Precious Metals

Bullish on metals. Here's why. 

Brazil’s aggressive efforts to weaken its currency by buying dollars – about $132 billion since the beginning of 2008 – have left the country with the sixth biggest international reserves in the world, about 80% of which is denominated in the US currency. However, recent turmoil in currency markets and concerns over the global financial crisis and fiat currencies in general has given Brazil’s authorities even more reason to diversify their holdings.  It has frequently stated its intention to diversify assets and reduce its exposure to currency risk. Recent sharp weakness in Brazil’s real (see table) and systemic risks are leading central banks, including the BCB to diversify into gold. Brazil raised its gold holdings by 17.2 tonnes in October to 52.5 tonnes, the highest level since January 2001. The move comes on the back of Brazil’s 1.7 tonne increase in September, the country’s first significant gold purchase in a decade. However, there are concerns that the increase in the Brazilian central bank gold holdings' and tonnage are not all that they seem.  It appears that the central bank in Brazil has not actually bought London Good Delivery bullion bars but rather fixed term gold deposits with bullion banks. Recently, the Brazilian central bank was asked about their gold reserves and about a section on gold on their website under 'Official Reserve Assets' lists gold as "gold (including gold deposit and, if appropriate, gold swapped)" with a footnote of "Includes available stock of financial gold plus time deposits."

Best day in 5 months for stocks. AAPL jumping to one-week highs with its 2nd biggest low to high swing in 3 years. Wherever you look, the worst came first and so the talking heads re-appeared saying the worst is over and all is rainbows, unicorns, and mountains are once again molehills. Unfortunately, while ETFs were smashed higher (HYG biggest move in a year on 2nd largest volume ever back above its 200DMA, VXX crushed -9%), risk assets broadly speaking were not playing along with Treasuries especially drifting lower in yield from the European close (and EURUSD) as stocks surged to the highs of the day. Commodities soared with Oil leading the way - though post-Europe everything flattened and leaked lower. VIX collapsed 1.2vols to end just above 15% (notably ahead of stocks relatively speaking) but equity volume on the day was dismally low as S&P 500 futures broke back above the 200DMA amid larger than average trade size.

If you want further evidence that the financial elites are already preparing for a default from Spain and a collateral crunch, you should consider that the large clearing houses (ICE, CEM and LCH which oversee the trading of the $700+ trillion derivatives market) have ALL begun accepting Gold as collateral.

Back in the 1960s, a clever but financially disadvantaged fellow placed a small ad in a national magazine that read something like: Money needed. Please send $1 to the address below. Do it today! No specific need was given, and nothing was promised in return, so that fraud could not later be charged. Yet within a few months, thousands of dollars arrived in his mailbox, a considerable sum in those days. Or so the urban legend goes. A half-century later, many things have changed, but one thing remains unchanged: People still need money, and they have not ceased to innovate ways in which to get it. Clearly there are a lot of new and imaginative ways of moving money around that vie for our attention. Many of them would be considered crowdfunding. Crowdfunding, if thought of merely as the pooling of resources for a common cause, is as old as human groupings. But that isn't the way it's thought of nowadays. The current king of the hill, Kickstarter, launched in April of 2009, has been a great success. So, is crowdfunding the future capital source for every new venture under the sun? Well, probably not... although we can't say for sure, because it does sometimes seem that way as new and imaginative ways of moving money around vie for our attention.

There are many questions on the minds of weary precious metals investors after enduring the volatile yet range-bound price action of gold and silver over the past year:

• Have the fundamentals for owning gold & silver changed over the past year? No
• What are they? currency devaluation/crisis, supply-chain risk, ore grade depletion
• How should retail investors own gold? Mostly physical metal, some quality mining majors (avoid the indices), and ETFs only for trading
• Is gold in a bubble? No
• Could gold get re-monetized? Quite possibly
• Where is gold flowing? From the West to the East. At some point, capital controls will be put in place

Jeff Clark and Chris Martenson believe everyone should have exposure to gold and silver as a defense for preserving the purchasing power of their weath. The key question is: how much exposure?

We already know that Ben Bernanke is a gold bug's best friend (here, here and here). And while technically Ben Bernanke is a republican, and was appointed to his post by a republican president, it is safe to say that when it comes to printing money political affiliation is irrelevant, especially since it was paradoxically a democrat Obama who was Bernanke's biggest backer during the last year for very obvious reasons - after all it was merely Bernanke's $2 trillion in excess reserves that pushed the stock market higher and gave the false impression that the economy is improving (even if a potential Romney administration would have hardly budged the status quo and likely replaced Bernanke with an even more pro-printing figurehead in the face of Bill Dudley). So a different question is: should gold bugs be more excited by a democrat or a republican president. The answer is self-evident: of the $4000 inflation-adjusted increase in gold price since gold was floated by Nixon, a solid $3000, or 75% of this rise, has taken place under Democratic administrations. So dear gold bugs: stock pile that physical and cheer on Obama and hopefully his democratic successors. At this rate, gold (and ostensibly all other precious metals) will outperform every single asset class known to man (sorry Buffett).

