Forum: Edelmetalen » Goud en zilver Rockin & Rollin

[verwijderd] 5 juli 2005 14:15

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

Gold forum - 30-Year seasonality chart

History is testament the greenback may well crash further than most
predict...and soon.

30-Year seasonality chart clearly shows the greenback usually suffers
its worst performance in the last Quarter of the year(based on long-
term empirical data).

www.seasonal-charts.com/cash/currenci...

I place great stock in this chart, because during most of the past 30
years the US government was clearly in support of the dollar as it
was the world's reserve currency. However, the Bush Administration
has been plagued for nearly five years with a dollar too dear vis-à-
vis other major currencies - causing the USA to lose its competitive
edge in world trade. This has caused the worst loss of US jobs since
President Hoover, who presided over the Stock Market Crash of 1929,
and subsequent Great American Depression of the early 1930s.
Moreover, the alarming cancerous growth of the RECORD Trade and
Current Account Deficits threaten to bring down the American
financial house of cards…if allowed to continue unabated.

I am saying that the US government will do whatever is necessary and
possible to exacerbate the seasonal downtrend tendency of the US
dollar during the remaining six months of 2005.

Take another long hard look at the 30-Year seasonality chart...and
remember the sage advice of LET THE TREND BE YOUR FRIEND...and ignore
occasional temporary BEAR MARKET RALLIES like recently.

www.seasonal-charts.com/cash/currenci...

To be sure as the greenback plummets, the shiny yellow will
soar...along with PM equities. Eventual and inevitable!

and

Au Contraire the 33-Year seasonality chart overtly testament the POG
has a strong tendency to rise on balance in the last 2 Quarters. It's
imperative to note that early July thru December gold demonstrates
its best performance of the year. The gold bull season is about to
embrace all goldbugs.

www.seasonal-charts.com/cash/metals/g...

and

Per the 30-year silver seasonal chart we are almost on the eve of one
of the most favorable periods for silver (late June thru December).

www.seasonal-charts.com/cash/metals/s...

__________________________________

There is NO guarantee the PMs will all start soaring right now, but
the probabilities are substantial that they soon will vigorously rise
reflecting multi-year seasonal tendencies.

Like the sage market saw and characteristic seasonality suggest:

"Let the trend be your friend"

[verwijderd] 6 juli 2005 08:46

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

A Manufactured CPI, Other Perils and Gold By David DesLauriers
05 Jul 2005 at 08:00 AM

TORONTO (ResourceInvestor.com) -- It seems especially clear to gold bulls and contrarians that the global economy is close to a tipping point. Good times don't last forever, trees don't grow to heaven, and history has borne out that at some point the excesses of every prolonged economic growth cycle have to be purged.

There is mounting evidence that something is about to break with a deadly cocktail of potential disasters conspiring against the sort of Goldilocks economic growth we've enjoyed. To name a few: Peak Oil, the housing bubble, overloaded and tapped out US consumers deep in debt, a very shaky European economic situation/idea, the reality that at some point China may stumble, the possibility of a repeat of 9/11, and P/E ratios and investor complacency levels that are still way too high.

The big question however, and one hotly debated by the prognosticators and pundits is what form the downturn will take? There are calls for everything from deflation, to stagflation, to hyperinflation, to a return to the realities of a longer cycle in the form of a Kondratieff Winter.

One interesting viewpoint which has been highlighted again recently is that the Consumers Price Index conveniently does not reflect the rate of inflation we are all experiencing.

The CPI and Inflation

As a consumer, the fact that prices are going up on everything is undeniable yet according to the official numbers, US Core CPI is up only 2.2% over the last year. Jim Puplava, President of broker-dealer Puplava Securities and operator of the popular website Financialsense.com, and Bill Gross of the mammoth PIMCO bond funds have both been outspoken on this issue, and the government 'con job' being perpetrated on all and sundry.

A recent article by Puplava entitled The Core Rate illustrated in simple terms some of the ways that the numbers are being adjusted. Here is a sampling:

Substitution
"Up until the Boskin/Greenspan initiative surfaced the CPI was computed each month using a fixed basket of goods. That changed after the Boskin Commission (1996). The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) began using substitutions in their monthly computations of the CPI. If beef prices rose, it was assumed that people substituted chicken. If chicken prices rose, then consumers would switch to fish. If all these prices rose, well consumers would become vegetarians or maybe start eating Alpo."

Weighting
"In addition to changing items in the index through the substitution principle the BLS also changed the weights of items in the index. Instead of straight arithmetic weightings the BLS began to use geometric weighting. The benefit of geometric weighting is that it automatically gave a lower weighting to those items in the CPI that were rising in price and higher weightings to items in the index that were falling in price."

"As an example of how geometric weighting can produce lower values, a recent example from the 90’s bull market will illustrate the point through two Value Line Indexes. The indexes are essentially the same. They are made up of 1650 stocks. One index is arithmetically weighted and the other is geometrically weighted. Between January 1990 and December 2000, both indexes—which include the same stocks—produced totally different outcomes and returns."

"The return from January 1990 to December 2000 for the geometric index was 52% versus over 300% for the arithmetic index."

Hedonics
"The manipulation didn’t stop there. The bureau also began to adjust prices for quality. This practice became known as hedonics. Hedonics adjusts the prices of goods as a result of the increased pleasure a consumer derives from a product. A few examples will illustrate how removed the index has moved away from reality. Tim LaFleur is a commodity specialist for televisions at the BLS. In December last year he adjusted the price of a 27-inch television set for quality improvements. The 27-inch television set had a retail cost of $329.99. However, he decided the new model, which still sold for $329.99, had a better screen. After putting this improvement through the governments complex hedonic adjustment model he determined the improvement in the picture was worth at least $135! Taking in this improvement he adjusted the price of the TV by $135, concluding that the price of the TV had actually fallen by 29%! The price reflected in the CPI was not the actual retail store cost of $329.99, but $194.99. The only problem for we consumers is that if we went to Best Buy or Circuit City to buy that TV, we would still pay $329.99."

"Another example of hedonics at work is the way the BLS treats rising automobile prices. Mr. Reese, a specialist for autos, took a 2005 model car, which went from $17,890 in 2004 to $18,490 in 2005. After adjusting for quality items and making antilock disc brakes standard, the bureau adjusted the actual $600 price increase down by $225. The problem for we consumers is that the price of the car in dealer showrooms was still $18,490."

The Substitution Effect
"Substitution also plays a role in reducing the CPI. From 2001-2003 the CPI index fell by 1.6% reaching a low of 1.1%. The reason for the decline was the substitution effect. Instead of using new car prices, which were going up each year, the BLS substituted used car prices, which were falling. In place of exploding real estate prices, the Bureau gave more weight to the price of rents, which were falling as more households bought homes. Rents were given more weight even though 69% of households own a home versus the 31% that rent."

"Many homeowners may not be aware that as a homeowner they receive a fictional income referred to as Owner’s Equivalent Rent (OER). Essentially the BLS samples the price of rents in residential housing to come up with what a homeowner would receive hypothetically if they were to rent their own home. That sounds idiotic to me, since most homeowners would agree the family castle is in many cases a money pit and not a source of income. Unless the home is owned free and clear, most homeowners have cash outgo each month due to mortgage payments, property taxes, utilities, and repairs. As absurd as this concept appears, OER gets the largest weighting in the CPI index of 23% versus actual rent, which gets only a 6% weighting. OER is purely fictional, yet it carries the greatest weight within the CPI index."

Seasonal Adjustments
"As if these distortions weren’t enough, there are the seasonal adjustments that remove the price increases that occur during certain times of the year, i.e. gasoline prices during the summer driving season or heating oil during the winter. Seasonal adjustments are nothing more than “intervention.” They are designed to remove or scale down volatility or price spikes. The only problem is that price spikes never show up in the CPI. Only price drops get recorded. Price spikes are statistically smoothed away so they never show up. Sharp spikes in oil, gasoline, heating oil, or food get statistically adjusted. This keeps the CPI low."

All of this seems quite compelling, and equally disconcerting. It is hard to have much faith in the numbers when one begins to realize how they are crafted.

As Bill Gross points out in Haute Con Job "The CPI as calculated may not be a conspiracy but it’s definitely a con job foisted on an unwitting public by government officials w

[verwijderd] 7 juli 2005 20:48

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

ECB Gold Sales Repeatedly Cap Price Around $440

GATA press release via Business Wire Thursday, July 7, 2005

The price of gold has been capped at $440 per ounce since last
December by repeated selling of gold reserves by European central
banks and the European Central Bank itself, the Gold Anti-Trust
Action Committee disclosed today.

