Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Silver Bull Appoints Vice President of Metallurgy
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Silver Bull Resources, Inc. (TSX: SVB, AMEX: SVBL) ("Silver Bull") is pleased to announce the appointment of George Rawsthorne P.Eng. to the role of Vice President of Metallurgy.
Mr. Rawsthorne has over 40 years of experience in the mining and metallurgical / process industry including management roles in operations, project studies and construction, as well as plant commissioning and optimization. As a direct employee or as a consultant he has been involved with numerous projects encompassing commodities which include; copper, molybdenum, lead, zinc, silver, gold, tungsten and uranium. Roles he has previously held include; mill manager, lead process engineer, and lead metallurgist, as well as also working as an independent consultant to review mining operations for companies and banks.
Companies he has previously been associated with include; (Cominco) Teck Corporation, Rabbit Lake Uranium, Placer Development's Gibraltar Mine, Mount Pleasant Tungsten Mine and Dome Mine's Detour Lake Mine as well as numerous junior and mid-tier mining and exploration companies. Mr. Rawsthorne has a strong history of success in the design and development of metallurgical flow sheets, plant startup, commissioning and optimization, as well as optimizing existing processing plants in an operating environment. Mr. Rawsthorne received his B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Queens University in Ontario, and is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia, Canada.
Tim Barry, President, CEO and director of Silver Bull states, "We are extremely pleased to have someone with the experience and history of success of Mr. Rawsthorne join our team. The goal of finding a suitable metallurgical process to extract both the silver and zinc on a large scale basis is one of our main priorities for 2012."
About Silver Bull: Silver Bull is a well funded, US registered mineral exploration company listed on both the NYSE Amex and TSX stock exchanges and based out of Vancouver, Canada. The flag ship "Sierra Mojada" project is located 150 kilometers north of the city of Torreon in Coahuila, Mexico and is highly prospective for silver and zinc. Silver Bull also owns three mineral exploration licences in Gabon, Africa, two of which are currently under joint venture with AngloGold Ashanti. These licences are prospective for gold, manganese, and iron ore. Visit us at http://www.silverbullresources.com
On behalf of the Board of Directors
"Tim Barry"
Tim Barry, MAusIMM
Chief Executive Officer, President and Director
INVESTOR RELATIONS CONTACT INFO:
info@silverbullresources.com
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/silver-bull-appoints-vice-president-130000788.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the SVBL board at Yahoo:
Re: Silver Bull Appoints Vice President of Metallurgy
by geobjay
2-Mar-12 01:43PM
Consider why a metallurgist comes aboard now... suggesting that SVBL's urge is to develop and profit from actually owning and operating our Sierra Mojada prospect rather than vending to Coeur d'Alene Mines for cash up front. Best path is to attract top tier talent to maximize eventual outcome and stock incentives are paltry compared to the value unique beings add to the whole outcome scenario... truly, a bullish surge is sure to come... a lovely feeding frenzy... and amplified capital gains for fortunate bottom feeders coming with spring's buds!!! A luxuriant garden bursting with colour!
***
And man, what a top notch metallurgist!!
This PR is what geobjay is referring to:
Silver Bull Appoints Vice President of Metallurgy
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72787652
Stinky bids and flushes...freakin' bathroom!
Well, sometimes I bid up my stinky bids...if I happen to be watching and see the bottom. Occasionally, PPS will run away from me but if it wasn't meant to be...Se la vie. Miners are notorious for taking the PPS elevator down, but the stairs up (especially these days) so you can usually get good value. This only works for high volume mining stock equities...not for out of favor micro-caps. This is why I focus on intermediate tier miners. One can usually has a clear idea of the where the PPS is headed. GLTA S_P
I figured out why Ron Walker on stockcharts list keeps saying he is updating his site for months on end now.
"The Chart Pattern Trader
Attention: I am updating my site. So you can view the stock video at thechartpatterntrader.blogspot.com until further notice."
It's so we can't send him any hate mail.
I can't beleive how somebody can be such an outstanding chartist yet such a bad trader. Enough said.
<< submit a stinky bid and wait...>> I used to do that myself. "They" usually bring the price down and miss me by a penny or two. Still it's a good idea.
Clive Maund >>> Silver Market Update
* Saturday, March 3, 2012
Silver has had a good run from its lows at the end of last year and was on course to break out of the major downtrend in force from its highs of April last year, but it was not to be, for last week it reversed sharply to the downside, leaving behind a bearish engulfing pattern on its chart, as we can see on its 15-month chart below. While it has not yet broken down from the intermediate uptrend in force from late last year, action last week suggests that it is destined to shortly.
The fact that silver tried to break out of its major downtrend channel, but failed and then dropped hard on heavy volume is a clear sign of a trend change - an intermediate reversal. Thus it is now expected to break down from its shorter-term uptrend shown and drop away, despite the fact that it is not very overbought and its moving averages are in increasingly bullish alignment. How far could it drop? - it could drop right back across the trend channel which would clearly not be good news for silver bulls, and there is nothing to say that it could not drop further than that.
The 3-year chart for silver shows the current established downtrend in the context of the preceding strong uptrend. While it nows looks set to drop back across the channel, a clear upside break out of this obviously important downtrend will restore upside potential.
http://www.clivemaund.com/article.php?art_id=67
George.
Click on "In reply to", for Authors past commentaries.
Clive Maund >>> Gold Market Update
* Saturday, March 3, 2012
Gold reversed violently to the downside last week, an event which has serious implications. It had been doing well up to that point and we did not see this reversal coming, so this is going to be "wise after the event" update - still it is considered to be better to be wise after the event than not wise at all, particularly if our interpretation of the meaning of this development proves to be correct.
On its 15-month chart we can see that gold reversed after making a close approach to its highs of last November which formed beneath the resistance at the lower boundary of the top area of last August - September. Unable to break above these highs, it caved in last week. The magnitude of the drop on Wednesday and the high volume that accompanied it are a sign of an important reversal, so we can expect to see gold heading lower in coming days and weeks. While it is true that moving averages are in favorable alignment, this is unlikely to help much, and gold will not be "out of the woods" until it can break above the strong resistance towards and at $1800. The strong support shown on the chart at about $1550 must hold - if it fails gold will enter a bearmarket. At present gold can be considered to be rangebound.
On the 3-year chart we can see the recent rangebound action of gold in the context of the long, steady uptrend that preceded it. Despite the positive alignment of its moving averages, action last week suggests that it is likely to head lower towards the key support over the short to medium-term, especially given that silver has just reversed after arriving at a major trendline. A clear above $1800 will turn the picture much more positive.
The latest chart for the Gold Miners Bullish Percent Index shows that investors are now a lot more bullish towards gold stocks than they were at the turn of the year, making a reaction here more likely.
http://www.clivemaund.com/article.php?art_id=68
George.
Click on "In reply to", for Authors past commentaries.
Very interesting. Could this be the game changer goldbugs have been waiting for? I'll say it again. The only way to beat this market is to submit a stinky bid and wait for the flash-crashes. S_P
I like this explanation of the difference btw ETF and ETN. Could be useful to those playing DZZ, DSL, NUGT, DUST , etc.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Volatility-ETF-Trading-Volume-ETFTrends-1906675668.html?x=0
Gold and Silver COT Reports - Futures By Harvey Organ
* Saturday, March 3, 2012
ECB record deposits/Moody's lowers Greek debt to C/Spanish unemployment rises as GDP contracts
The COT report was released at 3:30 pm Friday. These include the results from Feb 21 through to the 28th.
Let us head over to the gold COT first:
Those large speculators that are long in gold increased their long positions by a whopping 16,707 contracts.
Those large speculators that have been short in gold added another 4448 contracts to those short positions.
Our commercials:
Those commercials that are long in gold and are close to the physical scene
pitched a tiny 943 contracts form their long side.
Those commercials who have been perennially short in gold and manipulate this market on a daily basis, added another whopping 15,106 contracts to their short side. This is two weeks in a row that we have seen massive increase in commercial short positions.
Our commercials;
Those small specs that have been long in gold added a rather large 3949 contracts to their long side.
Those small specs that have been short in gold added a tiny 159 contracts to their shorts.
Conclusions: for two straight weeks the commercials supplied massive quantities of non backed paper. No wonder the massive attack on the 29th of February, one day following
the end day readings on the COT report. It seems that the official sector is behind all of the gold (and silver) trades.
end
The silver COT report:
Those large speculators that have been long in silver added a large 3,193 contracts to their long side.
Those large speculators that have been short in silver covered a tiny 145 contracts from their shorts.
Our commercials;
Those commercials that are close to the physical scene and are long in silver
added a very large 2067 contracts to their long side.
But those commercials that have been short in silver from the beginning of time
and subject to the criminal probe on silver manipulation added a whopping 7,472 contracts to their short side.
Our small specs:
Those small specs that are long in silver added a rather large 1696 contracts to their long side.
Those small specs that are short in silver covered a smallish 396 contracts from their short side.
Conclusion: there is no question that the object of interest for the bankers was silver. The bankers certainly used their firepower to supply massive non backed paper trying to remove as many silver leaves as they could. Although the raid knocked the price of silver
down, they failed in the attempt to lower the playing field. They will try again until they succeed, with the knowledge that the regulators are looking busy looking in other directions ( such affairs as the M.F. Global scandal).
http://harveyorgan.blogspot.com/2012/03/ecb-record-depositsmoodys-lowers-greek.html
George.
Click on "In reply to", for Authors past commentaries.
Check out Andrew Maguire's 'sizzling' March 2nd interview on KWN....
Andrew Maguire: Whistleblower & Independent London Metals Trader -
Andrew has over 40 years experience as a metals trader and previously worked for Goldman Sachs. In 2010 Andrew Maguire went public in an exclusive King World News interview and disclosed his notification to the United States regulators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of fraud being committed and price manipulation in the international gold and silver markets. This put him at the center of a storm for exposing what could be the largest fraud in history involving countries, banks and government leaders.
Listen to Friday's in depth interview at:
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2012/3/2_Andrew_Maguire.html
COMEX Large Commercials Step Up Opposition Ahead of Wednesday Silver Plunge
Friday, March 02, 2012
SOUTH TEXAS -- A quick look at the positioning of the large commercial traders on the COMEX for silver futures reveals that the combined commercial traders (in the legacy COT report) increased their net short positions (LCNS) by 5,405 contracts or 13.8% from Tuesday to Tuesday to show 44,593 contracts net short as the silver price increased a big $2.62 or 7.7% from $34.27 to $36.89. The COT report data cut off one day prior to the large $2.25 selloff on Wednesday, February 29.
The LCNS is the highest since September 13, 2011 when silver closed at $40.96, a few days before plunging in a vertical cascade to a $28 handle then. (Shown in the graph below.)
Silver combined commercial net short position (LCNS), source CFTC for COT, Cash market for silver.
From December 27, 2011, when silver closed at $28.67, to Tuesday, February 28, the combined commercial traders’ net short position increased from an extremely low 14,132 to 44,593 contracts net short, according to data supplied by the CFTC (70.7 million to 223 million ounces).* That is an increase of 30,641 lots or about 215%, but the increase is measured from a 10-year low in commercial net short positioning.
A majority of the increase in LCNS (15,864 lots or 79.3 million ounces) occurred ABOVE $33 USD and after January 31, 2012 when silver closed then at $33.12.
