Silver

What Is Happening To Platinum?

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By Clint Siegner – Re-Blogged From Silver Phoenix

You may have noticed the platinum price has fallen well below gold’s price and it continues to underperform the other precious metals. What is happening in the platinum market?

We see a handful of factors driving the recent declines in platinum. For starters, it is facing the same challenges we find in gold and silver prices.

The dollar has been getting stronger, interest rates are rising, and traders on Wall Street have rarely been more carefree. Mainstream investors are positioning for economic strength, not looking for safety.

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Record Gold/Silver Shorts!

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[The latest week, reported after this essay was written, makes this case even more bullish. -Bob]

By Adam Hamilton – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

Gold and silver were thrashed this past summer, relentlessly pounded to deep new lows.  That has fueled extreme bearishness, with traders convinced the precious metals’ fundamentals are rotten.  But epic all-time-record futures short selling by speculators was the real culprit.  These unprecedented shorts must soon be covered with proportional buying, which is super-bullish for gold and silver prices in the coming months.

Traders generally assume fundamentals drive short-term price action, that real imbalances in supply and demand push prices to market-clearing levels.  Unfortunately these core underlying dynamics are heavily distorted in gold and silver.  Futures speculators who never own these precious metals are able to wield wildly-disproportional outsized influence over their prices.  The main reason is extreme leverage inherent in futures.

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Saving Venezuela

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   By Bob Shapiro

Venezuela used to be a relatively rich country. Today, it has a nominal GDP around $100 Billion, a population around 32 million, a labor force of 14 million, and unemployment over 30%. GDP fell last year by 14%, and inflation is so high that official statistic are meaningless. 87% of the population is described as living below the poverty line.

Through the many recent years of socialism in Venezuela, the government has racked up deficits and debt that defy reality. With recent low oil prices, and government mismanagement of the industry, revenues have fallen so much that, if the Central Bank didn’t print money with wild abandon, the government would have had to declare bankruptcy long ago.

Image result for venezuela

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Economy Beholden to Fed Interest Rate Policy

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By Mike Gleason – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

Mike Gleason: It is my privilege now to welcome in Dr. Lucas Engelhardt associate professor of economics at Kent State University. Dr. Engelhardt is an Austrian economist who has been a guest lecturer at the Mises Institute and in his teaching specializes in macro-economics in the examination of the business cycle, and it’s certainly a real pleasure to have him on with us today. Lucas, thanks so much for taking the time and welcome.

Dr. Lucas Engelhardt: Well thank you for having me on.

Mike Gleason: Well, I’m excited to have you on today because there is a lot to discuss with you. For starters I think a good place to begin is the business cycle. Now, but before we get into the misunderstandings that the Keynesians seems to have about this, explain the business cycle if you would and why it’s important in order to have a proper understanding of monetary policy.

Dr. Lucas Engelhardt: Sure. Now, as you mentioned, I come from the Austrian economic framework. And Austrian economics describes the business cycle as the consequence of manipulations happening in the money supply, specifically in credit markets. So, starting from that point, so how the business cycle happens is that we have somebody in the banking system. We know in modern America it would be the Federal Reserve is generally responsible for this. Decides to push down interest rates, normally to stimulate the economy.

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Dollar/Yuan and Treasuries/Gold

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   By Bob Shapiro

The relationship between currencies on the FOREX market has a lot to do with the trade balances between countries. If a country consistently runs a trade surplus against a second country, most likely its currency will rise. Certainly, there are other factors, mainly bearing on how they affect expectations of future trade.

For many years, China has run a trade surplus with the US. Of course, as China exports goods containing components from other of its trading partners, the China/US trade balance likely is overstated. But, China still has a surplus.

Image result for image china

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Gold And Silver Prices: Similar To 2008

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By Dave Kranzler – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

In 2008, gold was taken from $1020 to $700 and silver was pounded from $21 to $7 during the period of time that Bear Stearns, Lehman and the U.S. financial system was collapsing.  The precious metals were behaving inversely to what would have been expected as the global financial system melted down.   Massive Central Bank intervention was at play.

Currently the price of gold and silver are being dismantled by what appears to be massive hedge fund shorting of Comex paper gold.  As of last Tuesday, the “managed money” trader category as detailed in the Commitment of Traders report showed that the hedge funds were short a record amount of paper gold.

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Spectacular Gold COT Report

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By John Rubino – Re-Blogged From Dollar Collapse

No need to mince words anymore. If the futures market still influences gold’s price, then that price is going to spike. And silver is better than gold.

Since January, gold futures speculators have been trending from extremely bullish to scared short. And in the week ending last Tuesday (the most recent data available) they appeared to capitulate, adding a massive number of short positions while marginally cutting their longs. They’re now about as close to neutral as they’ve ever been. Based on the history of the past decade this is hugely bullish, since speculators tend to be wrong when they’re fully convinced they’re right.

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