GOLD

[UpTheKhyber]

The next round of quarterly earnings reports will bring reality back to the table. Whether that reality is "our revenues are down but it's OK because we screwed our workforce enough to still make a nice profit" or "we screwed our workforce but still didn't make the numbers" we'll just have to wait to find out. My employer's results are due next month.

[azazel]

Do they mean $6,000 per gram?

I have no confidence in anything they say if they cant even get that right.

 

Looks like the original article has now been corrected.

[MattFC]

Sorry couldn't resist posting this..

 

To add a bit of flare to you online trading activities, a gold bullion wireless mouse:-

gold-bullion-wireless-mouse

[aardvark]

Sorry couldn't resist posting this..

 

To add a bit of flare to you online trading activities, a gold bullion wireless mouse:-

gold-bullion-wireless-mouse

 

 

its interesting the way references to gold are slowly creeping back into the public conciousness - i'm obviously more aware than most due to my interest in gold, but over the last few months i have seen more and more reference to gold being a desirable object in the popular media. its almost as if there is a slow realisation to the inherent worthlessness of paper money and the illusion of paper wealth over the last few decades - i may be reading too much into it of course!

[ologhai]

its interesting the way references to gold are slowly creeping back into the public conciousness - i'm obviously more aware than most due to my interest in gold, but over the last few months i have seen more and more reference to gold being a desirable object in the popular media. its almost as if there is a slow realisation to the inherent worthlessness of paper money and the illusion of paper wealth over the last few decades - i may be reading too much into it of course!

 

Time for a remake of Goldfinger with Daniel Craig?

[lowrentyieldmakessense(honest!)]

Time for a remake of Goldfinger with Daniel Craig?

 

We are living in a disaster and Brown is doing his best to bankrupt the UK

 

Brownfinger

 

Goldfinger Brown Rides Again

by Doug Casey

 

All the hot air emanating from the participants of the just concluded G20 Summit in London has, with the help of the breathless press, made its way into our neighborhood and lifted the Gordon Brown Alert wind sock atop the Casey Research headquarters.

 

A little background: Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister, became infamous for his, let's say, slightly off judgment when he was still serving as chancellor of the Exchequer. Between 1999 and 2002, Brown managed to sell 400 tons or 60% of the country's gold at the very bottom of gold's 20-year bear market. The average price per ounce achieved at the 17 gold auctions was $275 - costing British taxpayers around $2.96 billion. This stroke of genius earned the chancellor such sterling titles as "Sold The Gold Brown" and "Bottom Brown," among others that don't meet our PG rating for publishing.

 

 

 

 

[romans holiday]

Is the market returning to normal? Some investors are thinking so but I reckon this is impossible simply because there was no "normal" to begin with, the boom which busted was an anomaly that was fuelled by veblenesque consumerism which was only made possible by a flood of credit. Even if the credit is sloooooowly restored the veblenesque psychology needed for conspicuous consumption is not going to return anytime soon. I give the rally a few months before....

 

 

Also, liked this article by Rick: http://news.goldseek.com/RickAckerman/1239256740.php

So, do we infer that guys like Kudlow, Suze Orman and CNBC’s talking heads actually believe this bear market will somehow be different from all others before it, with no exhaustion selling to carve out a durable low? We do not merely doubt this, we view such an outcome as very nearly impossible. This bear market will end, like every other bear market in history, with a wholesale dumping of stocks at prices that will make current values seem exorbitant in comparison.

 

[Crashman begins]

its interesting the way references to gold are slowly creeping back into the public conciousness - i'm obviously more aware than most due to my interest in gold, but over the last few months i have seen more and more reference to gold being a desirable object in the popular media. its almost as if there is a slow realisation to the inherent worthlessness of paper money and the illusion of paper wealth over the last few decades - i may be reading too much into it of course!

 

 

 

http://www.osmoz.com/News-Trends/News/New-...agrance-for-men

 

06.11.2008

Bling is in, and so is gold. Couturier Paco Rabanne had the ingenious idea of including both of those trends in a new men’s scent that comes in the shape of… a gold bar. 1 Million, as it’s called, is a fragrance blending sensuality... .. .

 

YOUTUBE VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xZwezMxwao

[azazel]

Another MSM item increasing the public awareness of the yellow stuff.

 

 

Tentative signs of US gold rush

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7991732.stm

[G0ldfinger]

Overall, gold at $800-$1,000 just seems to be a massive base for the next move up.

 

http://gold.approximity.com/since1968/Gold_USD_LOG.html

[huntergatherer]

its interesting the way references to gold are slowly creeping back into the public conciousness - i'm obviously more aware than most due to my interest in gold, but over the last few months i have seen more and more reference to gold being a desirable object in the popular media. its almost as if there is a slow realisation to the inherent worthlessness of paper money and the illusion of paper wealth over the last few decades - i may be reading too much into it of course!

