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Gold may rise for a second straight week as the slumping dollar boosts demand for the precious metal as an alternative investment.
Twenty-one of 28 traders, investors and analysts surveyed from Tokyo to Chicago on March 19 and March 20 advised buying gold, which rose 2.8 percent last week to $956.20 an ounce in New York. Five said to sell, and two were neutral.
Last week, the dollar dropped 4.8 percent against the euro, the most since December. Investment in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest exchange-traded fund backed by bullion, has jumped 41 percent this year to a record.
Most traders surveyed on March 12 and March 13 anticipated gold’s gain last week. The survey has forecast prices accurately in 151 of 254 weeks, or 59 percent of the time.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAEQMMKIFNZ8&refer=home
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Economy fuels gold rush _ Tupperware party-style
The women gathered in the kitchen, enjoying brie and chocolate tortes as they told stories about their high school rings and pieces of jewelry given to them by ex-husbands and boyfriends. But they weren't just reminiscing for old times' sake.
The guests at Cheryle Podgorski's "gold party" were there to trade in their old jewelry for cash.
Gold parties — the recession answer to Tupperware parties — have become increasingly popular around the country as people cast about for ways to raise money. A professional gold buyer tests and appraises the guests' jewelry and then pays them on the spot.
Guests say getting together with friends in somebody's living room makes it a fun, social occasion, and feels more respectable than hocking their rings, necklaces and brooches at seedy pawn shops or selling them back to jewelry stores.
"It's terrific because it's a little bit intimidating to think about walking into a jewelry store, even though they may be heavily advertising it, and, you know, to someone that you don't know and turning over your valuables to them," said Pat Walsh, a 56-year-old retired store manager from Simsbury, Conn.
Walsh went home with $286 after selling a pinky ring she received as a wedding favor 35 years ago, circle-linked bracelets, broken necklaces and a few large, mismatched or outdated earrings.
Gold prices are close to their highest levels on record, hovering around $900 per ounce, up from $400 five years ago. Analysts say investors looking for a safe haven for their money while the stock market is in a meltdown could keep gold prices high for some time.
That — together with aggressive advertising by online scrap gold buyers, jewelry stores and gold party organizers — has led many people to clean out their jewelry boxes and dresser drawers.
Several companies are mining the phenomenon, which first began to thrive in Michigan a couple of years ago amid the struggles of the auto industry. My Gold Party LLC now has at least 35 representatives running parties in 21 states and is looking for more, said January Thomas, co-owner of the Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich.-based company.
"It's definitely a growing trend. I mean, the economy is not getting any better," Thomas said.
The gold buyer at Podgorski's party, Maggie Percival, said she started organizing parties this year as a representative of My Gold Party to raise money to send her son to college. She soon learned that gold parties can carry an element of risk for organizers.
"I've actually given money to people for stuff that isn't gold because I didn't test it properly. That was when I was a newbie. I've gotten much better at it," Percival said. "I had to pay the price for that one."
In front of the guests, Percival uses a jeweler's magnifying loupe to assess the gold, a digital meter to test whether it is real, and an electronic scale to weigh it.
At Podgorski's party, women laughed as they narrated stories behind their jewelry, which included gifts from ex-husbands and boyfriends who no longer inspired fond memories, 1960s cocktail rings that a man gave to his wife before they divorced, and a souvenir from a high school trip to Russia.
"Somebody at a party last week had a pre-engagement ring from her boyfriend before her husband, and her 14-year-old daughter wanted the ring, and she said, `If your father ever saw you with that ring on you, he'd kill me,' so she sold it," Percival said.
The gold-buying services typically are not interested in the jewelry itself. Instead, they sell the items to gold refiners to be melted down.
The gold party host and gold buyer generally get a 10 percent cut. Podgorski made $300 at her party, which she said she donated to a charity she runs that provides free prom dresses to high school girls who cannot afford one.
"It's fun, it's something different. It's not a Tupperware party, it's not Pampered Chef," said Jennifer Phillips, a 39-year-old high school suspension supervisor and mother of six, who made $321 on her gold sales.
Alona Bloom, a 34-year-old mother of two and a teacher's assistant in Pittsburgh, recently sold old jewelry at a friend's gold party. Bloom thought she would leave with $100 but walked out with $700.
Now, she is now working to organize her own party to earn the 10 percent commission. She would like at least 10 sellers but has found just eight so far.
"A lot of people have already sold their gold," Bloom said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jIp0tAwji4FcFpnO1PlqEmq-jJOgD970K8EG0
The guests at Cheryle Podgorski's "gold party" were there to trade in their old jewelry for cash.
Gold parties — the recession answer to Tupperware parties — have become increasingly popular around the country as people cast about for ways to raise money. A professional gold buyer tests and appraises the guests' jewelry and then pays them on the spot.
