J.P. Morgan Converts Almost Half of Eligible Gold to Registered Gold

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this. Suddenly we saw the J.P. Morgan vault get almost half of the eligible gold converted into registered gold.I have seen this before... I think someone wants delivery. Let me do some research on this...Edit: Yes indeed, we saw J.P. Morgan do the same with silver a year ago here in November 2011 (right before a huge rise in silver price). The consensus was that they are preparing for a large delivery to...

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Public Sector Credit Expansion Vs. Private Sector Credit Contraction

In 2009, Marc Faber said these words at one of his famous seminars: "But for the fiscal stimulus to even have a small chance of succeeding at reviving economic activity it has to be larger than the private sector credit contraction."In today's world we have 2 opposing forces, one is Ben Bernanke's public sector credit expansion (Chart 1) and the other is private sector credit contraction (Chart 2). If credit grows, all is well, but when they...

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Chinese Silver Imports

I finally found some data on Chinese silver imports through the Silver Investment Conference here. You will have to register for free there. Some interesting keynote speakers I like are Eric Sprott, David Morgan, James Turk. You can watch them today live.Apparently the Chinese have been net buyers of silver, just as they have been becoming net buyers of gold (Chart 1).Chart 1: Chinese Silver Imports through Hong K...

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Savings Rate Points to a Deja Vu Recession

Remember where I said this:"Unlike in 2008, the savings rate isn't going up though (Chart 5). If this trend actually reverses upwards, the real collapse will start because when people save money, debt will be paid off and the currency supply will drop."It has finally happened, the savings rate is going up to 6% (Chart 1). Credit is being repaid, the currency supply is going to shrink and the economy is on the verge of collapse, again.The GDP has...

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Registered Silver Not Increasing With Open Interest

For people who are worried about the recent rise in the total silver stock at the COMEX I want to point out that the registered inventory hasn't gone up (Chart 1). Only the eligible inventory has gone up. The ratio of registered to eligible is now 33%. In 2009 it was 133% (more registered than eligible silver) (Chart 2).Chart 1: Silver Stock COMEXThe lowest ratio historically was 40% mid 2011 if we look on Chart 2. But today the ratio is even lower...

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Doug Casey Interviews Peter Schiff

Peter Schiff talks about go...

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ADP Report Vs. Unemployment Rate

Today we also found the ADP jobs numbers for the month of January 2013 and it came out to 192000 jobs. This is pretty good, but if you look at the trendline on Chart 1 we are still going down.Job growth isn't keeping up with the rise in population, we need to have at least a payroll number above 200000 to reduce the unemployment rate.The declining unemployment rate (blue dots) is not to be trusted because if it were real, the red bars would be going...

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PMI Suggesting Further Euro Strength

GDP growth in the U.S. was 0% the last quarter and that is consistent with the PMI going below 50 in the U.S. While the U.S. economy is deteriorating, the PMI in the eurozone is in a rising trend again and soon will catch up to the PMI of the U.S. Maybe we can even get a positive GDP growth in the eurozone at some point.This trend is positive for the euro going forward. But we need to be aware that the ECB has some bullets left to devalue the euro...

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Zero Hour Debt Has Arrived

As I have warned investors a few months ago on the "Zero Hour Debt" problem here on July 2012, today we find out that GDP has actually reached the 0% growth rate while the debt growth is increasing at an enormous pace. Real GDP in the U.S. has decreased 0.1% in the fourth quarter of 2012 to a mere $15.8 trillion while debt has grown 2.4% to $16.4 trillion.As you can see on Chart 1, the ratio between nominal GDP Growth and Total National Debt...

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James Turk: 100% Chance of Hyperinflation in the U.S.

James Turk is 100% sure of Hyperinflation in the U.S. A very bold predicti...

