Monday, May 13, 2013

Gold Ends Slightly Higher, Silver and Stocks Decline

September 30, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

A stronger US dollar was troubling for commodities on Tuesday but gold managed to swing slightly higher during a volatile day of trading. Other precious metals declined, as did crude oil. US stocks ticked down due to lower than expected consumer confidence numbers, according to reports.

Bullion update ...New York precious metals figures follow:

  • Silver for December delivery slid 1.7 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $16.178 an ounce.

  • Gold for December delivery inched 30 cents higher to $994.40 an ounce.

  • October platinum fell $15.10, or 1.2 percent, to $1,270.90 an ounce.

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Coin News: 1933 Double Eagles, Treasure Hunt, Criswell & Confederate Money, Gobrecht Dollars

September 30, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

Four numismatic news or coin blog articles are referenced on CoinNews every Tuesday and Thursday. These articles are not authored by us, but we recommend coin collectors read them for their unusual or interesting content. Here are today’s coin articles:

U.S. Attorney’s Office Files Civil Forfeiture Complaint in Case of 10 Double Eagle Gold Pieces
Department of Justice | PRNewswire

The Office of U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has filed a civil forfeiture complaint against 10 1933 Double Eagle gold pieces, consistent with U.S. District Court Judge Legrome D. Davis’ order dated July 28, 2009. The pieces were surrendered to the U.S. Mint by the descendants of Israel Switt. In addition to forfeiture of the 1933 Double Eagles, the government asks the court to declare that, with the exception of a single 1933 Double Eagle monetized and auctioned for more than $7.5 million in 2002, all other 1933 Double Eagles are the lawful property of the United States government …

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Inspirational Australian Steve Irwin Uncirculated Coin Issue

September 30, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

Inspirational Australian Steve Irwin $1 CoinThe Royal Australian Mint is now offering the 2009 $1 Inspirational Australian Steve Irwin Uncirculated Coin. This coin is the second in a series of Inspirational Australians that last year featured Mary MacKillip, who was beatified by Pope John Paul I in 1995.

Steve Irwin was a well-known celebrity who met an untimely fate in 2006. Host of the popular Crocodile Hunter series, Irwin was enthusiastically supportive of Australia’s wildlife.

His parents started the Australia Zoo and Irwin grew up around exotic creatures. He is attributed with wresting with his first crocodile at the age of nine. Not content with merely putting on a show, Irwin was adamant about educating the public about wildlife as well.

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John Crudele: The secret to Goldman’s good fortune

September 30, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

By John Crudele, New York Post

So, is this how Goldman Sachs does it?

“It,” of course, is making gobs of money even when nobody else on Wall Street can.

And those profits then go into outrageous bonuses to employees, which cause rancor on Capitol Hill and on Main Street.

You’ve heard the old saying, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.”

Goldman Sachs knows lots of important people. That fact is indisputable, mainly because former Goldman employees are scattered around the country, and the globe, in important, decision-making financial positions.

But I’d like to make an addendum to that old saying, which I’ll explore for you today: Who you know is only important if you can get them on the phone anytime you want.

Today’s column is about Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008.

It’s also about the unparalleled access that Goldman Sachs had to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, whose mission — according to his own words — was to bring Wall Street and market regulators (not to mention decision makers) together, so that they were “seeing the same issues, the same problems and working toward the same solutions.” On Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008 — the day before the one I am writing about — the stock market performed horribly.

By the end of the session the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 449 points as investors worried about the nation’s financial system. The next morning, Sept. 18, Paulson placed his first call of the day at 6:55 a.m., to Lloyd Blankfein, who succeeded Paulson as CEO of Goldman. It’s unclear whether the two connected because Blankfein called Paulson minutes later.

And then Blankfein placed another call to Paulson at 7:05 a.m. for what looks like a 10-minute conversation.

After that Paulson called Christopher Cox, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman twice; British Chancellor Alistair Darling and New York Federal Reserve head (and now Treasury Secretary) Tim Geithner two times.

Then Paulson took another call from Goldman’s Blankfein.

It wasn’t even 9 a.m. yet — 30 minutes before the stock market was to open — and Paulson and Blankfein had already exchanged three phone calls.

This wasn’t particularly unusual.

On Wednesday, Sept. 17, the day the stock market was in trouble, Paulson spoke with Blankfein five times, including a pair of calls at 7:20 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. One of the earlier calls — at 12:15 p.m. — is listed on Paulson’s log in the same five minute interval as a call to Geithner, which could indicate that this was a conference call.

If Paulson did set up a conference call, it would have been an extreme instance of putting someone who wielded a lot of power — Geithner — together with someone — Blankfein — who could profit from that connection.