Guests say getting together with friends in somebody's living room makes it a fun, social occasion, and feels more respectable than hocking their rings, necklaces and brooches at seedy pawn shops or selling them back to jewelry stores.
"It's terrific because it's a little bit intimidating to think about walking into a jewelry store, even though they may be heavily advertising it, and, you know, to someone that you don't know and turning over your valuables to them," said Pat Walsh, a 56-year-old retired store manager from Simsbury, Conn.
Walsh went home with $286 after selling a pinky ring she received as a wedding favor 35 years ago, circle-linked bracelets, broken necklaces and a few large, mismatched or outdated earrings.
Gold prices are close to their highest levels on record, hovering around $900 per ounce, up from $400 five years ago. Analysts say investors looking for a safe haven for their money while the stock market is in a meltdown could keep gold prices high for some time.
That — together with aggressive advertising by online scrap gold buyers, jewelry stores and gold party organizers — has led many people to clean out their jewelry boxes and dresser drawers.
Several companies are mining the phenomenon, which first began to thrive in Michigan a couple of years ago amid the struggles of the auto industry. My Gold Party LLC now has at least 35 representatives running parties in 21 states and is looking for more, said January Thomas, co-owner of the Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich.-based company.
"It's definitely a growing trend. I mean, the economy is not getting any better," Thomas said.
The gold buyer at Podgorski's party, Maggie Percival, said she started organizing parties this year as a representative of My Gold Party to raise money to send her son to college. She soon learned that gold parties can carry an element of risk for organizers.
"I've actually given money to people for stuff that isn't gold because I didn't test it properly. That was when I was a newbie. I've gotten much better at it," Percival said. "I had to pay the price for that one."
In front of the guests, Percival uses a jeweler's magnifying loupe to assess the gold, a digital meter to test whether it is real, and an electronic scale to weigh it.
At Podgorski's party, women laughed as they narrated stories behind their jewelry, which included gifts from ex-husbands and boyfriends who no longer inspired fond memories, 1960s cocktail rings that a man gave to his wife before they divorced, and a souvenir from a high school trip to Russia.
"Somebody at a party last week had a pre-engagement ring from her boyfriend before her husband, and her 14-year-old daughter wanted the ring, and she said, `If your father ever saw you with that ring on you, he'd kill me,' so she sold it," Percival said.
The gold-buying services typically are not interested in the jewelry itself. Instead, they sell the items to gold refiners to be melted down.
The gold party host and gold buyer generally get a 10 percent cut. Podgorski made $300 at her party, which she said she donated to a charity she runs that provides free prom dresses to high school girls who cannot afford one.
"It's fun, it's something different. It's not a Tupperware party, it's not Pampered Chef," said Jennifer Phillips, a 39-year-old high school suspension supervisor and mother of six, who made $321 on her gold sales.
Alona Bloom, a 34-year-old mother of two and a teacher's assistant in Pittsburgh, recently sold old jewelry at a friend's gold party. Bloom thought she would leave with $100 but walked out with $700.
Now, she is now working to organize her own party to earn the 10 percent commission. She would like at least 10 sellers but has found just eight so far.
"A lot of people have already sold their gold," Bloom said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jIp0tAwji4FcFpnO1PlqEmq-jJOgD970K8EG0
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Gold Is Ready To Go Very High Very Fast
It appears that gold is ready to go very high very fast, as measured in all currencies of the world. It seems that gold is in the process of completing the mega cup and handle pattern that started to form in 1980 when gold was at about US $850. The interesting part is the fact that it seems that we are in the final phase which should take us to about US $ 1 300 (about R 14 000) and eventually to about US $ 1 700 (about R 18 760) in a very short time relative to the 29 years since 1980. Do not be surprised to see $50, $100 and more up days, should key levels be broken.
The correction to about US $900 (and so far reversal to US $ 939) was the confirmation that the pattern is still very much on course. It seems that all major corrections, as is the nature of this pattern, are now completed. It now needs to get up to US$ 1000 and just above in a short period (with very brief minor corrections on the way there. For more on this cup and handle formation see the article by Jordan Roy-Byrne/Trendsman.
I have to state that it is not the potential high paper prices that make me bullish about gold, but its fundamental nature, and the current situation the world finds itself in. It is not the paper price, but what you can buy with it that matters.
During the correction, it was an opportune time to remind myself of why I am storing my wealth in gold and silver.
This is some of what I came up with: (please note that I am mostly repeating what I wrote previously, but that is exactly what I was doing - reminding myself)
Gold and silver is money and money is gold and silver, and money (real, not paper) is the safest and most consistent store of wealth over long periods of time and is especially important during times of uncertainty. There is a lot of fear and uncertainty today, therefore I store what little wealth I have in money, I store it in gold and silver.
