Precious Metals

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.”

History tells us that empires are rarely defeated, by any external rival. 

Zero Hedge first revealed the contingency plans that libertarian online retailer Overstock has implemented "in preparation for the next collapse" ten days ago. Today, the strategy outlined by Overstock Chairman Jonathan Johnson has resonated across the Atlantic and this morning as the Financial Times catches up to the story of an "online retailer hoarding gold as crisis defense" in which it calls the retailer a "redoubt of doomsday conservatism" adding its policy to prepare for the loss of central-planning control is "redolent of the small band of US survivalists preparing for the end of civilisation."

Over the past decade; our markets have ceased to behave like “markets”, at all.