For comparison, during that same December 27 to February 28 nine-reporting week period, very large traders the CFTC classes as Producer, Merchant, Processor or User, the category which includes the largest dealers and bullion banks, increased their net short positioning by 16,510 contracts (82.6 million ounces) or only 50%, from 32,919 to 49,429 COMEX contracts net short.
Net silver futures positioning by traders the CFTC classes as Producer, Merchant... In this graph the position shows as a negative number, so as the net short position increases the blue line falls and vice versa.
Interestingly, 12,748 contracts (77%) of that increase occurred with or after the January 31 disaggregated COT report, when silver closed then at $33.12. So much of the "increased opposition" from the Producer-Merchants also occured at or above $33.
As of 15:30 ET Friday, silver looks like it will close near $34.75 on the Globex aftermarket, up fractionally for the calendar week, but off more than $2.60 from its Wednesday breakout high of $37.43. Very volatile silver is up just under $7 so far in 2012, an advance of about 25%.
Silver closed out 2011 at $27.78 on the Cash Market.
We will have more about the COT in our linked charts for subscribers by the usual time on Sunday evening (by 18:00 ET).
*A significant portion of the LCNS increase was actually a decrease in net long positioning by traders the CFTC classes as Swap Dealers. Swap Dealers recorded a record net long position on December 27, 2011 of 18,787 contracts (93.9 million ounces). As of Tuesday, February 28 they had reduced that net long position by 13,951 lots ( 69.8 million ounces or 74%) to show 4,836 COMEX contracts net long.
http://www.gotgoldreport.com/2012/03/comex-large-commercials-step-up-opposition-ahead-of-wednesday-silver-plunge.html
Nice work on GDX today, flushed everyone out who had weak knees.
Confiscation always in mind
http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Faber-Government-Seize-Gold/2012/03/02/id/431194?s=al&promo_code=E4F8-1
Marc Faber: US 'Financial Mess' Will Force Government to Take Your Gold
Friday, 02 Mar 2012 07:52 AM
By Julie Crawshaw
Economist Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom report, says the government will seize privately held gold, even as he continues to buy physical gold himself.
“I prefer to play the commodity space by owning physical gold,” Faber tells Chiefsworld. “If I were an American, I would store it outside the U.S., because in the U.S., it is not completely unlikely that they will eventually take it away.”
“Like in 1933, gold will be purchased back by the government” because eventually the financial mess will be so bad that gold prices “will go ballistic, and the government will take away something from a minority, and not many people own gold."
Editor's Note: Economist Unapologetically Calls Out Bernanke, Obama for Mishandling Economy. See What They Did
“When gold prices shoot up, it will be quite a popular measure to take it away from these rich people,” Faber says. “It’s happened before.”
From May 1, 1933, until 1974, U.S. citizens could no longer hold gold as a protection against paper money, which also lost its gold backing at the same time.
Foreign central banks could continue to exchange the U.S. dollars that came into their possession – known as eurodollars for decades — for gold and did so particularly when the U.S. dollar was devalued and then floated against the gold price in 1971.
Faber says he’s not in a hurry to buy gold, but accumulates gold every month because he believes the gold market is still under a correction.
Faber notes that the Chinese economy is slowing, and says it will slow further and perhaps crash at some point, which is why he is staying out of commodities other than gold.
Meanwhile, Nomura's Bob Janjuah says markets are so rigged by government policies that investing dangers lurk virtually everywhere.
"My personal recommendation is to sit in gold and non-financial high quality corporate credit and blue-chip big cap non-financial global equities," Janjuah writes at Zero Hedge.
"Bond and currency markets are now so rigged by policy makers that I have no meaningful insights to offer, other than my bubble fears."
Elsewhere, Gold traders are getting more bullish after billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson told investors it’s time to buy the metal as protection against inflation caused by government spending.
Twelve of 22 surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to gain next week and five were neutral. Paulson & Co. is already the biggest investor in the SPDR Gold Trust, the largest exchange-traded product backed by bullion, with a stake valued at $2.9 billion, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Feb. 14 showed.
Gold for April delivery, the most actively traded contract, rose $10.90, or 0.6 percent, to settle Thursday at $1,722.20 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The Two Economic Clutch Type Events Of This Period By Jim Sinclair
* Friday, March 2, 2012
My Dear Extended Family,
The history of this period will focus attention on two economic clutch type events. These events will have mandated the need for the construction of a new monetary system utilizing a virtual reserve currency traded only by central banks. This reserve currency will be related to gold via a global Western world M3.
An economic clutch type event is one that by its occurrence allows the world to shift gears and change into a new economic velocity and direction.
The first economic clutch event took place when the decision was made that the US Federal Reserve and US Treasury would not support a rescue of the prestigious investment firm of Lehman Brothers. By doing this, they threw that institution and all of its transactions in which it was the deficit other party into default via bankruptcy.
Before then the entire OTC derivative debacle had a simple but extremely controversial solution. The tactic would have been similar to the means of nullifying the effect of the historic failure of the Savings and Loan Institutions during the last great housing recession. This at hand solution was to net the entire global derivative problem into a singular institutions named the Derivative Bank. At that time all OTC derivatives which were established would be returned to the instance of establishment when obligations netted almost zero. It was the institution of Lehman as a bankruptcy that removed the ability to net out to near zero from the daisy chain of global derivatives. To bring the daisy chain of OTC derivatives to net the winner would have to place their paper winnings into the pool and the paper losers would have placed their paper losses back into the pool. This would have reduced the entire loss to only part of the earnings on the banking institution from 1991 (the birth of the derivative use globally) rather than the more than now 20 trillion dollars worth of liquidity required to fund the winners who have benefited mightily from that windfall we financed.
The forced flushing of Lehman Brothers is therefore the economic clutch event that brought quantitative easing to provide the rescue funds to finance the winnings of the global Western world financial system. The downshift was from 5th gear to 1st gear that nearly blew up the world economic engine.
We now have had the 2nd Western world economic clutch event that will shift the gears directly from the plodding along in 1st gear economically into reverse gear, therein blowing the transmission and engine simultaneously. This event is the ISDA blessing of the credit event which reduced the value of Greek debt to its holders by 70% without triggering a default. They have now made it virtuous to walk away from the once lest risk loans, loans to Western governments. Such a walk away is now deemed a credit event, not the dirty D word, default.
A pattern of action has been set in place now which takes QE, the gift from Lehman’s economic clutch event, to QE to infinity, the direct result of the Greek economic clutch event that was declared via the International Swaps and Derivative Association. These Gods of Mammon declared 70% of the Greek sovereign debt to be valueless without guilt, sin or consequences.
Replacing the lost value from the sovereign credit event (non-default) in this paper selectively to the banking system makes unlimited creation of liquidity an act of virtue and blessedness.
To assume that other nations facing the same problems will not wish the same treatment is madness. To assume the private sector facing the same problems will not demand the same treatment is madness. Therefore QE to infinity is now deemed an act of virtue and blessedness.
A 70% haircut in the value of the Greek sovereign debt does not constitute a credit event defined as a credit default according to the most powerful financial entity on the planet, the ISDA. This group is more financially influential than governments today. This decision by the revered members of the Association’s Determinations Committee has acted to prevent the notional value of all the credit default swaps, an OTC derivative, from becoming real value as would occur if the CDSs were called upon to function.
The ISDA has, according to MSM, taken offense to being described as secretive in its proceedings. The ISDA said minutes of the meeting of the committee would not be publicly distributed as the decision was unanimous.
What has occurred in what is now described as “the successful handling of the Greek problem” by the ECB is in fact a total disaster for mankind in its introduction of QE to Infinity as the blessed settlement to a problem that now is more severe than it was prior to the Lehman event. That problem is that the mountain of OTC derivative has not been attended to, but rather has grown to include the size of all Western world sovereign debt as it is all western sovereign debt that is now threatened by an event of default on a national level. That will simply occur regardless of whatever the ISDA says. Much of it will not be paid, period.
This enfranchised QE to infinity sets a floor via Chinese gold acquisitions to any reaction in price. Alf Field’s price objective of gold at $4500 is by this 2nd economic clutch event now in the crosshairs of the gold price.
Gold prices staying high have now been guaranteed. Further to that, those intelligently managed gold producers internationally will shift to dividend payers of note, transforming the gold industry into the utility type equity of the future. Opinions expressed to the opposite are simple exercises in economic ignorance.
Gold’s price reactions, when they do occur, will be violent and very short lived. This is fact.
Respectfully,
James Sinclair
http://www.jsmineset.com/2012/03/02/the-two-economic-clutch-type-events-of-this-period/
George.
Click on "In reply to", for Authors past commentaries.
GDX hit inside that gap, I'm loading large, pmpix and nugt.
True Picassa, but the silver lining is, It's cherry picking time, at least if you can get a fill! GD jerks haven't filled my Silvermex order for 3 days now!
Completely insane, how they have been able to bring it down to the 7$ area again...the world in nuts 100%
Though Kitco's Nadler is often vying for the title, if there is a bigger bankster 'tool' in all of Goldland than Dennis Gartman, I have yet to read his swill....
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
This week's counterintuitive smashdown in the gold price has not only brought a couple of gold fund managers to the point of wondering aloud about market manipulation by central banks:
http://www.gata.org/node/11045
http://www.gata.org/node/11052
Now even the dean of commodity market letter writers, Dennis Gartman of the Gartman Letter, is wondering aloud, even as he says he doesn't want to talk about it. His rattled comments from today's Gartman Letter are appended.
From The Gartman Letter by Dennis Gartman
Friday, March 2, 2012
Moving on to the gold market, we remain bullish of gold in yen terms, and having made that statement yet again, we note something wholly out of the ordinary on our part: the prospects that something manipulative and perhaps even nefarious took place Wednesday in the gold market.
The market's plunge may not have been solely the result of pure market forces, but may have been the result of a very real effort to "manipulate" the market lower ... perhaps on orders of a central bank hoping to break the market in order to buy gold more cheaply after the surge of selling, or perhaps on the order of a government wishing to drive gold down for the "optics" of weaker gold prices.
We are not given to the belief in manipulation and indeed in the past have spoken against that possibility, risking being taken to task by the folks from GATA and the like. (Again, we wish to say quite clearly that we are great friends with GATA's founder, Mr. Bill Murphy, and shall always be so, looking forward every few months to raising a toast with Bill at meetings we are fortunate enough to attend together. However, it is GATA's rank-and-file that cause us the greatest concerns, to the point that several had made rather stark threats against us which we found both amusing and disconcerting.)
However, a note we received yesterday from a very longstanding friend and client of The Gartman Letter caught us off when it raised the very real possibility that something untoward took place Wednesday morning. Our friend, whom we've known for years and is not given to such speculation but who is at the center of such events, wrote:
"Dear Dennis, hope you are well. Regarding yesterday's action in the precious metals, I have a different take on this than you do. As I have very intimate details of yesterday, I think it was indeed official selling. At the London fixing, an order came in to sell 3 million ounces of gold and it was explicitly ordered to be done in just a few minutes. No investor or speculator would 1) handle it this way and 2) do it at the fixing only.
"This [has] happened this way three times in the last year, yesterday being the fourth time. Ben Bernanke had done nothing yesterday to trigger this the way it happened. I [have done] this now for 30 years and this was no free market yesterday. We will find out one day."