As time passes, more people are realising the fact that the world's monetary system is fraud and that gold and silver is real money and not the paper money that the world uses today. The traffic is one-way, more, not less people come to the realisation that paper money is fraud and ditch it for gold and silver (the potential is huge). Maybe, right now someone who is reading this is ditching paper money for gold and silver. This fact is what makes me most bullish about silver, since it is the form of money that has the greatest potential due to the fact that it has more room to move from where it is (a demonetized monetary asset) to a fully monetized asset.
The debt levels in the world are enormous, and it is an inescapable fact that debt can only be properly and fully settled with real assets. Some assets are better than others when it comes to discharging debt. Gold and silver are real assets, and due to the fact that they are money, they are the ultimate form of payment and settlement of debt.
Due to these enormous debt levels, assets that are acceptable as proper settlement of debt will be in huge demand if these debts are to be properly settled; and this hold true whether debt levels are extinguished by default as well. Gold and silver is in huge demand, and this will accelerate.
Should the big debtors of the world attempt to "settle" their debt with more debt (inflationary) such as paper promises (like what is currently happening), then paper prices of real assets will explode, with gold and silver leading the way.
Paper money, bonds and other promises to pay are all subject to possible default, and during these times, default is a very common occurrence. Real assets are not subject to default, and gold and silver are real assets that you can hold in your hand, and are financially liquid (liquidity is even more essential during such times).
Paper money, bonds and other promises to pay are certainly at risk of impairment during these deflationary times, due to possible partial default or delays due to lack of debtors' ability to pay on time due to liquidity constraints. Remember an assets' value to you is less if you are not able to use it when required.
During inflationary times you are at risk, because though you might get the promised payment, but by the time you get it, it has lost a lot of its value and basically all of its value during hyperinflation.
This is all I have time for now, however it is enough to help me confirm that gold and silver is the best option when it comes to storing my wealth.
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_08/moolman030909.html
The correction to about US $900 (and so far reversal to US $ 939) was the confirmation that the pattern is still very much on course. It seems that all major corrections, as is the nature of this pattern, are now completed. It now needs to get up to US$ 1000 and just above in a short period (with very brief minor corrections on the way there. For more on this cup and handle formation see the article by Jordan Roy-Byrne/Trendsman.
I have to state that it is not the potential high paper prices that make me bullish about gold, but its fundamental nature, and the current situation the world finds itself in. It is not the paper price, but what you can buy with it that matters.
During the correction, it was an opportune time to remind myself of why I am storing my wealth in gold and silver.
This is some of what I came up with: (please note that I am mostly repeating what I wrote previously, but that is exactly what I was doing - reminding myself)
Gold and silver is money and money is gold and silver, and money (real, not paper) is the safest and most consistent store of wealth over long periods of time and is especially important during times of uncertainty. There is a lot of fear and uncertainty today, therefore I store what little wealth I have in money, I store it in gold and silver.
As time passes, more people are realising the fact that the world's monetary system is fraud and that gold and silver is real money and not the paper money that the world uses today. The traffic is one-way, more, not less people come to the realisation that paper money is fraud and ditch it for gold and silver (the potential is huge). Maybe, right now someone who is reading this is ditching paper money for gold and silver. This fact is what makes me most bullish about silver, since it is the form of money that has the greatest potential due to the fact that it has more room to move from where it is (a demonetized monetary asset) to a fully monetized asset.
The debt levels in the world are enormous, and it is an inescapable fact that debt can only be properly and fully settled with real assets. Some assets are better than others when it comes to discharging debt. Gold and silver are real assets, and due to the fact that they are money, they are the ultimate form of payment and settlement of debt.
Due to these enormous debt levels, assets that are acceptable as proper settlement of debt will be in huge demand if these debts are to be properly settled; and this hold true whether debt levels are extinguished by default as well. Gold and silver is in huge demand, and this will accelerate.
Should the big debtors of the world attempt to "settle" their debt with more debt (inflationary) such as paper promises (like what is currently happening), then paper prices of real assets will explode, with gold and silver leading the way.
Paper money, bonds and other promises to pay are all subject to possible default, and during these times, default is a very common occurrence. Real assets are not subject to default, and gold and silver are real assets that you can hold in your hand, and are financially liquid (liquidity is even more essential during such times).
Paper money, bonds and other promises to pay are certainly at risk of impairment during these deflationary times, due to possible partial default or delays due to lack of debtors' ability to pay on time due to liquidity constraints. Remember an assets' value to you is less if you are not able to use it when required.
During inflationary times you are at risk, because though you might get the promised payment, but by the time you get it, it has lost a lot of its value and basically all of its value during hyperinflation.
This is all I have time for now, however it is enough to help me confirm that gold and silver is the best option when it comes to storing my wealth.
