Doug Casey told me in January, "The only thing that scares me is that central banks are buying a lot of gold; they're historically contrary indicators." When it comes to buying gold, central banks have such a poor timing record that they're frequently joked about as a contrary indicator. Full Story
With gold, silver, and their miners’ stocks drifting listlessly near correction lows, the sentiment in precious-metals land is even more pessimistic than usual. Bears abound while bulls are now an endangered species. But interestingly, demoralizing consolidations are par for the course this time of year. Throughout most of their secular bull, the precious metals have suffered during the summer doldrums. Full Story
It may look as if almost any mining stock you see these days is a bargain just waiting to be plucked. While most stocks have seen major drops from their highs and some are showing significant price turns, others have more downside left and a few just won't make it to the next market peak. Full Story
Chile's accession to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development in 2010 was more than just a confirmation that they'd earned the right to join the world's top ranked economies. As the first South American country to be accepted into the OECD, it was also a symbolic affirmation of several decades worth of market-oriented reforms that transformed the country from an illiberal backwater to what is arguably one of Latin America's most stable and thriving nations. Full Story
FRIDAY the Thirteenth saw the gold price in Dollars do something it's managed only 7 times in the last 11 years. Gold traded flat from 12 months before. So if you bought on 13 July 2011, you hadn't made a dime by the time New York got itself showered and brushed its teeth this morning. You held just the same Dollar-value one year later – basis the London AM Fix – at $1579 per ounce. Full Story
Libor – or the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate - is one of the lynch pins in setting [rigging] global U.S. Dollar interest rates. This is why a larger discussion needs to be had about the Libor rigging – it is not a London or Barclay’s centric story. It has EVERYTHING to do with making the American Dollar look viable as the world’s reserve currency. Full Story
Amid all the increasing challenges in the Markets and Economy there are three “Fortress Asset” Sectors which will likely return Profits over the mid and long-term regardless of Boom or Bust, Inflation or Deflation. To understand why we select just these three Sectors first consider... Full Story
Is it a bear market, or is it a bull market, that is the question. On one hand Europe is obviously in a recession. China is slowing dramatically, and the US economy is clearly in ‘stall mode’ at best, and slowing rapidly at worst. That alone would suggest that a bear market has begun. Full Story
All the fundamental factors that have made gold such a stellar investment for the last decade are still intact. Fiat money is still being produced on easy street around the world, which in turn fuels worries about the dwindling purchase power of the currencies; central banks are still accumulating gold; real interest rates are still negative so investors don’t give up any interest rate by investing in gold. Full Story
Investors are worried that this summer will witness a repeat of the summer debacles of 2010 and 2011. The stock market has itself vulnerable to negative news from overseas as well as earnings disappointments. Is the market’s recent behavior a portent of worse things to come? In this commentary we’ll try and determine whether the market will fulfill the bears’ expectations or disappoint them. Full Story
One of the great futures battles between the bulls and the bears is taking place in gold futures recently. The daily chart right hand side below has once again seen gold react at an important multipoint trendline. This is now "significant" trendline support. It won't be long before the upper or lower trendline is faced with another test. Full Story
In recent public articles, the USTreasury Bond bubble was described, supported by Interest Rate Swaps to produce artificial demand and to create an illusion of a flight to safety in toxic USGovt Bonds. A Black Hole phenomenon was described, which will suck the capital life out of most assets, celebrate the USTBond rally, and accelerate the recession in the USEconomy. Numerous endgame signals were described, all alarming in their own right, not a single signal being from the realm of normalcy. Extreme danger is the warning. This week consider just a handful of danger signposts, all screaming loudly of systemic breakdown. Full Story
For most of Wall Street’s history, trading in equities was fairly straightforward: buyers and sellers gathered on exchange floors and haggled until they struck a deal. Computerized trading of stocks didn’t arrive onto the Wall Street scene until the 1980’s. Computer guided “Program trading,” - defined by the NYSE as an order to buy or sell 15-stocks or more, valued at over $1-million total, was blamed for the “Black Monday” Crash of October 1987. Then, in 1998, the internet opened-up markets to anyone with a desktop computer, and a trading idea. Full Story
This month’s calendar has been chock a block with one important meeting or vote or conference after another. Any one of these could have had a large impact on the endless Euro crisis. The most impressive result (sarcasm implied) from all these meetings and votes is the overall lack of impact. For all the wild swings in both debt and equity markets things have changed little in the past month and the European muddle through continues. Full Story
By: Gordon T Long and Charles Hugh Smith - 12 July, 2012
In Part I of this 2 part series, Gordon T Long and Charles Hugh Smith discuss Statism and how the US has placed itself on a self reinforcing roadmap towards this potential destructive destination. Full Story
