Precious Metals

Once you examine the finer details, it quickly becomes clear that there are five key reasons that the Fed is unlikely to raise rates anytime soon.

It’s easy to be frightened by these proposals. But if governments think they can force us to accept negative interest rates on our savings by abolishing cash, they need to think again. It’s preposterous to assume that savers will passively accept outright confiscation of their assets via negative interest rates or a ban on cash. Instead, people will simply revert to other stores of value.

In a bipartisan bid to encourage commercial exploitation of outer space, the U.S. Senate this week unanimously passed the Space Act of 2015. The Extraterrestrial ‘Finders Keepers’ law allows US citizens and companies to legally claim ‘abiotic’ natural resources including water and minerals. However, the bill could be a direct affront to an international treaty that bars nations from owning property in space.

Roughly 21 tonnes, or 685,652 troy ounces of gold in .999 fine kilo bars, was withdrawn, net of a small deposit of 27,328 ounces, from the Brinks warehouse in Hong Kong yesterday. To put that into some perspective, that is the same amount of all gold in the entire JPM warehouse in the US. The point of this is that the price discovery in New York is becoming increasingly distinct from the actual physical supply and demand flows of bullion which are taking place in Asia... And that is a potentially dangerous development, especially with respect to a commodity that is being traded at a leverage in excess of 200:1.

There’s no reason to sweat a drop in the gold price or cheer a rise.

It's 2000 meters undersea.

Gold bullion coin and bar demand surged in Q3 as gold’s continuing COMEX driven price weakness in July and sharp falls in stock markets in China and globally in August saw store of wealth buyers internationally again accumulate bullion.

"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason."

For the third day in a row, China dominated the overnight newsflow with the latest industrial output data, which printed at 5.6% missing expectations of a 5.8% increase, and was tied with March for the lowest print since late 2008.

There is “a barbarous relic” in our global monetary system. It is the U.S. dollar: the worthless, monetary relic of an empire in decline.

Prudent companies internationally are allocating capital to gold and silver bullion as a way to diversify their assets and as a form of financial insurance to protect against bank bail-ins, capital controls, currency debasement and other risks posed by another financial crisis.

As the USDollar surges ahead this morning - crushing the hopes and hupes of corporate earnings in America - so precious metals are being battered once again. Silver is now down for the 9th consecutive day - the longest streak in 8 months; and Gold is down again (after a brief reprieve yesterday) to its lowest levels in 3 months.

The ongoing failure of China to achieve any stabilization in its economy, after already cutting interest rates six times in the past year, and the prospect of a U.S. interest rate hike in December, had made markets increasingly jittery and worried which is not only why the S&P 500 Index had its biggest drop in a month, but thanks to the soaring dollar emerging market stocks are falling for a fourth day - led by China - bringing their decline in that period to almost 4 percent, and the global stock index down for a 5th consecutive day.

Those who choose to distance themselves (and their wealth – however large or small) geographically from the centre of the hurricane will fare best.

"The truth is, the debt ceiling doesn’t actually limit government spending. It’s a farce. Every time government debt gets close to the debt ceiling, Congress just raises it.”