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_08/moolman030909.html
Friday, February 27, 2009
Nothing Shines Like Gold
The S&P 500 is making new bear market lows today. The Dow Jones Industrials did that last week. There's only one risky investment doing well: gold.
A week ago gold traded above $1,000 per ounce, coming within spitting distance of the all-time highs made last March. It's pulled back now to about $940. But still — what other investment other than riskless government bonds can you point to that's so near all-time highs?
Amazingly, just a month ago, gold and the S&P 500 were trading at about the same price — gold at $854, the S&P 500 at 840. From there, stocks have fallen 10% to near their bear-market lows of last November, while gold has risen as much as 16%. That's a divergence of more than 25%, in just a single month.
Readers of this column know that I've been touting gold for quite a while. I think the bull case for gold still holds, and I would be a buyer of any pullback. I think it's highly likely that gold will be at new all-time highs within the next several months.
If that happens, it will be great for my portfolio. But you have to be careful what you wish for. The force driving gold is the prospect of inflation. So if gold breaks new all-time highs, the bad news is that it will be a scary signal of inflation to come.
It's a mistake to think of gold as a barometer of global wealth. Sure, when people get rich they like to buy more gold jewelry. But global wealth is collapsing now, and yet gold is near all-time highs. So there must be another explanation.
It's also a mistake to think of gold as a panic asset — something that people hoard because they think the world is going to come to an end, and gold will be the only thing left of any value at all. In the all-out financial panic that started last September and climaxed at the stock market bottom in November, the price of gold collapsed, too. It fell almost as much as stocks. The real panic asset is cash, not gold. When things get scary enough, people will sell their gold to get it. So now with stocks back to the same levels as last November's lows, there must be another explanation for why gold is near all-time highs.
As Sherlock Holmes said, when you rule out the impossible, whatever's left — however improbable — must be the solution. Thus: inflation.
I admit that seems improbable. Yet it is the answer.
I say it seems improbable because all the other evidence all around us is pointing to deflation, not inflation. That is, falling prices, not rising prices.
The simplest evidence of that is the Consumer Price Index. It's been showing deflation more intense than that experienced in the middle of the Great Depression. You have to go all the way back to 1921, the great deflation that followed the end of World War I, to find the equivalent.
Yet still, gold is signaling inflation. I think the reason why is that the gold market understands that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will do everything he can to keep deflation from worsening or persisting. Bernanke knows that in times like ours, when households and institutions are struggling with dangerous debt burdens, deflation is the worst thing that could possibly happen.
The reason why was first explained in a 1933 paper by the famed economist Irving Fisher, in an attempt to understand why the Depression was so severe. Fisher noted that when investors hold assets financed by debt — whether its banks holding toxic securities, or individuals holding expensive homes — deflation destroys in two ways at the same time. First, in a deflation the prices of assets fall — so the value of your portfolio, or of your home, collapses. At the same time, your debt burden gets worse, because you are committed to make loan payments in dollars which are becoming increasingly valuable in deflation-adjusted terms.
Bernanke is a student of the Depression, and knows Fisher's work well. So he'll do anything — including causing a lot of inflation — to prevent deflation. And that's exactly what he's doing. Never before in history has the Federal Reserve printed so much money so fast.
It's not showing up in inflation indexes like the CPI, because banks and households are so terrified right now they're just hoarding all that money the Fed is printing. But at some point, the fear will ebb, or just stop getting worse. And all of a sudden everyone is going to decide to do something with all that money — like spend it. And then we're going to see extremely bad inflation.
But if the alternative is deflation, then extremely bad inflation is actually extremely good inflation.
But it's still inflation. Which is why gold is testing the $1,000 level again, and why I think it's highly likely to punch through it.
When gold does that, and the threat of deflation is replaced by the reality of inflation, then the economy and the stock market should stabilize. So if you agree with me that gold is destined for new highs, that ought to at least make you a cautious optimist on stocks at this point, even as stocks make new lows.
But don't get carried away. Inflation is only good because the alternative — deflation — is unspeakably worse. Inflation is still bad. And if financial history teaches us anything, it's that stocks do poorly in general during periods of inflation — such as the 1970s — and well during periods of stable prices, such as the 1990s.
Then when you add to all that the reality that the new president is trying to take America back to the 1970s in other ways — more regulation, bigger government, higher taxes and all the rest — it's not exactly a formula for excellent long-term equity performance.
I think it's time to set aside all the religiosity about “stocks for the long run,” because right now the long run doesn't look so great. Maybe now's the time for “stocks for the short run.” And gold.
http://www.smartmoney.com/Investing/Economy/Nothing-Shines-Like-Gold/
A week ago gold traded above $1,000 per ounce, coming within spitting distance of the all-time highs made last March. It's pulled back now to about $940. But still — what other investment other than riskless government bonds can you point to that's so near all-time highs?
