Tag Archive for: arbitrage

Crouching Silver, Hidden Oil Market Report 20 Apr

The price of gold has been up steadily for the last 30 days (with a few zigs and zags), now re-attaining the high it achieved prior to the big drop in March. Gold ended the week at $1,662. Alas, it’s not quite the same story in silver, whose price drop was bigger. Now its price […]

Rising Rates Falling Assets, Report 30 Dec 2018

Last week, we wrote about the concept of discounting. This is how to assess the value of any asset that generates cash flow. You calculate a present value by discounting earnings for each future year. And the discount rate is the market interest rate. We said: “If the Fed can manipulate the rate of interest, […]

Useless But Not Worthless, Report 21 Oct 2018

Let’s continue to look at the fiasco in the franc. We say “fiasco”, because anyone in Switzerland who is trying to save for retirement has been put on a treadmill, which is now running backwards at –¾ mph (yes, miles per hour in keeping with our treadmill analogy). Instead of being propelled forward towards their […]

A Free Market for Goods, Services, and Money

A thesis submitted September 3, 2012 by Keith Weiner to the Graduate Faculty of the New Austrian School of Economics, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Major Subject: Monetary Science. Abstract A free market is composed of people who produce and trade the products of their efforts in […]

Thoughtful Disagreement with Ted Butler – Gold Basis

This article follows on from Keith Weiner’s response to Ted Butler’s Thoughtful Disagreement challenge. Below is a graph of all 130 gold contracts since February 1996, aligned by contract age in terms of number of days until expiry on the X axis of the chart and basis in percentage per annum on the Y axis. […]

Thoughtful Disagreement with Ted Butler

Dear Mr Butler: In your article of 2 October, entitled Thoughtful Disagreement, you say, “someone will come up with the thoughtful disagreement that makes the body of my premise invalid or the price of silver will validate the premise by exploding.” I will take you up on your request. You state your case in this […]

Gold and Silver Speculation

There is a stark difference between the states of the markets for the monetary metals. The number of open futures contracts in gold is low, while in silver it’s high. First, let’s look at the data and then we’ll discuss what it means. Here is the graph showing the open interest. The picture is clear […]

What is the Meaning of GLD Gold Outflows?

A quick glance at the data for ounces held by each Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) shows that right after the crash of 2008, ounces began to pour into GLD. Ignoring a little jitter, there was no significant outflow until 2013. GLD has lost over 20% of its metal so far this year, dropping from about […]

The Dollar is Going Up

Let’s take a look at a few graphs of the dollar, from Feb 1, 2013 through Friday May 17, 2013. Yes, I said graphs of the dollar. I’ve priced the dollar in gold first (of course), then silver, the euro, and even the yen. The pattern is obvious. The dollar is going up. I did […]

Why does the “Paper Gold” Price Track the Physical Gold Price? Postscript

This article is a follow-up to Part II.  I expound upon a point I touched on, and also address some questions raised by readers. First, let’s look at an update of the open interest numbers as of Feb 6.  Gold’s open interest actually declined further. Next, here is an update of the bases.  The gold […]