And all of this doesn’t include possible cell phone calls. The Treasury turned over to me Paulson’s official schedule and phone records after I made a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

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Target of Fed’s biggest manipulation is the public

September 30, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

10:08p ET Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Jim Sinclair remarks sardonically tonight that before the Federal Reserve is through threatening the public against the audit legislation proposed by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, the Fed will be warning that an audit will cause not just higher interest rates but also infertility and the bends. Meanwhile, as suggested by the Associated Press story appended here, the Fed is talking out of both sides of its mouth, keeping interest rates at zero on one day and the next day warning about a quick and sharp rise in rates. This kind of thing is part of the biggest Fed manipulation of all — the manipulation of the public.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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Officials: Fed Will Have to Boost Rates Quickly

By Jeannine Aversa
Associated Press
Tuesday, September 29, 2009

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090929/ap_on_bi_ge/us_fed_exit_strategy

WASHINGTON — To prevent inflation from taking off, the Federal Reserve will need to start boosting interest rates quickly and aggressively once the economy is back on firmer footing, Fed officials warned Tuesday.

“I expect that when it comes time to tighten monetary policy, my colleagues and I will move with an alacrity that, if needed, will be equal in speed and intensity” to when the Fed was slashing rates to battle the recession and the financial crisis, said Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Although Fisher has a reputation for being one of the Fed’s toughest inflation fighters, it marked the second such warning by a central bank official in recent days. Fed member Kevin Warsh on Friday said the central bank will need to move swiftly when the time comes to raise rates.

Charles Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and also a hawk against inflation, waded into the debate in a speech Tuesday in Easton, Pa., saying the Fed may need to act “well before” unemployment — now at a 26-year high of 9.7 percent — returns to normal. The Fed, he said, will need to be on guard “to prevent the Second Great Inflation.”

It’s all part of a high-wire act that the Fed has to perform as the economy transitions from recession to recovery.

If the Fed raises rates and reels in the unprecedented support too soon, it could short-circuit the rebound. If the central bank waits too long to rein in its stimulus, inflation could be unleashed.

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The Dow Zero Insurgency

September 30, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

By Joe Hagan, New York Magazine

The nothing-can-be-believed chaos of the financial crisis created a golden opportunity for a blog run by a mysterious ex-hedge-funder with a dodgy past and conspiracy theories to burn.

Last spring, in a far corner of the Internet, an unknown blogger began to piece together a conspiracy theory: The investment bank Goldman Sachs was using sophisticated, high-speed computers to siphon hundreds of millions of dollars in illegitimate trading profits from the New York Stock Exchange, invisibly undercutting the market and sidestepping the regulatory reach of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Only a few loyal readers paid attention to the blog called Zero Hedge, a no-frills site full of arcane analysis decipherable only by finance professionals. But when a former Goldman Sachs computer programmer was arrested for allegedly stealing software codes used for the firm’s electronic trading arm, and a federal prosecutor was quoted saying the codes could be used to “manipulate markets in unfair ways,” the once-obscure blog ignited a chain reaction. While on a golf outing, an editor at the New York Times learned from a friend who worked on Wall Street that the Zero Hedge allegation was the talk of the industry, and an assignment ensued. On July 24, the Times published a front-page article on so-called high-frequency trading and its potential abuses, which in turn prompted Chuck Schumer, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, to draft a letter to the SEC that same day. Twelve days later, the SEC signaled that it was considering a ban on the very computerized trading that Zero Hedge had attacked.

Suddenly, the shadowy figure behind Zero Hedge was a full-blown cult hero—a blogger with a bullet. His readership of angry traders and anti-government malcontents celebrated his newfound power. “Welcome to the party pal!!!” declared one of his fans in the comments section.

In a sign of just how radically the order has shifted in the political and media world, neither the Times nor Schumer had a clue about the identity of the pseudonymous author behind Zero Hedge. As it happens, the founder is a 30-year-old Bulgarian immigrant banned from working in the brokerage business for insider trading. A former hedge-fund analyst, he’s also a zealous believer in a sweeping conspiracy that casts the alumni of Goldman Sachs as a powerful cabal at the helm of U.S. policy, with the Treasury and the Federal Reserve colluding to preserve the status quo. His antidote? A purifying market crash that leads to the elimination of the big banks altogether and the reinstatement of genuine free-market capitalism.

Never mind Dow 10,000. Dan Ivandjiiski is all about Dow Zero.

Last year’s financial implosion left the investing public deeply unsettled about who or what to trust. The information that flowed from the banks, the ratings agencies, the regulatory agencies, and the mainstream media—the bedrock of the financial markets, in a sense—was viewed with great suspicion, and that created an opportunity for financial bloggers: a motley assortment of amateurs and professionals from all over the map. There are traders, economists, venture capitalists, financial advisers, and pajama-clad cranks all vying to explain the complex machinations that got us into this mess and to critique governmental solutions. Sites like Naked Capitalism, Seeking Alpha, the Big Picture, Infectious Greed, Angry Bear, Calculated Risk, and Zero Hedge have hatched communities based on discontent and disbelief, forming a kind of ragtag insurgency against the financial Establishment and what they view as its feckless lackeys in the government and media.