GATA's finding was based on the research of its consultant, gold
market expert John Brimelow of Aegis Capital in New York.

"The ECB reported on Wednesday a sale of 360 million euros in gold
last week, 996,592 ounces at the bank's new book value for gold, or
31 tonnes," Brimelow said today. "This is a huge amount, matched only
by the sale of 47 tonnes announced at the end of March (but reported
only in May) and a 31.9-tonnes sale last December last year."

Each of these sales corresponded with gold's penetration of the $440
price level, as can been seen at the one-year gold price chart here:

www.kitco.com

"An indisputable pattern has now developed for the ECB to step
forward as a massive seller when gold approaches the $440s," Brimelow
said. "Curiously, the euro price of gold does not seem to be as
sensitive an issue with the ECB."

The massive selling of gold in recent months by European central
banks, Brimelow added, suggests that they will be obliged to suspend
sales in September if they are to keep within the volume limits they
set for themselves in the renewal of the Washington Agreement on Gold.

The latest ECB gold sales were shown on the bank's consolidated
financial report for July 1, posted this week on the Internet here:

www.ecb.de/press/pr/wfs/2005/html/fs0...

Brimelow's research echoed comments made Tuesday by John Embry, chief
investment strategist for Sprott Asset Management of Toronto, during
an interview with Report on Business Television in Canada. Embry, who
will speak at GATA's Gold Rush 21 conference in Dawson City, Yukon
Territory, Canada, from August 7 to 9, likened the current
intervention of central banks against the gold price to their
coordinated selling of gold in the 1960s via what was called the
London Gold Pool. Embry noted that market demand for bullion
eventually overwhelmed central bank supplies then and he predicted a
similar outcome soon.

GATA Chairman Bill Murphy today repeated the organization's belief
that, because of their sales and leasing of gold and their false
accounting of leased gold as gold still in the vault, central banks
possess only a fraction of the gold they claim to have. Murphy added
that the purpose of central bank gold sales and leasing is not really
what is represented by the banks -- to raise money from a "dead
asset" -- but rather to manipulate the currency and precious metals
markets and deceive them about reckless government monetary policies.

[verwijderd] 11 juli 2005 10:05

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

Former Wall Street Whiz Kid Says Gold Equals Insurance
By Jon Nones 08 Jul 2005 at 11:45 AM

St. LOUIS (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Formerly labeled as the Wall Street whiz kid, Peter Grandich sounds off about today’s gold market after yesterday’s horrific events in London in an exclusive interview with Resource Investor. Grandich is founder and managing member of Grandich Publications, LLC, which publishes The Grandich Letter, North of the Border and The Blue Chip & Income Report.

JON NONES: Yesterday morning, gold rocketed by about $5 after the terrible news in London and then plummeted throughout the day. Why the sudden rise and fall?

PETER GRANDICH: The immediate reaction after news like [yesterday] is to seek out safe havens until the dust clears. However, the plunge in gold prices with less than an hour to go was very suspicious given there wasn’t any new news at the time.

JON NONES: You commented yesterday after the events in London that, “Sadly, terrorism is once again a factor to the gold equation.” Can you elaborate on this?

PETER GRANDICH: One of my major concerns here in the U.S. is that most Americans have become complacent again about terrorism. I have stated that an attack here is in my mind a question of when, not if. Gold buyers have not considered the terrorism factor for quite a while but now can’t ignore it for the foreseeable future.

JON NONES: What are the short- and long-term implications of terrorist attacks on the market?

PETER GRANDICH: That all depends if and when this attack is followed up with another. If another couple of years pass, complacency is likely to return. However, if another similar attack occurs, especially on U.S. soil, I believe the fears and actions seen right after 911 can return and have far more reaching effects.

JON NONES: If concurrent attacks continue, what would that do to the gold market?

PETER GRANDICH: Believing such an unwanted scenario unfolded, I believe gold would become the currency of choice and rise against most other currencies, including the U.S. dollar.

JON NONES: Should gold investors be worried about this? What’s the worst-case scenario?

PETER GRANDICH: Gold is not normally a “feel good” purchase. One wants to own it not because “all is well.” While it’s not the #1 reason, and not a popular subject to spend time on, I personally believe it’s not a coincidence that gold bottomed around the time of 911. The world’s landscape changed forever after 911 and like it or not, gold does benefit from the change.

JON NONES: If not terrorism, what should gold investors be concerned about right now?

PETER GRANDICH: Gold has more positive fundamentals now than any other time in nearly 25 years. Among the key factors are:

A much improved supply vs. demand picture. The World Gold Council recently reported very strong investment and jewellery demand for the 1st quarter of 2005. Hard to imagine when you look at the junior resource sector, but the major gold producers are struggling to keep up their production levels and need significant new discoveries like yesterday, or they are going to have to consider acquisitions and/or mergers.
While the U.S. dollar is currently in the midst of a significant counter-trend rally, the belief is after it runs its course, the numerous economic woes facing the U.S. will still be acute and the dollar can go to new lows in 2006 and beyond.
Americans have been robbing Peter to pay Paul and Peter is tapped out. The real estate bubble has been the last place for these debt mongers to feast, and that bubble will burst no ifs buts or ands.
JON NONES: After reading your newsletter, it seems you may be joining the “gold is manipulated” group. Can you further comment on this?

PETER GRANDICH: While I have had great respect for the work of GATA and Bill Murphy, I just couldn’t blame a “mysterious group” for when I felt un-natural forces cause a decline in gold that otherwise shouldn’t have taken place. However, last Friday July 1st, gold was literally attacked and not a drop of news could be found to explain it. I first started monitoring gold back in 1985 and I can honestly say the only explanation is a “bear raid.”

PETER GRANDICH: I further became concerned when gold again nearly fell out of bed shortly before, and just after, COMEX gold began trading today. The final straw was within minutes of COMEX closing when again, without any news event or even some technical factor being hit, gold was attacked again and lost all its gains to close unchanged.

PETER GRANDICH: You may not see a smoking gun but you can sure smell one.

JON NONES: Last month, gold seemed to be rising unconnected to the dollar/euro correlation. How linked do you think gold really is to this relationship?

PETER GRANDICH: As much as that correlation worked for the last several years, it also didn’t for many others. I think if enough so-called experts state a market is moving one way or another, that belief will become the accepted reason. Once it does, its hard to go against it until enough time passes and it becomes apparent it’s no longer valid. Such should be the case going forward. Europe meanwhile is among the weakest economically so I don’t see the euro significantly rebounding until the house of cards here in the U.S folds - an event I see within the next 6-2 months. Then the euro won’t so much rise against the dollar as it will not be as poor a choice.

JON NONES: The past few sessions saw gold falling back a bit. Is the rally over?

PETER GRANDICH: I believe gold is in a secular bull market that should have three phases. We’ve only begun the second whereupon gold should rise against most other currencies. The third phase is when your neighbor tells you how they’ve sold their tech stock to buy some mining company they can’t spell or pronounce.

JON NONES: Summer months are usually pretty tame for the bull market. What do you predict?

PETER GRANDICH: Gold is now in its most seasonally weak period. September through early December is its best period historically.

JON NONES: Where do you see gold at the end of the year?

PETER GRANDICH: Higher! Seriously, I think we can get above the old highs around $455 this summer and still don’t rule out $500 this year.

JON NONES: Will higher oil prices affect the gold price?

PETER GRANDICH: That relationship has been seriously beaten up in that the gold/oil ratio is at its most stretched point in years. Personally, I think oil is likely to top out in the next 1-3 months so I don’t think it will be a big factor.

JON NONES: How will the Fed increasing interest rates affect the price?

PETER GRANDICH: The thought is higher rates translate into a higher U.S. dollar, which one is told is bad for gold. First, I think gold is bigger than that. But I also think the bulk of interest rates increases are now behind us. Deflation is more of a worry for me going forward than inflation. The debt crisis in America is acute and the Fed knows it.

JON NONES: What other catalysts should we look for?

PETER GRANDICH: Believe it or not, supply versus demand is one of the most bullish factors. As we go forward, the market is going to realize how much more favorable this factor is and price gold accordingly. I’ll answer your next question by stating gold would be fairly priced in my mind somewhere around $700 an ounce.

JON NONES: Is gold a good investment right now?

PETER GRANDICH: Absolutely.

[verwijderd] 12 juli 2005 18:38

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

Indian government will authorize more gold importers
By G. Chandrashekhar The Hindu, Chennai, India Monday, July 11, 2005
www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/07/...
00.htm

MUMBAI -- The government has finally made up its mind on further
liberalising gold imports by authorising more entities to import in
addition to the current list of some 17 agencies that include
government parastatals, star trading houses, and banks.

