We began this Gold Commentary in January 1996.
Due to many requests, we began to archive them in May 2000.
December 30 - "2005 - The Year Of The Gold Breakout"
"2005, the year just ended, has been a SIGNAL year for Gold. Too see why, take a look at the table below. It shows the annual performance of Gold in terms of four major global currencies plus the $US index since the beginning of the $US Gold bull in 2001:"
December 23 - Christmas - No commmentary this week
December 16 - "An Oriental Kibosh - It's Back To $US 500"
"After bidding Gold up to the $US 540 level on December 12, traders on the TOCOM have certainly decided to 'withdraw from the market'. While Gold was falling $US 25 or 4.7% on the COMEX, it was falling 5,240 Yen or 8.25% on the TOCOM. ...The fact that Gold has been "hit over the head" again is not particularly interesting. What IS interesting is that this time, the job was given to the Japanese."
December 9 - "This Is Starting To Get Interesting"
"This breakthrough too is HIGHLY significant. It shows that Gold is stronger against the $US now than it was late last year when the $US index was plummeting towards its absolute bottom, a level it had not been below in the fiat currency era - that is - since August 1971."
December 2 - "Now That Gold Is Over $US 500 ..."
"Today, measured by the increase in Treasury debt alone, inflation properly defined as an increase in the stock of money is more than eight times as high as it was in 1981. What has reflected this eightfold increase? US stock markets have."
November 25 - "Stalking the Big $US 500"
"In essence, ALL of the Gold price rise of the past year has taken place over the past two and a bit months and most of it (80% of it in fact) has taken place over the last three weeks."
November 18 - "The BIG 'Bottom Formation' For Gold"
"The last time Gold closed below $US 300 was April 9, 2002. The last time Gold closed below $US 400 was September 9, 2004. We don't know when Gold will trade above $US 500. What we DO know is that when (not if) it does, it will be challenging the TOP of a Gold trading range which has been almost a quarter century in the making."
November 11 - "The Two Perspectives Of Looking At Gold"
"There have, of course, been repeated and blatant instances of the same old same old Gold manipulation during the present Gold bull market. All of them have "worked", but none of them has proved sustainable. This week, Gold has reached new bull market highs in almost every major currency."
November 4 - "They Did - And They Didn't"
“Several interesting points come out of this data. the $US/Euro exchange rate when the US rate was half the EU rate stood at 1.2066. Almost a year and a half later, after the US rate had QUADRUPLED and the EU rate hadn't moved at all, making the US rate DOUBLE the EU rate, the $US/Euro exchange rate stood at 1.2030.”
October 28 - "If We Don't See It - It Ain't There"
“The 3.8% spurt in third-quarter GDP (Gross Domestic Product) does not take the loss of physical wealth or the even more important productive capacity into account at all. It focusses on "spending", from whatever source derived. A large part of the "growth" was composed of the increase in government spending in the wake of the hurricanes. More of it was composed of private spending to replace essentials destroyed by the hurricanes.”
October 21 - "How Old Is This $US Gold Bull Market?"
“How old is this Gold bull market? In terms of time, it has been going quite a while now. In terms of the understanding of the impetus behind it, it has not even gotten truly started yet.”
October 14 - "Higher Interest Rates Are "Bad" For Gold - Right?"
“The period of the biggest and most sustained increases in US interest rates was the 1970s. This coincided with the decade of the explosion of the US Dollar price of Gold. The fact that these two events coincided is NOT a coincidence. The 1970s was, above all, the decade where the very viability of the US Dollar came into question to an extent unmatched over the past century.”
October 7 - "Everything's In The Green - As Long As They're Worried"
“As long as Gold continues to climb the "wall of worry", there is absolutely nothing to worry about. We think it will be climbing it for a long time yet. Sit back and enjoy the ride.”
September 30 - "September Has Been A Very Good Month"
“To judge just how well this new "Gold against ALL paper currencies" bull market is progressing, here's a table showing Gold's performance in ten major world currencies (including the $US, of course)”
September 23 - "The Last Finger In The Dike (Or Levee - If You Prefer)"
“The BIG DIFFERENCE between this $US Gold rally and the one earlier this year is that this time, the $US Gold price has gone up but the $US itself has NOT (yet) gone down. In fact, this is the difference which differentiates the current rally from ALL those which have gone before it thus far in the $US Gold bull market.”
September 16 - "Another New High - Gold Breaches $US 456"
“It took about nine and a half months, but Gold has finally exceeded the highs it set way back on December 3, 2004. As we said here last week, that's in keeping with Gold's performance in 2004 and in 2003.”
