geisaver

Isn't this news more fuel for London property prices? People have a choice between keeping money in dodgy EU banks that might start stealing it or dump it in London property whose value is always protected the the UK government at any cost. If more money did flow into London property that would sterling positive. TPTB might have just managed to persuade lots of Europeans to buy houses in Spain, France, etc

Front page of the FT is Republicans considering a return to the gold standard

That depends what you are going to spend the money on. If it's a house only house price inflation can harm it. Any other inflation is your friend because it means other people have less money to save your house fund.

Who is "we"?

That drop seemed to coincide with the US jobs report. The figures were better than expected and previous figures were revised higher. Am I right in thinking gold dropped because it meant less chance of an imminent QE3?

Any chance all the comments about the bickering could be moved to the original gold thread and keep this one for what it says on the tin? Gold and currency news....

I must just be old fashioned. I don't want the world to crash and burn but I would like moral hazard to not be so openly encouraged. In the current system it feels like crime pays.

I've always thought he was Hamish McTavish. As to the Conlibs reducing the deficit. Prior to being elected "printing money was the last act of a desperate government when all other policies have failed" and "the deficit will be reduced to zero in the parliament". Once they got into power they printed money which has pushed deficit reduction to zero further into the distance. Now it's 7 years instead of 5 because each time they print it is so they can spend more. They keep going back on planned cuts. Even if they didn't print again that means we have at least another 7 years of adding to the debt. They never discuss reducing the debt - it's a large elephant in the room they pretend doesn't exist. Eventually they are going to be unable to keep printing as debt to GDP rises or we go even more banana than what we are now. People taking on debt now because rates are at a 300 year low are completely stuffed. The banks are sitting pretty all the ponzi deposit lending schemes have removed lending risk from them, they will be able to take the house price falls when they squeeze the indebted.

Perfectly illustrated by the OBR's own forecasts of how little net worth increases in relation to a much larger increase in debt (before interest is even applied) http://budgetresponsibility.independent.gov.uk/wordpress/docs/household%20debt%20paper%20formatted.doc1.pdf

I agree with that. The banks to do well out of it? Since 2007 lending criteria has tightened and larger deposits were required. Now councils and the government are going to provide 20% deposits on various ponzi schemes because the banks won't lend 95% - they know what's coming. When rates rise people are going to struggle but when they sell, the loss to the banks is going to be minimal, while they rake in more mortgage interest. They have shifted the lending risk to bank of mum/dad, councils and the government. I can see more housing activity this year with all these ponzi schemes. The banks will lend on 95% mortgage schemes because they have such limited downside to them at no loss for 5 years and then only if prices drop 25%+. But these schemes all depend on the B of E printing to suppress our interest rates forever while our debt to GDP is rising. Surely it cannot last? We don't have savers in Japan to fall back on?

I was wondering about that when I did this thread. http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?showtopic=16022 I thought streamers might be a better bet because of it. However if governments start limiting the number of years foreigners can hold 100% of a mine if that applies to streamers the model doesn't look as good. If it's applied retrospectively it's a lot worse. Of course this is only Indonesia but is it the start of a trend? I see the silver and gold streamers are slightly down today so far even though the metals and DOW are slightly up.

I know posting some news about gold/mining etc might get in the way of the bickering on here but that Indonesia article I posted is quite interesting - to me anyway being a less argumentative control freak of an antagonistic type person! If other countries started doing that what would be the position of streamers with long term contracts?

Government making foreigners sell mine holdings

What we are seeing in the bond market is not a flight to UK safety. We are seeing the B of E print money to buy our own debt to suppress the yield. The PIIGS yield has now dropped because the LTROs have meant they can do the same via their banks. Their other problem was they had more debt maturing earlier.

That's a bit of a funny thing to say for a trader rather than a buy and holder. I know you talk about a core position but if you had ultimate faith in your beating buy and hold, wouldn't you have been in and out of gold many times since 2001 and used the whole pot? Even if it was in stages. Isn't the $250 largely irrelevant to a trader? Surely the most important figure is the profit margin on the last trade? "By the time others start to follow" - seems a JS goldbuggy type statement when it's up 600% from the $250.

Tax free: Is that like their VAT? What about CGT?

Mining shares not doing well today. Tax double whammy? This mining tax causing concern and corporation tax loopholes being closed?

Higher wages next?

I'll believe it when I see it:

It seems counter intuitive to me having the majors at the top and bottom. It makes more sense to me if it were annotated like this, which I think is what he is saying:

I think the tax issue is very important. It's no good being right about a rise in metal prices if they are going to steal it from you via tax. I've just finished reading Currency Wars by James Rickards and although he predicts a huge rise in the Gold price if there was a return to a Gold standard, he also suggests there could be a 90% tax. If this was applied when you sold e.g. allocated or physical, the profit is taken away or you risk selling on the black market and having it stolen. Swapping metals at GM can negate CGT but what if it was just a blanket tax on any sale outside of CGT or even confiscation of say London Gold? Therefore I've been wondering if another approach is to channel money into ISA's, in small amounts spread across several firms for FSCS reasons (TD thread ), to buy metal streamers. ISA's are CGT free so if the metal prices rose wouldn't the shares rise proportionally but you escape any increase in a tax on metal sales? Obviously there are risks investing in individual firms, their mines might get nationalised if prices rocketed up, etc. but if it's a streamer with mines spread about it reduces some of the risk. Another consideration is the currency rate if buying international shares. If you expect GBP to do poorly and are proved correct, you profit more. Or you could go for a fund that that invests in miners. Any thoughts?

Yes, which is why it seems the Major Two isn't in the right place. He talks about "starting from the $26.39 low" which I assume is the start of Major Three.

I find the annotations on that chart confusing. Does he mean that his Major One point is the end of Major One but where he has put Major Two is not the end but the start of Major Two, the end of Major Two was 49.52 and now the start of Major Three is 26.39? If the Major Two was at the 49.52 point it would make more sense to me.

I hope you enjoy your cruises callmejoe. You must have got some bargain prices after the Costa Concordia. Make sure you ask the captain to put passengers carrying bullion in cabins on different sides of the ship. You don't want them all on one side like that one.

I'm looking at silver prices today and wondering why things are trading differently. For example spot silver is down from yesterday, Comex is about level, a share like Silver Wheaton is down as you would expect being a streamer but Proshares Ultra Silver is up, iShares Silver Trust is up, etc. Is there an arbitrage here somewhere? Is the spot price largely irrelevant as the Comex price moves everything? Is there usually an order to how things move?