Archive - Sep 2015 - Blog entry

Wealth gap: "We made it bigger!"

Silver premiums continue to move higher, while premiums on gold have remained steady. UK households are sitting on a £173 billion debt time bomb after once again being lured into a spending splurge by banks and credit card companies.

If you were to tell someone that the life insurance they had purchased was “a bad bet” or (even more judgmentally) “sheer stupidity”, almost certainly that person would feel insulted. 

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The Fed likes to act as though it’s concerned about stocks… but the real story is in bonds. Indeed, when you look at the Fed’s actions from the perspective of the bond market, everything suddenly becomes clear.

Hedge Funds are apparently dusting off their notes on how to hedge

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) added another 15.98 tonnes of gold in August – at the same time its foreign exchange reserves fell a whopping $94 billion. 

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But the aforementioned weasel words provide the best of both worlds: if commodities rally, then he can point to "nailing the bottom" with this interview. On the other hand, if commodities continue to sink, as I imagine they generally will, then he's got about five different escape hatches in this verbiage so that he's off the hook.

Rickards said that gold is like “fire insurance on your house” ... “Nobody wants their house to burn down but if it does you are glad you have some insurance”. 

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This was a fairly quiet week in the market for the metals. The price action was elsewhere (e.g. equities and currencies).

For anyone who (still) believes that Canada has a diversified economy...

A Presidential tradition...

Keys in the week ahead:  equity markets--still look lower; China--volatility likely to continue; Fed--market says no Sept hike