Precious Metals

Spot Gold just jumped above its February 2012 highs to trade at $1791.45. This is the highest since November 2011 as the precious metals continue to outperform stocks post-QEternity.

Gold and Silver and surging this morning as the Fed's Charles Evans talks on CNBC of the need for more accomodative policy by the Fed. His 'infiniter' easing seems to have sparked this move as he clarifies the seeming psychopathy of the Federal Reserve's actions. His message clearly is that the amount doesn't matter (nor the unintended consequences), the printing and flooding of money into an already stuffed banking system will continue until morale improves.

As we end the month and quarter, we remind ourselves that a massive amount of the recent 'strength' in risk markets occurred on just two days - ECB and Fed statements. Reflecting on the post-euphoria 'sell-the-news' or BTFD meme, we look at how various asset classes and securities have performed post-QEternity. Two lessons are clear: Front-Run The Fed (every time) and Buy Precious Metals.

Gold reached highs in euros and Swiss francs yesterday, in London trading it hit EUR 1,379.60/oz compared to EUR 1,375/oz last September.  In Swiss Francs gold traded at CHF 1,666/oz. Europeans have been viewing scenes of violence and riots from protestors in Madrid and Athens over the past few days.  Barclays Plc. announced yesterday it was opening its own London vault to store gold and other precious metals due to demand from their clients. Investment banks have readjusted price targets upward in the past few days with some calling for gold at $2,000 and higher in the next few months.   This signals that the recent rally of the euro against the dollar was largely due to the poor US monetary and fiscal situation and the greenback’s weakness and not due to any great confidence in the single currency per se.

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It appears that JPM and HSBC's monopoly in the warehousing of tungsten gold is coming to an end. Just two weeks after QEternity was announced, it has become obvious that the only things, literally, that will matter in the future are the ABCDs: Anything Bernanke Can't Destroy. And as a result of a surge in physical purchases, buyers need to store their metal somewhere. Sure enough, one of the the UK's most insolvent banks - Barclays - is more than happy to provide its brand spanking new warehousing services, with the opening of what will be on of Europe's largest PM vaults. From Dow Jones: "Barclays has opened its first precious metals vault in London in a bid to satisfy growing client demand for bullion as a store of value, the bank said Thursday. The vault, which houses gold, silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium and began operating earlier this month, is one of the largest in Europe. While the bank already has extensive trading and clearing capabilities, this is the first time that Barclays has been able to offer its own precious metals storage facility to its customers, having previously relied on third-party storage." Of course, if and when the scramble comes and everyone demands their gold from the vault located in an unknown location, but somewhere in the inner loop of London's M25, Barclays will just say "Ooops." But we will cross that bridge when we get to it.

Desperate North Korea has exported more than 2 tons to gold hungry China over the past year to earn US $100 million. Even in tough times during the Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il regimes, North Korea refused to let go of its precious gold reserves. Chosun media reports that “a mysterious agency known as Room 39, which manages Kim Jong-un's money, and the People's Armed Forces are spearheading exports of gold, said an informed source in China. "They are selling not only gold that was produced since December last year, when Kim Jong-un came to power, but also gold from the country's reserves and bought from its people." This is a sign of the desperation of the North Korean regime and also signals China’s intent to vastly increase the People’s Bank of China’s gold reserves.

In the aftermath of the recent stories about Tungsten-filled 10 ounce gold bars discovered in midtown Manhattan, there have been two broad sentiments expressed by the precious metals community: i) that this is as many have expected, and that of the physical inventory in circulation, much is fake (particularly that held in official hands, either via ETFs or in sovereign repositories which for various reasons still can not be publicly assayed) and ii) is the comfort that while it is relatively easy and cost-effective to use tungsten to falsify larger gold bars and bricks, those who own primarily gold coins are safe as for some reason, it is less economic, feasible or widespread to counterfeit smaller precious metal denominations. Sadly, while i) may be true, ii) is patently false. The proof comes courtesy of a firm called ChinaTungsten Online which proudly markets its broad "tungsten-alloy services" including, you guessed it, the gold plating of various tungsten formulations among them "gold" bricks, bars and, yes, coins. Oh did we mention a Chinese company openly advertizes its tungsten gold-plating and precious metals replication services, something which the tabloid media's CTRL-C/V majors openly mock as improbable conspiracy theory. Well, as they say, it is only conspiracy theory until it becomes conspiracy fact.