Amazingly, just a month ago, gold and the S&P 500 were trading at about the same price — gold at $854, the S&P 500 at 840. From there, stocks have fallen 10% to near their bear-market lows of last November, while gold has risen as much as 16%. That's a divergence of more than 25%, in just a single month.
Readers of this column know that I've been touting gold for quite a while. I think the bull case for gold still holds, and I would be a buyer of any pullback. I think it's highly likely that gold will be at new all-time highs within the next several months.
If that happens, it will be great for my portfolio. But you have to be careful what you wish for. The force driving gold is the prospect of inflation. So if gold breaks new all-time highs, the bad news is that it will be a scary signal of inflation to come.
It's a mistake to think of gold as a barometer of global wealth. Sure, when people get rich they like to buy more gold jewelry. But global wealth is collapsing now, and yet gold is near all-time highs. So there must be another explanation.
It's also a mistake to think of gold as a panic asset — something that people hoard because they think the world is going to come to an end, and gold will be the only thing left of any value at all. In the all-out financial panic that started last September and climaxed at the stock market bottom in November, the price of gold collapsed, too. It fell almost as much as stocks. The real panic asset is cash, not gold. When things get scary enough, people will sell their gold to get it. So now with stocks back to the same levels as last November's lows, there must be another explanation for why gold is near all-time highs.
As Sherlock Holmes said, when you rule out the impossible, whatever's left — however improbable — must be the solution. Thus: inflation.
I admit that seems improbable. Yet it is the answer.
I say it seems improbable because all the other evidence all around us is pointing to deflation, not inflation. That is, falling prices, not rising prices.
The simplest evidence of that is the Consumer Price Index. It's been showing deflation more intense than that experienced in the middle of the Great Depression. You have to go all the way back to 1921, the great deflation that followed the end of World War I, to find the equivalent.
Yet still, gold is signaling inflation. I think the reason why is that the gold market understands that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will do everything he can to keep deflation from worsening or persisting. Bernanke knows that in times like ours, when households and institutions are struggling with dangerous debt burdens, deflation is the worst thing that could possibly happen.
The reason why was first explained in a 1933 paper by the famed economist Irving Fisher, in an attempt to understand why the Depression was so severe. Fisher noted that when investors hold assets financed by debt — whether its banks holding toxic securities, or individuals holding expensive homes — deflation destroys in two ways at the same time. First, in a deflation the prices of assets fall — so the value of your portfolio, or of your home, collapses. At the same time, your debt burden gets worse, because you are committed to make loan payments in dollars which are becoming increasingly valuable in deflation-adjusted terms.
Bernanke is a student of the Depression, and knows Fisher's work well. So he'll do anything — including causing a lot of inflation — to prevent deflation. And that's exactly what he's doing. Never before in history has the Federal Reserve printed so much money so fast.
It's not showing up in inflation indexes like the CPI, because banks and households are so terrified right now they're just hoarding all that money the Fed is printing. But at some point, the fear will ebb, or just stop getting worse. And all of a sudden everyone is going to decide to do something with all that money — like spend it. And then we're going to see extremely bad inflation.
But if the alternative is deflation, then extremely bad inflation is actually extremely good inflation.
But it's still inflation. Which is why gold is testing the $1,000 level again, and why I think it's highly likely to punch through it.
When gold does that, and the threat of deflation is replaced by the reality of inflation, then the economy and the stock market should stabilize. So if you agree with me that gold is destined for new highs, that ought to at least make you a cautious optimist on stocks at this point, even as stocks make new lows.
But don't get carried away. Inflation is only good because the alternative — deflation — is unspeakably worse. Inflation is still bad. And if financial history teaches us anything, it's that stocks do poorly in general during periods of inflation — such as the 1970s — and well during periods of stable prices, such as the 1990s.
Then when you add to all that the reality that the new president is trying to take America back to the 1970s in other ways — more regulation, bigger government, higher taxes and all the rest — it's not exactly a formula for excellent long-term equity performance.
I think it's time to set aside all the religiosity about “stocks for the long run,” because right now the long run doesn't look so great. Maybe now's the time for “stocks for the short run.” And gold.
http://www.smartmoney.com/Investing/Economy/Nothing-Shines-Like-Gold/
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Gold prices lose further ground as stocks rally
Gold fell for the second day in a row Tuesday as investors flooded back into the stock market, roused by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's remarks that the recession could end this year and that regulators aren't planning to nationalize banks.
Other commodities, including energy and agriculture futures, rallied along with Wall Street.
Most commodities, with the exception of gold, have taken a beating this year due to investors' unrelenting concerns about the eroding economy. Prices for raw materials including corn, wheat and copper have moved largely in tandem with the stock market.
On Tuesday, stocks rebounded after days of heavy selling that left the major indexes down near 12-year lows. The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 236.16 or 3.32 percent at 7,350.94.