“Crowding out” is an obscure term if you're not an economist – but this replacement of the private sector economy with government spending may end up being one of the largest determinants of your standard of living during retirement. The investment problem is that the past, present and likely future of the US economy is one of rapidly growing government spending. Full Story
People are always looking for better ways of doing things, and this includes a better way of imparting a message to a misinformed American public. In particular, if a layman wanted to learn about the nature of our money and banking system I would direct them to Murray Rothbard’s What Has Government Done to Our Money? Full Story
Your secretary/treasurer was interviewed at length yesterday by a reporter for a mainstream news media organization that also seems serious about pressing the issue. While I provided her with much of the basic documentation, I urged her not to bother with supposed experts like me but rather to put some specific questions to the original sources of information, the Western central banks themselves; to collect from them a few refusals to answer these specific questions; and then to publicize those refusals and to ruminate on what they might mean. Full Story
By: The Gold Report and Andrew Richmond - 12 July, 2012
It's time for investors to brush up on their knowledge of NI-43-101-compliant resources and deposit grades with one of the world's foremost experts. Andrew Richmond, a principal at geological consulting firm Martlet Consultants in Brisbane, Australia, discusses the importance of grade, selectivity and size in establishing the economic value of deposits in this exclusive interview with The Gold Report. Full Story
By: The Gold Report, George Topping, and Michael Scoon - 12 July, 2012
Labor problems and low prices have platinum mines closing up shop in South Africa, and the potential for acquisitions is ripening. Senior Mining Analyst and Managing Director at Stifel Nicolaus in Toronto, George Topping believes that companies with shallow deposits and near-term production will be prime targets. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Topping and Associate Analyst Michael Scoon discuss how supply shortages are shaping the landscape for platinum group metals and some bulk commodities. Full Story
GOLD IS OF COURSE for kooks and weirdos only – those doom-mongers who, bothering to read history, think printing money risks massive inflation, and who also fear banking and even government default today. Can you imagine! Full Story
As the price of gold has gone up fivefold over the past 10 years, why would one buy it at today’s prices? For the same reason an investor would buy any other asset: if one believed it would be a good investment now, that is if one believed it may appreciate in value and add portfolio diversification benefits. A key reason to hold gold today might be to prepare for the crisis tomorrow. Full Story
Yesterday we looked at the strange configuration in T bonds, where Wall Street dealers appear to be clinging to a deflationary Armageddon scenario, or just maybe are holding up a big buyer with a stated mission to buy these bonds. Regardless, today we check out a different view of T bonds. Full Story
I have long argued, until my throat is raspy and raw from rudely calling people "imbeciles", "halfwits" and "low-life morons", that facts and figures don't lie, and from them one learns, to one's paralyzing horror, that We're Freaking Doomed (WFD). Full Story
The media frequently report the chronic disappointment of the political elites that the economy isn’t rebounding. Is this perhaps because people with different incomes see the economy differently? The simple fact is that people buy less if they are jobless or working part time. These days, quite a few of them, including those The Government would count as employed, are seeking additional sources of income. Full Story
Gold may have been manipulated like the London interbank rate or Libor over a long time frame, Ned Naylor-Leyland, investment director at Cheviot, told CNBC. Full Story
Malaysia's state-owned oil and gas company just made a multibillion-dollar bet that Canada will choose to export its shale gas riches. Even though the odds of securing permission to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Canadian west coast are still pretty poor, the costs of such an endeavor immense, and the timeline in question very long, Petronas is putting $5.5 billion on the table – far more than it has ever spent on an acquisition before – to secure a large foothold in the British Columbia shale gas scene. Full Story
The media is now fixated on an apparently new feature dominating the economic landscape: a "fiscal cliff" from which the United States will fall in January 2013. They see the danger arising from the simultaneous implementation of the $2 trillion in automatic spending cuts (spread over 10 years) agreed to in last year's debt ceiling vote and the expiration of the Bush era tax cuts. The economists to whom most reporters listen warn that the combined impact of reduced government spending and higher taxes will slow the "recovery" and perhaps send the economy back into recession. While there is indeed much to worry about in our economy, this particular cliff is not high on the list. Full Story
The gold community’s greatest love is gold stocks. I’m a big proponent of the view that gold will ultimately be the tool that ends the global financial crisis. Central bank buy programs should not only raise the price of gold, but maintain it close to the highest price attained in this bull market. Full Story
A question on the minds of many people today (increasingly those who manage or invest money professionally) is this: How do I preserve wealth during a period of intense official intervention in and manipulation of money supply, price, and asset markets? Full Story