Beware of imitations.

[wren]

I know a lot of the members here have accounts with goldmoney.com and with bullionvault.com.

 

The following recent article talks of some of the various ways of owning gold and their pros and cons.

Here are two popular digital gold banks: BullionVault.com and GoldMoney.com.

 

If you choose to investigate such a vehicle for storage of your bullion you of course know the Big Question to ask about the account, right? Allocated or unallocated? Only allocated accounts are offered by the aforementioned institutions. But even with an allocated account there is still that nagging question of validating your holdings. How do you know your gold is really there? I am going to use GoldMoney.com here as an example to hopefully shed some light on this question. As it happens, GoldMoney has put a lot of effort into substantiating its holdings, and in doing so has created a benchmark of sorts for the industry. GoldMoney employs a five part process to insure the purity, weight, physical safety, verification of holdings, and verification of ownership of the customer's bullion.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_08/ma...lane040909.html

 

Short of "gold in the hand", the writer, James Macfarlane, seems to regard accounts with these two companies as the next best thing in terms of risk.

[peterb]

1 Month gold lease rates have been negative since March.

In fact they seem to be the lowest (most negative) than anytime in the last 10 years.

 

Gold owners are essentially paying people to borrow gold for a month. Borrowed meaning sold short.

 

The 1m, 3m, 6m, 12m rates have also diverged substantially.

 

 

http://www.kitco.com/lease.chart.html

[wren]

Just found a couple of interesting interviews with Paul Tustain, the founder and MD of BV.

 

The articles are from February 2008, so not new but I'd like to quote part of the second article.

 

Part 1:

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/52961

 

Part 2:

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/52969

 

And a quote from part 2:

(Q) What is your goal in operating BullionVault, how would your mission statement read?

I can tell you that verbatim. It´s on the website...BullionVault´s objective is to create the world´s most cost-effective, secure and accessible market in professional grade gold bullion.

 

We want to do this because :-

 

We believe there is a deficit of financial responsibility in many modern governments and financial institutions.

 

We believe that modern currencies and other paper based value systems will inhibit savers from retaining their domestic and worldwide purchasing power.

 

We believe that using gold to provide protection from this problem is a strategy which has become inaccessible to individuals.

 

We believe that we are uniquely well qualified to re-build that accessibility and to manage the service in a way which maximizes security, accessibility and value for our customers.

The last bolded bit confirms to me that part of Tustain's idea behind BV is make gold ownership easier for small investors.

 

I think it was azazel who has said a couple of times in the last few months that BV is planning to offer silver also. Any news about this?

 

If they are serious they should get on and do it soon.

[ologhai]

I think it was azazel who has said a couple of times in the last few months that BV is planning to offer silver also. Any news about this?

 

In the interests of diversity, I have bought gold through BV and silver through GM. If BV started offering silver on similar terms to GM, I don't think my approach would change.

 

However... The cost of using BV for gold is less than the cost of using GM for silver: off the top of my head, it's under 1% commission for buying gold with BV and over 5% for buying silver with GM. Is that only to do with differences between GM and BV, or is it due to differences between gold and silver?

[Steve Netwriter]

Is that only to do with differences between GM and BV, or is it due to differences between gold and silver?

 

I think it's because silver is bulkier. Silver coins have a greater premium than gold coins.

[wren]

In the interests of diversity, I have bought gold through BV and silver through GM. If BV started offering silver on similar terms to GM, I don't think my approach would change.

 

However... The cost of using BV for gold is less than the cost of using GM for silver: off the top of my head, it's under 1% commission for buying gold with BV and over 5% for buying silver with GM. Is that only to do with differences between GM and BV, or is it due to differences between gold and silver?

Buying gold maximum fees (they drop with bigger orders or total order history over 12 months):

 

BV:

to buy 0.8%

to sell 0.8%

 

GM:

to buy 2.74%

to sell 0.0%

 

So, if the buy and sell spot rates are the same BV is cheaper (for the small investor). I'll have to check how the monthly storage and insurance fees compare.

 

Silver at GM is a 4.25% maximum fee to buy (drops with bigger orders) and 0.0% to sell.

 

Of course, I'm hoping that if BV introduce silver that they will be significantly cheaper.

 

As Steve_N says, silver is more expensive because of bulk.

 

[Pixel8r]

I have also noticed that the commission when you change gold to silver is much less, somewhere around half.

[Pixel8r]

The fourth time through $1000 will be the last time we see gold below $1000.

Look at this great big inverse head and shoulders pattern testing the big number of $1000 per ounce. I believe that when we go through $1000 again over the next couple of months gold will no longer be available below $1000.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/invers...ndshoulders.asp

[Steve Netwriter]

I've been scanning through Mike Maloney's book again (I seem to find new things each time I read it), and noticed his "gold always does its accounting" bit.