We offer this explanation as it stands, but certainly it has our interest piqued. It may be idle speculation on our friend's part. It may even be wrong. But certainly it is interesting and worthy of some consideration. We shall leave it at that and we wish not to comment any further ... to the press, to clients, or to anyone else; nor shall we.
http://cloud.thegartmanletter.com/
Gold, Silver Appear Unintimidated
By: Rick Ackerman
Rick's Picks
Friday, 2 March 2012
Precious metals appear to be recovering nicely after Wednesday’s punitive selloff. Although we initially assumed it might take a few weeks for gold and silver to build a base for the next moon shot, yesterday’s price action hinted that bullion quotes could be off and running much sooner. To be sure, the price action yesterday just inches from ground zero was relatively timid, with small gains driving the markets. However, that was to be expected, given the ferocity of the previous day’s plunge. It would have scared hell out of many investors, turning them cautious for the time being. But perhaps not for long. What was most encouraging about yesterday’s rally was its calmness, with relatively few of the whoops, feints and dives that characterize nervous markets. In fact, bulls made their ascent the way an experienced rock climber would scale an imposing cliff – i.e., one secure handhold/foothold at a time.
PCFG on watch, if the recovery rates are good the obvious is going to happen.
Link to latest production video.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72770947
SVBL Silver Bull Resources (.58) Formerly Metalline Mining. Advanced exploration stage for silver / zinc / lead. Primary focus is Sierra Mojada Project located in Sierra Mojada, Coahuila, Mexico. Silver Bull has acquired or has options to acquire mineral concessions totaling 15,833 hectares (39,124 acres) in the Sierra Mojada Mining District as well as mining concessions in the municipality of Sierra Mojada, Coahuila, Mexico and exploration licenses in Gabon, Africa.
The Company has been working on the property since 1997 and has completed over 80,000 meters of drilling. A 43-101 Technical Report on the project was filed in April 2011 on the SEDAR website www.sedar.com. On April 26, 2011, Silver Bull released a report on the Oxide Zinc Resource at Sierra Mojada.
Website: http://www.silverbullresources.com/s/home.asp
Pinksheets: http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/SVBL/quote
IHUB: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=5902
2-27-12 Silver Bull Intersects High Grade Zone of 417 g/t Silver Over 10 Meters and 283 g/t Silver Over 13.05 Meters Within 100+ Meter Intercepts of Silver Mineralization on the Centenario Zone at the Sierra Mojada Project, Coahuila, Mexico
http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/SVBL/news
Silver Bull Resources Corporate Presentation (Feb 2012)
http://www.slideshare.net/silverbull_res/silver-bull-resources-corporate-presentation-feb2012
img]stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc?s=svbl&p=d&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p88177116397[/img]
Silver Bull Resources Corporate Presentation (Feb 2012)
Links and DD for $FGLD (OTCQB and TSXV Listing) Focus Gold Corp., a global Acquisition and Development Co. in the Gold Sector
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=FGLD.OB&ql=1
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=19216 (mark board)
http://www.focusgoldcorp.com/
Projects (Mexico – UK and Ireland – Canada): http://www.focusgoldcorp.com/Projects/Mexico.asp
Focus Gold Corp, Inc. is a Company focused on acquiring and developing gold mining properties worldwide. FGLD has developed a private equity strategy to acquiring gold mining properties following several key investment criteria:
•Primarily Gold;
•Assets must be in safe governmental jurisdictions worldwide. FGC will seek geographic diversification across its portfolio;
•Looking to invest $500,000 to $5 million in projects with significant exploration upside where returns are at their highest;
•Will look for assets ranging from grass roots exploration to near production. FGLD will look to have a balanced portfolio of properties across this spectrum so as to maximize returns while also mitigating risk;
•Investments may be structured as 100% control, minority/majority equity positions or debt depending on the transaction type and potential return;
•Where possible, FGLD will acquire properties with existing capable management teams and then provide senior level experienced management oversight;
•Once a property has matured to a sizable level, FGLD will seek to divest of the property either through a strategic sale or through a spin-off into a stand-alone public company
Investor Inquiries
Circadian Group
Tyler M. Troup
B.Comm
Email: Tyler@Circadian-Group.com
Website: www.Circadian-Group.com
Toll Free: 1-866-865-2780
http://www.circadian-group.com/signup.html (sign up to stay ahead of game)
FGLD - Daily Candlesticks
Didn't know you could sing like that.
Why I still like gold: Jim Cramer
Attempts to pin the metal's Wednesday collapse on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke are far-fetched.
Nevertheless, I believe the chart took gold down, and the chatter on the decline always proceeds to assume that, at last, gold is finished as an investment. Gold bugs were already reeling from the annual assault on gold from Warren Buffett, who seems to have been wrong on gold for the last decade, and yet still remains someone who has the last word on it. It was yet one more element of weirdness that helped define the trading action.
Put it all together, and I find nothing sufficient to drive the decline in gold, other than sell stops from an ugly triple-top. In this wacko market, that may be all that's really driving the precious metal.
I remain bullish on gold because:
1.Central bankers are still printing money.
2.Rates are still so low that you can finance gold purchases for next to nothing.
3.We have seen no increase in supply, courtesy the difficulty of finding the stuff.
4.China, and the Chinese people, are huge buyers.
5.The Israel-Iran missile crisis.
Despite the endless attempts to pigeonhole gold as being wedded to the dollar, gold remains wedded only to itself and to its own supply and demand. Still, the fact that gold has gone up for 11 straight years, in strong dollar moments and weak dollar moments, means nothing to the gold bears who pontificate genuine gibberish on gold's every percentage move.
Full article link:
http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=917c04c0-9d18-4c9f-882d-ef4737f95608
Didn't embed....here's the link
The Ord Oracle By Tim Ord
* Wednesday, February 29, 2012
For 30 to 90 days horizons SPX: Sold SPX on 12/29/11 at 1263.02 for gain of 1.75%; long 1241.30 on 12/20/11.
Monitoring purposes GOLD: Gold ETF GLD long at 173.59 on 9/21/11
Long Term Trend monitor purposes: Flat
Today’s important fact on GDX is its Volume. Today’s Volume appears to be a “Climatic” volume similar to the previous times when volume jumped over 30% from the previous day. We have marked on the chart above other times when Volume jumped greater than 30% from the previous day and you will notice for the very short term the market volatility dropped and price came to a lull. Today’s big jump in volume on GDX suggests a “Selling Climax” occurred and a bullish sign. The gap at 54.70 most likely will get tested and may find support. Nothing has changed to the idea that a Right Shoulder is still in development and the bigger picture remains bullish. Notice on the GDX/GLD ratio that the longer term red line has been jumped today and shows gold stocks are getting stronger against the price of gold and a longer term bullish sign. GLD has support near the apex of the “flag” pattern which we are in that range now. Strong support comes in near the blue trend which is near 157 range.
Long GDX 58.65 on 12/6/11. Long SLV at 29.48 on 10/20/11. Long GDXJ at 36.24 on 9/21/11. Long GLD at 173.59 on 9/21/11. Long BRD at 1.67 on 8/3/11. Long YNGFF .44 on 7/6/11. Long EGI at 2.16, on 6/30/11. Long GLD at 147.14 on 6/29/11; stop 170 hit = gain 15.5% . Long KBX at 1.13 on 11/9/10. Long LODE at 2.85 on 1/21/11. Long UEXCF at 2.07 on 1/5/11. We will hold as our core position in AUQ, CDE and KGC because in the longer term view these issues will head much higher. Holding CDE (average long at 27.7. Long cryxf at 1.82 on 2/5/08. KGC long at 6.07. Long AUQ average of 8.25. For examples in how "Ord-Volume" works, visit www.ord-oracle.com.
http://www.decisionpoint.com/TAC/ORD.html
George.
Click on "In reply to", for Authors past commentaries.
I wrote someone the other day about this and they remarked that it's just about gambling on futures and so what if a few 'bettors' get burned. He missed the point completely.
What I object to is the open criminality by the Fed banks. The raid yesterday began at the same moment Ron Paul began speaking with Bernanke on Capitol Hill--and holding up a silver dollar to make his point. The bankers sent out a psychological message that if you buy gold and silver, don't expect it to be a store of value like Paul was saying. Gold was down nearly $100 in a few minutes. Silver was down several dollars.
Their insider collusion was against the law. They've done it before many, many times and they now don't bother to hide their criminal acts or even pretend they follow the law. They almost delight and putting it in our faces--they are saying, 'We are your lords and masters. Deal with it!" Like Corzine stealing the customer accounts, they brazenly break the law and get away with it. And yet many in Congress still vigorously kiss Bernanke's backside.
The open criminality is what I was railing against. NOT because I and others may have lost money 'gambling' on silver and gold. This kind of lawlessness goes unpunished. That means it will continue and worsen.
Remember, the paper silver game/COMEX/LBMA still governs the silver price. Without their Soviet-style of managed suppression of PMs, both metals would be much, much higher. The banks also make windfall profits by their timed attacks by heavily shorting PM, driving out longs and triggering stops--which trigger more selling. If we on this board colluded to do this, they'd come after us and put is in prison. But since the banks run the show, they get away with it. Bernanke says that he will end the added liquidity. That also helped out his banker friends and their raid. But clearly Ben is lying again. Without continued printing, the US as we know it will not be able to continue. That would not be in their best interests for now--so they will continue to print debt money.
How long will their suppression continue? Until the COMEX paper show loses its legitimacy. This has occurred to an extent already. When Corzine stole billions, many realized that the concept of private property in America had been compromised. That has driven them out of the futures market for good. Now such markets are even more thinly traded and more easily rigged by elite insiders. They still tell us what gold and silver is worth...NOT supply and demand. When you can take your precious metal to a coin shop and sell it based on supply and demand, THEN you know we again have a free market in silver and gold. If he has to check his computer for the current 'official' price dictated by the banker commissars, then you know we are still under the thumb of criminal bankers.
BG
Reported massive 31 tonne sell order triggered gold and silver price collapse
Does the crash in gold and silver prices, reportedly due to a single huge 31 tonne gold sell order, create a window of opportunity for precious metals investors?
Author: Ross Norman
Posted: Thursday , 01 Mar 2012
A reported 31 tonne sell order on the CME rocked gold which saw prices collapse from a high of $1790 in London hours to $1703 during NY trading, followed by a further dip to the low of $1687 in out of hours electronic trading. A fall of over 6% which erased roughly half of the gains since the beginning of the year.
Much has been placed on the testimony by Fed Head Bernanke but other markets saw less impact leading to suggestions that it simply provided an excuse for a particular "non US" fund to bail and take profits in dramatic fashion. It may be possible that the seller had hoped the 1,000 lot sell order would trigger stops and thereby exaggerate the move lower, allowing the buying to potentially come back in at a much lower price. Like the price, there is much speculation on their motive.
Ordinarily if a seller wanted to get the best price for his metal he would seek to finesse the selling over time, hunting out liquidity (finding people who are the other side of his sell order) and thereby ensure he gets the best possible profit. This seller was clearly simply out for effect.
Either way, market watchers enviously wishing to get into gold at an attractive level cannot complain that windows of opportunity do not present themselves from time to time. The long term gold story remains unchanged and that is to say :
• it is largely unreadable and volatile in the very short term, driven as it is by fast-moving news, political actions, policy decisions and economic events that are almost impossible to predict. In this environment, short term speculation is frankly a bit of a mugs game.
