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"Unlike other financial instruments, gold doesn't produce interest. But given its symbolic presence and usefulness as a safe haven in times of crisis, the BOK needs to buy more. We may do so this year," he said.

XAU/USD Currency Chart – (Bloomberg)

Gold dipped today despite Wall Street hopes that the US Fed will embark on more QE. As we have said for some time QE3, or a new term for electronic and paper money creation, is a certainty and this will lead to inflation hedging and safe haven demand for gold. 

Gold took a tumble for the first time in 7 sessions in Asia as Antonis Samaras, leader of the Greece's New Democracy Party (pro-bailout) was victorious.  Today, Samaras plans to form a coalition with other parties backing the bailout – meaning that Greece’s future in the euro is secure – for now.  Gold’s dip in Asia was thought to be due to profit taking and increased risk appetite after the Greek election. However, this increase in risk appetite has been quite short lived with Spanish and Italian 10 year bonds again coming under pressure resulting in record Spanish yields over 7.13% and Italian 10 year over 6% again. Initial gains in equity markets have subsided and the lessening of risk appetite is seeing gold supported. Greece’s exit from the Eurozone is no longer a short term risk however it remains a real risk as does the risk of financial contagion in the Eurozone due to insolvent banks in Spain, Italy and France.

More than 80 institutions with collective assets under management of over $8 trillion attended the event and were polled regarding macroeconomic matters and their outlook for various asset classes. Gold is seen as one of the assets likely to outperform again in 2012 due to risks posed to the euro and longer term risks for the dollar. Those polled by UBS were also positive on emerging market debt. Both asset classes, gold and emerging market debt, were the top pick of 22.5% of the assembly – thereby accounting for 45% of the votes. On gold’s role as a reserve asset, the importance reserve managers attach to the yellow metal has slipped back to 2009 levels, with about 14% having the opinion that it will be the most important reserve currency in 25 years. This marks a decline from the past two years’ surveys wherein over 20% viewed gold to be the most important reserve currency. 

Tony Robbins warned about the risk of dollar devaluation and spoke about the opportunities in gold

Something amusing happened in today's global capital markets: while European bond markets, especially in the periphery, are sliding following the Spanish downgrade and the Italian bond auction, one market has soared: that of Greece, which is up nearly double digits (not all that meaningful when you are at 20+ year lows), and whose bankrupt and deposit-free banks are up 20%. Which in turn is pushing US futures higher despit the Spanish record yield. What has caused this spike? Nothing but more political rhetoric and jawboning. Specifically, overnight Kathimerini reported that "Stefanos Manos, the leader of the small liberal party Drasi, claims that leftist SYRIZA will not scrap Greece’s bailout if it comes to power because it is the only way it can guarantee salaries for its supporters in the civil service." Well, yes. Tspiras never said he will scrap the bailout. He merely said that he will end the memorandum in its current format. The decision then, and as always, would lie with Germany and the ECB, what to do about this latest Nash Equilibrium defection. In other words, the ultimate decision-maker was never Tsipras, and in fact even ND's Samaras has repeatedly said he would renegotiation the terms of the Greek bailout. But in this centrally-planned, robotically-traded market, confusion over cause and effect is to be widely expected.

SemGroup in 2008 and the London Whale in 2012 have given the people a blueprint to kill JP Morgan's alleged massive manipulative position in the silver market.

It was only a matter of time before the stoic Germans, long abused as the piggy bank pinatas of Europe's monetary experiment, said something. And after last week's confused Spanish campaign demanding that Merkel stop (what exactly - bailing out the Spanish banks? Funding Spanish current account deficits?), Germany has found its retort. As of a few hours ago, the German empire has decided to strike back using the #StoppESM hashtag on twitter. Are we about to have our first European twitter war? And while we know what the hashtag for Greece wil be (#StopTaxes), and Ireland (#StopSobriety), we have yet to figure out the appropriate terms for all the other insolvent European countries. There are many.

Gold rose $11.40 or 0.71% yesterday in New York and closed at $1,611.60/oz.  Gold started out trading sideways in Asia and then edged up in early European trading.  

Nobody can forget how over the weekend Spanish PM Rajoy told economy minister de Guindos to keep a stiff upper lip, and that, lest someone forget, Spain is not Uganda. Two days later nobody is laughing: Spanish bond yields just pushed to Euroarea records, Fitch just downgraded the bulk of Spanish banks, and it looks like Spain may need a second bailout before the details of the first one are even ironed out. However, one entity is not amused. Uganda. Or perhaps, is very amused, depending on one's perspective.

Turkey remained the world's number one minter of gold coins in 2011. There is an increasing tendency for gold bars to be retail investors' vehicle of choice – although gold coins still retain a majority market share. Turkish people can pay in gold in certain foreign exchange houses and most jewellers will accept gold as payment. Turkish banks are is now offering digital gold saving accounts. Turkey expanded its gold reserves by 29.7 metric tons in April. Turkey’s bullion reserves climbed to 239.3 tons last month meaning that Turkey increased their gold reserves by 14% in April. The central bank on March 27 doubled the share of lira reserves banks can hold in gold to 20%, saying it would provide 6.1 billion liras ($3.3 billion) of extra liquidity. "This addition," the WGC says, "was the result of a policy change under which the central bank will now accept gold in reserve requirements from commercial banks to help the banks utilize their gold in managing their liquidity." Some analysts have suggested that the increase in Turkish gold reserves, as reported by the IMF, may actually be a form of “double accounting”. Whereby the gold held in Turkish banks client’s gold account is transferred from the local bank as a reserve to the central bank, from where it then figures as gold reserves.

All you need to know.

Spain marks the fourth bailout during this Euro Zone debt crisis saga, after Ireland, Portugal and Greece, and may need more aid, while Italy is looking good to be the fifth bailout candidate

On Thursday, it was all Merkel's fault when #StopMerkel took Spain by storm. Well, whatever it was that Merkel was supposed to stop doing now no longer seems to matter in the aftermath of the unprecedented Spanish bailout. And as a result the Spanish public's fury has shifted 180 degrees, and instead of blaming Germany, it now is accusing its own leaders of cowardice. Presenting #RajoyCobarde (or Coward Rajoy).