The Ministry of Finance has decided to expand the number of
authorised importers of gold beyond the current designated agencies.
For this purpose it is seeking to develop a set of criteria for those persons, agencies and entities who would be authorised to import gold.

The decision is sought to be justified on the ground that it would ensure adequate supply in the market for the benefit of consumers. Early last year, ahead of the general elections, the then Finance Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, announced the government's decision to make gold imports free, subject to guidelines to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India.

Mr. Singh had asserted that unrestricted imports would help
jewellery makers and others to access the yellow metal freely
without having to go through intermediaries.

Over the last year and a half, the RBI has issued no guidelines and
imports continue to be routed through the designated agencies.

Less than a handful of active players are currently engaged in gold
imports.

Some of the active importers are said to be busy trying to postpone
the inevitable.

To facilitate issuance of draft circular by the RBI for import of primary gold and silver, the Foreign Trade Division in the Department of Economic Affairs under the Finance Ministry has written to bullion associations seeking their inputs on the set of criteria for authorisation.

Players in the bullion market have welcomed the development, but are
not exactly excited.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr. Bhargav Vaidya, a bullion analyst,
said that all players should be allowed to import.

He added that such imports should be from members of London Bullion
Merchants Association (LBMA), but not its associates.
As the capital adequacy norms of LBMA are somewhat tough and such members are regulated, allowing import from full members (and not from associates) would increase the comfort level of importers here,he said.

It is unclear whether the import authorisation would depend on the
structure of the entity.

For instance, would corporates alone be permitted, to the exclusion
of proprietary and partnership firms?

[verwijderd] 14 juli 2005 12:02

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

Beste Gung Ho

Enige tijd geleden plaatste ik een artikel van een goudanalist (Clive R.) die in uw ogen nogal een omstreden reputatie heeft opgebouwd.

Als ik uw berichten globaal doorneem en deze met onderstaand artikel van Stewart Armstrong vergelijk dan komt het mij voor dat uw meningen meer dan een beetje overeenkomen. Ook Armstrong is geporteerd van "junior mines", hoewel dit ook te maken zal hebben met zijn consultancy, en is optimistisch over de toekomstige prijs van goud in het algemeen.

Ik wil u graag twee vragen stellen.

1) Ik wil graag van u horen of u Stewart Armstrong kent en of u zijn analyses deelt.
2) Het lijkt mij dat een correctie van de Rand-Dollar verhouding aanstaande is. Wat zijn uw gedachten hierover?

hartelijke groet,
Honky Tonk Girl

D. Stewart Armstrong

“Sometimes You Get it Right!”
July 7, 2005
Dear Friends:

I wrote this article, A 2005 Gift to the Gold Community, way back in the beginning of the year and had a terrifically positive response from it. Peter has been gracious enough to repost it. Sometimes you get it right is indeed the message and I hope you’ll find the piece as beneficial in July as you did in January. Information is the most valuable investing commodity; accurate information is worth its weight in gold and you can quote me on that one.

The gold community currently appears to be suffering from low morale, especially as would pertain to the junior mining and exploration companies. I believe that Jim Sinclair has his finger on the pulse in his July first commentary. While gold is being pounded down towards the $420 level, there are entities endeavoring to pick up gold stocks “on the cheap” during the move down. Is it orchestrated? I agree with Mr. Sinclair and believe that it is.

If that is accurate information, then you have the keys to your own particular fortune. Buy low and sell high. Right now we are at the low point. It is a low point in a primary trend in gold that is definitely headed higher.

The bottom line is that it is darkest just before the dawn. Our dawn in precious metals is coming so don’t be dissuaded into selling your gold shares. Take a firm stance on the positions you favor and don’t bolt just because the price of gold is being hammered. In the big picture, this roller coaster of gold pricing is but useless noise. Don’t listen to it as it is counter productive and it is created solely to scare you out of your positions at the worst possible time.

Gold is heading upwards towards unheard of heights. The timing is always difficult to predict. However, remember that the fundamentals of an historic price rise are more in place than ever before. Things like the US trade, account, and manufacturing deficits, coupled with ever expanding entitlement programs, and the escalating plethora of international perplexities all contribute to a social order which will vacillate and remain in a state of flux for some time. This is all gold positive.

I want to stress that it is important to be careful for what you wish. When the precious metals complex reaches its zenith, there could be systemic difficulties in the overall social order. I say that because with such powerful anti-gold forces in motion, when the dam breaks and the PM prices move to historic heights, it will mean that those forces will have been overcome. That might not be a pretty picture. No intelligent person would want war or trade conflicts in this day and age. America is not in the best of shape. What we need is sane political decisions that are based in truth. Often times these are mutually exclusive categories. We need to be flexible, aware, vigilant, and tolerant. Americans in particular need to put their petty individual differences aside and work for the true good of the Republic as the founding fathers envisioned it. In some ways, that is asking a leopard to change its spots, but it can be done. However, our political institutions really need to focus on the people they represent and not the special interest groups that pay their way; pave their way into office.

In the interim, the “Powers that Be” on both sides of the Atlantic, do not want you to be losing confidence in their fiat currencies and will do everything in their power to prevent such occurrence. Bill Buckler of the Privateer always begins his weekly gold commentary by stating that gold is a political metal. Please don’t ever forget this as it is a brilliant observation in its simplicity. As a political metal, gold is at odds with the dollar and with the Euro and even though the dollar and the Euro are jockeying for position on the international stage, they are in the end, just paper with colored ink. And if the truth really be told, neither of them holds a candle to gold either individually or even collectively.

Richard Russell in his latest monthly newsletter is reiterating the same basic ideas. I quote from his Dow Theory Letters:

“It’s taken almost two centuries for bankers to pull the wool over Americans’ eyes, but today you and I are working for intrinsically worthless paper that can be created by bureaucrats — created without sweat, without creative ability, without work, without anything but a decision by the Federal Reserve. This is the disease at the base of today’s monetary system. And like a cancer, it will spread until the system ultimately falls apart. This is the tragedy of the great lie. The great lie is that fiat paper represents a store of value, money of lasting wealth.”

We live in a global village and one that is getting smaller and more competitive by the day. As more people look to protect their wealth and look towards the future, gold will come more and more into play. Don’t be left out.

Gold and gold shares had a very impressive “run-up” several years ago and it was taken very seriously by the establishment. After all, if gold is a political metal and competes with the dollar and other fiat currencies, it stands to reason that they will throw everything but the kitchen sink at it in order to keep it “under control”. That is exactly what they’ve done. The fly in the ointment is supply. There is only so much physical gold to go around. You cannot manipulate physical supply. However, you can manipulate paper supply. I don’t like the idea of buying shares (ETF) of gold via the stock market. It is simply another vehicle that they use to manipulate a “supply” of virtual gold which is only a number on some computer. Do I trust them? Yes, just like I would now trust the people who ran Enron.

However, time and events catch up with the best laid plans of mice and men, and we are now at points where that control over gold vis a vis the usual mechanisms of market machinations are at the end during this particular cycle. The Powers that Be will need to create new mechanisms in order to keep gold under control. However, with so many people desiring gold as a way of preserving wealth, those mechanisms are going to be more and more difficult to implement. This is for the simple reason that it is so very limited in supply; real supply, not virtual or derivative supply.

Don’t forget that both governments and individuals will be competing for the same very finite supply of precious metals and this again makes it difficult to control the markets. They will endeavor to manipulate, to manage, to control, but ultimately they will fail because in the end, gold is f

[verwijderd] 14 juli 2005 12:30

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

freedom and liberty around the globe are the same group(s) who are endeavoring to compress your wealth into a pile of paper and promises.

I ask you one question and then I will take your leave, dear reader. When has the government willingly and obliging acted with integrity on any promise it has made where your money is concerned. Put another way, if you had a choice between gold and promises which would you choose?

At this point in time, we simply cannot believe at face value what the mainstream press presents to us as accurate information. It is up to each individual to discover alternate sources of information which will assist them in making intelligent choices. Once again, I offer up to you alternative choices for accurate and erudite information.

[verwijderd] 14 juli 2005 21:47

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

het is een beetje laat (met de goud op 419) maar ik verwacht mbt. de goede gang van zaken in amerika en een toppende olieprijs op korte termijn wat zwakte in goud.
steun op 400 en 375.

mvg.
ms

[verwijderd] 15 juli 2005 11:47

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

Beste HTG,

quote:
honky tonk girl schreef:
>>>Ik wil u graag twee vragen stellen.<<<

>>>1) Ik wil graag van u horen of u Stewart Armstrong kent en of u zijn analyses deelt.<<<

D. Stewart Armstrong en ook dit artikel “Sometimes You Get it Right!” July 7, 2005 is bij mij bekend. Zijn analyses zijn mede gebaseerd op info van een aantal goede bekenden zoals Sinclair, Buckler en Russell.
Daar is niets mis mee net als met zijn/deze analyse in voornoemd artikel.