• however, it remains very positive for longer term investors (particularly pension funds) with very positive fundamentals (the market is supply constrained and demand remains robust) and the broad macroeconomic issues remain unchanged. Couple this with shifting pro-gold Central Bank attitudes plus producers manifestly opposed to hedging (and thereby crushing the bull run) and you have a compelling case for buying and holding gold. Best of all, new ways of accessing to gold with a multitude of products over a wide range of jurisdictions is likely to continue to fuel investment demand.
The tone of our reports might suggest (as one reader did) that we are permabulls - we are not and we will be first to let you know when our position changes... probably some time after 2015.
Gold is currently trading at $1720 - so a bounce of 2% so far. We would expect gold to perform a 50% retracement to $1738 within the next few days to confirm the short term bullish outlook. Failure to do so may well lead to consolidation at these lower levels pending a new direction being confirmed. Reaching $1738 and the speed that it does so will give us all a very clear indication of just how much buying interest really does underpin this market.
http://www.mineweb.co.za/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page103855?oid=146427&sn=Detail&pid=102055
Why Kinross Is A Long-Term Winner
http://seekingalpha.com/article/400731-why-kinross-is-a-long-term-winner?source=email_portfolio&ifp=0
by: Samuel Zeifman February 29, 2012
(special thanks to investor15)
In a market where everyone is chasing yield, people are forgetting about the rich long term opportunities that are available. When considering the shares of Kinross, (KGC) one must seize the opportunity to invest at this opportune moment. The fact that Kinross just raised the dividend by 33% is an indication of where the company is going.
Whether you bought Kinross shares today or seven years ago, the price remains the same. The only change is that today, the spot price of gold is around $1730, where seven years ago the price was $550. Thus we have seen a tripling of the price of gold, yet the price of Kinross shares remains at either below or above book value levels (depending on how you value goodwill). The main argument against Kinross is higher costs relative to competitors. However, the fact that every investor is aware of this known data presents a great buying opportunity, as this news has been overly factored into the price.
Kinross' shares have been hit with a goodwill impairment charge in Q4 2011 where a $2.9 billion dollar write down was booked. Kinross is undertaking questionable negotiations in Ecuador (which may fail), and faces general market and operational risks. The argument for this article is that when you take into account all of the negative information and apply it to Kinross, the company represents an amazing buying opportunity.
It is only a matter of time before there is an increase for the demand of gold. In the past, investors have poured money into physical gold and gold-backed exchanged traded funds (ETFs), thus the gold miners have not had the investment that they will soon receive when earnings start coming through on today's gold price.
"Gold producers are heading for an "inflection point" triggering a rally," Barrick Chief Executive Officer Aaron Regent said in an interview. "They have been punished as investors decided the shares should no longer trade as a proxy for physical gold," he said.
"The growing popularity of gold-backed exchange traded funds, or ETFs, which include the $73.3 billion SPDR Gold Trust, probably have taken away some of the capital that previously was invested in companies such as Toronto-based Barrick," Regent said. Investors have shunned gold producers choosing instead to hold physical metal and ETFs after gold advanced in 11 successive years and touched a record in September.
Kinross has developed an asset base to 10 operating gold producing mines, and although average cost per ounce of gold is higher than competitors, Kinross still makes substantial sums of money per ounce of gold. In 2011 Kinross had a margin of $965 per ounce of gold sold. In 2011 average production cost of gold was $636 per ounce. This cost might go as high as $700 per ounce this year.
According to Tye Burt, President and CEO, "Our ten operating mines are generating strong cash flow. Tasiast remains our first development priority in a measured and prudent plan for capital allocation and growth designed for long-term value and financial strength."
The profit margin for Kinross is an important metric because costs are the key reason why shares have traded flat in the last 7 years while competitors have had explosive stock price increases. (See chart above.) With a higher cost of extracting the gold, margins were tight with the gold price less than $1,000 per ounce. With gold at today's prices, Kinross has had record revenue and operationally has never produced so much gold. Producing 2.8 million ounces per year, and earnings which will add about .80 cents a year per share, make Kinross a great value play.
Kinross is mining a significant amount of gold. Kinross mines 2.8 ounces compared to Goldcorp's 2.5 million ounces in 2011. The difference is that Kinross has costs on each ounce three times higher than Goldcorp, and trades at a price four times lower. That said, when gold starts to appreciate, Kinross will continue to see record earnings.
If you examine the book value for Kinross before the goodwill impairment charge Kinross took in Q4 2011, Kinross had an excessively large amount of goodwill in relation to total assets in comparison with other similar gold miners. (See chart below.)
After a thorough investigation valuating gold companies, I have reached the conclusion that goodwill in gold producers' balance sheets doesn't have nearly the same amount of "pull" as in other industries. Companies who had a higher relation of goodwill / assets traded at significant discounts and Kinross fits this model. (See chart below.) Nonetheless, the $2.9 billion dollar non-cash goodwill impairment charge (which caused the stock to drop about 20%) could be expected. However, the price of the stock is now trading at or near book value when you factor in the current goodwill of the stock which according to my chart is $11.21.
If you strip out goodwill entirely from the balance sheet you still come up with a book value of $8.20. This is on a mid cap established gold producer with 10 operational mines earning .80 cents a year. Just the earnings without any cash in the bank would justify the current price. When goodwill is factored you have a stock trading below book value. Looking at Kinross from a financial perspective, earning $.80 cents this year, with a stock price at near or below book value, creates a great value play. In either case with or without goodwill the valuation looks great.
RELATIVE VALUES
(Before Kinross' $2.9b Goodwill Charge)
RELATIVE VALUES
(After Kinross' $2.9b Goodwill Charge)
Icing On The Cake
If you were to define conservative management you would say the name Kinross, and I don't blame management for a second. Management continues to be highly criticized for the Red Back acquisition which was done to purchase the Tasiast mine. At the time the mine was expected to have 8-9 million ounces of gold and since the studies have come in, Kinross is saying the gold deposits are looking more like 12 million. Despite this, the street is still ripping management apart for over-paying for this asset.
Tasiast is what is going to keep Kinross strong into the future. Kinross has excellent current production (2,610,373 ounces of gold in 2011) and is adding capacity through expanding the Tasiast mine. Last quarter Kinross produced 55,000 ounces of gold with the expectation of that number going to 75,000 ounces a quarter starting this year. If we round off production at Tasiast at an approximate average of 80,000 ounces per quarter going forward, that gives Kinross an extra 320,000 ounces of gold per year. This represents an 11.4% increase of current operations of 2.8 million ounces.
With what Kinross is mining right now, and the additional reserves that Tasiast will deliver, over the next year, Kinross will be adding approximately 11.4% more gold to earnings through this asset. Tasiast is a world class deposit that people aren't paying attention to. Some believe that Kinross took a 2.9 billion dollar goodwill write down to reflect the lower value of the Tasiast mine. However, the reason Kinross took this impairment charge is because of the run up of the price of Kinross shares which caused the price of the Red Back deal to increase substantially.
This price increase was attributed to the "goodwill" section of the balance sheet and has now been properly reflected. The difference can be seen on chart #1 versus chart #2. The reason for the write down was not an inferior mine, but market conditions which ran the price of the acquisition up when Kinross stock was rising. In summation, Kinross has a world class mine that has more gold than expected, and the share price appreciation caused the write down, not the quality of Tasiast.
The reason that I suggest that Kinross has conservative management is because all of the future forecasting is based on $1,250 as the price of gold. Even through the price of gold is $1750 Kinross uses $1,250 as the future gold price.
If management had projected the price of gold to be in the mid-range between $1250 and $1750, say $1450 per ounce, there would not have been a goodwill charge. This was stated on the Q4 investor question and answer period available on the Kinross website.
This is how sensitive Kinross is to the price of gold. With higher than average costs which might hit $700 per ounce, a selling price of $1250 only leaves $550 profit per ounce. That is less than 2011 profits of $965 per ounce. I feel that gold is not going to $1250 leaving only $550 profit per ounce. (1250 - 700 = $550)
I feel that gold will stay at current levels or appreciate. Thus, gold projections at $1250 are overly conservative and if gold stays at $1750, margins will be $1050 not $550. $550 margins (not $1050 margins) is how management is calculating goodwill on the balance sheet. Therefore, if gold stays at these levels Kinross will earn solid money from a diverse geographical combination of ten operating mines, and benefit from additional future production and site increases with a focus on Tasiast.
In conclusion, Kinross is trading at an excellent valuation as described above. Kinross earns good money at about $.80 cents per year with a world class brand new young operational mine (Tasiast) which is just starting to come online. This mine will most likely increase total production by around 11.4%. This means if you buy this stock now and you sit and wait until the earnings come through, the dividend rolls up, and for all the reasons you would buy gold, Kinross will be a winner. Not to mention that at these crippled prices Kinross is ripe for a take-over. The only issue is that Kinross is too big to get swallowed.
Disclosure: I am long KGC.
Bullion Shakedown Stampedes the Ignorant
By Rick Ackerman
Rick's Picks
Thursday, 1 March 2012
Although yesterday’s Congressional testimony by “Helicopter Ben” Bernanke was fundamentally meaningless, it caused gold and silver prices to take a spectacular dive. They got hit after the ‘Nank, prevaricating as usual, said the central bank wasn’t rushing to crank up a QE3 stimulus. While this may be true as far as it goes, it belies the fact that the money spigots have been wide open for years and will remain so, probably, until the financial system collapses. More on that below. Concerning the savaging that precious metals received, they are all but certain to recover, since the forces that have been driving them steeply higher for more than a decade are still very much in place.
Even so, it could take at least a few weeks for gold to build a new base for a shot at $2000, and silver for a push into the mid-$40s. In the throes of yesterday’s brutal, deftly engineered shakeout, Comex gold dropped $104, or nearly six percent, in just a few hours. The April contract hit an intraday low of $1688 after trading as high as $1793 the day before. As for Silver futures, they suffered their worst single-day loss since September, falling $3.76, or 10 percent, from intraday high to low. Mining stocks fell in sympathy, lopping three percent from the value of the Gold Bugs Index (HUI) and five percent from GDX, an index that tracks the shares of junior miners.
AUMN Golden Minerals Co. (8.34) Junior silver producer focused on production at the Velardeña Mining District in Mexico, which contains a high-grade silver and gold resource with associated base metals. Exploration projects include the Evaluation stage El Quevar project in northwestern Argentina and the Advanced Drilling stage project in Zacatecas, Mexico.
Completed the acquisition of ECU Silver on September 2, 2011.
Q4 2011 produced 90,000 ounces silver and 1,300 ounces gold. By Q4 2012, annual production estimated to be over 750,000 ounces of silver, 10,000 ounces of gold and one million pounds of combined lead and zinc.
Website: http://www.goldenminerals.com/
Pink sheets: http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/AUMN/quote
IHUB: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=5810
img]stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc?s=aumn&p=d&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p20624534320[/img]
Well, I bought my CEF back. Looked like it was going to get away from me, then kaput. I feel better now that I have it, it's my insurance policy in case the crooks take everything. Hope to get more lower in a few weeks/months.
