This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Dubaija Vu All Over Again
The FTSE chart is identical to what happened over Thanksgiving (absent the 5 hours of downtime of course): FTSE 100 down 1.6%, FTSE Eurofirst 300 down 1.7%, And as if having all its bankers depart and its CT office look like a ghost town, RBS is now getting freshly clobbered. In US futures, computers with massive REIT positions are short circuiting.
The reason: that long-buried (in the sand) and presumably "taken care of" problem of Dubai:
Dubai shares tumbled to the lowest level in almost five months, led by Emaar Properties PJSC and Emirates NBD PJSC, on concern that Dubai World is struggling to restructure its debt.
Emaar, the United Arab Emirates’ biggest real-estate developer, slumped 7.6 percent and Emirates NBD, the region’s largest publicly traded bank by assets, retreated to the lowest since Sept. 3. The DFM General Index plunged 4.7 percent, the biggest fluctuation among global benchmarks tracked by Bloomberg, to 1,663.35 at 10:41 a.m. in the emirate. The measure, which is heading for the lowest close since July 13, has tumbled 20 percent since Dubai said on Nov. 25 that it was seeking a “standstill” agreement on Dubai World’s debt.
The question on everyone's mind - will today be the (dollar short unwind) day?
»
- 3867 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Is Uncle Ben or Tiny Tim talking today? If not might actually see some dollar strength.
And you might get your chance to buy more PMs!!
lol yes! Friday can't come fast enough! Still got my eye on some Perth Mint fractionals, the premiums are way low for fractional pieces. Would order now, but I have a rule about spending money I don't have, even when I'm owed it.
I was naughty last month and put my cash in PMs and let my credit card run up monthly expenses. I paid it off before any interest went on the card. Looking at what was available at the time (my dealer had just bought 100oz of silver, I took them off his hands for 80 some cents over spot) I feel good about the choice. Got gold too.
I wonder if a little scam is going on at the US Mint. They are out of gold eagles and not making any more:
http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?cata...
but they will sell you this for $1539.00
http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catal...
Looks to me like a way to hide the supply and demand problem. If you buy that, well it's a special coin (which at 24 carrots, it is). But that they won't make the others, shows me that they are making a choice that is more profitable with the limited gold that is available, since spot is so low.
But I am no expert, just making guesses.
There is no scam MsCreant. The ultra-high relief eagles are a collectible coin and are based on a famous coin produced in the late 19th century and early 20th century by Augustus St. Gaudens:
http://www.coinlink.com/News/us-coins/ultra-high-relief-double-eagle-pat...
The US Mint by law must keep up with demand, the issue this year is that demand went through the roof. They've minted around 1.2 million ounces of gold Eagles and 200K of gold Buffalos...
One of the Mint's problems is that by law they can only buy US produced gold and they don't produce their own coin blanks, thus they've had issues with supply. This month they finally released their franctional eagles and haven't minted any one ounce eagles, it is why the premiums have gone up to $99.99 a coin for gold eagles...
Wait until January and premiums should be back to $50...
Hi Doc,
If I am wrong, I have done a great disservice to the Mint and since I can't delete my comment, I best be really clear. I do not feel like I got my point across well.
If they have coin blanks, I guess they cannot be used to make regular one ounce eagles because those blanks are 24 carrat? Otherwise, they have the blanks and they have chosen to foresake abiding by the law and, instead, put the gold into something that is going to fetch more money.
If spot went down because of activity in the paper gold market, yet we all know there is difficulty physically getting any, (there is, never mind eagles) that means that the price of physical is not high enough.If I am the mint and I feel like the price is not high enough, I may get tired of getting, what I perceive to be, as ripped off.
I posted this from ebay:
http://www.goldprice.org/ebay-gold-prices/
I think this is an indicator of a divergence of physical price from spot.
Again, I do not think I have an iron clad case here, I am not an expert, it just seems like they have diverted gold they have into making this which will make them more money, yet abandoned their duty to make the regular eagles.
They have Buffalo proofs, too, again, a 24 carrat coin, for $1460.
http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catal...
I am happy to be set straight. It could be once you have a 24 carrat blank, that is that and you cannot use the gold for a regular eagle.
You are correct MsCreant. A Buffalo gold coin blank CAN'T be used for a Gold Eagle Coin. The AGE is 22 karat.
It would be a right mess to have to turn the 24k into 22k blanks
Hey MsCreant,
Here's how it works, the Ultra-High Relief program is old by a couple of years, they finally released them around February of this year so they're still selling what they have already minted.
The Eagle blanks they buy a lot of from the Sunshine Mint:
http://www.sunshinemint.com/
The demand is seasonal around November/December because everyone buys for the Xmas holiday. For example I just bought 200 eagles from APMEX a month or so ago to give to the family.
