Tag: Precious Metals

Another Step Forward for Sound Money: Location Picked for Texas Gold Depository

Jon Leave a comment

The Texas Bullion Depository took a step closer becoming operational earlier this month when officials announced the location of the new facility. The creation of a state bullion depository in Texas represents a power shift away from the federal government to the state, and it provides a blueprint that could ultimately end the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.
Gov. Greg Abbot signed legislation creating the state gold bullion and precious metal depository in June of 2015. The facility will not only provide a secure place for individuals, business, cities, counties, government agencies and even other countries to store gold and other precious metals, the law also creates a mechanism to facilitate the everyday use of gold and silver in business transactions. In short, a person will be able to deposit gold or silver in the depository and pay other people through electronic means or checks – in sound money.
Earlier this summer, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced Austin-based Lone Star Tangible Assets will build and operate the Texas Bullion Depository. On Nov. 3, the company announced it will construct the facility in the city of Leander, located about 30 miles northwest of Austin. According to the Community Impact Newspaper, the Leander City Council has approved an economic development agreement with Lone Star. Construction of the depository is expected to begin in early 2018. Lone Star officials say it will take about a year to complete construction of the 60,000-square-foot secure facility located on a 10-acre campus.

This post was published at Schiffgold on NOVEMBER 16, 2017.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts – Stock Options Expiration on Friday – As If Maybe Someone Could Hear

Jon Leave a comment

We will have a stock option expiration on Friday.
I believe that this is driving some of the action in the precious metals.
Not in the metal itself, but by extension to the miners which follow the price of the metals, and tend to be a favorite of options players, and a rather volatile crew.

This post was published at Jesses Crossroads Cafe on 15 NOVEMBER 2017.

Gold Bounces Off Key Technical Support On Massive Volume

Jon Leave a comment

The last 48 hours has been quite a chaotic one in precious metals markets with massive volumes of ‘paper’ gold flushed in and out of the futures markets. This morning – shortly after the US open failed to spark a panic-bid in stocks – gold futures bounced off their 200-day moving average on huge volume (around $4.5 billion notional) breaking above the 100DMA…

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Nov 14, 2017.

Precious Metals: Patience Is Golden

Jon Leave a comment

Without growth in Western gold ETF holdings, the ‘decent but not spectacular’ demand from China and India is not strong enough to move the gold price higher. Please click here now. The SPDR (GLD-nyse) fund gold holdings currently sit at about 843 tonnes. There has been very little change in the total tonnage for several months. That’s neutral for the gold price. Governments don’t like their citizens to own much gold. Restrictions they impose (like India’s import duty as a recent example) dampen demand enough so that the price rises very slowly most of the time. Economic growth in China and India are increasing demand (the love trade) and mine supply is contracting, but the process is essentially ‘Chindian water torture’ for investors who want to see the price skyrocket like it did in the late 1970s. Investors that want ‘big action’ in the gold price need to wait patiently for the US business cycle to peak. For the price of gold to really sizzle, the business cycle needs to have aninflationary peak. That hasn’t happened since the 1970s. Many gold price analysts have used overlap charts that suggest the gold market now is akin to the 1976-1978 period. I look at fundamentals first, and charts second. From an inflationary standpoint, the US economy looks more akin to the late 1960s than the late 1970s. The winds of inflation are beginning to blow, but they won’t become a hurricane for some time. Having said that, I’ve noted that the St. Louis Fed has calculated that the QE program would have sent the US inflation rate above 30% if money velocity had been at normal levels.

This post was published at GoldSeek on 14 November 2017.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts – The Wild Life

Jon Leave a comment

“You may be sure that no sordid compromises nor carrying of waters on both shoulders will see you through. Those who have the faith had better keep in the state of grace, and those who have neither had better find out what they mean, for in the coming age there will be only one way to stop your trembling knees, and that will be to get down on them and pray. The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is about.”
F. J. Sheen
“He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his.”
J. H. Newman, The Times of Antichrist
Stocks have been showing an interesting pattern, of rolling over and falling in the morning, and then rising again in the afternoon, led by purchasing of the SP futures it appears.
And gold and silver and the VIX and all other havens and alarms of risk and being tightly capped and suppressed, as is also visible on the charts.
We will see what the Consumer Price Inflation data has to say about things tomorrow.
Duc l’Orange will be back, and he promised even more fabulous news of his achievements.