Here's Wednesday nights Frailey newsletter. Alot about gold.
http://tinyurl.com/7zmg47o
There are no markets anymore, just interventions
Submitted by cpowell on Sat, 2008-04-19 05:18.
Remarks by Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
GATA Goes to Washington -- Anybody Seen Our Gold?
Hyatt Regency Crystal City Hotel, Arlington, Virginia
Friday, April 18, 2008
"And so we have come to an era of daily market interventions by central banks -- so much so that the main purpose of central banking now is to prevent ordinary markets from happening at all.
Groucho Marx made a small fortune in vaudeville and then lost it all in the stock market crash of 1929. His sense of humor was no help to him then. One day in the early 1930s he was sitting in a bar with his friend Morrie, and Morrie was trying to console him.
"Yes," Morrie told Groucho, "we've lost a lot of money and it hurts, but we’ve still got our health and our lives ahead of us, and some people don’t even have that. Take my cousin Fred. He's much worse off than we are but he’s pressing on as best he can. Fred lost his leg in a carriage accident when he was 5. His parents were killed in a tenement fire when he was 12. His wife ran off with his best friend when he was 27. And then he had diabetes at 29."
Groucho was not to be consoled; he had lost too much money in the crash. He snarled back at Morrie: "Diabetes at 29? That's nothing. I had Radio at 104."
We investors in the precious metals have taken some hard blows lately, if not quite as hard as the blows taken by, say, investors in Bear Stearns. But we've taken such blows regularly over the last decade and still have come out ahead, so we should be able to put things in perspective.
It may be a little easier for those of us in the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee. The committee was founded in 1999 to expose manipulation of the gold market and the rigging of related markets. From the start we were ridiculed as "conspiracy nuts." But hardly a day goes by now without evidence of official market rigging showing up in even the establishment news media.
We in GATA haven't minded the "nuts" part that much. But we're actually public record nuts.
For the scheme to suppress the price of gold is increasingly a matter of ordinary public record.
It was a matter of public record in January 1995, when the Federal Reserve's general counsel, J. Virgil Mattingly, told the Federal Open Market Committee, according to the committee's minutes, that the U.S. Treasury Department's Exchange Stabilization Fund had undertaken "gold swaps." Those minutes are still posted at the Fed's Internet site:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/FOMC19950201meeting.p...
It was a matter of public record in July 1998, six months before GATA was formed, when Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress: "Central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise." That is, Greenspan himself contradicted the usual central bank explanation for leasing gold -- supposedly to earn a little interest on a dead asset -- and admitted that gold leasing was all about suppressing the price. Greenspan's admission is still posted at the Fed’s Internet site:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/testimony/1998/19980724.htm
Incidentally, while we gold bugs love to cite Greenspan's testimony from July 1998 because of its reference to gold leasing, that testimony was mainly about something else, for which it is far more important today. For with that testimony Greenspan persuaded Congress not to regulate the sort of financial derivatives that lately have devastated the world financial system.
The Washington Agreement on Gold, made by the European central banks in 1999, was another admission -- no, a proclamation that central banks were working together to control the gold price. The central banks in the Washington Agreement claimed that, by restricting their gold sales and leasing, they meant to prevent the gold price from falling too hard. But even if you believed that explanation, it was still collusive intervention in the gold market. You can find the Washington Agreement at the World Gold Council's Internet site:
http://www.reserveasset.gold.org/central_bank_agreements/cbga1/
Barrick Gold, then the largest gold-mining company in the world, confessed to the gold price suppression scheme in U.S. District Court in New Orleans on February 28, 2003. On that date Barrick filed a motion to dismiss Blanchard & Co.'s anti-trust lawsuit against Barrick and its bullion banker, JPMorganChase, for rigging the gold market.
Barrick's motion said that in borrowing gold from central banks and selling it, the company had become the agent of the central banks in the gold market, and, as the agent of the central banks, Barrick should share their sovereign immunity and be exempt from suit. Barrick’s confession to the gold price suppression scheme is posted here:
http://www.gata.org/files/BarrickConfessionMotionToDismiss.pdf
The Reserve Bank of Australia confessed to the gold price suppression scheme in its annual report for 2003. "Foreign currency reserve assets and gold," the RBA's report said, "are held primarily to support intervention in the foreign exchange market." The RBA's report is still posted on the Internet at the central bank's site:
http://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/rba/2003/pdf/2003-repo...
Maybe the most brazen admission of the Western central bank scheme to suppress the gold price was made by the head of the monetary and economic department of the Bank for International Settlements, William S. White, in a speech to a BIS conference in Basel, Switzerland, in June 2005.
There are five main purposes of central bank cooperation, White announced, and one of them is "the provision of international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful." White's speech is posted at GATA's Internet site here:
http://www.gata.org/node/4279
Last October the editor of the Freemarket Gold & Money Report and the founder of GoldMoney, James Turk, a longtime consultant to GATA who will be speaking at this conference, revealed some U.S. Treasury Department reports showing that since May last year the U.S. gold reserve has been mobilized for leasing to suppress the gold price. Those records are available on GATA's Internet site:
http://www.gata.org/node/5637
In complaining about the manipulation of the gold market, GATA has not been called "conspiracy nuts" by everyone. We have gained a good deal of institutional support over the years.
First came Sprott Asset Management in Toronto, our main sponsor for this conference. In 2004 Sprott issued a comprehensive report supporting GATA. The report was written by this conference's keynote speaker, Sprott's chief investment strategist, John Embry, and his assistant, Andrew Hepburn, and was titled "Not Free, Not Fair -- the Long-Term Manipulation of the Gold Price." It remains available at the Sprott Internet site here:
http://www.sprott.com/docs/PressReleases/20_not_free_not_fair.pdf
Then in 2006 the Cheuvreux brokerage house of Credit Agricole, the major French bank, issued its own report confirming GATA's findings of manipulation in the gold market. The Cheuvreux report was titled "Remonetization of Gold: Start Hoarding," and you can find it at GATA's Internet site:
http://www.gata.org/files/CheuvreuxGoldReport.pdf
And in September last year Citigroup -- yes, Citigroup, a pillar of the American financial establishment -- joined the conspiracy nuts. It published a report titled "Gold: Riding the Reflationary Rescue," written by its analysts John H. Hill and Graham Wark, declaring: "Gold undoubtedly faced headwinds this year from resurgent central bank selling, which was clearly timed to cap the gold price." You can find the Citigroup report at GATA's Internet site here:
http://www.gata.org/files/CitigroupGoldReport092107.pdf
Even those authorities who don't want to run afoul of government institutions that with a few computer keystrokes can create virtually infinite amounts of money may have to admit the opportunity for central banks to manipulate the gold market. For it is widely acknowledged that annual world gold production is about 2,400 tonnes, that annual net world gold demand is about 3,400 tonnes, that gold production is falling as demand is rising, and that the thousand-tonne gap between production and net demand is being filled mainly by central bank dishoarding and leasing. What do you suppose the gold price would be if central banks were not supplying more than a quarter of annual demand?
Just prior to the smashing down of the gold price in March, the gold lease rate turned negative. That is, the usual miniscule interest rate charged on borrowed gold was not enough incentive for bullion banks to keep borrowing gold from central banks and keep selling it into the market. No, central banks began to pay bullion banks to short gold. (Remember this the next time you hear assertions that central banks lease gold to make money from a "dead asset.")
So a bigger question today is not whether central banks and their agents manipulate the gold market -- even Citigroup sees it now -- but why this should ever have been a mystery or a controversy in the first place. For the manipulation of the gold market by central banks is only the most basic economic history.
That's what the gold standard was about -- governments fixing the price of gold to a precise value in their currencies, a price at which governments would exchange their currencies for gold, currencies that were backed by gold.
Though the gold standard was abandoned amid the Great Depression, that was not the end of government efforts to control the gold price. The United States and Great Britain attempted to hold the price at $35 per ounce throughout the 1960s in a public arrangement of dishoarding that came to be known as the London Gold Pool. The London Gold Pool was overwhelmed by demand and was shut down abruptly in April 1968.
Since then there have been sporadic selling of gold by central banks and, increasingly, leasing of gold by central banks, even as the gold price has continued to rise.
That the London Gold Pool was a scheme to manipulate the gold price is not denied even as the purposes of the more recent selling and leasing by central banks may be disputed.
But it is all much bigger than that. Gold is only part of it.
For market intervention is exactly why central banking was invented. Intervening in markets is what central banks do. They have no other purpose.
Central banks admit intervening daily, even hourly, in the currency markets, buying and selling their own currencies and those of other governments to maintain exchange rates at what they consider politically desirable levels. Central banks admit doing the same in the government bond markets. Now there is even evidence that the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department have been intervening frequently in the U.S. stock markets since the crash of 1987.
You don't have to settle for rumors about the "Plunge Protection Team," also known as the President's Working Group on Financial Markets. Again you can just look at the public record.
The Federal Reserve injects money into the stock and bond markets every day, on the public record, through what are called repurchase agreements the Fed makes with the major New York financial houses, its so-called primary dealers. The financial houses become the Fed's agents in directing that money into the markets.
As of this week the money that has been deployed into the stock, bond, and derivatives markets by the Fed through the repo pool stood at about $360 billion. Last October the repo pool was only $160 billion. In only six months the money in the repo pool has far more than doubled.
Three hundred sixty billion dollars are plenty for pushing all sorts of markets around or propping them up. Indeed, market manipulation is the only purpose of the repo pool.
Now central banks are trying to scare the gold market with the plan of the International Monetary Fund to sell 400 tonnes of gold in the name of rotating into supposedly superior investments, like government bonds -- as if anything else with so little risk could match gold's increase in value in dollar terms, 300 percent over the last 10 years, an average of 30 percent per year. But if you look closely, you will find that the IMF says its gold sales are only to substitute for any unfilled quotas in the Western central bank agreement on gold sales, the Washington Agreement, and so are not to add to the annual dishoarding of official-sector gold. And if you look even closer, you may begin to wonder whether the IMF even has any gold at all.
This month I wrote to the managing director of the IMF, Dominque Strauss-Kahn, with five questions about the IMF's gold. I copied the letter to the IMF's press office by e-mail, and quickly began to get some answers from one of its press officers, Conny Lotze.
My first question was: "Your Internet site says the IMF holds 3,217 metric tons of gold 'at designated depositories.' Which depositories are these?"
Conny Lotze of the IMF replied, but not specifically. She wrote: "The fund's gold is distributed across a number of official depositories," noting that the IMF's rules designate the United States, Britain, France, and India as IMF depositories.
My second question was: "If you'd prefer not to identify the depositories for security reasons, could you at least identify the national and private custodians of the IMF's gold and the amounts of IMF gold held by each?"
Conny Lotze replied, again not very specifically: "All of the designated depositories are official."
My third question was: "Is the IMF's gold at these depositories allocated -- that is, specifically identified as belonging to the IMF -- or is it merged with other gold in storage at these depositories?"
Conny Lotze replied, still not very specifically: "The fund's gold is properly accounted for at all its depositories."
My fourth question was: "Do the IMF's member countries count the IMF's gold as part of their own national reserves, or do they count and identify the IMF's gold separately?"
Conny Lotze replied a bit ambiguously: "Members do not include IMF gold within their reserves because it is an asset of the IMF. Members include their reserve position in the fund in their international reserves."
This sounded to me as if the IMF members are still counting as their own the gold that supposedly belongs to the IMF -- that the IMF members are just listing the gold assets in another column on their own books.
