Basic Reports

How we think about gold and silver

Gold Supply and Demand

When it comes to analyzing precious metals, the right methodology isn’t immediately obvious. Fundamental analysis in stocks and bonds is well understood. One can discount cash flows, examine the balance sheet, review the income statement, look at growth prospects and arrive at a fundamental value for the company. And there is a sophisticated ratings system […]

Part II of Ukraine and Inflation, Can Russia Enact a Gold Standard?

Gold Exchange Report

To listen to the audio version of this article click here. In Part I we discussed how the fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine will lead to inflation, but not in the way most people think.  In Part II we discuss the possibility of Russia repudiating the dollar and going on a gold standard. […]

Transitory Inflation and Useless Ingredients

Transitory Inflation and Useless Ingredients

To listen to the audio version of this article click here Can you remember back to when you were two or three years old? Toddlers often think that there are little people inside the TV (or maybe this was only true when the TV was about as deep as it was wide—and maybe kids today […]

Silver Crash Makes Silver Trash?

Silver Price Crash September 29, 2021

The price of silver dropped a dollar, or over 4% on Wednesday. Some voices in the precious metals press want you to think that there is only one conceivable cause. We should coin a term for this form of logical fallacy: argumentum ad ignorantia. This is an argument of the form: “the cause must be […]

Lower Prices, Stronger Fundamentals

Lower Prices, Stronger Fundamentals

Since last week’s Report, the price action has been downwards. The price of gold dropped about $50, and that of silver $1.35. The gold-silver ratio rose to its highest level since the end of 2020.   Technical chartists are either throwing in the towel, or tearing their hair out. We advise against tearing one’s hair […]

Where do gold and silver prices go from here?

Where do gold prices go from here

One way to look at the price of gold, is that it dropped from its high around $1,900 in early June. Another way is to zoom out, and look at the big picture. Here is a 10-year chart of gold and silver prices. For over four years, after the peak around $1,900 ten years ago […]

Gold Price Smashdown vs Gold on Fire

Gold Smashdown vs Gold on Fire

No sooner did we write Silver Rorschach Test, than the price of gold flash-crashed, or was smashed down. On Sunday afternoon in Arizona—i.e. Monday morning in Australia and Asia—the gold price dropped sharply. Gold bug sources claim that the drop was $100, but as we can see from the price graph included in this report, […]

Socialism and Gold

Socialism and Gold Most people assume that the central bank prints money when it buys bonds. They further assume that this increase in the quantity of money causes an increase in the general price level. And, this leads them to assume that the value of the money is 1 / P (P is the general […]

The Elephant in the Gold Room, Report 16 June

We will start this off with a pet peeve. Too often, one is reading something about gold. It starts off well enough, discussing problems with the dollar or the bond market or a real estate bubble… and them bam! Buy gold because the dollar is gonna be worthless! That number again is 1-800-BUY-GOLD or we […]

The Ultimate Stablecoin, Report 18 Nov 2018

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away we wrote a series of articles arguing that bitcoin is not money and is not sound. Bitcoin was skyrocketing at the time, as we wrote most of them between July 30 and Oct 1 last year. Back in those halcyon days, volatility was deemed to […]