This post was published at Jesses Crossroads Cafe on 14 NOVEMBER 2017.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts – The Yellow Sign

Jon Leave a comment

“In reality, though, it was never about us and our economy at all. Today it is obvious that all of this had only one rationale: to raise up a class of supermen above us. It had nothing to do with jobs or growth. Or freedom either. The only person’s freedom to be enhanced by these tax havens was the billionaire’s freedom. It was all to make his life even better, not ours…
We endure potholes and live in fear of collapsing highway bridges because our leaders wanted these very special people to have an even larger second yacht. Our kids sit in overcrowded classrooms in underfunded schools so that a handful of exalted individuals can relax on their own private beach.
Today it is these same golden figures with their offshore billions who host the fundraisers, hire the lobbyists, bankroll the think tanks and subsidize the artists and intellectuals.
This is their democracy today. We just happen to live in it.”
Thomas Frank, We Built a Paradise For Offshore Billionaires
“I opened the box. On the pink cotton inside lay a clasp of black onyx, on which was inlaid a curious symbol or letter in gold. It was neither Arabic nor Chinese, nor as I found afterwards did it belong to any human script.”
Robert W. Chambers, The Yellow Sign
As the commentators on Bloomberg TV noted, someone literally dumped a $4 billion block trade at market in the gold futures shortly before noon. And as one would assume with such an obvious and clumsy bludgeoning, it knocked the wind out of the price down to the mid-70s. Oops?

This post was published at Jesses Crossroads Cafe on 10 NOVEMBER 2017.

Gold Slammed After Someone Pukes $4 Billion Notional In Gold Futures

Jon Leave a comment

As we approach the European close, the dolar index just spiked and precious metals (and crude) were pummeled. Gold futures tumbled on massive volume as over $4 billion notional was purged instantaneously…
Over 30,000 contracts ripped through gold futures – over $4.2 billion notional – in the space of a minute. That’s around 10% of a normal days’ volume.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Nov 10, 2017.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts – The Repairer of Reputations

Jon Leave a comment

“A growing economy with related worries about increases in future inflation would typically produce rising yields on longer-term notes and bonds, not declining yields. A dramatic flattening in the yield curve is seen as a red flag for an economic slowdown, sagging inflation and as a potential precursor to the onset of recession. None of that would be consistent with the Federal Reserve continuing to tighten interest rates – which it is expected to do again in December.”
Pam and Russ Martens, Does Jay Powell Hear the Alarm Bells From a Flattening of the Yield Curve<

‘The ambition of Caesar and of Napoleon pales before that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even their unborn thoughts.’
Robert W. Chambers, The King In Yellow: Repairer of Reputations
We *almost* had a correction in the US equity markets today. Imagine that!
However, crisis was averted as determined buying of the SP 500 futures stepped in this afternoon after the European traders went home to their schatzies.

This post was published at Jesses Crossroads Cafe on 09 NOVEMBER 2017.

Why Doesn’t Gold Get The Respect It Deserves?

Jon Leave a comment

A longstanding curiosity in the investment business has been the disinterest in precious metals among institutional investors. Whether from the handful of consultants now leading the institutional space, or directly from the stewards of our nation’s pension, endowment, and family-office wealth, skepticism over gold’s portfolio relevance remains fairly pervasive. Because investment professionals are generally well informed, competing in an industry in which performance is king, one would assume any asset class deserving of rightful consideration would enjoy a fair hearing.
In this report, we present a collection of empirical evidence we view as compelling support of gold’s productive role as a portfolio-diversifying asset.
Gold Has Generated Consistently Positive Returns in This Millennium
Eight years of zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) have compressed returns across a wide spectrum of institutional investment regimens. Especially in the pension and endowment world, few portfolios are achieving chartered rates of return. In this environment, we find it puzzling that institutional investors still choose to ignore gold’s market-leading returns. As shown in Figure 1, gold has generated positive annual returns in 14 of the past 17 years. What is even more impressive is gold’s performance compared to the S&P 500 Index, the benchmark for broad U. S. equity performance. Gold’s compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the 16.75 years (2001 to September 30, 2017) stands at 9.68 percent versus 6.01 percent for the S&P 500 Index (dividends reinvested). Indeed, it is fair to say that since the turn of the millennium, any long-term allocation to gold would have improved total returns for the vast majority of pension and endowment portfolios.
What is it about gold’s performance that is so difficult to embrace?