September 9 - "A Long Time Between Drinks"
“Once Gold breaks through THIS "bottom formation", and it will, it will be on a launching pad fuelled by the crumbling of twenty-five years of economic, financial, and especially MONETARY delusion. The process was coming anyway, but Katrina has hastened it considerably.”
September 2 - "How Are The Mighty Fallen?"
“All that most of those observing can see is the POWER projected by the US establishment. What they have not seen in the past is the glaring fact that the US is not a "rich" nation. It is a nation living on borrowed everything, including time. They are starting to see it now.”
August 26 - "The Quiet Before It Gets Noisy"
“If ever any more proof was needed that Gold is indeed 'the political metal', its $US price action thus far in 2005 has provided it. The more fraught the political (and of course economic and financial) the situation in the US becomes, the tighter the range in which Gold trades.”
August 19 - "If Ever If Ever A Wiz There Was"
“How prosperous can a nation actually be, how robust can the economic "growth" of a nation actually be, when more than eleven thousand people line up to apply for 400 of the lowest paying jobs available in that nation?”
August 12 - "If You Want An Answer - Ask A Question"
“On a political level, complacency is being rocked to its core in the US by the single act of the mother of one of the almost 1900 Americans who have now been killed in Iraq. Cindy Sheehan is camping outside President Bush's Crawford Ranch.”
August 5 - "It's (Almost) All Too Funny For Words"
“In the midst of all this, the premier means of capital preservation, Gold, has been in an unbroken albeit so far gradual bull market. The funniest thing of all is that none of the frantic buying, selling, financing, leveraging, speculating and manipulating of the past few years has affected anyone with a solid position in PHYSICAL Gold.”
July 29 - "It's Been A Quiet Year - So Far"
“Either way, the three casualties of war, truth, freedom, and true market valuations, are close to snapping back with a vengeance. To the extent they do, the one economic good whose valuation has been held DOWN more than all others - GOLD - will snap back and UP proportionally. It's been a quiet year, so far. Don't count on it lasting too much longer.”
July 22 - "With a view to establish and improve the
socialist market economic system in China"
“By now, you will of course know that China has ended their eleven-year old policy of fixing the "value" of their currency, the Yuan, to the US Dollar. Well, that's not quite accurate. What the Chinese have done is widen the "band" in which the Yuan can fluctuate from 0.0% to 0.3%.”
July 15 - "The Magnificent Beauty Of Money"
“Re-establish exchange on a rational basis, and everything else follows - prosperity, progress, achievement, benevolence, peace, and goodwill. There is a political term which subsumes all these highly desirable states, and many more besides. That term is FREEDOM.”
July 8 - "What's Politics Got To Do With It? - Part II"
“To talk about war as being "politics by other means" is worse than a lie, it is a 180 degree perversion of the truth. It is right up there with such other "gems" of gutter propaganda as "Gold is a barbarous relic".”
July 1 - "What's Politics Got To Do With It?"
“But if you want to see the modern day perversion of the disciplines of both politics and economics, you need consider only one fact. Today, it is taken as the given and the granted in the politics of every "advanced" and "democratic" nation on earth that an election is a contest between two groups whose main claim for allegiance is their professed ability to "RUN" the economy.”
June 24 - "Gold Really Is At Decade Plus Highs"
“With this in mind, it might be a good time to see how "beaten down" Gold still is in comparison to its heady bull market highs of a quarter-century ago in January 1980. The table which follows shows a comparison of the Gold "price" in seven currencies.”
June 17 - "Growing 'Concerns About Currencies'"
“I actually think that for the first time during this entire rally, you could argue that gold is genuinely benefiting from concerns people have about currencies”>
June 10 - "A Signal For A Global Currency Sea Change"
"Simply put, more and more people all over the world are becoming increasingly uneasy about the future prospects for the global economy, and for the world's paper currencies."
June 3 - "Close To A New High - But NOT In US Dollars"
"Right now, there are two competing "world currencies" as far as the financial markets are concerned. These are the US Dollar and the Euro. If Gold breaks out to new highs against the Euro in coming days or weeks, there will be THREE."
May 27 - "A Technical Commentary"
"As you can see on the charts above, Silver is threatening to break out of its trading range - after having bounced off its accelerated uptrend line each week for the past month. In addition, the spot future price has bolted well above both MA's on the chart."
May 20 - "Playing A Numbers Game"
"Have you ever noticed that the "price" of Gold seldom if ever rises when it "should" be falling, but it very often falls when it SHOULD be rising? Have you ever noticed that the reverse is the case with most if not all "paper based" assets?"
May 13 - "A Rising Tide - Or A Sinking Ship?"
"So, what's going on here? Well, to answer that question, we must turn our attention to the "hedge funds". If you have been following the financial news, you know that the investment positions of the hedge funds have suddenly become the subject of much concern in recent days."