>>>2) Het lijkt mij dat een correctie van de Rand-Dollar verhouding aanstaande is. Wat zijn uw gedachten hierover?<<<

De carry trade $ > Rand lijkt nu inderdaad minder te worden en wat af te zwakken de SA rente lijkt omlaag te gaan en UA rente wellicht omhoog ? Indien ik dit exact allemaal al wist was ik natuurlijk allang spekkoper(goud!) er spelen bovendien ook nog allerhande geopolitieke factoren een onvoorspelbare rol en de euro/rand lijkt zich nu ook al behoorlijk te gaan roeren.
Als ik meer info heb zal ik hier posten of in een apart draadje .

Succes

GH

[verwijderd] 19 juli 2005 15:58

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

$850 gold forecast out of Australia Peter Gonnella '18-JUL-05 10:12'

PERTH (Mineweb.com) -- Privately-owned Aussie-based research and financial advisory group, Fat Prophets, is tipping the price of gold will more than double over the next few years during which it expects real assets to outperform financial assets.

Set to precipitate the gold price increase to “well north of US$850” is a climate of further US dollar depreciation and soaring oil prices and concerns it may lead to a material slowdown in US and global economic growth.

As a result a softer economic growth scenario and weak US dollar may help fuel the flight to and improve the appeal of real assets such as gold.

According to Fat Prophets, the key catalyst of the predicted US dollar descent is the US debt-driven consumption spree, which has generated a whopping current account deficit and is unsustainable.

“America has witnessed a consumption boom financed by debt on an unprecedented scale,” it stated. “History tells us that no country has been able to borrow indefinitely.”

Many analysts feel the bursting of this bubble will be extremely damaging to the US dollar, which in turn may create a “significant source of instability for the world financial system”.

“All bubbles end, and we believe the latest low interest rate induced asset bubble will prove
no exception,” foreshadowed Fat Prophets analyst Angus Geddes.

“For the US, when the music finally stops, the hangover will likely be considerable as the economy corrects the incumbent sizeable imbalances.

“This bodes dark tidings for the US dollar, and we anticipate that the greenback has much further to fall.” (It has lost as much as one-third of its value since 2002.)

Similar to the 1970s, commodities or real assets have risen strongly this decade and Geddes claimed it appears “the rush has begun to convert US dollars into tangible assets” and “the case for investing in gold continues to grow”.

“We believe real assets will outperform financial assets over the next few years … (and that) gold will rise well north of US$850 an ounce over the medium to longer term,” forecast the Sydney-based analyst, who is one of the co-founders and a director of Fat Prophets.

If Geddes’ outlook for the gold price comes to pass, some gold equities are expected to enjoy a favourable flow-on effect.

“Short term the price may continue to be volatile, and investors should be aware this volatility will likely be reflected in share price movements,” he cautioned.

“Nonetheless, from a longer term investment perspective, and as part of a diversified portfolio, we recommend maintaining an overweight exposure to gold and gold stocks.”

Fat Prophets also holds the view that the record oil price will eventually drag gold upwards and that it has the potential to significantly boost gold investment demand.

“Middle Eastern nations are receiving record amounts of US dollars in exchange for oil, and this is clearly having a positive impact on demand as vast quantities of 'petro-dollars' are diversified into hard assets,” it suggested.

“This last happened on a grand scale during the 1970s when a skyrocketing oil price contributed to gold hitting an all-time-high of US$850/oz.”

But, the bullion price has lagged that of oil. “Based on historic ratios between gold and oil, with oil around US$60 a barrel, gold should be valued at well north of US$500/oz,” Geddes pointed out.

“Oil and gold have historically been strongly correlated, with the relationship standing the test of time,” he added. “We believe this time around should prove no different.”

In addition, Asian nations are widely seen as having the power to become an even greater force in terms of influencing demand and price. Japan is already a major purchaser of gold (as a hedge against the risk of banks defaulting) and rapidly industrialising China (which now allows individuals to buy gold direct from banks) and India are sleeping giants.

[verwijderd] 20 juli 2005 08:49

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

Bears vs. Bulls in the Undervalued Silver Market By Gene Arensberg
19 Jul 2005 www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?r...

SUGARLAND, Texas (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Right around technical milestones, the charts are more important because so many short- term traders are looking at the same thing and reacting to it. Once away from those milestones, market fundamentals, greed/fear, supply-demand and cyclic dominance can wrest control back again.

As interesting and useful as charts are, they don’t drive the market very much except right around major support/resistance zones. That’s because the charts don’t buy or sell silver. Traders, investors, manufacturers, speculators and fund managers do.

Liquidity, as always, moves the price

Market drivers for silver are what they are. On the supply side, mine output is still falling and thought by industry watchers to continue that trend for some time to come. Rising prices theoretically increase the supply of melt and scrap and vice versa. After the U.S. finished distributing its huge hoard of silver, there isn’t much left in public sector silver sales these days, and so on.

On the demand side, anecdotal evidence suggests there has been increasing interest in silver as an investment vehicle. A new silver ETF or two are in the works. Silver is still a big industrial commodity. Jewellery and other finery uses quite a bit, and so on.

An entire essay or book could be written about the supply-demand aspects of silver, but in general the supply is currently static to falling and investment demand is rising, which means that over time there ought to be an upward revaluation of silver as measured in mere paper dollars.

Along the way to that upward revaluation though, there are times when cycles get tired, investors lose patience, momentum players chase something else, etc. When all those forces happen at the same time, a vacuum on the buy side is temporarily created. If that happens, the years-long uptrend takes its first major corrective hit. Something that might, repeat might be getting underway with silver.

When something like that happens, though silver is undervalued and should be going up, instead it offers a buying opportunity, puzzling and confounding the folks that do extensive fundamental research and rightly conclude that the relatively tiny silver market is undervalued. Putting market manipulation to the side for another day, as with any other free or nearly free market the silver market can be boiled down to a maddeningly simple idea. That is liquidity, or how much wealth is chasing how much silver at any given time.

We just saw a very good example of that concept in the October ’03 to March ’04 spectacular parabolic moon shot move of silver from less than $5 to $8.50. As silver broke out of its years long trading range the market got exciting. Even pension funds were singing “Silver Bells” as more than the usual suspects poured funds into the market. (More wealth chasing the same silver.) And, look what happened when the party was over. From $8.50 all the way back to $5.45 in about a month in a buy-side vacuum. (Less wealth chasing the same silver.)

Did the fundamentals change during that wild period? No, not really. Did silver find its true fundamental relative value in paper currency? No, most of us don’t think so. But that roller coaster did teach us a good deal about liquidity in the small silver market. It taught us that when silver gets popular, there just isn’t enough to go around for all the players big and small and prices can really move. It also taught us that when the bigger players head for the exits, it’s probably a good time to go bargain hunting!

Technically speaking

Silver so far has not managed to regain its footing above the 2-year uptrend line broken the Friday before the Independence Day holiday in the U.S. Since then it has tested a minor support level just below and made a recovery attempt, but has not had enough oomph to get past the former implied support represented by that trend line.

That former support now acts as resistance unless it is broken to the upside convincingly. For bargain hunters, the tantalizing possibilities of a full-fledged summer breakdown in silver are very interesting to contemplate, but for true bargain hunters it has to a better job of breaking first. The big sellers managed to crash that long-term trend line, but not the widening rectangular trading range that looks like a “flag.”

Zooming in on the graph, we get a better picture of the 4-month long rectangular trading range of between roughly $6.80 and $7.60.

Bulls and bears

The bulls among us would really like to see silver make a convincing thrust back above that uptrend line and the very important 200-day moving average (roughly $7.15) setting up the exciting technical possibility of a bear trap. Bear traps are powerful signals when confirmed and usually herald at least a rally and sometimes a bona fide change in trend.

The bears, (and long patient bargain hunters) oozing with anticipation about now, are hoping that the $6.80 support gives way, sending the silver price into one of its periodic, but usually brief, high-percentage plunges. However, if the silver bears don’t get on with that sure-enough breakdown attempt, and pretty soon, this might be as good as it gets for bargain hunters.

Until the silver market does one or the other, and while remaining ready to deploy resources at any time, for the short term maybe it’s best just to be a patient silver spectator.