In 1980 the Dow Jones Industrial Average began its secular bull market at 760 and topped twenty years later at 11,723 -- rising roughly 15.5 times. If gold were to match the Dow's performance, it would rise to $4058 per ounce by 2021 -- a 15.5 times gain over a 20 year period. In gold's secular bull market of the 1960s to early 1980s, it rose nearly 25 times -- from $35 per ounce to $850 per ounce. If it were to match that performance, it would rise to $6500 per ounce. Full Story
In researching past equity bull markets, we’ve found numerous similarities between all. Each bull market has three clearly defined phases. The last phase of each bull market is driven by valuation expansion which is made possible through the wall of worry phase in which valuations contract and the weak hands give way to the strong hands. Though the gold stocks may have already bottomed, plenty of fear and despondency persists. Full Story
A perception has grown that says that, in a recovering global economy and in particular a growing developed world economy, the gold and silver prices will fall because right now their prices reflect economic uncertainty and fear. Any recovery will therefore remove that uncertainty and fear, so gold and silver prices should then fall. This article looks at that concept and its validity. Full Story
Nevada has been a prolific mining region in the US since the famous Comstock silver discovery in the late 1800s. However, it is now gold that draws miners to Nevada. Gold deposits in Nevada are unique in that they cannot be seen by the naked eye. This makes them difficult to find. Despite this, gold occurs in massive trends that which constitute the second largest concentration of gold on earth after South Africa. In 1962, gold was struck outside the town of Carlin and ever since The Next American Gold Rush began. Nevada currently constitutes 73% of all US gold production and gold makes up 84% of all value of Nevada’s mineral and energy production per year. Full Story
June was not a particularly good month for Germany. First, she suffered a loss to Italy in the semi-finals of the European Cup soccer tournament. Then, she suffered a more significant blow when Italy's Prime Minister, Mario Monti, extracted important concessions from German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the European Summit. A loss on the soccer pitch can put a dent in the national ego. But a loss on the field of finance can be far more serious. Full Story
Banking, like any other financial activity, is not without risk – and the government should not continue its vain and futile pursuit of trying to eliminate risk. Get government out of the way and allow the market to function. This will result in a more stable system that meets the needs of consumers, borrowers, and investors. Full Story
Considering how crazy things in the financial world are getting these days, the above title on that very subject seemed both appropriate, and intriguing. Why intriguing? As some may have already discerned, the title is intriguing is because of the revealing parallel that can be drawn between the behavior of Hal (the too smart for it's own good -- or anybody else's -- computer in the movie) in Kubrick's classic 2001: a Space Odyssey; and the Federal Reserve, which unbeknownst to most these days is submerged it's own brand of 'crazy behavior'. Full Story
The story goes that our friends on Wall Street wink winked and nudge nudged with Alan Greenspan to cook up a massive bubble in credit and derived vehicles that eventually became malignant and spread toxic finance throughout the world. That is not a pretty picture. Full Story
The LIBOR scandal rolls on in the UK, eagerly observed by the rest of the world. This scandal has reached mammoth proportions and has become deeply political with politicians past and present rushing to tell the media: ‘nothing to do with me’. Full Story
Times are finally changing. It will never be at the speed the GATA camp expects, yet slowly but surely our time is coming. The GATA camp will be proven correct and it will evolve into one of the most grotesque scandals in history … dwarfing the Enron, Madoff, MF Global and Barclays scandals combined, in terms of its effects on financial markets around the world. Full Story
There are frequent claims that the U.S. economy has entered a period of “deflation.” These claims are totally unfounded and are false. Deflation can only be a persistent state of general price decline. In fact, in examining price trends, the U.S. is experiencing shocking price increases of over 15% per annum. To illustrate this, Figure 1 shows the Continuous Commodities Index, CCI over the past ten years. Full Story
What does the current environment of earnings and valuations tell us about the prospects for the US stock markets in general over the next 3-5-7-10 years? This week we have part two of "Bull's Eye Investing Ten Years Later," which we started last week. These two letters have been co-authored with Ed Easterling of Crestmont Research. Full Story
It is a mystery story really: why do so few investors seem to understand the case for silver? After all the track record is formidable. Silver prices have risen 10-fold in a decade, out performing gold and pretty much any other investment available to the ordinary investor. Full Story
Gold was off some 0.78% for the week as it builds a tight bottom pattern here in this larger wedge pattern. The long standing uptrend line is intact here and a bottom is nicely building. We could easily see the rest of the summer and into the fall vacillating between the uptrend and downtrend lines between about $1,580 and $1,700. Full Story
Savers and retirees aren’t the only ones getting screwed by interest rates that have been artificially suppressed by central banks around the world. These days, banks themselves are finding it increasingly difficult to earn even a nominal return on instruments they consider safe. Just last week, Denmark’s Nationalbanken set its deposit rate below zero for the first time, effectively charging commercial banks and others a fee for parking their surpluses in krones. There are numerous reasons why the krone would be a magnet for idle money. Full Story
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