - 5 December, 2010
Chinese demand is behaving as we predicted. If you look at the recent history of Chinese gold demand, you start in 2003 when gold ownership was acceptable, having been banned from 1945 until then. This occurred at a time when the agency for the People's Bank of China began buying gold for their reserves. Prior to that, HSBC tried to persuade China to buy gold, but the time was not quite right for them. Now it is very right for China to buy gold. What has happened since 2003 and during 2010? Full Story
By: Bob Chapman, The International Forecaster - 5 December, 2010
Presently many of our subscribers tell us that people who they explain the problem to think gold and silver are too high. We heard the same thing when gold was $350.00 and silver was $10.00. Unfortunately, 98% of the population doesn’t have a clue to what is going on. They do not understand the massive printing of dollars and credit that has been flooding the world. Full Story
The op-ed in the Washington Post a few weeks back by Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke contained a few interesting revelations. Bernanke came clean on what he is doing, or at least trying to do with the trillions of dollars he has been passing out to the world’s needy that show up with tin cup in hand on the steps of the Federal Reserve System. Of course, Uncle Sam is the neediest of them all. Full Story
By: John Mauldin, Millennium Wave Advisors - 5 December, 2010
Why is it that the Irish must take upon themselves the debts of their banks, which in reality are debts owed to German and French banks? Why should the Germans bail out the Greeks and the Spanish? Is the spread of "contagion" starting to taint the debt of Italy and even Belgium, the home of the EU? This week we look over the pond (of the Atlantic) and wonder how all these things will end. As I noted last week, we are getting a string of not so bad news out of the US, so now there are really just two things in the short term to worry about (at least in terms of a positive US GDP): will Congress extend the Bush tax cuts and will Europe sort itself out? Full Story
In financial matters, gold and silver enforce the truth. We are near the moment of truth. Only gold and silver will remain when the moment arrives. All those who wish to maintain a portion of their wealth and power will have no choice other than to connect their systems to gold and silver. Full Story
By: Richard Daughty, The Mogambo Guru - 5 December, 2010
I have been grudgingly getting to work every day and on-time since, unfortunately, it looks like my incompetence, stupidity and sheer lazy worthlessness is going to produce another losing quarter, and the rumor is that the Board of Directors is looking for heads to roll. Full Story
There is a major trend just starting in the S&P and we are taking advantage of it. We’ve been chopped around for the better part of the last two months, up and down not really going anywhere but finally our trading account did what we’ve been positioning for, this past week. Full Story
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