Tag Archives: Gold and its price

  Fundamental Analysis of Gold As we often point out in these pages, even though gold is currently not the generally used medium of exchange, its monetary characteristics continue to be the main basis for its valuation. Thus, analysis of the gold market requires a different approach from that employed in the analysis of industrial commodities (or more generally, goods that are primarily bought and sold for their use...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Input Data Errors Dear Readers, I owe you an apology. I made a mistake. I am writing this letter in the first person, because I made the mistake. Let me explain what happened. I wrote software to calculate the gold basis and co-basis (and of course silver too). The app does not just calculate the near contract. It...

  Counterintuitive Moves Something odd happened late in the day in Wednesday’s trading session, which prompted a number of people to mail in comments or ask a question or two. Since we have discussed this issue previously, we decided this was a good opportunity to briefly elaborate on the topic again in these pages. A strong ADP jobs report for March was released on Wednesday, and the gold price dutifully declined...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Orders of Preference Last week, we discussed the growing stress in the credit markets. We noted this is a reason to buy gold, and likely the reason why gold buying has ticked up since just before Christmas. Many people live in countries where another paper scrip is declared to be money — to picture the absurdity, just...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Careening from Crisis to Crisis Back in the old days, homes had fuse boxes. Today, of course, any new house is built with a circuit breaker panel and many older homes have been upgraded at one time or another. However, the fuse is a much more interesting analogy for the monetary system. When a fuse burned out, it was...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Probabilistic Technical Analysis vs. the Mechanics of Arbitrage We talk about the supply and demand fundamentals every week. We were surprised to see an article about us this week. The writer thought that our technical analysis cannot see what is going on in the market. We don’t want to fight with people, we prefer to...

A Case of Botched Timing, But… When last we wrote about the gold sector in mid February, we discussed historical patterns in the HUI following breaches of its 200-day moving average from below. Given that we expected such a breach to occur relatively soon, the post turned out to be rather ill-timed. Luckily we always advise readers that we are not exactly Nostradamus (occasionally our timing is a bit better). Below is...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Rumor-Mongering vs. Data The question on the lips of everyone who plans to exchange his metal for dollars—widely thought to be money—is why did silver go down? The price of silver in dollar terms dropped from about 18 bucks to about 17, or about 5 percent. The facile answer is manipulation. With no need of evidence —...

Long Term Technical Backdrop Constructive After a challenging Q4 in 2016 in the context of rising bond yields and a stronger US dollar, gold seems to be getting its shine back in Q1. The technical picture is beginning to look a little more constructive and the “reflation trade”, spurred on further by expectations of higher infrastructure spending and tax cuts in the US, has thus far also benefited gold. From a...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango.  Bitcoin Mania The price of gold has been rising, but perhaps not enough to suit the hot money. Meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin has shot up even faster. From $412, one year ago, to $1290 on Friday, it has gained over 200% (and, unlike gold, we can say that Bitcoin went up — it’s a speculative asset that goes up and down...