My fifth question to the IMF was: "Does the IMF have assurances from the depositories that its gold is not leased or swapped or otherwise encumbered? If so, what are these assurances?"
Conny Lotze replied: "Under the fund's Articles of Agreement it is not authorized to engage in these transactions in gold."
But I had not asked if the IMF itself was swapping or leasing gold. I had asked whether the custodians of the IMF's gold were swapping or leasing it.
This prompted me to raise one more question for Conny Lotze. I wrote her: "Is there any audit of the IMF's gold that is available to the public? I ask because, if the amount of IMF gold held by each depository nation is not public information, there doesn't seem to be much documentation for the IMF's gold, nor any documentation for the assurance that its custody is just fine. Without any details or documentation, the IMF's answer seems to be simply that it should be trusted -- that it has the gold it says it has, somewhere."
And Conny Lotze ... well, that was 10 days ago, and she has not answered that question yet, and I don't think she is going to. For I'm beginning to find that the only thing that offends a government officer more than a four-letter word is that five-letter word: A-U-D-I-T.
That the International Monetary Fund apparently refuses to account for the gold it claims to have should be potential news for the financial media. We hope they will pursue that issue before they next attempt to scare the gold market with stories about IMF gold sales.
But GATA may have somewhat bigger news than that today.
Last week GATA's Washington law firm, William J. Olson P.C. of McLean, Virginia, received a letter from the Federal Reserve in response to the freedom-of-information request we sent to the Fed and the Treasury back in December, seeking access to all documents in their possession that mention "gold swaps." The Fed's letter confirms that it has such documents and says that some of them will be made available to us but others will not be made available or will be redacted because they contain, among other things, "trade secrets" and "privileged or confidential" memorandums or letters. By telephone the Fed has told our law firm that about 400 pages are being reviewed for release to us.
Right now we can only speculate about these documents, but the Fed's letter does admit something important: that the U.S. government knows things about gold that it does not want the public to know, that the U.S. government has secrets about gold, and that these secrets involve the gold market, not the mere location of U.S. government gold reserves.
Maybe the financial media should pursue these issues too. For what is there to hide about the U.S. gold reserves unless it involves market manipulation?
But since even Citigroup acknowledges it now, it should be no secret that the price of gold has been manipulated through the strategic dishoarding of gold by central banks and their sale of gold futures and options at strategic moments. So the biggest question of all may be why central banks manipulate the gold price and what this means for investors.
Gold has been manipulated by central banks because it is a currency that competes with their own currencies, a currency whose price helps set the price of government currencies and helps determine interest rates. More than that, gold is the ticket out of the central bank system, the escape from coercive central bank and government power. As an independent currency, a currency to which investors can resort when they are dissatisfied with government currencies, gold carries the enormous power to discipline governments, to call them to account for their inflation of the money supply and to warn the world against it. Because gold is the vehicle of escape from the central bank system, the manipulation of the gold market is the manipulation that makes possible all other market manipulation by government.
In recent months central bankers often have complained about what they call "imbalances" in the international financial system. That is, certain countries, particularly in Asia, run big trade surpluses, while other countries, especially the United States, run big trade deficits and consume far more than they produce, living off the rest of the world. These complaints by the central bankers about "imbalances" are brazenly hypocritical, since these imbalances have been caused by the central banks themselves, their constant interventions in the currency, bond, commodity, and derivatives markets to prevent those markets from coming into balance through ordinary market action lest certain political interests be disturbed.
Yes, when markets balance themselves they often do it brutally, causing great damage to many of their participants. The United States enacted a central banking system in 1913 because for the almost 150 years before then the country went through a catastrophic deflation every decade or so. Central banking was created in the name of preventing those catastrophic deflations.
The problem with central banking has been mainly the old problem of power -- it corrupts.
Central bankers are supposed to be more capable of restraint than ordinary politicians, and maybe some are, but they are not always or even often capable of the necessary restraint. One market intervention encourages another and another and increases the political pressure to keep intervening to benefit special interests rather than the general interest -- to benefit especially the financial interests, the banking and investment banking industries. These interventions, subsidies to special interests, increasingly are needed to prevent the previous imbalances from imploding.
And so we have come to an era of daily market interventions by central banks -- so much so that the main purpose of central banking now is to prevent ordinary markets from happening at all.
Central banking controls the value of all labor, services, and real goods, and yet it is conducted almost entirely in secret -- because, in choosing winners and losers in the economy, advancing infinite amounts of money to some participants in the markets but not to others, administering the ultimate patronage, central banking cannot survive scrutiny.
Yet the secrecy of central banking now is taken for granted even in nominally democratic countries.
Maybe the Federal Reserve's intervention to rescue Bear Stearns through the Fed's de-facto subsidiary, JPMorganChase, has been grotesque enough to prompt some devastating public inquiries by Congress and the news media. But what a hundred years ago in the United States was called the Money Power is so ascendant today that it sometimes even boasts of its privilege. What other agency of a democratic government could get away with the principle that was articulated on national television in 1994 by the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Blinder? Blinder declared: "The last duty of a central banker is to tell the public the truth."
The truth as GATA sees it is this:
First, gold is the secret knowledge of the financial universe, but it is becoming an open secret. That is GATA's work -- to bust the secret open. We will continue to use freedom-of-information law against the Fed and the Treasury Department about their policies toward gold and the disposition of the U.S. gold reserves. Of course central banks can no more afford to account fully for their gold reserves than the Fed and JPMorganChase can afford to disclose details of their negotiations for the rescue of Bear Stearns. Indeed, the disposition of Western central bank gold reserves is a secret more closely guarded than the blueprints for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
Second, all technical analysis of markets now is faulty if it fails to account for government intervention.
And third, that intervention against gold is failing because of overuse, exposure, exhaustion of Western central bank gold reserves -- we estimate that the Western central banks have in their vaults only about half the 32,000 tonnes they claim to have -- and the resentment of the developing world, which is starting to figure out how it has been expropriated by the dollar system, a system in which people create real goods and send them to the United States in exchange for mere colored paper and electrons.
The Western central banks are attempting a controlled retreat with gold, bleeding out their reserves so that gold's ascent and the dollar's decline may be less shocking. But GATA believes that the central banks may have to retreat farther than anyone dreams: that when the central banks are overrun in the gold market, as they were overrun in 1968, and the market begins to reflect the ratio between gold supply and the explosion of the world money supply of the last few decades -- as the market begins to perceive the difference between the real and the unreal -- there may not be enough zeroes to put behind the gold price.
Not quite a hundred years ago Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem that foresaw the decline of his country's empire and attributed it to a loss of the old virtues, the virtues that were listed at the top of the pages in the special notebooks, called "copybooks," that were given to British schoolchildren -- virtues like honesty, fair dealing, Ten Commandments-type stuff. The name of Kipling's poem is "The Gods of the Copybook Headings," and its conclusion is a warning to the empire that succeeded the one he was living in:
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled,
And their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled
And began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters,
And Two and Two make Four,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings
Limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future,
It was at the birth of Man.
There are only four things certain
Since Social Progress began:
That the Dog returns to his Vomit
And the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger
Goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished,
And the brave new world begins,
When all men are paid for existing
And no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us,
As surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
With terror and slaughter return.
I quoted that much of Kipling at Doug Casey's conference in Arizona last month and when I got to the part about terror and slaughter returning, all I could conclude with was "Have a nice day." I was a little ashamed of that this week as I walked with my daughter to the Lincoln Memorial just across the river here and stood on the portico where Martin Luther King stood 45 years ago as he spoke of renewing Lincoln's pursuit of liberating humanity. "Let us have faith that right makes might," Lincoln said, "and, in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."
GATA has the faith that right will make might and thanks you all for coming here to help us with our duty.
http://www.gata.org/node/6242
Gold: Is it Time to Sell? What the Facts Tell Us.
by Dirk Steinhoff
Wednesday, February 29, 2012 –
Dirk Steinhoff
The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The week started with the news of a "Decision day for second Greek bailout despite financing gaps." It didn't take long before we knew the results. Don't you find it astonishing how Greece, a country with a population of approximately 11 million and a GDP that makes up less than 2% of the GDP of the entire European Union – a GDP that is only twice as much as that of the city of Berlin – has been able to keep the world for more than two years on a tether? If the relatively small country of Greece makes these kind of waves, can you imagine what would happen if another European country would have similar problems – maybe the likes of a Spain, Italy, UK, or even France – where shares are closer to 10-15% of the GDP of the European Union? Or how about a country like the US, where GDP is close to that of the GDP of the entire European Union?
But I don't want to get into our expectations of what might happen here, nor do I want to speculate on the "what if's." Instead, what I would like to do is share some information that underlines and reinforces our conclusions on gold.
With today's media, it is getting harder and harder to find good, independent investigative journalism any longer. It seems to be more about the short and shallow eye-catching article without any in-depth analysis. The analysis instead is based on opinions, rumours and a general copy-n-paste of a very few news monopolists. In this environment, it is important to not fall away from or forget what still lies at the heart of reporting and even asset management: the facts.
And this is what I want to do today in evaluating if now is the time to plan for an exit-strategy for gold: take a step back, forget about much of the 'noise,' and focus on THE FACTS.
To do this, I'm including a series of charts providing you with information on the three key drivers behind gold supply and demand from the past 11 years. All data comes from the World Gold Council and was just released - 'hot off of the presses,' so to speak. After reviewing the facts, we'll determine if now is indeed the time to start planning an exit strategy for gold. I think you'll see that the old adage is true: a picture (or in this case, a graph) speaks a thousand words.
The gold price has risen from USD 278 at the beginning of 2002 to USD 1561 at the end of 2011; a clear and pronounced increase of 462%.
Let's first dive into the supply side of gold...
The overall gold supply grew from 3,557 tonnes in 2002 to 3,994 tonnes in 2011; an increase of 12%.
The overall supply in 2011 was composed of 64% in mining and 36% in recycled, with recycled gold including anything from industrial gold to individuals turning in that old jewelry they no longer want to keep around the house. There was no net gold supply from the official sector, i.e., central banks, as they purchased more than they sold.
The mining supply grew from 2,177 tonnes in 2002 to 2,822 tonnes in 2011; an increase of 30%.
On the supply side, and particularly in the past three years, we have seen a pronounced increase from mining. For the short term, mining supply cannot be increased drastically, simply due to the nature of mining taking time to produce. Also, the easily-mined gold has already been tapped into over the past few decades. Thus, newly-mined gold generally comes at a higher cost, which puts a relatively high price floor underneath new production.
The gold supply by recycled gold grew from 835 tonnes in 2002 to 1,612 tonnes in 2011; an increase of 93%. However, recycled gold supply has decreased for a second consecutive year.
The gold supply by official sector sales fell from 545 tonnes in 2002 to a negative 440 tonnes in 2011. Thus, in 2011, the official sector was contributing to the demand side instead of adding to the supply side.
Official sector demand overtook official sector supply in 2010. For many years now, central banks in the West have been the 'sellers' whereas Asian, Eastern European and Middle-Eastern central banks have been the 'buyers.' The official sector demand rose some 363 tonnes from 2010 to 2011 whereas the mining supply rose only 222 tonnes during the same time.
This chart shows a combined overview of the three gold supply forces: mining, official sector sales, and recycled gold.