This post was published at GoldSeek on NOVEMBER 9, 2017.

Psychological Warfare in the Precious Metals Markets

Jon Leave a comment

For almost a year now the PM stock indexes have been building out a triangle trading range that has yet to be determined if it is going to be a consolidation pattern or a reversal pattern. With big patterns one can lose sight of what is really there, as the longer a trading range develops the more trendlines one puts on a chart, and the more confusing things become.
Tonight I would like to show you, from a Chartology perspective, what the basic patterns are, from the short term to the longer term. The bigger a trading range the more chart patterns can develop before we see the final product. Sometimes it’s totally different from the early stages of the trading range. It’s important to clear ones mind of all the preconceived notions of what they think is happening to just what the charts are suggesting. It’s a hard thing for most investors to do because of all the things we read each and everyday which works on our subconscious. More than anything else we are playing a game of psychological warfare.
Lets start by looking at a short term daily chart for the HUI which is showing the H&S top we’ve been following since early October. The H&S top is pretty symmetrical and the breakout below the neckline was accompanied by a breakout gap. This is what we know to be true at this point in time. If the price action can trade back above the neckline then this scenario will be thrown out the window, but until that time the H&S top is valid. Also when the neckline gave way so did the 200 day moving average.

This post was published at GoldSeek on 9 November 2017.

Negative Divergence in the Gold Stocks

Jon Leave a comment

After a severe selloff, precious metals have enjoyed a bit of a respite. Corrections are a function of time and/or price. The correction to the recent selloff has been more in time than price. Metals and miners have stabilized over the past nine trading days but have not rebounded much in price terms. Gold has barely rallied $20/oz while GDX and GDXJ have rebounded less than 4% and 5% respectively. In addition to the weakness of this rally, the gold stocks are sporting a negative divergence and that does not bode well for an end of the year rally.
The negative divergence is visible in the daily bar charts below. We plot Gold along with the gold stock ETF’s and are own ‘mini’ GDXJ index. The price action in Gold since October looks constructive. The market has held its October low and the 200-day moving average. It could have a chance to reach $1300-$1310. However, the miners are saying no to that possibility. Everything from large miners to small juniors made a new low while Gold did not. The second negative divergence is in regards to the 200-day moving average.

This post was published at GoldSeek on Thursday, 9 November 2017.

The Strange Behavior of Gold Investors from Monday to Thursday

Jon Leave a comment

Known and Unknown Anomalies Readers are undoubtedly aware of one or another stock market anomaly, such as e.g. the frequently observed weakness in stock markets in the summer months, which the well-known saying ‘sell in May and go away’ refers to. Apart from such widely known anomalies, there are many others though, which most investors have never heard of. These anomalies can be particularly interesting and profitable for investors – and there are several in the precious metals sector as well. Today I am going to introduce one of those to you.
***
Gold investors dead asleep for days? To this end we are going to examine the performance of gold and gold stocks broken down by days of the week.
The first chart shows the annualized performance of the gold price in USD terms since 2000 (black bar), as well as the annualized gain generated on individual days of the week (blue bars).

This post was published at Acting-Man on November 8, 2017.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts – The Court of the Dragon

Jon Leave a comment

“The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation’s fate.
The harlot’s cry from street to street
Shall weave old England’s winding-sheet.
The winner’s shout, the loser’s curse,
Dance before dead England’s hearse.
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
We are led to believe a lie
When we see not through the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.
God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.”
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
What is driving US equity prices now is classic bubble action. Stocks are being bought, not with regard to any fundamentals for the most part, but for the sheer momentum of ever rising prices by speculators.
Having created this asset bubble, again, in conjunction with the financiers and Wall Street, the Fed is deathly afraid of anything that will break the mirage and put the banking system at risk.

This post was published at Jesses Crossroads Cafe on 08 NOVEMBER 2017.