Bernanke, in remarks to Congress, predicted the economy is likely to keep contracting in the first six months of 2009, but that "there is a reasonable prospect" the recession will end this year.
As bargain-hunting traders moved back into equities, gold prices suffered. Investors often use gold as a safety net in times of market turmoil.
Going in to Tuesday's session, gold prices were up 12.5 percent for the year, and had logged a 5.6 percent increase in just five sessions. Prices are still up about 10 percent in 2009.
Gold for April delivery fell $25.50 to settle at $969.50 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Other metals were mixed. March silver dropped 45.5 cents to $13.9950 an ounce, while May copper futures rose 4.9 cents to $1.50 a pound.
The dollar was mixed against other major currencies. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 2.80 percent from 2.76 percent late Monday.
Energy prices benefited from the gains in the stock market. Light, sweet crude for April delivery rose $1.52 to close at $39.96 a barrel.
Gasoline futures rose 3.26 cents to $1.076 a gallon, while heating oil rose 3.35 cents to $1.2089 a gallon.
Grain prices moved higher on the Chicago Board of Trade.
May wheat futures gained 4.75 cents to $5.2625 a bushel, while corn for May delivery rose 2.25 cents to $3.63 a bushel.
May soybeans added 7.5 cents to $8.8350 a bushel.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/02/24/business/NA-US-Commodities-Review.php
Other commodities, including energy and agriculture futures, rallied along with Wall Street.
Most commodities, with the exception of gold, have taken a beating this year due to investors' unrelenting concerns about the eroding economy. Prices for raw materials including corn, wheat and copper have moved largely in tandem with the stock market.
On Tuesday, stocks rebounded after days of heavy selling that left the major indexes down near 12-year lows. The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 236.16 or 3.32 percent at 7,350.94.
Bernanke, in remarks to Congress, predicted the economy is likely to keep contracting in the first six months of 2009, but that "there is a reasonable prospect" the recession will end this year.
As bargain-hunting traders moved back into equities, gold prices suffered. Investors often use gold as a safety net in times of market turmoil.
Going in to Tuesday's session, gold prices were up 12.5 percent for the year, and had logged a 5.6 percent increase in just five sessions. Prices are still up about 10 percent in 2009.
Gold for April delivery fell $25.50 to settle at $969.50 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Other metals were mixed. March silver dropped 45.5 cents to $13.9950 an ounce, while May copper futures rose 4.9 cents to $1.50 a pound.
The dollar was mixed against other major currencies. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 2.80 percent from 2.76 percent late Monday.
Energy prices benefited from the gains in the stock market. Light, sweet crude for April delivery rose $1.52 to close at $39.96 a barrel.
Gasoline futures rose 3.26 cents to $1.076 a gallon, while heating oil rose 3.35 cents to $1.2089 a gallon.
Grain prices moved higher on the Chicago Board of Trade.
May wheat futures gained 4.75 cents to $5.2625 a bushel, while corn for May delivery rose 2.25 cents to $3.63 a bushel.
May soybeans added 7.5 cents to $8.8350 a bushel.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/02/24/business/NA-US-Commodities-Review.php
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Silver and Gold will make you more attractive
02/11/09 Tampa Bay, Florida SilverForecaster.com announces that “silver has done well” recently, as far as its price is concerned, which is almost certainly explained by the old demand-versus-supply market-clearing pricing mechanism, which means that since the price went up, then demand must be up, too, and more than supply is up; or it means that supply is down more than demand is down; or it means something else entirely, maybe, since I have seemingly confused myself.
But since the recent moves in price are not that spectacular, my attention wavered and I casually looked around the press room, and I noticed that there was a pretty new reporter who was young and cute, which is such a depressingly stark contrast with my being, you know, old and ugly.
I sighed and began to daydream when I suddenly realized the cosmic universality that demand and supply applied even to pretty girls! We testosterone-besotted males of the species ensure a constant high demand for them, yet with a low supply of the little cuties, the price is high! Hahaha!
And, to balance things out, I realized that pretty young girls constantly demonstrate that there is no demand for creepy old men, but yet since we exist in such huge supply, we have zero value, or perhaps even negative value, considering the phrase, “I would rather eat poison and die a horrible painful death rather than even feel your bad breath touching my skin, or even acknowledge your foul existence, Old Mogambo Creep (OMC)!”
But, as with silver and pretty girls, it is this selfsame mechanism of balancing supply with demand that determines the prices of everything else in the Whole Freaking Universe (WFU), so why not this, too?
So, I was about to interrupt to lecture GoldForecaster.com about my little revelation, perhaps to garner a little of the attention that I so desperately crave, when I realized that they had anticipated my observation that silver going up in price meant that demand is greater than supply when they verified it by saying, “Investment demand for silver leapt a huge 309 tonnes last week, a tonnage we have never seen before in such a short time!”
