Importance of Hiding Gold Creatively and Securely If Taking Delivery Why gold retains value? Interesting unknown gold facts "Prepare your jaws for a sizeable drop!" History, finite, rare and peak gold "It is beautiful to look at..." 'Heavy metal' - Thud sound of a gold bar (kilo) 'Going for gold' - Olympic gold medals to Chelthenham 'Gold Cup' Peak gold ... "Hard work to get gold out of the ground..." How much an Oscar is actually worth? Importance of hiding gold creatively and securely...
Read More »Durable Goods Groundhog
If the economy is repeating the after-effects of the latest “dollar” events, and it does seem more and more to be that case, then analysis starts with identifying a range for where it might be in the repetition. New orders for durable goods (ex transportation) rose 4.3% year-over-year in January 2017 (NSA, only 2.4% SA), the highest growth rate since September 2014 (though not meaningfully faster than the 3.9% rate in...
Read More »It Was ‘Dollars’ All Along
Ross Perot famously declared the “giant sucking sound” in the 1992 Presidential campaign. The debate over NAFTA did not end with George H. W. Bush’s defeat, as it simmered in one form or another for much of the 1990’s. Curiously, however, it seemed almost perfectly absent during the 2000’s, the very decade in which Perot’s prophecy came true. Americans didn’t notice because there was a bubble afoot. That bubble,...
Read More »Video: The Swiss National Bank Is Acting Like A Hedge Fund
By EconMatters In this Video, we discuss the fact that Central Banks have basically morphed into Hedge Funds with similar risky investing strategies, except they buy without any regard to the underlying fundamentals of the assets they are buying. When did the Swiss Citizens say it was the proper role for the Swiss National Bank to be buying US Stocks? How is this stimulating the Swiss Economy? Central Banks have really...
Read More »The Oscars – Gold Plated and Debased Like Dollar
The Oscars - Worth Their Weight in Gold? 89th Oscars to air this weekend Oscars have been dipped in 24 karat gold since 1929 If the Oscars were made of solid gold they would weigh 330 ounces 330 ounces of gold is worth $408,210 at today's prices (nearly €400k & £330k) Oscars cannot be sold, making them a tricky investment piece Steven Spielberg keeps his gold Oscar with the Academy for ‘safe-keeping’ Shows importance of owning gold in safest ways Price of gold has climbed from $20.67...
Read More »Not Recession, Systemic Rupture – Again
For the very few in the mainstream of economics who venture further back in history than October 1929, they typically still don’t go much last April 1925. And when they do, it is only to further bash the gold standard for its presumed role in creating the conditions for 1929. The Brits under guidance of Winston Churchill made a grave mistake, one from which gold advocates could never recover given what followed. There...
Read More »Not Recession, Systemic Rupture – Again
For the very few in the mainstream of economics who venture further back in history than October 1929, they typically still don’t go much last April 1925. And when they do, it is only to further bash the gold standard for its presumed role in creating the conditions for 1929. The Brits under guidance of Winston Churchill made a grave mistake, one from which gold advocates could never recover given what followed. There...
Read More »Interest Rate Differentials Increasing Financial Market Leverage To Unsustainable Levels
We discuss the rate differentials between Switzerland, Britain, Europe, Japan and the United States and how this Developed Financial Markets carry trade is incentivizing excessive risk taking with tremendous leverage and destabilizing the entire financial system in the process in this video. You want to know what is behind weekly market records, borrowed money via punchbowl central bank liquidity. This ends badly every...
Read More »Are Rate Hikes Bad For Gold?
Here are two different looks at Fed rate hikes since Volcker. The charts are the same, but one presentation is a lot funnier than the other. Federal Funds Target RateThe above image from the New York Times article A History of Fed Leaders and Interest Rates. - Click to enlarge Here’s an alternative view courtesy of @HedgeEye. - Click to enlarge Let’s take the fist chart and see what correlations exist between...
Read More »The Market Is Not The Economy, But Earnings Are (Closer)
My colleague Joe Calhoun likes to remind me that markets and fundamentals only sound like they should be related, an observation that is a correct one on so many different levels. Stock prices, in general, and GDP growth may seem to warrant some kind of expected correlation, but it has proven quite tenuous at times especially in a 21st century sense. This divergence has sown a great deal of doubt and sometimes apathy...
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