Precious Metals

John Hathaway, respected authority on the gold market and senior portfolio manager with Tocqueville Asset Management has written an excellent research paper on the fundamentals driving the gold market today.

Basically, the gold mining industry issued billions of new shares and debt to help replace production and to compensate for rising costs

When we first wrote on the subject, there was considerable criticism as to the possibility that such a program would ever be attempted, let alone succeed. And, granted, it was so Orwellian that it was understandably seen as a crackpot idea. But since that time, the program has been developing extremely rapidly. In the last six months alone, it has become so visible that it has even garnered a name - "the War on Cash." Once complete, state wealth control will exist.

...the Swiss canton of Zug is asking its citizens to delay paying their taxes for as long as possible, because the cantonal government doesn’t want to take in a pile of cash, only to end up paying the bank interest on all the tax revenue.

The Comex continues to see a drain of its Registered Silver inventories (for delivery), while the SHFE inventories are showing a rapid increase.

According to the Mint, more than half of the week's allocation of silver sold on Monday, the first day of 2016 sales, a sign that demand entering 2016 is literally off the charts. Putting the silver demand in context, the 2.76 million ounces of silver bullion coins sold today is exactly half of the 5.53 million ounces that sold in all of January 2015. Gold too: first-day sales of American Eagle gold bullion coins was also unprecedented, with the 60,000 ounces sold equal to roughly 75% of the 81,000 that sold in the entire month of January 2015.

Many price-battered precious metals investors may currently be sitting on some quantity of capital that they plan to convert into gold and silver, but they are wondering when “the best time” is to do so.

Here is precisely where the brand new gold vault of the world's biggest bank will be located.

The sole focus of gold in dollar terms and the 10% fall of gold priced in dollars has led to some negative comment about gold's annual fall, the "third year of losses."

When will we know that the United States is really close to “normalizing interest rates”? The U.S. dollar will no longer exist, and (hopefully) neither will the Federal Reserve – the entity which promised to “protect” that dollar.

• Weakness in the Canadian Economy driving its currency lower
• Inverse relationship between commodity prices and USDCAD exchange rate
• Why there could be a reversal in trend

How did the Canadian currency reach a twelve year low?

The US Dollar reached a recent high against CAD at 1.41081 on January 6^th a level not seen since August 2003. The general bull trend the green back has been in picked up momentum since talk begun by the Fed of a return to higher interest rates.

Will the scheme by the One Bank and India’s government to steal some/most/all of the 20,000 tonnes of privately held gold in India be successful?

Iceland refused to be blackmailed. Iceland refused to take on the extra debt (and debt slavery) that came with the blackmail. Iceland refused to touch its social programs. Iceland has the strongest economy in the Western world.

Unfortunately, this is not a sustainable financial or economic business model for the West.

Grant Williams, Of Things That May You Go Hhhmm, gave the following presentation at Mines & Money in London in early December laying out why he believes the gold price is languishing despite a wealth of what would ordinarily be positive catalysts. Currently, outside those who focus on precious metals, there is an enormous amount of apathy but, we suspect, that apathy will shortly turn to enthusiasm - an enthusiasm which will expose the rift between paper prices set in NY and the structural changes undergone in the physical markets over the last several years. Still, outside of today's small move, for now... Nobody Cares.