Whether it is leveraged AAPL traders forced to sell winning collateral to meet margin calls, correlation-driven algos running stops down and up, or simply the whims of worried custodians managing risk for their clients' holdings; one thing is sure - someone (or more than one) has been a size seller of precious metals in the US-day-session-open to Europe-close period for four days in a row now...

China needs to add to its gold reserves to ensure national economic and financial safety, promote yuan globalization and as a hedge against foreign- reserve risks, Gao Wei, an official from the Department of International Economic Affairs of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, writes in a commentary in the China Securities Journal today which was reported on by Bloomberg. China’s gold reserve is “too small”, Gao said and while gold prices are currently near record highs, China can build its reserves by buying low and selling high amid the short-term volatility, Gao wrote. The People’s Bank of China is accumulating significant volumes of gold under the radar of many less informed market participants which is bullish. The Chinese government is secretive about its gold diversification and buying and does not disclose gold purchases to the IMF. Therefore, there has been no official update to their holdings since the barely reported upon announcement four years ago that Chinese gold reserves had risen from just over 500 tonnes to over 1,000 tonnes.

Silver remains the most under appreciated and under reported on asset in the world despite continuing positive fundamentals.

The Telegraph published an unusually bullish article on silver yesterday which suggests that silver might rise by over five times in the next few years. 

Emma Wall interviews fund manager Ian Williams who says that "silver is about to enter a sustained bull market that will take the price from the current level of $32 an ounce to $165 an ounce and we expect this price to be hit at the end of October 2015."

Chairman of the LBMA David Gornall told the conference, “When comparing China to the U.S., it would seem that in China, gold asset allocation can only go in one direction.  The country has only 2% of its reserves in the form of gold compared with the U.S. at 75%.” The People’s Bank of China hasn’t disclosed any changes to its gold holdings since 2009, when it said they had risen a whopping 76% to 1,054 metric tons. While the U.S., Germany, Italy and France keep more than 70% of reserves in gold, China’s share is less than 2%. “Prices have recently been supported by official sector buying,” Gornall said today, without listing any central bank. “Will the gap between the amount of gold held in reserve by the developing markets and that of the developed world close?” Brazil, South Korea and Russia have all added gold reserves this year data from the International Monetary Fund show. Nations bought 254.2 tons in the first six months and may increase to 500 tons this year, the World Gold Council said in August, exceeding the 456 tons added in 2011. China has the world’s largest foreign-exchange reserves, totaling $3.29 trillion in September, according to data by Bloomberg.

The REAL World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a currency war with far greater implications and consequences for every human being on earth than the one that plays out in Las Vegas every year. Many of the Western nations' bluffs are now being exposed and falling apart.  This will have significant implications for much higher gold & silver prices in the future.

On October 21^st, 2012, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote a note titled “IMF’s epic plan to conjure away debt and dethrone bankers”, on UK’s The Telegraph. The article presented the International Monetary Fund’s working paper 12/202, also titled “The Chicago Plan revisited“. I will begin the discussion on this working paper with two disclosures: a) my personal portfolio would profit immensely if the Chicago Plan, as presented by the IMF’s working paper 12/202, was effectively carried out in the US. The reason I write today, however, is that to me, it is more important to ensure that my children live and grow in a free and prosperous world, and b) I have not read the so called Chicago Plan, as originally proposed by H. Simmons and supported by I. Fisher. My comments are on what the IMF working paper tells us that the Chicago Plan proposed, without making any claim on the original plan.

Gold is 3.35% higher and silver 4.53% higher this week in US dollars in the aftermath of Obama's re-election.  Gold in euros looks set to break out above €1,400/oz and is 4.1% higher and in sterling gold has risen 3.7% so far this week. Silver is 5.25% higher in euros and 4.8% higher in pounds. Gold and silver are set for higher weekly closes in all fiat currencies which may negate the recent bearish short term technical picture and set the precious metals up for the traditional yearend rally.  The data clearly shows that November is gold's strongest month and one of silver's strongest months. December, January and February are also strong months - prior to a period of weakness is often seen in March.

At some point or another, anyone who is even remotely paying attention to reality will likely reach two critical moments of awakening in their lives. The first is what I call the “Aha! moment”. The ‘Aha! moment’ is usually brought about by something you learn or read… When you talk to your friends and family, most of them don’t want to hear about your ideas. They think you’re nuts. They haven’t had their ‘Aha! moment’ yet. Eventually, you learn to keep it all inside. But then, at some point down the road, the second critical moment occurs– the Breaking Point.