Having reviewed supply, now let's take a look at the facts behind gold demand...
The overall gold demand grew from 3,374 tonnes in 2002 to 4,067 tonnes in 2011; an increase of 21%.
The overall gold demand in 2011 was comprised of 48% from gold jewelry, 40% from investment and 12% in technology.
The gold jewelry demand fell from 2,662 tonnes in 2002 to 1,963 tonnes in 2011; a decrease of 26%.
Gold jewelry demand decreased during the last decade. Higher gold prices seemed to have discouraged jewelry purchasers, or they are just simply unable to afford it any longer. Rising demand from Asian regions could possibly put a floor underneath gold jewelry demand.
Gold investment demand grew from 352 tonnes in 2002 to 1,641 tonnes in 2011; an increase of 366%.
Gold investment demand has changed the most over the past 11 years, both in absolute and relative terms. It changed from 352 tonnes in 2002 to 1,641 tonnes in 2011; an increase of 1,289 tonnes, and it changed from 10% of the total demand in 2002 to 40% of total demand in 2011, an increase of 30 percentage points.
The gold technology demand grew from 358 tonnes in 2002 to 464 tonnes in 2011, an increase of 30%.
The demand for gold technology increased over the last decade due to a positive demographic development... a trend we most likely will continue to see. However, corrections will occur at times of slower or negative economic growth.
Combined overview of the three gold demand forces: technology, jewelry and investment.
So what does this all tell us? To summarize the facts we provided here, the gold supply/demand situation has mainly been influenced by gold investment demand including official sector demand. With all other variables, they are relatively stable compared to that of the gold investment demand. In any attempt to predict the development of the future gold price, it is important to understand this gold investment component.
Because the past decade was characterized more strongly by deflation fear than inflation fear, one might assume that investors didn't buy gold as an inflation-hedge, what gold is actually famously most-known for. People bought precious metals as a hedge against all sorts of crises: political, financial, economic, currency, geo-political, etc. If one assumes that these crisis scenarios are still in place and that none of these crises has been solved – or if one even assumes that these crisis scenarios have even grown closer, bigger, or more numerous – and the reasons for having a crisis hedge are becoming more convincing every day, then one might expect that gold investment demand will increase and will drive prices higher.
Which brings us to the answer to our question: Is it time to sell your gold, and if not yet, then when? Of course, nothing goes straight up or down but the decade-old trend is apparently entrenched in place. The exit strategy for gold owners should be to sell their metals only if there is no reason for having it anymore. That sounds simple, but for most investors it means selling their gold only if the causes for the assumed potential crises have been seriously and properly addressed.
In a world long on potential crises and short on any sustainable solutions, it means we probably have to stick to our gold and, for that matter, will have to continue to buy more gold for quite some time to come.
http://www.thedailybell.com/3657/Gold-Is-it-time-to-sell-What-the-facts-tell-us
PCFG +4.7%
Mill running.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72674778
True, but they always go down more than they go up when the relative forces are at work.
Any producer whose mineral is selling for twice last year's price, shouldn't see their stock trading for less than it did then back then.
I'm convinced there is a another scandal waiting in the weeds over this.
The miners don't go up much when gold and silver go up and now they're not going down all that much with the raid. (The market is not down much, either...of course).
The ETFs do follow gold and silver prices, though....GLD down 7 bucks, etc. USLV is down about $15 from this morning's high.
Absolutely Montanore. Best we can do for now is cherry pick the good ones.
Of course the ones I want to buy aren't down enough.
Hecla won't go below my average.
Silvermex is even up 3% on no news. Go figure!
I agree...right now it's not about supply and demand. It's about rigging and suppression. If Ben's deflation remarks today were truly applicable, then the market would have crashed even harder than gold and silver. Instead, the toppy market is only down a fingernail.
COMEX: THE MARCH TO IRRELEVANCE
Jim Willie CB 21 December 2011
(reprint)
Jim Willie CB is the editor of the "HAT TRICK LETTER"
Use the above link to subscribe to the paid research reports, which include coverage of critically important factors at work during the ongoing panicky attempt to sustain an unsustainable system burdened by numerous imbalances aggravated by global village forces. An historically unprecedented mess has been created by compromised central bankers and inept economic advisors, whose interference has irreversibly altered and damaged the world financial system, urgently pushed after the removed anchor of money to gold. Analysis features Gold, Crude Oil, USDollar, Treasury bonds, and inter-market dynamics with the US Economy and US Federal Reserve monetary policy
.
Divergence between paper gold and physical gold price is happening, the process begun. Actual physical shortages have kept the price up. The naked shorting of futures has kept the paper price down. The fraud cases and lawsuits, with no hint of prosecution, provide the levered force to create much wider divergence, as traders and entire firms depart the tainted crime scene that is the COMEX. Trust has vanished along with private accounts. At the center of the backdrop for the divergence, apart from the criminal events, is the economic deterioration and asset market downdraft. It leads to margin calls, loan payment obligations, fading investor confidence, negative sentiment, and a desire to avoid loss. Hence the huge liquidity concerns, selling of good assets that command a strong price, and central bank encouragement of gold sales even with lease. These forces conspire to push down the gold futures price from the discovery process, called the paper gold price. These forces, although real, are exaggerated by the Syndicate to explain all. On the other side is the desperation among central bankers to cover debt securities up for sale or rollover funding. They resort to utter hyper inflation by monetizing the many types of government bonds. They are obligated to aid their banker cohorts, and thus purchase truckloads of badly impaired sovereign bonds and other collateralized bonds. Over time these sovereign bonds have proved toxic. The compelling need to stimulate economies, to redeem toxic bonds, and to recapitalize and nationalize the big banks adds to the monetary inflation outcome. Therefore, two sides are in opposition in a battle to the death of one or the other. No middle ground can be achieved, not any longer. It is the quintessential battle between monetary hyper inflation and restoring bank system integrity to avert collapse. The insolvency has recently met illiquidity. The battle features strong forces on each side. The divergence between physical and paper gold price is widening.
The incurable speculator junkies committed to the addictive leveraged game rigged by the Forces of Evil seem stuck at the casino tables, where fingers are lost, finally entire hands and arms. If their practice was to purchase physical, they could benefit from the paper price swoon, and join the Forces of Good team, rather than fighting the evil side on their dominated turf. To be sure, many aware analysts in the news maintain a small gold position in COMEX that is rolled over constantly. Many have physical positions but keep with the paper trades as a hobby, better described as an addition to the juice. Leverage cuts both ways. Their continued activity has left them exposed to theft, while knowing the criminality was widespread within the arena. So many players and firms are departing the arena altogether like Ann Barnhardt of BCM Capital. The divergence between physical and paper gold price is widening.
The desperation of the bad team is growing. The gold cartel has benefited significantly from the fresh Libyan gold supply (144 metric tons) and Greek gold supply (111 metric tons), not to mention the ample Dollar Swap Facility. It is the bankers New Gold, as reported by intrepid Jeff Neilson. In a fresh sign of bankster desperation, the lease rates for gold have been pushed down to net negative levels. The fresh supply from the two broken nations has greatly aided the COMEX, providing new cannon fodder. Perhaps more wars to liberate the oppressed can be conjured up, to release more tyrant wealth. It is not a coincidence that negative gold lease rates came when Libyan gold was made available (heisted) and when Italian sovereign bonds went into critical DEFCON mode. The gold supply helped to aid the lack of bond demand. The gold lease story is analyzed more fully in the December Hat Trick Letter.
INELASTICITY BLEMISH
A preface is warranted. The paper Gold market is very different in its internal dynamics from the physical. The paper Gold market shows signs of inelasticity that borders on comical. Witness the low demand in 2001 and 2002 when Gold had a paper price tag at $300 or less per ounce. Witness nowadays the amplified selling when the paper price declines. The leverage from the corrupted paper mechanisms forces margin pressures and sales. The leveraged game goes opposite to the real world of price mechanisms. On the upside, global demand rises with a rising physical price, called the gold fever. The inelasticity on the supply side is prevalent in the paper market, while the inelasticity on the demand side is prevalent on the physical market. To confuse the mix, mining firms realize some inelasticity as price falls, they are stuck with a liquidity crunch on their forward sales ruin. A huge amount of money is required to cover their losses, urged on by Wall Street advisors. Their mining operations suffer from lack of funds, and projects are curtailed. The paradoxical differences in dynamics help to push the gap between the paper and physical Gold price. The incompatible forces work to rip apart the COMEX. The divergence between physical and paper gold price is widening.
ILLICIT USAGE OF CLIENT FUNDS AS COLLATERAL
The hypothecation battle will bring sufficient publicity to help the divergence along. As more assets are seen as committed, involved, and tainted in the process of grabbing, snatching, and securing collateral, even by illegal means, the physical assets will be removed from the system. Parties will remove accounts and metal from the COMEX in response from basic self-preservation. On the investment and speculation side, harm has been rendered to managed risk. The client funds have begun to flee. The protection and security of money in private accounts has been under siege in recent weeks since the MF Global crime scene was established and the yellow tape cordon has been put in place. Investors are pulling money out of hedge funds at a rapid rate. The COMEX will be increasingly isolated. Clients funds were redeemed to the tune of $9 billion in October, almost four times as much as they pulled in September, according to Barclay Hedge and TrimTabs Investment Research. Investors in October yanked more from hedge funds, setting a single month high over the last two years.
The redemptions are the largest for the hedge fund industry since July 2009, when $17.8 billion was returned. The Barclay Hedge office put lipstick on the corrupt pig by commenting on how investors have lost patience with lackluster investor returns. To be sure, the average hedge fund is down by about 4% this year. The global hedge fund industry size has been reduced to $1.66 trillion, still sizeable. It is always interesting, if not amusing, to read the spin from the isolated corners. Hedge funds are seeing capital depart for the simple reason of moving away from crime centers. In the process the COMEX is being isolated. With increased isolation comes the easily recognized fraud. Look for some major stories soon about the raids to the GLD and SLV inventories by their custodians engaged in naked shorting. The Exchange Traded Fund fraud story is analyzed more fully in the December Hat Trick Letter. The divergence between physical and paper gold price is widening.
DYNAMICS OF PAPER VERSUS PHYSICAL BASIS
Grand divergence dynamics are becoming clear. Ann Barnhardt explained in detail how the COMEX will go away. It will not default, but rather fall into irrelevance. She laid it out in credible detailed form with numerous factors coming to play. The COMEX might still suffer the shame and spotlight of criminal prosecution. It will more certainly suffer from being ignored and shunned. The physical basis market will not respond to the declines in the paper futures market. The current dominant market will go away due to lost integrity and eroded trust. The consequences and implications of the recent major scandal and coverup are enormous, staggering, and sweeping. The changes from the MF Global failure and theft of private segregated accounts will come in time, perhaps accelerated by another similar event to slam the message home. The Syndicate has turned desperate, resorting to theft in the open daylight, which has resulted in direct consequences. Hundreds of COMEX clients waited in line for delivery of gold, and had their wallets stolen by JPMorgan. Their Gold & Silver set for delivery found its way into JPMorgan accounts at the COMEX. The details of the missing silver then reappearing silver is discussed in the December Hat Trick Letter. The slow mentally overlook this fact. The alert who point to fraud consider it a smoking gun. On its face, evidence mounts that JPMorgan simply converted 614k ounces of MF Global client silver into JPM licensed vaults. Big hats off to the Silver Doctors for excellent financial fraud forensic analysis. Do not expect prosecution over the crime, for MF Global, for JPMorgan, or for the accomplices in London, not even Jon Corzine. The Fascist Business Model in the Untied States does not permit prosecution. The bigger the crime, the more likely the perpetrator is in control of the government high offices, the financial ministry, the printing press, or the regulators.