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Copper Contango Update: Setting up for Take-Off

Dears, I'm getting increasingly excited with the prospects in the copper market. The contango has yet steepened again, while the copper price is still in an uptrend (Chart 1 and Chart 2). Once the copper contango goes back into backwardation (red dots go down), the copper price will surge.The copper price trend is in an ascending phase (Chart 2) and that tells me that stocks will rise (along with gold). Bonds will suffer greatly as the USD will plunge.You...

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Correlation: Bitcoin Vs. Gold

I just recently heard about this alternative currency: Bitcoin. Apparently this is a digital currency that is standing on its own and has a total market value of $150 million. It came into existence in 2009 with the creator Satoshi Nakamoto.I don't advocate using this digital currency as it is nothing you can really hold in your hands. But it's interesting to analyze it. If bitcoin is really a currency that is existing out of the "system", then...

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Swiss Gold Repatriation Almost Reality

A year ago, 4 Swiss parliament members launched the "Swiss Gold Initiative" to repatriate their gold to Switzerland. Today, almost one year later we have 90000 supporters for this initiative. Once the 100000 supporters is reached, we are certain that the Swiss National Bank will repatriate their gold holdings. I'm sure those 10000 votes will be reached by March 2013.So not only the Germans want their 3400 tonnes of gold back, now the Swiss want their...

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Peter Schiff at Cambridge House International's Vancouver Resource and Investment Conference in January 2013

Peter Schiff at the Cambridge House Conferen...

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Correlation: Food Stamp Participation Rate: The Real Way to Measure Unemployment

I want to make sure that people comprehend the manipulation in the unemployment numbers.If we look at the unemployment rate in the U.S., it seems that everything is improving. U3 unemployment has dropped from 10% to 8% in the last two years. U6 unemployment came from 17% to 14% in 2 years.But all is not well if we look at another metric which is the percentage of people on food stamps. I think this metric is giving a much better view on the state...

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Pentagon Slashes 6% of Workforce

As a follow-up on this post, where I pointed out that the debt ceiling is taking its toll on the workers at the Pentagon, today we were notified that of the 800000 employees at the Pentagon, 46000 will be terminated as of today. Although this is but a small percentage (6%), it still points out that the budget of the U.S. is in trouble.If the March deadline on $50 billion budget cut isn't resolved, Pentagon employees will have to work 1 day less each week from that day onwards.The moral of the story is that money is critical for the defense sector...

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Royal Canadian Mint Short in Silver Supply

Short update: As I told everyone silver is in supply shortage here, we found out today that the Royal Canadian Mint is in short supply of silver too. So it is a widespread phenomenon.Here is the article from Goldstockbull.com written by Jason Hamlin on the 23th of January 2013:Last week the U.S. Mint announced that it had run out of its initial production of 2013 Silver Eagles and that new shipments would not be available until late January. At that point, sales are expected to be resumed under an allocation process. The Mint has used an allocation...

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Federal Reserve Surpasses 3 Trillion Dollar Balance Sheet

As of this week, the Federal Reserve has officially gone over $3 trillion in its balance sheet. It is buying MBS and bonds as promised. Of course this has consequences as I pointed out here. The euro made a 1 year high against the U.S. dollar. U.S. bond yields are breaking resistance at 1.92% yield on the 10 year treasuries.What's very odd is that the gold price keeps languishing. A weak dollar environment should be very bullish for gold.Chart 1:...

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Silver premium monitoring

I have been monitoring the Engelhard bullion price to spot silver, but I don't see any significant movement here.So I'm going to stop monitoring this.Chart 1: Silver Premium Engelhard bullion to spot silverOn the other hand, I'll now monitor a real dealer of silver, namely: First Majestic Silver Corp.Figure 1: First Majestic Silver Bullion PriceTheir selling price is displayed every day here. Today it stands at: $33.25/ounce. The spot price of silver...

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Interconnectivity of Banks

I just love this figure that gives the interconnectivity of banks.If J.P. Morgan (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC) fail, the entire system fails. That means that they will never fail, as the Federal Reserve will always protect them.Figure 1: Interconnectivity of Ba...