I notice the phrase “never before!” which includes an exclamation point to indicate special emphasis, as seems befitting of “never before”, not only because of this sudden huge demand for silver, but the cute little reporter had just coincidentally used that very phrase when she said to me, “Begone, Mogambo! Never before have I felt such revulsion! I feel soiled and sickened just from being in the same room with you!” which, alas, also contains an exclamation point.
Mr. Phillips and Mr. Spina both pretend that they did not hear me get insulted, and go on to suggest that despite being completely humiliated by this conceited girl, if I buy silver now, I will soon be rich as hell and I will have beautiful ladies hanging all over me all the time, every one of them so beautiful that they will make this little bit of fluff look like a pig, as they conclude from the data that “heavy investment demand is flowing into silver [and gold] in quantities sufficient to ensure this trend is long-term.”
And I agree with them, as inflation in prices is going to be roaring soon, and for the long-term, as the laughable Obama administration is firmly united in announcing grand plans for years and years of huge amounts of new spending and huge amounts of new debt that is supposed to save us (pardon me for laughing right in your face “hahahaha!”) from the collapse caused by the preceding “too much new debt, too much new money and too much new spending” over the last few decades that produced the inflationary booms in the prices of stocks, bonds, houses and size of government that are now going, predictably, bust and causing all the headaches
That is why it is so alarming that Total Fed Credit last week actually went down by a gigantic $149.1 billion in ONE FREAKING WEEK (OFW), instead of increasing in the same OFW, which it must do if all of this deficit-spending is going to be accomplished!
And as if this $149 billion in OFW was not enough to make your heart start fibrillating and make you start puking your bloody guts out in fear, this is, I remind you, Total Fed Credit, which is that magical, out-of-thin-air money that appears, thanks to the Fed arbitrarily creating it in the accounts of the banks, ready for lending to somebody at huge multiples of the amount of additional credit originally deposited in the banks.
In short, we’re talking HUGE amounts of money! HUGE! Huger than huge! FREAKING HUGE!
And what makes it all the scarier is that this TFC is, even with this $149.1 billion drawdown, still totals a hefty $1.84 trillion, which is DOUBLE what it was last year, which demonstrates a huge, huge, HUGE increase in the monetary base, which is now at $1.7 trillion, which is ALSO double what it was last year! Yikes! We’re freaking doomed!
If you buy gold, silver and oil, then you will not personally be doomed, understand, but everyone else soon will be. Bummer for them, huh?
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/silver-and-gold-will-make-you-more-attractive/
But since the recent moves in price are not that spectacular, my attention wavered and I casually looked around the press room, and I noticed that there was a pretty new reporter who was young and cute, which is such a depressingly stark contrast with my being, you know, old and ugly.
I sighed and began to daydream when I suddenly realized the cosmic universality that demand and supply applied even to pretty girls! We testosterone-besotted males of the species ensure a constant high demand for them, yet with a low supply of the little cuties, the price is high! Hahaha!
And, to balance things out, I realized that pretty young girls constantly demonstrate that there is no demand for creepy old men, but yet since we exist in such huge supply, we have zero value, or perhaps even negative value, considering the phrase, “I would rather eat poison and die a horrible painful death rather than even feel your bad breath touching my skin, or even acknowledge your foul existence, Old Mogambo Creep (OMC)!”
But, as with silver and pretty girls, it is this selfsame mechanism of balancing supply with demand that determines the prices of everything else in the Whole Freaking Universe (WFU), so why not this, too?
So, I was about to interrupt to lecture GoldForecaster.com about my little revelation, perhaps to garner a little of the attention that I so desperately crave, when I realized that they had anticipated my observation that silver going up in price meant that demand is greater than supply when they verified it by saying, “Investment demand for silver leapt a huge 309 tonnes last week, a tonnage we have never seen before in such a short time!”
I notice the phrase “never before!” which includes an exclamation point to indicate special emphasis, as seems befitting of “never before”, not only because of this sudden huge demand for silver, but the cute little reporter had just coincidentally used that very phrase when she said to me, “Begone, Mogambo! Never before have I felt such revulsion! I feel soiled and sickened just from being in the same room with you!” which, alas, also contains an exclamation point.
Mr. Phillips and Mr. Spina both pretend that they did not hear me get insulted, and go on to suggest that despite being completely humiliated by this conceited girl, if I buy silver now, I will soon be rich as hell and I will have beautiful ladies hanging all over me all the time, every one of them so beautiful that they will make this little bit of fluff look like a pig, as they conclude from the data that “heavy investment demand is flowing into silver [and gold] in quantities sufficient to ensure this trend is long-term.”