[verwijderd] 22 juli 2005 10:48

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

China revalues the renminbi

China finally agreed to revalue its currency against the US dollar this week. The token 2% revaluation was probably meant to appease Washington bureaucrats more than anything else. It seems to have worked: the White House and the Treasury applauded the move.

The magnitude of the renminbi's revaluation against the dollar is totally insignificant, but it was interesting that China will in future peg the renminbi against a basket of currencies. They did not say which currencies make up the basket, although one can assume that it would include the dollar, the euro and the yen. It makes sense to use a basket of currencies for a currency peg since the US dollar is losing its hegemony as the world's only reserve currency. The euro block economies rival the US economy and therefore the euro should be just as important to international trade and foreign reserve accounts as the dollar. The same goes for Japan; it is the third largest economy behind the US and Europe.

Perhaps the most striking result of China's revaluation of its currency was the effect it had on the dollar with respect to other currencies in Asia. I expected Japan and many other Southeast Asian countries to follow suit when China revalued its currency and, indeed, just minutes after the Chinese announcement, Malaysia announced that it would loosen the ringgit's peg to the dollar and adopt a strategy similar to China's.

I also expected the dollar to fall across the board following the renminbi's revaluation, and it dropped against the Japanese yen, the Singapore dollar, the Thai Baht, the Indian rupee and the Korean won, to name but a few. As the dollar declines anything bought on international markets with dollars will become more expensive, including gold.

The US dollar-gold price moved up as the dollar fell on Thursday although it was mitigated somewhat by the fact that the euro also fell against the yen and other South East Asian currencies. The big move, however, is unlikely to occur until China allows the renminbi to appreciate more significantly.

During the Mexican peso crisis in 1995 the price of gold in pesos doubled. When the yen fell in 1995 and 1996 the gold price in yen rose by 35%. In 1997 the gold price rose more than 40% in both Philippine pesos and Malaysian ringgits, 67% in Korean wons and more than 400% in Indonesian rupiahs. From 1999 to 2002 the gold price increased more than 40% in euros. We are currently in a US dollar bear market. The gold price has already increased by more than 60% in dollar terms and I expect it to increase another 75% or so before it's all over.

During the past fifteen years gold protected investors across the globe as one currency crisis after another took its toll. It will do the same in the US, but you have to own it first.

Paul van Eeden

[verwijderd] 27 juli 2005 09:00

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

Near-Term Outlook for North American Gold Equities By Craig Stanley

TORONTO (ResourceInvestor.com) -- The rebound in North American gold equities since mid May has been quite a contrast to the first four and a half months of 2005, when share performance decoupled from gold price movements.

Yet the recent upshot appears to be simply the result of gold stocks moving from an ‘oversold’ position to one of fair value according to Geoff Stanley and Heather Douglas at BMO Nesbitt Burns. In their firm’s third quarter Red Book outlook, the analysts note that the senior and intermediate producers are trading at an average 22% premium to net asset value, broadly in line with the two-year average of 30%. They also calculate that the market is using a gold price of $487 an ounce to value gold equities, very close to the $60 an ounce premium average over the past two years.

Outside of a rising gold price, there appears little in the near-term that could propel stocks higher.

A large part of this outlook is based on the escalating capital and operating costs that have caused lower-than-expected earnings and cash flow.

Gold Fields Mineral Services estimates that on average, total average production cash costs have increased from $180 an ounce in 2002 to $253 an ounce in 2004, a 41% jump.

In a report dated June 30, 2005, Michael Durose at Scotia Capital wrote that operating margins are suffering from a mixture of gold reserve depletion, high grading of gold reserves, rising energy prices, and a stronger rand and Australian and Canadian dollar, the result of a weaker US dollar.

Capital costs for new projects are also rising, anywhere from 15% to 40% according to Durose, as a result of higher steel and cement prices, as well as escalating labour costs due to the limited pool of expertise in an industry gutted of talent by the 1990s bear market.

Part of the disconnect between bullion and equities earlier this year was attributed to the introduction of new gold-backed exchange-traded funds - streetTRACKS Gold Trust [NYSE:GLD] and Barclays’ iShares COMEX Gold Trust [AMEX:IAU] - that competed with traditional equities for investor money.

Durose believes that some hedge funds have been shorting equities against the ETFs, saying that these outfits can fine-tune their leverage to gold prices without exposing themselves to the technical and political risk associated with actually producing the metal.

Yet the analyst does add that if gold were to jump above $500 an ounce, equities could post superior gains relative to bullion.

Another issue: though they favour intermediate producers based on their relative valuation to seniors, Stanley and Douglas at BMO Nesbitt Burns wrote that the group’s fixation with annual production exceeding one million ounces increases the risk of share dilution through M&A activity.

Over the long-term, the only thing that will likely propel stocks higher is a rise in global gold prices and/or a fall in the US dollar.

Factors that point against a significant near-term rise in gold prices include higher contangos, modest supply increases and slower producer hedge reductions.

Some recent events that have been positive for higher US dollar gold prices include:

The decision by G8 countries not to sell gold to fund debt relief for poor countries.
The likelihood of the Federal Reserve putting a stop to its rate hikes later this year. Considering the ‘conundrum’ of low long-term bond yields, it’s unlikely the Fed will purposely cause an inverted yield curve by continually hiking short-term rates.
The decision by the Chinese government to revalue the yuan, putting downward pressure on the US dollar.
Increased physical demand when the Indian wedding season starts in the fall (though investors new to the sector should realize that this factor is trumpeted every year).
Whether these factors will be enough to boost gold prices, and stock valuations, remains to been seen.

Yet as analysts at Desjardins Securities wrote on June 27, 2005, the six-year bear market for gold in US dollars ended in December 2002 after prices broke out of the $250 to $325 an ounce range. The 13-year bear market for gold in yen ended last September after surpassing the ¥44,000 mark. If bullion can just sustain itself above 350 euros an ounce, a first in 17 years, this would suggest that the bull market for gold prices has “gone global.”

In such an environment, equity investors may take solace in the old adage “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

[verwijderd] 28 juli 2005 08:31

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

Gold Executive Sees Tight Supply Keeping Prices High
From Reuters Wednesday, July 27, 2005
today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSea...
storyID=335925+27-Jul-2005+RTRS&srch=Newmont

NEW YORK -- Gold supply constraints will prevent the price of the
metal from falling below $420 per ounce in the short run and it will
almost certainly rise again in September or October, a Newmont
Mining Corp. executive said on Wednesday.

"June and July are usually the lowest for the gold price," said
Newmont President Pierre Lassonde, also chairman of the World Gold
Council. "But gold does not want to go below $420.

"If it does not want to go down, come September or October it will
go up, given the supply situation. Gold is in a continuing rising period."

Lassonde, whose comments came during a conference call with analysts
to discuss Newmont's second-quarter earnings, told the Reuters Mining Summit in June he saw gold selling for $525 per ounce within six months. It closed on the COMEX in New York on Wednesday at $424.90.

"It is very difficult to see a huge increase in supply (of gold) in
the next few years," Lassonde said on the Newmont call. Unlike in
the 1980s and 1990s, when there was a doubling of production and a
rash of new mining and prospecting technology, there is little
exploration going on today because of civil conflicts or government
policies and longera lead times to obtain mining permits.

It now takes 7-10 years from exploration to production at a mine,
compared with 4-7 years in past years. "But with time, production
will start to go up," said Lassonde.

"On the other side of the coin, there is strong demand. It was up 23
percent in the first quarter and jewelry demand is up 11 percent in
China. There is large investment demand."

Asked about the effect on gold prices of the revaluation of the
Chinese yuan, Lassonde said it was "much ado about nothing. It was
the smallest revaluation on record and what we expected."

But he said it might prove significant in the longer term, because
it might permit other Asian currencies, like those of Malaysia and
South Korea, to revalue.

"I bet you, dollar for dollar, that in 10 years time the RMB (yuan)
will be 60 percent higher than today. And it will have a significant
impact on the gold market and commodities markets.

"With a stronger currency, they (China) will compete for oil and
everything else they need," said Lassonde.

[verwijderd] 28 juli 2005 15:10

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

In Toronto, shares of Placer Dome Inc., Canada's second- biggest gold producer, could fall after the company reported a second-quarter loss instead of the profit expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call. EnCana Corp.'s profit missed expectations as well, though cash flow per share topped the consensus forecast.

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story...

[verwijderd] 28 juli 2005 20:02

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

A Golden Solution to the China Syndrome? By Richard Lehmann
Forbes.com Wednesday, July 27, 2005
www.forbes.com/investmentnewsletters/...
lehmann-cz_rl_0727soapbox_inl.html?

