Tag Archives: Gold

“An eternally high plateau” US markets made headlines once again, as they reached new highs recently, continuing a rally that seems to defy gravity and common sense. Despite the rise in investor anxiety and heightened volatility that seemed to signify a possible end to the bull market at the final quarter of the last year, exuberance has returned since the beginning of 2019, while overall the S&P 500 has risen by more than 300% since its March 2009 lows. Valuations are extremely high...

Spillover effects Turkey’s debt problem, coupled with the plummeting lira, is arguably the most important risk factor for the nation’s economy. To make matters worse, far from it posing a threat just to Turkey itself, it also has the potential to inflict significant damage elsewhere too, starting with key economies in the Eurozone. At first glance, the situation in Turkey might resemble many past similar scenarios of a heavily indebted nation with a plummeting currency that descends into...

The bid-ask spread of both (spot) gold and silver has blown out. Both, on March 1. In gold, the spread had been humming along around 13 cents—gold is the most marketable commodity, and this is the proof, a bid-ask spread around 1bps—until… *BAM!* It explodes to around 35 cents, or two and half times as wide. On the same day, silver went from half a cent to 1.5 cents, or about triple. We zoomed out far enough—it does...

Turkey has been almost constantly in the news over the past year, as troubling headlines about its economy and political situation continue to pile up. In a currency meltdown that escalated last summer, the Turkish lira has plunged by nearly 40%, threatening the Turkish economy as a whole. In January, inflation topped 20%, with skyrocketing food prices having an especially severe impact on the population. At the same time, unemployment hit 14.7%, its highest level in a decade, and a...

Gold, in my worldview, can be a “heads I win, tails you lose” proposition. If it goes up, that’s fear. Nothing good. If it goes down, that’s collateral. In many ways, worse. Either way, it is only bad, right? Not always. There are times when rising gold signals inflation, more properly reflation perceptions. Determining which is which is the real challenge. Corroboration and consistency are paramount. Gold had been...

«Because gold is honest money, it is disliked by dishonest men.“ – Ron Paul The value of silver and gold is given by their own nature Neither gold nor silver has value expressed in other units of account. Their value is expressed directly in their own weights. Everything else that is valuable (other assets, commodities, goods, services, or performed labor) is measured against a certain weight of these metals. In other words, the value of gold and silver is assigned by their own...

«Because gold is honest money, it is disliked by dishonest men.“ – Ron Paul The value of silver and gold is given by their own nature Neither gold nor silver has value expressed in other units of account. Their value is expressed directly in their own weights. Everything else that is valuable (other assets, commodities, goods, services, or performed labor) is measured against a certain weight of these metals. In...

«It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.»Aristotle In today’s world, it is obvious that the competition of ideas is under serious threat and with it, the much-needed discussions on how to deal with certain topics or try to understand the world we live in. That is particularly worrying, especially when one considers that the western world went through the process of...

«It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.»Aristotle In today’s world, it is obvious that the competition of ideas is under serious threat and with it, the much-needed discussions on how to deal with certain topics or try to understand the world we live in. That is particularly worrying, especially when one considers that the western world went through the process of Enlightenment roughly 200 years ago. In the words of Immanuel Kant:...

Don’t waste your time worrying about things that are well worried. Well worried. One of the best turns of phrase I’ve ever heard in this business that has more than its fair share of adages and idioms. It is also one of the first – and best – lessons I learned from my original mentor in this business. The things you see in the headlines, the things everyone is already worried about, aren’t usually worth fretting...