And I agree with them, as inflation in prices is going to be roaring soon, and for the long-term, as the laughable Obama administration is firmly united in announcing grand plans for years and years of huge amounts of new spending and huge amounts of new debt that is supposed to save us (pardon me for laughing right in your face “hahahaha!”) from the collapse caused by the preceding “too much new debt, too much new money and too much new spending” over the last few decades that produced the inflationary booms in the prices of stocks, bonds, houses and size of government that are now going, predictably, bust and causing all the headaches
That is why it is so alarming that Total Fed Credit last week actually went down by a gigantic $149.1 billion in ONE FREAKING WEEK (OFW), instead of increasing in the same OFW, which it must do if all of this deficit-spending is going to be accomplished!
And as if this $149 billion in OFW was not enough to make your heart start fibrillating and make you start puking your bloody guts out in fear, this is, I remind you, Total Fed Credit, which is that magical, out-of-thin-air money that appears, thanks to the Fed arbitrarily creating it in the accounts of the banks, ready for lending to somebody at huge multiples of the amount of additional credit originally deposited in the banks.
In short, we’re talking HUGE amounts of money! HUGE! Huger than huge! FREAKING HUGE!
And what makes it all the scarier is that this TFC is, even with this $149.1 billion drawdown, still totals a hefty $1.84 trillion, which is DOUBLE what it was last year, which demonstrates a huge, huge, HUGE increase in the monetary base, which is now at $1.7 trillion, which is ALSO double what it was last year! Yikes! We’re freaking doomed!
If you buy gold, silver and oil, then you will not personally be doomed, understand, but everyone else soon will be. Bummer for them, huh?
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/silver-and-gold-will-make-you-more-attractive/
McEwen, Goldcorp Founder, Bets Crisis Will Drive Gold to $5,000
Goldcorp Inc. founder Rob McEwen, who has more than $100 million in gold investments, said he expects the metal to top $5,000 an ounce as governments increase the money supply to combat recession.
Bullion will more than double to $2,000 an ounce by the end of next year before rising to McEwen’s target by the end of the cycle, which could take an additional four years, the investor said.
“Politicians around the world are listening to cries from their electorates and they’re giving money to all callers,” McEwen said yesterday in a telephone interview from Toronto.
McEwen, who founded what is now the world’s second-largest gold producer by market value, owns stakes in three Canadian precious-metal explorers worth more than $100 million. He said he also has a “big, big” holding in bullion. Gold gained for the eighth straight year in 2008 amid investor concern the economy would collapse and government efforts to prevent that would increase inflation.
Gold futures for April delivery rose $29.10, or 3.2 percent, to $943.30 an ounce at 11:51 a.m. on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest for a most-active contract since July 23. The metal climbed to a record $1,033.90 on March 17.
McEwen said he started buying bullion in August 2007, at the beginning of the subprime mortgage crisis. Gold has jumped 40 percent since Aug. 1 of that year, touching a high of $948.20 today, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has dropped 43 percent.
“I realized we had reached an inflection point regarding money,” McEwen said. “It was all about protecting money, and gold served that purpose.”
McEwen is the largest shareholder in Lakewood, Colorado- based U.S. Gold Corp., Vancouver-based Rubicon Minerals Corp. and Spokane, Washington-based Minera Andes Inc. Vancouver-based Goldcorp is the world largest gold producer by market value after Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=adHg7t8BL5Bg&refer=canada
Bullion will more than double to $2,000 an ounce by the end of next year before rising to McEwen’s target by the end of the cycle, which could take an additional four years, the investor said.
“Politicians around the world are listening to cries from their electorates and they’re giving money to all callers,” McEwen said yesterday in a telephone interview from Toronto.
McEwen, who founded what is now the world’s second-largest gold producer by market value, owns stakes in three Canadian precious-metal explorers worth more than $100 million. He said he also has a “big, big” holding in bullion. Gold gained for the eighth straight year in 2008 amid investor concern the economy would collapse and government efforts to prevent that would increase inflation.
Gold futures for April delivery rose $29.10, or 3.2 percent, to $943.30 an ounce at 11:51 a.m. on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest for a most-active contract since July 23. The metal climbed to a record $1,033.90 on March 17.
McEwen said he started buying bullion in August 2007, at the beginning of the subprime mortgage crisis. Gold has jumped 40 percent since Aug. 1 of that year, touching a high of $948.20 today, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has dropped 43 percent.
“I realized we had reached an inflection point regarding money,” McEwen said. “It was all about protecting money, and gold served that purpose.”
McEwen is the largest shareholder in Lakewood, Colorado- based U.S. Gold Corp., Vancouver-based Rubicon Minerals Corp. and Spokane, Washington-based Minera Andes Inc. Vancouver-based Goldcorp is the world largest gold producer by market value after Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=adHg7t8BL5Bg&refer=canada
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