A Different Powelling – Precious Metals Supply and Demand Report

Jon Leave a comment

New Chief Monetary Bureaucrat Goes from Good to Bad for Silver
The prices of the metals ended all but unchanged last week, though they hit spike highs on Thursday. Particularly silver his $17.24 before falling back 43 cents, to close at $16.82.
It was not a gentle fall back. In about an hour and fifteen minutes on Friday morning (as we Arizonans reckon the time), the price of silver dropped from $17.16 to $16.76. Was this a case of the infamous manipulation we’ve all read about? We can’t tell you who did it, but we can show you a clear picture of what happened.
In any case, it seems that either Fed chairman appointee Powell is not good for silver, or else that the price of silver has little to do with continuation of current Fed (central) planning.
Fundamental Developments
We will look at intraday gold and silver supply and demand fundamentals. But first, here are the charts of the prices of gold and silver, and the gold-silver ratio.

This post was published at Acting-Man on November 7, 2017.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts – The King In Yellow

Jon Leave a comment

“Love is not easy; it is not our natural state. It seems weak and foolish, and is despicable to the fallen of this world and the next, who by the declaration of their hearts and minds say non serviam, I will not serve.”
Jesse, Love Is the Refuge of the Way
Stocks bubbled sideways today, digesting the recent gains, and treading water as additional earnings and economic news comes out.
I have made no secret of it, that the US equity markets seem very fully valued at this point, and are overdue for a stiff correction in the neighborhood of ten percent. That they have not even had a 3 percent correction in quite some time is a testimony to the amount of hot money and speculative froth underpinning them.
Peak hubris. We’re there on a number of fronts, socially, financially, and politically. I have not seen anything like this since the tech stock bubble. The housing bubble was much broader and deeper, and much more profound in the levels of its corruption. This one seems more like an ‘echo bubble.’ In all three instances the primary actors were the Wall Street financiers, the Banks, and the Fed.
The amount of potentially destabilizing situations geopolitically are daunting, almost breath-taking. I won’t bother to list them here, but things in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe are showing signs of heaving the landscape out of place. Domestically things in the US are much more tense under the surface than anything I can remember in many years. The elite are doubling down on their winnings with a kind of race to the oncoming wall of bad karma.

This post was published at Jesses Crossroads Cafe on 07 NOVEMBER 2017.

The USD-Reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated

Jon Leave a comment

By Plunger
In deference to Mark Twain, I will review the USD, general stock market, precious metals, the electric metals and various other topics. In the past two weeks Rambus has been so prolific with such high impact charts that I find it a challenge to offer value added material so I offer charts with some different perspectives.
USD-No I Am NOT Dead Yet!
Currencies tend to be a very emotional subject. I try to be objective when analyzing them, sticking to the language of the market and it’s message. It is always important to guard against the gold bug narrative, it can even influence our views of currencies. Demanding posts insisting the USD is toast and immediately headed towards history’s ash heap seem closely related to this gold bug narrative. The USD has spent the first 8 months of 2017 in a well defined downtrend, however it does not appear to be in a death spiral. Actually the shouting and insistence that it must continue down has been a fairly predictable sign that its move downward was reaching its limit. The dollar may have now completed a base and is set to continue its move higher. This is not dogma as it could reverse downward, but for now it’s making all the right moves if the trend is higher.

This post was published at GoldSeek on Monday, 6 November 2017.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts – Just Stand

Jon Leave a comment

“In our own times we see that politicians raised under neoliberalism are unwilling and unable to effectively use real Keynesian policies: they can’t do stimulus, when they try, they give the money primarily to the rich.
They grew to power by being neoliberals; faced with new times they cannot change. In France we saw the main center-left party (really a neoliberal party) implode because it would just not change, and throughout the West center-left neoliberal parties are dying for just this reason. The world has changed, the people who run those parties cannot change…
Our societies have failed to run themselves acceptably since 2008, and the youngs have no attachment to the status quo since it never ever worked for them. Change is thus not only possible, it is now inevitable.”
Ian Welsh, When People and Societies Change
Stocks were rallying off the jobs report.
The American dream is now a nation of low paid bartenders and waitresses, living from paycheck to paycheck, and preyed upon by corporate behemoths in healthcare, housing, and finance.

This post was published at Jesses Crossroads Cafe on 03 NOVEMBER 2017.