Justin Thyme

Some pretty daft action going on right now. Euro falling against the dollar after a 75bps cut $983 gold $19.65 silver. Yeah, I know it's only temporary but I still can't stand the numbers

I think we're going to have a PM market exhibiting sympathy pains with equities for a little while but for those of us holding physical it shouldn't really register on our anxiety radar even though I nearly dumped my silver stack Thank God I lost my bottle . . .

Crude is FLYING up $3.50 Gold won't be far behind ; thought silver would get hosed but it's just shrugged it off

Oh man, the suspense is killin' me . . . My finger's poised over the "dump" button at GoldMoney on anything under 100bps.

I'm delighted with the profits from gold and silver but the timing was down to good fortune rather than any shrewdness on my part. Whilst RealistBear and his cohorts were right about the HPC, I always, ALWAYS tempered whatever they said with the knowledge that they'd been saying it - and calling it wrong - for the best part of 4 years and so, eventually, they had to get it right.

I've read a few silver bulls confirm it. Something to do with the demise of its use within photography. On the other hand, I've also heard that RFID-tag usage is set to take up that slack and, with no one really geared up to recycle the metal from the tags, that may be a valid argument but it's an unknown quantity. That kind of uncertainty doesn't usually sit well with PMs

I'm not totally convinced that the Fed is going to cut more than 50bps but I am mindful of Bernanke's rep as one of the world's foremost experts on the Great Depression. Federal Reserve inaction is widely credited as a major catalyst to that historic event and Bernanke's going to do everything he can to avoid it . . . and rightly so. I'm not too concerned about gold's short-term price action as I was lucky enough to STR in August and buy in at $700 but silver does concern me. The vertical price movement has been enjoyable to watch but I'm not sure of the fundamentals underpinning it. There is a surplus of silver in the market . . .

I think he means that if the Federal reserve cuts interest rates by less than the market is expecting, there may very well be a stampede for the exits. I believe that a cut of 100 basis points was factored into the price of gold as it hit $1030 in Asian trade on Monday morning. Yesterday's action was pure profit-taking and if the cut is only, say, 50 basis points, investor will sell off gold. This shouldn't be seen as a reflection of the long-term prospects for gold - rather it should be viewed as another example of liquidity-strapped investors wanting to realise as much capital as possible to meet the increasing number of margin calls they're getting.

Profit taking. Same reason why gold and silver are taking a beating. Hedge funds, institutional investors and traders are getting margin calls left, right and centre and they're selling off whatever isn't nailed to the floor to meet them. Tomorrow's rate cut, whatever it turns out to be, has already been priced into PM prices so I guess these guys figure there's not much point in waiting to lock in whatever they've made. When you're dealing in the kind of volumes these guys do, buying in $30 cheaper is a very big deal. Jesus . . . anyone noticed crude ?? £7.11 off Gold @ $994

Spot on . . . Gold will be right back up to $1030+ within the next 48 hours. If I was a trader/institutional investor and I'd come in this morning and seen gold up $30, I'd be taking profits too. The fundamentals are crystal clear and no amount of manipulation can hold this bull for long

Thought it was profit-taking . . .

Central bank intervention is becoming more likely by the day. $1.59 is seriously bad. ECB despite Italy being on the brink of recession and Sarkozy throwing histoys out of the pram, still won't cut rates so the only way they can affect this is to buy bucks. As DrB sid, this kind of intervention HAS to succeed or whatever confidence remaining in the banking system will evaporate. I reckon we can expect this within the coming fortnight. This is going to affect gold

I guess this kinda got lost in Friday's $1000 euphoria so apologies for re-posting . . . Dr B, do you believe that the central banks will intervene to prop up the dollar ? If so, wouldn't that be similar to what the BoE did with the pound before we were tossed out of the ERM ? The point I'm getting at is would one just short the dollar in order to make a nice profit out of it or would the combined purchasing power of the Fed, the ECB, BoE and BoJ be too much for the market to go toe-to-toe with ?

Dr B, do you believe that the central banks will collaborate to prop up the dollar ? If so, wouldn't that be similar to what the BoE did with the pound before we were tossed out of the ERM ? The point I'm getting at is would one just short the dollar in order to make a nice profit out of it or would the combined purchasing power of the Fed, the ECB, BoE and BoJ be too much for the market to go toe-to-toe with ?

I read on Kitco's gold forum the other day that the IMF sell-off had begun. Nice and quiet . . . bit by bit . . .

I'd hazard a guess that investors piled out of gold, oil etc to take advantage of the 2 hour-long free-for-all rally on the announcement. They'll be back into commodities tomorrow once they've made a few pips on whatever financial stock they've bought. Having said that, the Dow's already given back some of its gains.

Brendan McLoughlin doesn't have very much to do with the day-to-day running of HPC. I used to post there under a different name and was barred because someone suggested, during a rather heated debate, that I was a troll. I'd made the best part of 900 posts over a year but the mods refused to reinstate me. I complained to Mr McLoughlin who, to his credit, asked the moderator to reinstate my posting privileges. They didn't and despite further exchange of emails, he simply threw in the towel and concurred that the moderators were, indeed, "a law unto themselves".

Damn skippy

The owner of HPC is one Brendan McLoughlin. Financial Planner is a very active poster on this board. he's recently turned relatively bullish on the US banking sector and if not bearish then certainly less bullish on gold. His opinions are his own but i don't think he'd change his opinions for a "bung" . . .

I've read your thoughts on the HK boom but as someone without the financial clout of the heavyweights on GEI and, more importantly, a HK income, I was wondering how I might tap into the potential. Not so keen on REITs but can anyone suggest any equities that stand to benefit ? Isn't the impending US recession going to have a fairly profound inflationary impact on the HK economy cos of the HK$ peg to the greenback ?