May 6 - "Truth In Advertising"
"We would like to draw your attention to what is without doubt the most striking
URL we know of on the internet. Here is is:
http://www.moneyfactory.com"
April 29 - "Oh #$!!@#$ - They've Noticed!"
"So, if the US political establishment cannot have a war as a distraction, they need a SCAPEGOAT. To deflect the blame for the steady deterioration of the US economy, they must have an outside agency to blame. If they don't, they risk the blame falling on themselves."
April 22 - "The Search For A Scapegoat"
"The numbers just keep on getting worse and worse. Recent gallup polls reveal that 66% of Americans presently rate the US economy as "fair to poor" and Americans who think the economy is getting worse outnumber those who think it's getting better by at least two to one."
April 15 - "The Red Flags Are Waving"
"In "therapeutics", the ancient principle is: "First - do no harm". In any study of proper economics, the first principle is: "First - do not interfere". Sadly, these principles have been more than lost sight of, they have been violated at every turn."
April 8 - "A Chronic State Of 'Disorder'"
"The modern financial system in the US, and everywhere else, is built on debt. Both borrowing and lending is an inherently risky activity. The extent to which this fundamental fact is ignored is the extent to which markets become distended and bloated with what is called 'liquidity'."
April 1 - "No April Fools We"
"In the US, for most of the century between the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the mid 1960s, most people were not directly involved in investment (or speculation) of any type."
March 24 - "The Choicest Financial Myth Yet - Rising US Rates GOOD For The Dollar!??"
"Take any currency crisis affecting any currency over the last 40 years. Look at the events which were going on when the currency in crisis was falling the fastest. What was happening to the interest rates of the nation whose currency was so affected?"
March 18 - "The End Of An Era - Inflation's Back!"
"Here comes the INFLATION - in the old-fashioned 1970s definition - rising prices of things which everyone has to BUY. This is a quantum leap in the price of the raw materials of an advanced economy."
March 11 - "Ignore The Booming CRB Index At Your Peril"
"The level of such economic "denial" today has seldom been equalled. No matter how much evidence of a future of higher prices and interest rates proliferates, borrowing continues to increase. This is, unfortunately, especially true in the US."
March 4 - "On Belabouring The Obvious"
"There is a lot of frustration in watching the self-delusion of financial markets in action. In reality, those who run the financial, monetary, and economic world are the opposite of King Canute. They are still sitting in their chairs burbling "Sea, go back!" while the waves break far above their heads."
February 25 - "What, Me Worry? - About The US Dollar, That Is"
"As Tuesday, February 22 dawned, a news story went off like a small bomb on US markets. By now, you undoubtedly know all about it. South Korea's Central Bank announced plans to diversify its reserves, which are the world's fourth largest, into a greater variety of currencies."
February 18 - "Time To Trim The Hedges?"
"We have pointed out many times in this commentary that the number ONE impetus for a REAL and long-lasting precious metals (Gold and Silver) bull market is RISING interest rates right along the yield curve. Rising short-term rates alone won't do it, the Fed controls these."
February 11 - "Famous Last Words?"
"It is absolutely remarkable how quickly, and on how little substance, perceptions can be made to change in the financial and investment world. Here is a selection of global financial headlines that we published back at the end of November 2004"
February 4 - "Gold's Down - How Bad Is It?"
"China fixed its currency, the yuan/renmimbi, to the US Dollar in 1995. For nearly seven years, up until January 2002, the Chinese currency went UP with the US Dollar. No-one, least of all the US, complained about the lessening international competitiveness of Chinese goods which this entailed."
January 28 - "Before January 30 - And After"
"At this point, the 'price' of Gold in paper money terms is almost completely irrelevant. We have had three weeks of limbo waiting for the events which will start with the Iraqi elections on January 30. The markets are holding their breath, waiting for a sign of which way to jump."
January 21 - "The Evidence Of A Vast Delusion"
"Mr Bush has pledged himself to defend freedom. The Fed has pledged themselves to defend the viability and purchasing power of the US Dollar. Their means of accomplishing these tasks have been the exact and precise opposite of those which would bring about their professed purpose."
January 14 - "The Calm Before Something Happens"
"On US financial markets, the year so far has been singularly lacklustre, with the sole exception of a bounce back by the US Dollar. The danger at present is that the international situation of both the US Dollar and the US presence in Iraq are coming to a head and could be "resolved", one way or the other, at any time"
January 7 - "A World Turned Upside Down"
"So far in 2005 (a whole week into the year), the world's top performing currency is - are you sitting comfortably? - the United States Dollar. And, of course, Gold priced in those same US Dollars has declined every trading day so far this year."