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Silver Rises $0.70 on “Fundamentals” (or something)

      Yes, big red candle followed by two big green candles occur at the same time: 6AM – 9AM PDT. Somewhere, a credit spigot opened…    

Would Gold Bugs Make Sense?

It Wouldn’t Make Sense Not to A gold bug argues it would not make sense for the Fed not to manipulate the gold price: If gold isn’t suppressed, then the Fed would be leaving it to trade in an open and transparent market Banks can short-sell with impunity because if they take losses they can […]

The Quantitative Beatings will Continue Until Economy Improves

The Fed’s purpose, when it comes down to it, is to buy bonds. Under their various “Quantitative Easing” (QE) programs, they sure have bought a lot of bonds. This pushes up the price of the bonds. Since the yield is basically the inverse of the bond price, this means the rate of interest falls. This […]

Monetary Facts

 Milton Friedman said that if a country had bad economic policies, its currency would weaken, which would restore balance. Imports would drop and exports would rise. Japan’s insane policy has so far crushed the yen by 22%. The results? As Mish writes, imports +9.4%, exports +3.8%. Their trade deficit fell to the worst level in decades. […]

Guest Post: Cyprus – A Stock Market Dies

Author: Pater Tenebrarum What Happens Usually After Big Bear Markets Conclude? If we look back at the history of big bear markets in stocks, they normally put in a definitive low either at the height of a panic (a spike low), or after an extended period of disinterest, during which the market usually declines considerably further […]

Bernanke “No Tapering”: Silver Goes Up and Down Again

In February, I wrote What Drives the Price of Gold and Silver? If there is a credible rumor that the Fed is planning to further extend its “Quantitative Easing”, how would you expect the monetary metals to react? Typically, the gold price would rise and the silver price would rise even more. The question is why. […]

The Dollar Price Rises 33% in Lumber

      Yesterday, we showed pictures of the price of a dollar in gold, silver, euros, and yen. Here is a picture of the price of a dollar in board-feet of lumber. This is a bit silly, as lumber is not a currency. But it is interesting that it shows the same phenomenon. Also, […]

Gold:Silver Ratio spikes over 66!

Yesterday in the Gold Basis Report, we wrote: “…we reiterate that we are cautious about the price of silver (measured in grams of gold) and think the ratio is more likely to rise than to fall.” Little did we know. As this 5-minute chart shows, the ratio rose to over 66(!) before coming back down […]

Latvian Deflation will Increase their Debt Burden

This article claims that falling prices will increase Latvia’s burden of debt. It is not falling prices, but falling interest rates, that increase the burden of debt (and it is not just Latvia but the whole world, which has falling interest rates). Think of borrowing at the high level as selling a bond. Think of selling […]

Are Japanese Banks on the Verge of Insolvency?

“…holdings in [gold] exchange-traded funds fell to the lowest in over four years…” as this article states. But is this a real relationship? Do holdings at the ETF necessarily fall with a falling gold price and rise with a rising gold price? The same thing has not occurred in SLV–amidst an even larger price drop than that of […]