Put yourself in China's shoes. Your economy is heavily dependent
for its economic growth and well being on exports to the United
States, long its least-favorite country. It has to accept payment
for its exports in U.S. dollars,a currency over which it has no
control other than to cause it to depreciate by trading out of the dollars it holds and into another currency. (Note: This is something the United States is trying to get China to do to itself by revaluing the yuan.)

To add insult to injury, it has accumulated a staggering $700
billion of such dollar reserves and sees no other investment option
besides the U.S. Treasury market.

Hence, they not only supply cheap goods to this least-favored country, they then lend it back the proceeds of their labor -- lending which makes them vulnerable to a freezing of these reserves by the U.S. should serious enough policy differences arise, à la Iran. Welcome, China, to the World Trade Organization, or should I say, "Welcome to the Hotel California."

Fairly recent history offers two examples of countries who have
dealt with this problem with mixed success. In the 1970s, when OPEC
managed to take control of the oil market and more than double prices, their foreign reserves quickly built up as they had not yet figured out how to spend these vast sums. Their solution was to invest in CDs with large international banks, thereby providing the funds necessary for oil-importing countries to fund their higher oil import bills. This dubious arrangement lead to an international banking crisis, as the debtor nations defaulted nearly causing some major international banks to fail.

The 1980s saw a replay of the reserve problem, only this time the
country with the excess reserves was Japan. Their attempt to
diversify out of dollars led to an organized spending spree
involving the purchase of hotel properties, signature office
buildings and golf courses. The problem with this strategy was that
it was premised on the notion that property values overseas were
cheap in comparison to those in Japan. The flaw in that thinking was
that it was the Japanese values that were out of line, not those in
the rest of the world. Bottom line, the Japanese overpaid. As for
their infatuation with buying and building golf courses around the
world, leave this to a psychologist to explain.

The recent purchase attempt of Unocal by CNOOC, the state-controlled
China oil company, exemplifies an attempt to pursue yet a different
route for diversifying out of dollars. China appears to be trying to
spend its foreign reserves to buy entire U.S. companies. From a
Chinese strategic point of view, this is definitely the right
policy: Buy the means of producing the raw materials you need or
alternatively, buy the companies that have the technology and
distribution channels for the products you produce or want to produce.

For the United States, however, this strategy is a serious threat
that goes beyond trade rivalry. Let no one kid himself.

International trade and capitalism is a form of warfare where
domination is the objective. A country such as China is playing a
different game from most WTO members -- they are mercantilists. That
means they are not interested in creating a level playing field and
letting private enterprises compete. They want state involvement to
a much greater degree than is practiced in the United States. This
means direct ownership of key enterprises, setting economic priorities, controlling foreign ownership participation, rule-making that favors national enterprises, and using commerce to achieve foreign policy ends.

The United States has allowed foreign ownership of domestic companies except in cases involving national security. This usually means protecting against foreign control of sensitive technology, defense companies or vital sources of supply. Even excluding these types of companies, China could make major inroads in dominating key industries in this country.

Such dominance by a country that is fundamentally hostile to U.S. nterests will not be tolerated by the U.S. government. We already see this with the protests over the CNOOC tender for Unocal, the acquisition of which is, at best, peripheral to U.S. interests. That protest, however, should be a clear signal to China that acquisition of U.S. operating companies is a non-starter that can only lead to further strained relations.

How, then, can China reduce its subordination to U.S. interests and
use its dollar reserves to strengthen its role in world affairs?

I believe China will eventually find gold as a partial solution to
its foreign-exchange problem.

While an immediate reaction may be to think this is nonsense, a closer examination may provide some food for thought. Gold was the world reserve standard for centuries until former President Richard Nixon closed the "gold window" on Aug. 15, 1971. What he did, in effect, was end the exchangeability of gold for dollars at the fixed rate of $35 per ounce. In effect, the U.S. stopped being a sponsor of gold under a system whereby it set the price and became the buyer and seller of last resort.

The change was necessitated by the fact that foreign holdings of
dollars had gotten well beyond the U.S. reserves for gold. Even a
steep rise in the pegged gold price would not have solved the
problem for long and would have rewarded Russia and South Africa,
two countries not then in favor with Washington. Also, the United
States stood to gain tremendously from the new world order in which
the U.S. dollar became the world's reserve currency by default. It
would be no exaggeration to say that Nixon's action was one of the
keys to America's subsequent world economic dominance.

When America abandoned gold, no one was inclined to step in and
continue the gold standard. And since gold earned no interest,
nations around the world began to systematically reduce or eliminate
their gold holdings. Time has shown that such gold holdings would,
through subsequent appreciation, have served quite well as an alternative to U.S. Treasurys. However, in today's world of multibillion-dollar reserves, the gold market is too illiquid to serve its former role.

To revive gold's role as a reserve currency, it again would need a
sponsor -- a buyer and seller of last resort who dictated the
support price. That price could increase each year, per government
policy, by a set amount. China, with its $700 billion in reserves
has the clout to assume this role. Keep in mind that gold is still a
scarce resource that has not kept up in supply with the growth of
world economic activity. It is insufficient in quantity to serve as
the main world reserve currency unless its price was vastly higher.
It could, however, be a close second or third. More importantly, like the De Beers diamond cartel, it can be extremely profitable for its sponsor.

Dominating the gold market would offer a number of benefits to
China. It offers a viable alternative to buying more U.S. Treasury
debt. It allows them to set the rate of return on their gold
investment, much as De Beers sets the price of diamonds. However,
their contr

[verwijderd] 29 juli 2005 11:33

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

De HBU in het nieuws/Goudkoorts

Goud vluchthaven voor beleggers in onzekere tijden

De goudprijs is al maanden aan het stijgen. In augustus 1999 bereikte het edelmetaal zijn absolute dieptepunt op ruim 250 dollar. Sinds die tijd is een troy ounce (31,1034807 gram, de internationale standaard waarin goud wordt verhandeld) ruim een kwart in waarde gestegen. Op 4 juni jongstleden werd een voorlopig hoogtepunt van bijna 328 dollar bereikt, niet toevallig het moment dat de spanning tussen India en Pakistan over Kasjmir culmineerde.

Alle voorwaarden voor een stijging van de goudprijs waren de afgelopen maanden aanwezig. Politieke onrust is altijd goed voor de prijs van goud. En die onrust was er volop: sinds de aanslagen van 11 september
is de wereld voor veel beleggers onzekerder geworden. Nadien is het conflict tussen Israël en de Palestijnen verder opgelaaid, dreigen de Verenigde Staten met een oorlog tegen Irak, en wisten India en Pakistan op een haar na een gewapend conflict te vermijden. De rol van goud als vluchthaven, die halverwege de jaren negentig leek te zijn uitgespeeld, heeft de laatste maanden weer aan belang gewonnen.

In Japan bijvoorbeeld vluchtten beleggers en spaarders in goud. Vijftien ton baar goud werd ingekocht nadat de Japanse regering had aangekondigd niet langer garant te staan voor spaartegoeden bij Japanse banken.
En door de Enron-affaire en de talloze boekhoudkundige schandalen die daarop volgden, hebben nogal wat Amerikaanse beheerders van beleggingsfondsen hun oog ook weer op goud laten vallen.

Want de tweede belangrijke voorwaarde voor een oplopende goudprijs is een zwakke aandelenmarkt. 'Goud is een alternatieve belegging', stelt Nico van der Hoeven, handelaar in edelmetalen bij Hollandsche Bank Unie (HBU), in zijn kantoor aan de Rotterdamse Coolsingel. HBU, een volle dochter van ABN Amro, is de grootste Nederlandse partij in de internationale goudhandel. 'Goud vormt een natuurlijke
bescherming tegen aandelen', aldus Van der Hoeven. 'Die twee hebben een grote negatieve correlatie; als aandelen het goed doen, heeft niemand goud nodig, zoals in de tweede helft van de jaren negentig. Maar nu de aandelenmarkten slechte rendementen bieden, en het vertrouwen diep is gedaald, doet goud het weer goed.'

Misschien wel de belangrijkste factor achter het herstel van de goudprijs is de zwakkere dollar. De koers van de Amerikaanse munt is van fundamenteel belang voor de goudprijs: in de mondiale goudhandel wordt uitsluitend in dollars gerekend. De goudhandelaren van de HBU hebben op hun computerschermen
dan ook standaard de dollarkoers in beeld.