“We’re all happily cruising along, doing our financial-journalism thing, until late 2007,” explains Felix Salmon, who now blogs for Reuters. “We have relationships with flacks, and suddenly they started lying to us. Outright lies. And you’re like, ‘Wait, that’s not kosher, you can’t do that.’ ” Among bloggers, Salmon is more of the Establishment type, with little tolerance for the sloppy thinking of excitable bloggers.

Financial blogs grew out of the message boards launched by Yahoo! Finance in the late nineties, which were primarily a forum for day traders to argue investment ideas and vent little-guy frustrations about the Wall Street power structure.

Read more….

Gold Well Supported in Mid to High $900/oz Region

September 30, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

Mark O’Byrne submits:

Gold
Gold is currently trading at $1,001.80/oz and has bounced from a low of $991/oz and continues to follow currency movements. This week is the first week of the new Central Banks’ Gold Agreement, which caps gold sales from official reserves.

The third CBGA pact, which will run until September 2014, will limit gold sales to 400 tonnes a year, down from 500 tonnes from 2004-2009 pact. Western central banks are increasingly reluctant to deplete their gold reserves and with central banks internationally becoming net buyers of gold (particularly the Chinese in what is becoming known as the ‘Chinese gold put’), the yellow metal is likely to be well supported in the mid to high $900/oz region.

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COMEX Silver Positions Since May 2008

September 30, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

The following is based on a study of the COMEX silver positions since May of 2008. Information is taken from COT weekly reports.

The Commercial Short position in silver has reached what may be considered a tipping point as Comm Shorts added another 3400 short positions in the last reporting week, boosting the total short to 90,000 contracts or 450 million ounces of silver sold short. This comes at the same time that total silver stocks in the COMEX warehouse have fallen below 115 Moz. Only half of that amount is registered for delivery against short contracts, meaning the Commercial Short position is leveraged nearly 8 to 1. Other points to consider:

  • Commercial Shorts comprise 82% of all short positions
  • Commercial Short/Long ratio is at 3.48 for the second straight week
  • Difference between Friday Close and Commercial short calculated at negative 1.86, the highest level since October 31, 2008.

In July of 2008, the price of silver collapsed, falling from over $18 ounce to under $9 as of late October of that year. In July of 2008, the total Commercial Short position was 101,000 contracts or 505 Moz short vs 30,000 long positions. By October, the Commercial Short position had fallen to 56,000 vs 33,000 long positions.

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Byron King: Peak Gold + Weak Dollar = $2,000

September 30, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

The Gold Report submits:

http://www.theaureport.com/images/king.jpgA highly regarded resource sector expert who discusses his field fervently whenever possible and whose writings include the top-ranking Outstanding Investments, Byron King brings his views direct to The Gold Report audience in this exclusive interview. Unconvinced that the recession is behind us, he is equally sure that the "bottomless pit" mentality of stimulus spending will wreck the dollar. Those are among the reasons he sees $2,000-per-ounce gold on the not-too-distant horizon.

The Gold Report: We’ve seen quite a rebound in the markets since we spoke in May, and governments across the world have begun releasing some positive economic news. Are we out of the recession as Bernanke has told us?

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Gold Bullion Investing

September 30, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

In this day of political correctness, I’m not so sure that what I’ve been seeing and reading about economic recovery is news, or dare I say propaganda. It’s certainly understandable to try and quell fear and maintain order, otherwise panic ensues, and order is lost. Investors who have learned to read between the lines, are adopting the “CYA” (Cover Your Assets) approach to personal financing, and turning to gold bullion investing as a historically proven, safe haven funds diversion. These wise investors no longer need to fear, or rely on Administrative interventions, or economic recovery programs, as gold bullion investing grants true financial independence from bankers, brokers, and unorthodox governmental intermingling.

Physical gold bullion holders have complete control over the profit or loss of their precious metal investment, and can simply liquidate any portion of their bullion holdings in accordance with their individual, long-term and/or short-term financial needs. Bullion prices generally hover just above the current gold spot price, so 24-Karat, one-ounce and/or ten-ounce bars can be used for potential short-term gains, or as long-term contributions for gold-backed IRAs. Investors are advised to purchase reputable bullion brand names like Engelhard, Johnson Matthey, Credit Suisse, and PAMP Suisse, for purity and liquidity.

Bullion coins are only slightly more costly than bars, but make infinitely better personal items, as their exquisite designs literally reflect the artistry of modern minting. Most bullion coins are also U.S. government approved for IRA storage, and investors are encouraged to contact one of our friendly specialists, who offer institutional discounts on bullion bars, as well as bullion coins like 22-Karat, American Eagles, and 24-Karat, American Buffalos.

Danny Burns

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