He talks about gold accounting for the increase in base money since the last time it did its accounting.

It occurred to me that many people may be underestimating the change in the gold price by a long way.

 

If I understand his view correctly, he views gold as the true equity from which banks expand the credit money supply. So the value of the gold owned by the US should, each time accounting is done, match the total base money. I don't need to mention how much that has gone up since the last accounting.

 

This seems to make more sense than comparing the value of all the gold with all the money in 'existence'.

 

[romans holiday]

 

The fourth time through $1000 will be the last time we see gold below $1000.

 

Look at this great big inverse head and shoulders pattern testing the big number of $1000 per ounce. I believe that when we go through $1000 again over the next couple of months gold will no longer be available below $1000.

 

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/invers...ndshoulders.asp

Yes, the coming few weeks will be telling. The head and shoulder pattern sure has aesthetic value going for it... but I fear hope we may see another larger bowl. I guess it depends largely on the "feel good" factor and whether markets continue to rally and punters see improvement on the horizon rather than meltdown [and how deep an impression QE made and how long the memory lasts].

[Pixel8r]

Yes, the coming few weeks will be telling. The head and shoulder pattern sure has aesthetic value going for it... but I fear hope we may see another larger bowl. I guess it depends largely on the "feel good" factor and whether markets continue to rally and punters see improvement on the horizon rather than meltdown [and how deep an impression QE made and how long the memory lasts].

Why the "hope" to swap your dollars back to gold?

 

How are the markets going to see improvement on the horizon? Unemployment will carry on increasing, how does that "feel good"? The memory of QE will not fade but be renewed and the cause massive inflation in the money supply. The reason for QE is the massive amounts that are having to found to cover the derivative black hole. If they allowed the banks to face up to their losses, caused by the miscalculations of risk with derivatives, the would all be bust and the financial system would meltdown, so QE will continue. The will be no deflation in the money supply, the w/bankers can't allow it.

 

The property and equity bulls will be trying to make this bounce mean something, but nothing has been sorted, the problem is to large. Even the most blinkered bulls will come to realise the scale of the problem sooner or later. This is just a temporary bounce caused by the governments of the world not owning up to the problems they have created and just making the problem worse with their solutions as usual.

 

 

 

 

[Pixel8r]

So the value of the gold owned by the US should, each time accounting is done, match the total base money. I don't need to mention how much that has gone up since the last accounting.

How much of the gold owned by the US has really been lent to the banks and already disappeared into the derivatives black hole, I wonder.

 

 

[romans holiday]

Why the "hope" to swap your dollars back to gold?

Yes, to make a profit in gold ounces of course.

 

How are the markets going to see improvement on the horizon? Unemployment will carry on increasing, how does that "feel good"? The memory of QE will not fade but be renewed and the cause massive inflation in the money supply. The reason for QE is the massive amounts that are having to found to cover the derivative black hole. If they allowed the banks to face up to their losses, caused by the miscalculations of risk with derivatives, the would all be bust and the financial system would meltdown, so QE will continue. The will be no deflation in the money supply, the w/bankers can't allow it.

 

The property and equity bulls will be trying to make this bounce mean something, but nothing has been sorted, the problem is to large. Even the most blinkered bulls will come to realise the scale of the problem sooner or later. This is just a temporary bounce caused by the governments of the world not owning up to the problems they have created and just making the problem worse with their solutions as usual

Yes, I went on a bit of a fishing trip at the last spike [at 950]. I have reasons to think pog will go lower here... could be wrong and if so... will buy back in at around 900 with no loss. The market is not as rational as we are. Sure, we see terrible fundamentals and they will eventually play out. In the meantime, nervous nellie investors looking for inflation hedges and worried that they might miss out on a resurgence and recovery in the DOW will pile in. In the short term this would push gold down as money moves into stocks and commodities. This is the time to buy...GOLD [i would add here that the currency in which you keep your powder dry is of significance].

 

I think unemployment and a contracting economy will definitely bite at some time and bring the latest wave of optimism to an end. These deflationary forces will bring about new lows in the DOW along with new highs in gold as money moves back to it as a safe haven and currency. My hope is to buy low so that I can ride the next spike up and go fishing again.

[romans holiday]

Why the "hope" to swap your dollars back to gold?

 

How are the markets going to see improvement on the horizon?

The market is short sighted.

 

A conventional valuation which is established as the outcome of the mass psychology of a large number of ignorant individuals is liable to change violently as the result of a sudden fluctuation of opinion.... the market will be subject to waves of optimistic and pessimistic sentiment, which are unreasoning and yet in a sense legitimate where no solid base exists for a reasonable calculation.

 

Maynard Keynes.