The mint doesn't sell most of their gold to the public directly, they sell through their distributors. In order to be a distributor you need to have a tangible net worth of $50 million, have sold 100,000 ounces of gold in a 12 month period, and be audited by an independent accounting firm each year. The distributors are places like APMEX, Tulving, A-mark, Monex etc.
The mint sells distributors eagles or buffalos at 3% over spot, and then they tack on their own percentages. Smaller coins have higher premiums, 1/2 ounce are like 5 or 6%, 1/4 are like 9%, 1/10 of an ounce 15% or something like that.
If you want gold, minted coins are the most expensive and have seasonal issues with them. APMEX just lowered its premiums from $99.99 to $79.99. If you want cheaper gold buy a kilo bar, it's only $9.95 over spot from Tulving or APMEX, or you can buy a Pamp Suisse one ounce bar at $25 over spot or so... Eagles aren't the only thing on the market...
The mint will keep up with demand, it always does despite people claiming COMEX will default etc. They're stopping minting the franctional coins because of so much demand and they'll only be doing 1 ounce coins from now on. You can't really blaim the mint, they've done their job pretty well, 1.2 million ounces of gold Eagles this year, plus another 200K ounces of Buffalos... pretty impressive if you ask me... they just need to buy some more gold blanks and they'll do it all over again next month...
It's just that everyone is buying for the holiday season like I did...
Hope this helped.
One more thing about the Ultra-High Relief Eagle, you're only allowed to buy one per household/person...
It's always been around $300 over the spot price of gold, so those two reasons are why they've been selling them so slowly.
However if you look at E-Bay they're selling for like $1,600 and over. I don't understand who in their right mind buys from E-Bay, it's so much cheaper to buy from Tulving or APMEX. Granted Tulving has a high minimum, but APMEX doesn't have a minimum. It's something I've never really gotten about E-Bay when it comes to gold/silver...
Doc,
Thank you so much for your time. That was very educational. I truly wish I could delete the post that started this (but then again, I would not have had this beneficial exchange with you). I am impressed with what it takes to be a distributor. I may rethink my stance that I will only deal with my local coin dealer.
Happy Holidays
(Your family should be quite pleased with what is under the tree this year!)
MsCreant,
There was nothing bad about your initial post and no need to delete it. The gold business/coin business is just a bit "complicated", but isn't that true of almost any business?
If you're looking for the best prices and larger orders it is best to go with distributors. Tulving, APMEX, and bullion direct (I've never used them to be honest) have the best reputations...
Happy buying and holidays.
MsCreant,
There was nothing bad about your initial post and no need to delete it. The gold business/coin business is just a bit "complicated", but isn't that true of almost any business?
If you're looking for the best prices and larger orders it is best to go with distributors. Tulving, APMEX, and bullion direct (I've never used them to be honest) have the best reputations...
Happy buying and holidays.
I bought one of those UHR St. Gaudens a while back. Very cool coin. It's MUCH thicker than usual. Comes in a very fancy box. Way over the top.
what are PMs?
PM = Precious Metals.
thx
precious metals
Thanks for the aerial snapshot. It's funny, when you know why something is happening, it's not so freaky. Been waiting for this shoe to drop. Futures down, gold down, dollar up, kinda all makes sense.
REIT's? Lower? It's impossible! Extend and pretend works until it doesn't. Maybe today is the day, but I can't imagine that we'll be at these levels this time next year.
You are correct; that was unpossible.
Almost all REITs back to green. Suddendly they are no longer high-beta, high-correlation w/ DXY (when the dollar is up, that is).
All thanks to Simon, who can happily snap up billions in shopping malls that are virtually untouched from bubble-top valuations (according to their PR)...
I don't care about your fx and sovereign debt sideshows. You could have put us into coffee shops and we would have been rich! gmcr is stealing ddrx from peet for $35 - and where is your coverage of that. Peet is up big having lost the deal, gmcr is up big stealing the deal. There are no negativities here! I dare you to try to explain this. Since you can not, the answer is advising fees.
Anyone else with "highly placed" banking insiders that can comment on the specific predictions Mr. Chapman is making??
*Over 2035 banks in serious trouble, vs. the 500 we are told now
*Plans to completely devalue dollar by end of 2010
*Banks being asked to make room for new currency
*FDIC to be collapsed by end of 2010
(I hate to say this, but I am thinking this guy is alot closer to the truth than the mainstream reports being fed to us daily by the financial press. I just don't trust them anymore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPkmP8Utirs
"Dubaija Vu" ... classic
The USD uptrend has started as expected.
TREND ANALYSIS UPDATE:
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/market-outlook-0