Tag Archives: Gold

It’s been a good year for gold. Gold spot prices hit $1,360 per ounce in early August, up 28% percent since the beginning of the year, buoyed by low interest rates and more recently, demand from investors seeking a safe haven from Brexit-related economic uncertainty. But for equities-minded investors, it’s worth considering the miners behind the metal. Gains by gold mining stocks have outpaced those of gold prices, with the NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index up more than 125% percent...

  A Glorious Day What a glorious day for Britain and anyone among you who continues to believe in the ideas of liberty, freedom, and sovereign democratic rule. The British people have cast their vote and I have never ever felt so relieved about having been wrong. Against all expectations, the leave camp somehow managed to push the referendum across the center line, with 51.9% of voters counted electing to leave the...

Many investors still think about gold as if it were money.  Economists identify three functions of money: store of value, means of exchange, and a unit of account. It can be a store of value, but the price fluctuates compared with other forms of money, or other commodities, like oil or silver.  Some argue that it is a store of value because of the limited supply, but that argument applies to many other goods, including commodities and real estate (which Mark Twain said you have to...

A Loss of Momentum Photo credit: R.P. Visual The price of gold moved down slightly this week, while that of silver dropped more substantially—1.9%. We don’t see much decrease in the enthusiasm yet from this minor setback. This was a shortened week due to the May Day holiday outside the US. Let’s look at the only true picture of supply and demand fundamentals. Gold and silver prices. First, here’s the graph of the metals’ prices. Gold and silver prices – click to enlarge....

  The Metals Take Off Photo via sprottmoney.com The price of gold shot up over $60 this week. The price of silver moved up proportionally, gaining over $0.85. The mood is now palpable. The feeling in the air is that of long suffering suddenly turned to optimism. Big gains, if not the collapse of the price-suppression cartel, are now inevitable. The headlines and articles, screaming for gold to hit $10,000 to $50,000, are pervasive. Today we won’t dwell on our favorite point that if the...

The Swiss National Bank has achieved a profit of 5.7 billion CHF in Q1/2016. The total yield on assets per annum was 3.4%.The main contribution comes from gold with price change of 10% in this quarter, hence a total yield of 48%.The total yield on debt was positive with +0.2% thanks to negative interest rates.The deflationary environment let to rising bond prices. Bonds, make up 74% of the SNB portfolio. Here the details of our calculation: Position Total Positionin bn CHF % of Total...

Macroview After hitting a low point at the end of 2015, fundamentals point to a rise in gold prices--but market conditions suggest the upside potential remains limited Read the full report here After the hefty gains made by gold this year, the attached Flash Note examines what might lie ahead for the precious metal by analysing the five key underlying drivers of gold prices: financial stress, inflation, real interest rates, the US dollar and supply and demand. Our conclusions are as...

This Great Graphic, created on Bloomberg shows the price of gold over the last six months.  The price peaked a month ago near $1285.  It seems a distribution top is being formed. Specifically, it looks like a potential head and shoulders top.  The left shoulder was formed by the spike on February 11, which also marked the bottom of many equity markets.  The head was formed in the first half of March.  The right shoulder was put set earlier this week. To be sure, the neckline has...

There were some fireworks this week. Gold went up on Tuesday (it was a shortened week due to Easter Monday), from a low of $1,215 to $1,244 over the day, a move of over 2 percent. Silver moved from $15.02 to $15.44, almost 3 percent. What happened on Tuesday to drive this move down in the dollar? (We always use italics when referring to gold going up or down, because it is really the dollar going down or up). Janet Yellen happened, that’s what. Our Federal Reserve Chair spoke to the...

Gold market analysts have for many years puzzled over the unusual behaviour of the gold market during the 1990s, specifically the bizarrely flat gold price from 1993 to 1996 in the face of sustained selling pressure from central banks and gold miners hedging their production. To-date no one has been able to identify the hidden source of demand that was obviously supporting the gold market during that period. In addition, conventional justifications that accelerated sales by central banks...