Precious Metals

Goldman Sachs: Cover Your Gold Shorts

"This morning, Goldman Sachs has put out an advisory recommending that clients close out their short positions in gold. Just weeks ago on April 19, GS cut its short- and long-term gold forecasts. At the time, analysts Damien Courvalin and Jeffrey Currie told clients that 'should our expectation for lower gold prices continue to prove correct, the fall in prices could end up being faster and larger than our forecast.' On April 12, gold fell on its worst two-day plunge since futures first started trading in New York. Despite the advice to close out short positions, it appears GS wants to have its foot in both the bullish and bearish camp." Continue reading →

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Jim Sinclair: Swiss Bank Refuses Physical Gold Delivery On “Anti-Terrorism” Grounds

"A person that I know with significant deposits in one of the primary Swiss banks, in allocated gold, wanted to take out his gold and was just refused on the basis of directives from the central bank. They told him the amount was in excess of 200,000 Swiss francs and the central bank had instructed them not to do it because it has to do with anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering precautions. I really wonder whether those are precautions or whether the gold simply isn’t there. It has to raise our suspicions that the lack of physical gold behind the paper gold is literally so severe that we are coming to understand that it is in fact not there." Continue reading →

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Takedown Of Paper Gold Unleashes Global Run On Physical Gold And Silver

"Precious metals dealers now find themselves being overwhelmed with orders in the United States, in Canada, in Europe and over in Asia. Will this massive run on physical gold and silver soon lead to widespread shortages of those metals? Instead of frightening people away from gold and silver, the takedown of paper gold seems to have had just the opposite effect. People just can't seem to get enough physical gold and silver right now. Those that wish that they had gotten into gold when it was less than $1400 an ounce are able to do so now, and it is absolutely insane that silver is sitting at about $23 an ounce." Continue reading →

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Discovery Of A 17th Century Spanish Shipwreck Yields Awesome Treasure

"A great superpower, weakened by economic calamity at home and staggering under the debt from years of war in the Middle East, finally collapses. A new political best-seller, or an apocalyptic Hollywood blockbuster? Neither — it's the story told by a 1622 shipwreck whose treasures were desperately needed to shore up the finances of the struggling Spanish Empire. The galleon Buen Jesus y Nuestra Senora del Rosario was one of 28 ships in the Tierra Firme fleet; all were sailing from the New World back to Spain, laden with colonial treasures, when they were struck by a powerful hurricane off the Florida Keys." Continue reading →

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A Ton Of Gold Bricks: What Capital Flight Looks Like In Italy

"Curious why so little has been said about cash flowing out of Italy's banks, especially when even UniCredit's CEO today proudly warned everyone he is all for confiscating uninsured deposits as long as 'everyone else is doing it' - and no, he is not kidding, so when it does happen, nobody will be able to say they weren't warned. Maybe it is because Italian cash is actually not leaving the country at all. Instead, real 'wealth' is departing the boot-shaped nation, quietly and under the radar, as fast as it can in another form: gold. Continue reading →

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Indian gold smugglers take body route to outwit customs

"Smugglers and couriers who bring gold into the country illegally, have usually been known to bring the commodity by hiding it outside their body through various means. But with air intelligence units of the customs wising up to myriad modes of concealment, smugglers have resorted to reshaping gold to get it through. In Monday’s incident two men who arrived from Sri Lanka at the airport had shaped crude gold bits to fit inside the base of their mouth under the tongue. In another incident, a buxom lady was arrested after sleuths found that her bosom appeared extra-large as she had sewn 4 kg of shaped gold into her brassiere." Continue reading →

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Slump in gold price releases years of pent-up retail demand

"Gold retailers struggled to cope this week as parents buying dowries, casual shoppers and tourists snapped up bars, coins, nuggets and jewellery as a slump in the price of the yellow metal released years of pent-up retail demand. The price decline in the past week, the steepest in 30 years, has tarnished gold's appeal for the portfolio investors whose money had fuelled a 12-year bull run. As investors rush out, consumers that were priced out of the market for years have rushed in. In the United States, sales of American Eagle gold for two days this week topped the volumes for the whole of March." Continue reading →

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Gold Crash 2013 – Deliberately Engineered?

"Traders will be looking for a significant turnaround to the upside in price before entering long positions. However, a long-term, fundamentals-based trader has to look at the low price as a buying opportunity. I can't prove it, but I think the fundamentals will drive the long-term market more than these short-term events. The fight between pricing from the physical market for bullion and that from the 'paper market' of futures is showing signs of discrimination and disagreement, as the physical market is booming, while prices set by futures are seemingly pressured to go nowhere. In short, I think this is a strong buying opportunity." Continue reading →

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US Mint’s Sales of Gold Coins Soar After Futures Prices Plunge

"The U.S. Mint in April has sold 153,000 ounces of American Eagle gold coins, the highest in almost three years, after futures prices started the week by plunging the most since 1980, moneynews.com reports. Sales have more than doubled from March and surged sevenfold from a year earlier, data on the Mint’s website showed. The amount for all of May 2010 was 190,000 ounce. This week, retail sales and jewelry demand soared in India, the world’s top gold buyer, and China, the second-biggest, after futures in New York slumped into a bear market, touching the lowest in more than two years. Coin sales also surged in Australia." Continue reading →

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Gold Down, What Now?

"Generally, after a stark price correction like this, you will tend to see a prompt rally, followed by another bout of weakness, testing the prior bottom. This should play out over the next few weeks, which will pave the way for an excellent entry or re-entry point to stock up on gold. It is important to note that, in my view, you can wait and watch gold calmly. There is no need to rush (back) in. Gold negativity is very high and it will take time to pick up momentum. But you should certainly not wait too long. Fundamentally, all of the reasons that made gold an ever more attractive asset over the past years are still fully in place, and increasingly so." Continue reading →

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