Ann Barnhardt explained how the COMEX will fade away into oblivion. Its final chapter will be marred by a grand price divergence, where the futures market price declines from shunned avoidance, while the cash physical market price holds steady then rises. Many including the Jackass had thought that a slew of delivery demands would force a drain in their gold & silver inventory, eventually leading to a slew of lawsuits, together to shut them down as a corrupt enterprise arena. The MF Global theft reveals the alternative route that seems more clear. The gold cartel led by JPMorgan and secretly by the USFed will not go quietly. They have resorted to theft of private accounts on the open stage. The money is not missing. That is the lie. It is held in JPMorgan accounts in London, where fraud laws are more relaxed. We have seen this Madoff movie before, but it will be shown on the silver screen again. The divergence between physical and paper gold price is widening.
The backlash has begun and will gain strength. Barnhardt offered many cogent arguments with detail on how the COMEX will be ignored from distrust and suspicion of further thefts, as clients remove funds and close accounts. Here are her main points. They apply to Gold & Silver. She has the Barnhardt weblog:http://barnhardt.biz
Arbitrage is set to kick in. Players will buy at the cheaper corrupt paper market in COMEX and sell in the higher honest physical market, wherever brokers can match to make deals. (It is the same phenomenon that ripped the Euro sovereign bond market apart, as the German Govt Bond yields remained much lower than the Spanish and Greek.) They will take advantage of a strong basis, buy at the discount offered by COMEX, and sell into the cash spot physical market.
A linchpin holds the market together. Keeping the futures markets tied to the underlying cash physical market is the fact that the futures contracts permit taking delivery. That delivery mechanism just broke as linchpin in full view. The futures market has lost viability and trustworthiness because of the MFG collapse and theft.
The entire delivery mechanism has been corrupted and undermined. Taking delivery has meant a holding of physical metal bars is stored in a certified vault with your name attached. No longer are such holdings considered safe. Thefts occurred, and lawsuits have occurred to decided upon ownership of bars in dispute.
The de-coupling process comes when arbitrageurs finally lose all confidence in market interaction dynamics, as the cash market will lose connection on price from the futures market. Players will not be willing to take the risk of having their money, positions, and physical metals stolen or confiscated.
As players flee the futures market, the paper futures prices will decline. The cash physical market will hold steady. The divergence will come and be noticed, then be widely publicized. The players will realize that the physical market is the only remaining game to be played with honest rules in effect. The cash dealers will ignore the futures prices, no longer a valid price discovery, seeing that market demand for their physical inventory is robust, and maintain their prices steady. Later, they will even raise the physical prices. Then later still, the parabolic spikecomes for physical Gold & Silver.
THE GREAT SHUN BY MINERS
Asset management funds are appealing to mining firms for direct metal supply. They are bypassing the COMEX in a new trend. It is a natural development, as miners seek a fair price and the funds seek a reliable supply. The COMEX is cut out of the process. The Sprott Funds have revealed how they sourced their precious metal from mining firms last year. The official exchanges are being cut off, a form of isolation as a result. The divergence between physical and paper gold price is widening.
See the Ashanti story as typical. The COMEX is seeing reduced supply lines, reduced operations, more criminal implications, horrible publicity, and fewer clients. Criminal fraud does that, as lawsuits will follow like cold rain. The trend shapes up well for higher gold & silver prices. Mark Cutifani is CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, a $16 billion mining firm. He said, "Major [asset management fund] buyers are finding it is hard to get physical gold. People are coming directly to us [for large gold purchases,] people who want tonnes of physical gold, people with serious financial muscle, because they are finding it is very difficult to secure the volume of gold they want. That is something we have noticed over the last 18 months, and it has been increasing in the last six months. People are finding its hard to get physical gold." The clear message is that the COMEX has no spare available metal at all. Cutifani has good insights into the commodities and precious metals markets, and describes a fascination new trend regarding the global picture. He pointed out that major gold buyers are emerging from the Middle East and Asia. See the Bull Market Thinking article (CLICK HERE).
NEW MARKETS FLOWERING
New gold centers are forming, where the safety is most assured. Hong kong and Dubai have emerged as reliable honest brokers, and will continue to provide valid safe haven. Switzerland, London, and other locations are fading fast. They are the corrupt centers where fascism has become prevalent, laced through the financial system.Takahiro Morita, the Japan director of the World Gold Council, reported that Japan's gold exports in the 10 months ended October totaled 95.6 metric tonnes, their highest level since 2008, when it registered at 95.5 metric tonnes. People who bought gold and jewelry in the 1980 and 1990 decades are selling back what they purchased, according to precious metals traders. Japan has turned into a big exporter. Contrast to the official side. Central bank purchases have risen by 114% over the previous quarter. Purchases by central banks could hit 450 metric tonnes this year, concludes the investment research at the council. The volume represents the highest level of central bank buying since at least 1970, perhaps the greatest in recent history. A veteran gold trader with actual experience in these locations pitched in to explain. He said, "These are not sales in Japan. They are exports, an important distinction. Many investors are busily relocating their precious metal bullion to Hong Kong and Dubai UAE. Look for Dubai to be the HK of the Middle East. The Chinese have made that decision, and it is being implemented with lightning speed." Most of the relocation from Japan shows up as exports, which require payments.
October imports into China from Hong Kong rose 50% over September, and up 40-fold from last year. The more attractive fair price paid in Shanghai reached $50 above the corrupt controlled London price. The arbitrage has been very active. Chinese gold imports from Hong Kong hit a record. The Financial Times reported Chinese gold imports from Hong Kong hit a record high in October and astoundingly, they accounted for more than one quarter of the entire global demand. Data showed that China imported 85.7 tonnes of gold from Hong Kong in October, up 50% from the previous month and up more than 40 times from October of last year. It marks the fourth consecutive month that China's gold flows from Hong Kong have hit new highs. The article noted that the price arbitrage between London and Shanghai was favorable for Chinese imports during late September and early October, giving astute clever traders an edge. Gold on the Shanghai Exchange traded up to $50 per ounce above the main global market based in London, a record price difference. Purchases from China have fallen since October, as the recent strength in the USDollar has made gold more expensive. Also, considerable new strain has been felt inside China in recent weeks. Conclude that price arbitrage has begun to show itself across international boundaries. The divergence between physical and paper gold price is widening.
ONE GOLD EVENT, THE BIG SQUEEZE
No gold chart will be shown in this article, out of disrespect deserved for the COMEX criminal activity. A story was recounted in recent days from my best source of solid reliable gold information. The aware gold community has overlooked a phenomenon that might be more profound in action here and now. A major squeeze is on that capitalizes on the artificially low COMEX price and the higher honest physical price. The Barnhardt effect can be seen, or at least recounted. A gold trader informed that some multi-$billion purchase Gold orders have been in the process of filling at or near the $1600 price per ounce. The price must remain near $1600 to complete the orders and permit them to clear. Call it Agent2000 who seeks the massive amount of Gold, one of the Good Guyz. The name fits since their goal is to force the Gold price back over $2000/oz after the sale transaction clears. Since so large, the orders take time to fill completely. The low-ball buy orders have been filling for over two weeks. At the same time, the Agent2000 buyer has enlisted the aid of numerous assistants to push down the paper Gold price by putting extreme pressure on some bad players, some nasty types from the usual list of suspects in the Western banking sector. These bankers are being squeezed out of their gold, as they contend with deep insolvency, reserves requirements, falling sovereign bond values, depositors exiting, and more. They are players in what has been widely called the Gold Cartel. The Jackass term has been applied in a wider sense, as they have been part of the Syndicate that reaches into the Wall Street banks, the defense contractors, news media, and big pharma.
The other side of Agent2000 is where additional intrigue lies. He (they) have buyers lined up on the physical side some deals ready to close at $1900 per ounce. Later the price will push over the $2000 mark. The buyers are ready. One must infer that the buyers have a great deal of money ready to devote to the battle. Maybe some is piled up to escape the clutches of the cartel, removed from the system. Maybe some is piled up at a major new slush fund to do battle with the cartel at their own game. Maybe some is piled up and kept out of sight from greedy hands in government officials, like off-shore in the Caribbean or sequestered in the Persian Gulf. This story might be perplexing to many in the gold community since the Good Guyz are pushing down the Gold price in order to facilitate a gigantic order that will work toward crushing the cartel by draining their gold. Their gold cannot be drained without the completion of a great many orders. It is only natural to attempt to achieve the lowest possible price. If the gold cartel insists on pushing the price down, then they open the door for major volume sales at the artificially low and very much bargain price. It is happening, but the gold community does not enjoy the symptoms of the process.
So a huge huge huge buyer of gold is busy, and a multi-$billion order is working through. The buyer demands a $1600 price, while on the other side of the table Agent2000 has a sale lined up for the same metal at a $1900 price on physical. The trade will take gold bullion from the Bad Boyz hands and put it into the Good Guyz hands. In the process, the COMEX supply lines will be drained more. This is consistent with mining firms removing supply lines to the COMEX. The Agent2000 buyer is pushing price down, squeezing some evil parties hard, crushing testicalia along the way. He (they) describe to the distressed seller at $1600 that pressures will continue until the deal is closed. The seller is in tremendous pain with open distress showing. So many assume the Bad Powerz are pushing down the Gold price. Not so!! This event and transaction displays how some pain comes in many isolated cases of Good Guyz pushing the Gold price down to empty the Bad Powerz vaults. My source would not reveal the identity of Agent2000 or the location of the squeeze. It seemed like London. The money is not exclusively coming from China. Word has it that Russia is also applying the pressure, with some Chinese teamwork. The Competing Currency War has a new major flank. The divergence between physical and paper gold price is widening.
http://pwwwgoldenjackass.com
Followers
|
404
|
Posters
|
|
Posts (Today)
|
0
|
Posts (Total)
|
43453
|
Created
|
01/21/05
|
Type
|
Free
|
Moderators NYBob DiscoverGold |
GOLDBUGS - I-hub's #1 precious metals board was created for those with an affinity for the yellow stuff.
Gold has a long history as a hedge against inflation, and in these challenging times it seems prudent to have a certain portion of your portfolio in gold and other precious metals.
For the novice or experienced trader investing in mining stocks or NYMEX, bullion or coins, exploration stocks or producers, you'll find others with similar interests.
Whether a technical or fundamental trader, long or short term, your questions and input are welcomed and appreciated.
"The GOLDBUGS board" is the place where Goldbugs live.
Articles, technical analysis, charts, and data of interest to goldbugs are all welcome here. Information concerning currencies and commodities are also welcome as these markets influence the PM's.
Rules of the Road:
1) No insults or bashing of another member.
2) Members will maintain an attitude of humility.
3) Members who find they are able to help another member will do so.
If you find the board useful please let us know by clicking the "Add To Favorites" link.
Volume | |
Day Range: | |
Bid Price | |
Ask Price | |
Last Trade Time: |