We believe an unsustainable new global financial architecture that arose in response to the US and European financial crises has replaced an older, more sustainable, architecture. The old architecture was crystallized in Washington- and IMF-inspired policy responses to the numerous sovereign defaults, banking system failures, and currency collapses. Most importantly, the previous architecture recognized limits on fiscal and central bank balance sheets. The new architecture attempts to 'back', perhaps unconsciously, the entire liability side of the global financial system. This framing is consistent with a purely political—institutional stylized—fact that it is nearly impossible to penetrate the US political parties if the message is that there are limits to their power…or that their power requires great effort and sacrifice. This is why Keynesians (at least US ones) who argue there are no limits to a fiscal balance sheet are so popular with Democrats, and why monetarists (at least US ones) who argue there are no limits to a central bank balance sheet are popular with (a decreasing number of) Republicans. Party on! Again, nobody chooses hard-currency regimes – they are forced on non-credible policymakers. Let me put it more positively. If politicians want the power of fiat money, let alone the global reserve currency, they need to behave differently than they have - or the consequences for Gold are extraordinary.

If you wanted to sum up the just-concluded Casey Research/Sprott Inc. Summit titled Navigating the Politicized Economy, you could say "The situation is hopeless but not serious." More than 20 speakers – many of them world-renowned financial experts and best-selling authors – gathered in Carlsbad, CA, from September 7 to 9 to ascertain exactly how hopeless, and what investors can do to protect themselves.

What might happen to your favorite ETF in a crisis?  As the the half life for the next Fed-induced bubble happily converges with the six month mark on Mr. Bernanke's QE3, these things never matter...until they do

On the heels of last Thursday’s Fed announcement, there has been much commentary on the whys and wherefores of a new quantitative easing (the so-called QE3). Rather than re-hashing well-covered ground, I want to instead discuss the potential effects and unintended consequences of this policy and how it may impact the investment landscape going forward. Suffice it to say that the Fed had its reasons. QE3 evidences a belief in the so-called “wealth-effect” – the idea that one will spend more if he/she feels wealthier – and the Fed also believes it can contain any negative consequences. However, others would argue that it’s another shot across the bow of our foreign lenders that we are willing to engage full-out in a currency war as this policy clearly weakens the U.S. dollar. Because the Fed has embarked on a path with little historical precedent – where a central bank has signaled the intent to expand its balance sheet as much as it needs to – we are all now part of an experimental economy.

What Do the Experts Say?  Are People Actually ACCEPTING Gold As Money?

Since the very beginning of my public writings, I have leaned heavily towards the path of inflation, by which I mean money printing or its electronic equivalent, because even a cursory review of history will show that leaders have always chosen a little money printing today and the possibility of inflation tomorrow over the immediate pain of having to live within their means or with the consequences of their poor decisions. That was just a fancy way of saying 'humans will be humans,' and while our technology has advanced tremendously over the past few decades, our DNA blueprints are virtually identical to those found in people living 50,000 years ago.  History can tell us much. Our current predicament has its roots way back in the early 1980s, when something changed in our collective psyches that allowed us to abandon thrift and savings in favor of spending and borrowing.

• Deposit Flight From Europe Banks Eroding Common Currency (Bloomberg)
• BOJ eases monetary policy as global slowdown bites (Reuters)
• Stalled Rally Puts Pressure on Spain (WSJ)
• Missed Chances Stoke Skepticism Over EU’s Crisis Fight (Bloomberg)
• Germany's big worry: China, not Greece (Reuters)
• Goldman names new CFO, heralding end of an era (Reuters)
• Russia Demands U.S. Agency Halt Work (WSJ)
• Fed’s Dudley Says Easing Vital to Spur Too-Slow Growth (Bloomberg)
• Romney under fire from all sides (FT)
• Poland cuts red tape to spur growth (FT)
• IMF to Put Argentina on Path to Censure Over Inflation Data (Bloomberg)