Jarenlang is de dollar ijzersterk geweest, maar de laatste maanden heeft de munt ingeleverd ten opzichte van euro en yen. Een zwakke dollar leidt al snel tot een vermindering van het goudaanbod.
De goudmijnen, die veelal in landen als Zuid-Afrika en Australië liggen, krijgen immers in termen van hun eigen valuta minder voor hun product. Anderzijds stijgt de vraag naar goud omdat de grondstof voor de sieradenindustrieën in India en Italië - verreweg de grootste gebruikers ter wereld - in de lokale munt goedkoper wordt.
Gevolg: de goudkoers stijgt.

Goud heeft de aardige eigenschap dat het, behalve beleggingsobject, ook een grondstof voor de industrie is - de juwelenindustrie voorop. Al jaren stijgt het verbruik van de sieradenmakers exponentieel.
In 1991 werd voor 2.359 ton aan goud in armbanden, kettingen en oorbellen verwerkt, in 2000 was dat al toegenomen tot 3175 ton. De vraag van de elektronicasector en van de 'dentale industrie', dus voor kronen en vullingen, steekt daar met 563 ton in 2000 enigszins mager bij af.

Niettemin is het beeld duidelijk: de vraag stijgt bij een dalend aanbod. Het is een trend die Van der Hoeven de komende jaren niet ziet omslaan. 'Er staat de mijnindustrie een consolidatiegolf te wachten, en de onrendabele mijnen zullen worden afgestoten.'Langzaam maar zeker worden de wereldwijde reserves aan goud dus opgemaakt. Dat zijn er nogal wat: in de kluizen van centrale banken wereldwijd liggen de baren huizenhoog opgestapeld. Centrale banken spelen een bijzondere rol in de internationale goudmarkt. De daling van de goudprijs in de tweede helft van de jaren negentig was voor een groot deel te danken
aan de dreiging van centrale banken om hun goudvoorraad op de markt te brengen.
In Nederland verkocht De Nederlandsche Bank eind jaren negentig honderden tonnen goud.

De voortdurende dreiging van aanbod van centrale banken duwde de goudprijs sinds 1995 naar een absoluut dieptepunt. De goudmijnen deden daar nog een schepje bovenop. Door een groot deel van de toekomstige productie alvast te verkopen als de prijs maar even klom, kwam er extra druk op de goudkoers. En speculanten waren maar al te graag bereid om die prijs nog een extra duw naar beneden te geven.

De omslag kwam in september 1999, toen zeventien centrale banken besloten voortaan nog slechts 400 ton per jaar in de markt te zetten. Sinds dat moment is de goudprijs - met vallen en opstaan - omhoog gekrabbeld.
De goudmijnen zijn vrijwel gestopt met verkopen op termijn. 'Ik zat zojuist met een grote Mexicaanse goudmijn aan de telefoon, en waar die vroeger zijn productie waarschijnlijk al vijf jaar vooruit had verkocht om zekerheid te krijgen, doet hij dat nu niet', zegt Van der Hoeven.

[verwijderd] 1 augustus 2005 08:04

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

Gold May Rise on Growing Demand for Jewelry in China, India, Survey Says
By Claudia Carpenter Bloomberg News Service Monday, August 1, 2005
www.bloomberg.com/news/markets/commod...

Gold may rise for a third straight week on speculation that higher
demand for the precious metal in China and India will exceed supply
created from sales by European central banks, a Bloomberg survey showed.

Thirty-five of 46 traders, investors and analysts surveyed July 28 and July 29 from Melbourne to New York advised buying gold, which rose 1.1 percent last week to $435.80 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Six recommended selling the metal, and five were neutral.

"What we're seeing in demand is very positive," Newmont Mining Corp.
Chief Executive Officer Wayne Murdy said in a telephone interview
July 27 from Denver. "Once you get into the second half of the year -
- into August and September -- the jewelry trade starts to build
inventory for marriages in India and the Chinese new year."

Gold soared 4.8 percent in August last year as manufacturers geared up for increased jewelry demand during year-end holidays and the wedding season in India, the world's biggest buyer of gold. European central banks, which agreed to limit gold sales to 500 tons a year through September, had sold 415.4 tons through June 23, according to the World Gold Council.

Gold for December delivery rose $4.90 an ounce last week, meeting
expectations of the majority of analysts surveyed July 21 and July
22. Bloomberg's survey has forecast the direction of prices
accurately in 36 of 66 weeks, or 55 percent of the time.

"Gold prices will rise ahead of the festive demand in India," said
Prithviraj Kothari, director of Mumbai-based Riddhi Siddhi Bullion Ltd.

Gold prices fell 0.3 percent last month during a seasonal lull in
demand. "June and July are usually cyclically the lowest month for
the gold price," Newmont President Pierre Lassonde said on a July 27
conference call with investors and analysts.

"The gold price does not want to go below $420 even though a lot of
mornings you look at the screen and it seems traders out there are
trying to kick it down," Lassonde said. "It doesn't want to go down."

Fifteen central banks in Europe, including the European Central
Bank, agreed last year to limit their gold sales to 500 tons
annually for five years. The sales periods end each year in September.

The European Central Bank said last week three member banks sold
gold worth 175 million euros ($212 million) in the week ending July
22. With gold averaging about 350 euros an ounce that week, that's
equivalent to about 15.5 metric tons.

Including other sales in the past month, the total is probably
closer to 484 tons, according to Paul Yusem, an individual investor
in Lombard, Illinois, who has traded gold futures for five years.

"There is only one way to temper this robust physical demand -- much
higher gold prices," Yusem said.

From the seasonal low in July to its high in August, gold has
rallied on average $26 during that period during the previous four years.

"Nothing points to this year being any different," said Gregory M.Orrell, president of Orrell Capital Management Inc. in Livermore, California.

Last year, gold rose $29 from the July low to the high in August. In
2003, the rally was $38.40. The low last month was $418.20 on July 15.

The rise in gold last week above the 200-day moving average for the
first time since July 1 may trigger more buying by traders who
follow charts and graphs, pushing prices to as high as $450 this
month, said William O'Neill, a partner at Logic Advisors LLC, a
commodity consulting company in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

In the week ended July 26, speculators had the lowest net holdings
of Comex gold futures since June 7, the U.S. Commodity Futures
Trading Commission said July 29. Hedge funds and other large
speculators bought 49,022 more contracts than they sold, down 9.4
percent from the week before, the commission said.

"Hedge funds continue to have a bullish bias, and with each passing
week, gold's role as an alternative asset increases," said O'Neill,
former head of futures research at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York.

Gold has climbed 12 percent in the past year as a decline in the
dollar boosted the appeal of the precious metal as an alternative to
U.S. stocks and bonds. Gold reached a 16-year high of $458.70 an
ounce in December as the dollar fell to a record against the euro.

A futures contract is an obligation to sell or buy a commodity at a
set price by a specific date.

[verwijderd] 2 augustus 2005 07:46

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

Gold Standard? Not Even An Iron Pyrite Standard!by Gary North

Iron pyrite is better known as fool’s gold. I first saw some iron pyrite half a century ago. My parents had taken me to Central City, Colorado – a wonderful tourist trap. It had been a gold mining town. There was a Silver Dollar Saloon. There was an old train in the middle of the town.

I bought a little boxed collection of rocks. Of course, they were called minerals. That made them more than rocks. In the box was a sample of iron pyrite. It really did look like gold to my untrained eye. It sparkled in the sun.

I was reminded of that trip when I read Jude Wanniski’s extract from an exchange between Alan Greenspan and Congressman Ron Paul. Dr. Paul knows more about monetary theory than anyone else in Congress. He has sat on the House Banking Committee throughout his career.

I remember arriving as his newly hired Research Assistant in June, 1976. That was on a Friday. He had to hand in a minority report on a bill to extend America’s support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). I was assigned the job of writing it. It was officially due the following Tuesday, but he had been tipped off by an old-timer that a deadline for a minority report is always one day before the official deadline. So, I had until Monday morning to crank out something coherent for him to submit. I did it. Of course, the bill passed. President Ford, acting on behalf of William Simon, the Secretary of the Treasury, signed it into law. Simon hated the gold standard. I later heard him tell a group of us Republican staffers, "I reject your theology of gold." You can tar and feather me with that phrase any time.

ALAN GREENSPAN, THEOLOGIAN OF GOLD

In 1966, Alan Greenspan, then under the wing of Ayn Rand, published an article on the gold standard. It appeared in her newsletter. She later reprinted it in her book, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. The article was titled, "Gold and Economic Freedom." It began with this take-no-prisoners paragraph:

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense – perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire – that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other.

That is the sort of rhetoric that never gets into academic journals. It also never gets into The Federal Reserve Bulletin.