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Copper Contango Update

The contango on copper has been topping out as the LME stock level has also topped out. As copper goes back to backwardation, I see the copper price go up from here. It already spiked back to $3.68/lb which is the highest since October last year. And stocks are following nicely with this uptrend.Chart 1: Copper Contango Vs. Pr...

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Correlation: Real Interest Rates Vs. Gold Price

I came across a Zerohedge chart and tried to duplicate the chart.The chart is about how gold goes up when real interest rates (adjusted for inflation CPIAUCSL) on 10 Year Treasuries approach zero.And as you can see, the red line (10 year treasuries adjusted for inflation) is now exactly at zero. So that is bullish for gold.The red chart right = Yields on 10 year treasuries adjusted for CPI.The green chart left = Percentage change in Gold.Chart...

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Signs of Silver Shortages

There are several signs of silver shortages brewing. Investors who have interest in paper silver like SLV or AGQ need to be aware of this as their holdings could blow up in a very short time frame if they don't notice the current shortages in the physical silver market.First, the most important indicator for the physical market is the silver sales at the U.S. Mint. Second, on that first day of silver sales at the U.S. Mint, the trading volume on the Shanghai Gold Exchange’s 99.99 gold physical contract shot through the roof, hitting a record...

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No U.S. Deficit in December 2012

The U.S. has done a good job in the month of December 2012. Its outlays of $270 billion were fully absorbed by receipts of $270 billion which makes the December 2012 deficit zero (Chart 1).I think most of this is due to the fact that the debt ceiling was reached in December, so the U.S. couldn't spend as much money as it could.Chart 1: Deficit to Outlay Ratio U...

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Nice Site to get Current COT Reports

I always thought by myself, how come the COT site doesn't give current charts and current tables here. I mean, those numbers are 2 months old... Because of that, I didn't have current information. But we have a breakthrough here.Thanks to Dieuwer from Seekingalpha, who pointed out I make a lot of mistakes, I now have a very interesting site to share. Namely: http://www.cotpricecharts.com/commitmentscurrent/On that site, the two most important...

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U.S. Bond Market About to Implode

I just wanted to give an update on the status of the U.S. treasury market. I warned about a bond bubble here, stating that short interest in the commercials was going up dramatically. The last months we have seen weakness in the bond market as a result, but if you think it's already over, I have to disappoint you.The bond bubble collapse hasn't even started yet. On Chart 1 we can see that since that article, the net short positions for the commercials...

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China keeps buying U.S. Treasuries

I had expected that China wouldn't buy as much U.S. treasuries in November 2012 because they bought a lot of gold (62 tonnes or $3.2 billion). But they did increase their U.S. treasuries by $200 million to $1.17 trillion.Though, I think that China hasn't bought a lot of treasuries in December 2012 as yields were rising that month. But no worries, Japan is going to buy all the leftovers from China. Japan is almost overtaking China with its $1.133...

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Capacity Utilization up in December 2012

The good news keeps coming. Capacity utilization was up in December 2012 for the total industry and hit a 6 month high of 78.8%.Mining was very interesting as it kept climbing to an all time high of 91.9%, above its historical average of 85%.The data is what it is and it indicates higher metal prices in the coming months.Chart 1: Capacity utilizationAs an extra we found out that China's GDP grew to 8%. This is all in line with the positive PMI numbers...

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Copper Contango Keeps Steepening

There doesn't seem to come an end to it. The copper contango keeps steepening to 2.5% for 1 year futures, while the copper price remains steady.If all goes as planned, we will see a huge copper and stock market rally in the future. Probably helped by good Chinese numbers. China's trade surplus surged 48% in 2012, its exports jumped 14% and its non-manufacturing PMI rises to a new high of 56.1. China has even so much money left over to double...

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Peter Schiff: Occupy Wall street

This is an old event from a year ago, but it's a classic. This video is the full length video, so I need to post it here so we can watch it and have a laugh when we have too much time. Maybe some people haven't watched this yet. Peter is talking as the 1% business man in a crowd of 99% middle class people. I have to give it to him, this is a very bold endeavour. &nb...

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Petition to audit the Fed

Zerohedge pointed out that there is a petition to audit the Fed's and treasuries gold reserves at Fort Knox.I went to have a look and the funny thing is that even I (not being a citizen of the U.S.) can sign the petition.https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/perform-assayed-public-audit-all-treasurys-claimed-8100-tons-gold-and-net-swaps-loans-sales/rGyFT...

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Faber Vs. Schiff

Faber Vs. Schiff: "a magical combination".Marc Faber points out:Stocks are going to decline (consistent with the overly bullish sentiment in the market), in particular technology stocks.Bonds can rally a little bit, but are not to be held for the long term by investors as sovereign bonds will not be safe.U.S. dollar is very weak, even against the euro.Marc buys gold every month.Peter Schiff points out:There are many shorts in the euro who need to sell out, so he's betting on a decline in the U.S. dollar. ...

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Update: List of all Correlations

I have found many correlations since I started blogging in January 2012.So I wanted to summarize once again all correlations in this update. Positive correlations mean that if one goes up, the other goes up too. Negative correlations mean that if one goes up, the other goes down.Positive correlations:1) Silver premium Vs. Silver Price 2) Baltic Dry Vs. Industrial Commodities3) Baltic Dry Vs. Copper4) Copper Vs. S&P5) Oil Vs. Dow Jones6) Agriculture Price Vs. Health of Economy7) Agriculture Vs. Fertilizer Price 8) CRB...

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Correlation: The Ultimate Tool to Predict Gold and Gold Miners Price Swings

It's amazing, every day I learn something new. Today I present another very reliable tool to predict tops and bottoms in the gold price and the gold miners.The Bernstein Daily Sentiment Index for gold. Apparently, when the index goes below 30, we have a bull alert on gold. Similarly, when the index goes above 70, we have a bear alert on gold.The problem is, it isn't free, you have to pay to follow this index here: http://www.trade-futures.com/.Chart...

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U.S. Mint Silver Sales explode

On average the U.S. mint sells 2.8 million ounces of silver per month to the public. But January 2013 started with a boom. In just 1 day, the U.S. mint sold 3.9 million ounces of silver. The increased demand for silver is definitely a consequence of the recent undervaluation in the price of silver. This will be a record month for silver sales.Table 1: U.S. Mint Silver Sale on 8 January 2...

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China is buying gold on discount for Christmas Solden

We have very good numbers on gold buying from China out today. Gross gold imports doubled in a month time to 91 tonnes and the reason is of course lower gold prices in November 2012. The Western manipulators are shooting themselves in the foot by manipulating gold, because this way China can increase its holdings at a much faster pace.Chart 1: China Gold Imports from Hong KongBut let's look at the net imports too, because gross imports don't tell...

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Copper Contango Steepening

This week, the copper price kept rising with a higher contango, which is very unusual.Something needs to happen soon, either the copper price is going to drop precipitously, or the copper price is going to shoot upwards with a declining contango.I am still bullish on copper.Chart 1: Copper Contango Vs. Copper Pr...

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A little background on the effect of gold mining supply on the gold price

In a previous article I pointed out that the marginal cost of gold production including exploration, feasibility studies, construction, maintenance, production and taxes has doubled since 2009 up until now. That has placed a large burden on gold mining companies over this period. The result was a decline in the gold mining index (GDX) of around 10% since 2010. Even when the gold price steadily went up from $800 to $1600/ounce, there wasn't a lot...

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If you own gold, put it all in platinum!

A recent interview with David Morgan told us that platinum is far superior now than gold. He says that all of platinum is being produced in Africa, which we already know. But they are producing at costs higher than the price of platinum, which we already know too. He says that the platinum to gold ratio is below historic levels and is much more scarce than gold, which we already know as well.So if you do own gold, sell it and put it in platinum. If you don't believe me, believe David Morgan:As an add-on from me though, I want to point out that...

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