With a logic reminiscent of a generation earlier, statists argued that the gold standard was largely to blame for the credit debacle which led to the Great Depression. If the gold standard had not existed, they argued, Britain’s abandonment of gold payments in 1931 would not have caused the failure of banks all over the world. (The irony was that since 1913, we had been, not on a gold standard, but on what may be termed "a mixed gold standard"; yet it is gold that took the blame.) But the opposition to the gold standard in any form – from a growing number of welfare-state advocates – was prompted by a much subtler insight: the realization that the gold standard is incompatible with chronic deficit spending (the hallmark of the welfare state).

He understood that the gold standard after World War I was a phony, government-run ersatz gold standard that in fact minimized the use of gold by the public. It was a gold standard for central bankers, called the gold-exchange standard. Yet even this stripped-down model was more than the statists could tolerate.

Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale.

The issue is government spending. Rather than tax directly, governments run deficits. When they cannot sell all the debt to investors, they sell it to their central banks, which create money to purchase this debt. This imposes a subtle inflation tax: the depreciation of money.

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.

www.lewrockwell.com/north/north204.html

That was how Greenspan ended his article. It was a classic.

Fast forward 39 years.

ALAN GREENSPAN, LAPSED THEOLOGIAN

In the most recent Q&A session by the House Banking Committee, Dr. Paul reminded his colleagues of this article – an unusual punishment, indeed, but not cruel.

Even you, in the 1960s, described the paper system as a scheme for the confiscation of wealth.... Is it not true that the paper system that we work with today is actually a scheme to default on our debt? And is it not true that, for this reason, that’s a good argument for people not – eventually, at some day – wanting to buy Treasury bills because they will be paid back with cheaper dollars?....

And aligned with this question, I would like to ask something to dealing exactly with gold, is that: If paper money – today it seems to be working rather well – but if the paper system doesn’t work, when will the time come? What will the signs be that we should reconsider gold?

These were reasonable questions. The depreciation of money since the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 has been in the range of 95%, even using government figures. See the Inflation Calculator of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This touched a sore point, I think, as evidenced by the fact that Greenspan momentarily grew clear.

Well, you say central banks own gold – or monetary authorities own gold. The United States is a large gold holder. And you have to ask yourself: Why do we hold gold? And the answer is essentially, implicitly, the one that you’ve raised – namely that, over the generations, when fiat monies arose and, indeed, created the type of problems – which I think you correctly identify – of the 1970s, although the implication that it was some scheme or conspiracy gives it a much more conscious focus than actually, as I recall, it was occurring. It was more inadvertence that created the basic problems.

No conspiracy, of course. That Roosevelt unilater

[verwijderd] 2 augustus 2005 07:47

[verwijderd]

Lid sinds: 01 jan 0001

Laatste bezoek: 01 jan 0001
Aanbevelingen

Ontvangen: 0

Gegeven: 0
Aantal posts: 0

part 2

No conspiracy, of course. That Roosevelt unilaterally confiscated the American public’s gold in 1933 – it was just inadvertent. That gold bullion remained illegal for Americans to own until 1975 was again inadvertent, no doubt. And as to the rumor that the FED has sold its gold through Germany through gold leasing – why, perish the thought. And as for the long ballyhooed "independent audit" – well, that would be necessary only if there had been a conspiracy. But there hasn’t.

But as I’ve testified here before to a similar question, central bankers began to realize in the late 1970s how deleterious a factor the inflation was. And, indeed, since the late ’70s, central bankers generally have behaved as though we were on the gold standard. And, indeed, the extent of liquidity contraction that has occurred as a consequence of the various different efforts on the part of monetary authorities is a clear indication that we recognize that excessive creation of liquidity creates inflation which, in turn, undermines economic growth.

"Liquidity contraction." That’s a nice phrase. It sounds like the equivalent of "reduction in the money supply." That has not happened in my lifetime.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has a published a table of annual rates of increase in various national currencies since 1992. Take a look. There are remarkably few minus signs in any of these numbers.

There is a chart of U.S. monetary expansion, published by Edward Jones Company. It is based on Federal Reserve figures. It is chart #3: the increase in M-2. From 1960 until 2002, in only one year, 1994, did it approach zero percent increase. In no year was there a decrease, or as Greenspan put it, "liquidity contraction."

Then Greenspan delivered his coup de grâce:

So that the question is: Would there be any advantage, at this particular stage, in going back to the gold standard? And the answer is: I don’t think so, because we’re acting as though we were there.

This month, yes. Next month? That’s none of our business as citizens, which is why the FED delays the publication of a summary of the minutes of the FOMC (which sets monetary policy) for three weeks, and five years for the full set (we are assured by the FED) of minutes.

Alan Greenspan in 2005 is an intellectual caricature of what he was in 1966. He says that Congress and the public can trust the central bankers of the world because they are following monetary policy as if the world were on a gold standard.

Take a look at central bank monetary policy in 2001, in response to the looming recession, which ceased looming and hit in March, 2001. The chart includes the dollar and European money. The chart went ballistic.

The Maestro wants to direct the orchestra. A government-defined and enforced gold standard is much too inhibiting. As for a full gold-coin standard, where every holder of a receipt for gold, private (bank) or public (treasury), has the legal right to walk in and exchange his receipt at a fixed rate for gold coins, would drastically limit his ability to conduct.

That is the whole point of a gold standard. It restricts the ability of politicians and central bankers to manipulate the currency outside of very narrow range. It makes bean-counters and order-takers out of central bankers. It limits their creativity to inflate the currency at various rates – they never contract the total supply of money.

CONCLUSION

Congress believes Greenspan, who speaks on behalf of all central bankers, as his remarks indicate.

Gold standard? Who needs it? Iron pyrite? Too old fashioned, and too reminiscent of the real thing.

Computer money based on central bank reserves of government debt: that’s what the nation needs.

Let the band play on! We know how competent it is.

Not as good as this one. . . .

Oh! The drums go bang,
And the cymbals clang,
And the horns they blaze away.
McCarthy pumps the old bassoon
While the pipes do play.
And Hennessey Tennessee tootles the flute,
And the music is somethin’ grand.
A credit to old Ireland is McNamara’s band.

August 1, 2005

Gary North [send him mail] is the author of Mises on Money.

_________________

Forum	# Topics	# Posts
Aalberts	466	7.001
AB InBev	2	5.481
Abionyx Pharma	2	29
Ablynx	43	13.356
ABN AMRO	1.582	51.201
ABO-Group	1	22
Acacia Pharma	9	24.692
Accell Group	151	4.132
Accentis	2	264
Accsys Technologies	23	10.528
ACCSYS TECHNOLOGIES PLC	218	11.686
Ackermans & van Haaren	1	188
ADMA Biologics	1	34
Adomos	1	126
AdUX	2	457
Adyen	14	17.650
Aedifica	3	901
Aegon	3.258	322.664
AFC Ajax	538	7.086
Affimed NV	2	6.287
ageas	5.844	109.885
Agfa-Gevaert	14	2.048
Ahold	3.538	74.293
Air France - KLM	1.025	34.997
AIRBUS	1	11
Airspray	511	1.258
Akka Technologies	1	18
AkzoNobel	467	13.036
Alfen	16	24.332
Allfunds Group	4	1.468
Almunda Professionals (vh Novisource)	651	4.251
Alpha Pro Tech	1	17
Alphabet Inc.	1	405
Altice	106	51.198
Alumexx ((Voorheen Phelix (voorheen Inverko))	8.486	114.813
AM	228	684
Amarin Corporation	1	133
Amerikaanse aandelen	3.835	242.740
AMG	971	133.088
AMS	3	73
Amsterdam Commodities	305	6.686
AMT Holding	199	7.047
Anavex Life Sciences Corp	2	485
Antonov	22.632	153.605
Aperam	92	14.933
Apollo Alternative Assets	1	17
Apple	5	380
Arcadis	252	8.731
Arcelor Mittal	2.033	320.577
Archos	1	1
Arcona Property Fund	1	286
arGEN-X	17	10.288
Aroundtown SA	1	219
Arrowhead Research	5	9.716
Ascencio	1	26
ASIT biotech	2	697
ASMI	4.108	39.082
ASML	1.766	106.059
ASR Nederland	21	4.451
ATAI Life Sciences	1	7
Atenor Group	1	470
Athlon Group	121	176
Atrium European Real Estate	2	199
Auplata	1	55
Avantium	32	13.610
Axsome Therapeutics	1	177
Azelis Group	1	64
Azerion	7	3.390

Edelmetalen Terug naar discussie overzicht

Goud en zilver Rockin & Rollin

Neem deel aan de discussie

Direct naar Forum

Zoek alfabetisch op forum

Gesponsorde links

Macro & Bedrijfsagenda

07 februari