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China has proposed to broaden trading of precious metals in its local market in order to help China become a "major gold trading centre" (see News). The Wall Street Journal was briefed about China's plans by "a person involved with the matter." The paper reports that "the move could increase liquidity and help Beijing gain stronger pricing power for key commodities like gold". China is the largest consumer and now the largest producer of gold in the world and has aspirations to become a major gold trading center on a par with London and New York. China is also the fifth largest holder of gold reserves in the world after the U.S., Germany, France, Italy. Chinese officials have spoken of China’s aspirations to have gold reserves as large as the U.S. in order to help position the yuan or renminbi as a global reserve currency. Indeed, it would be only natural for China to aspire to have their currency become the global reserve currency in the long term. In the longer term, being a major gold trading center would make China a more powerful financial and economic player and indeed could allow them to influence commodity and other important market prices. Indeed, Reuters reported that becoming a major gold trading center "would boost the country's clout in setting global prices".

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) primary role is to make retail markets for financial products and services work more effectively, and so help retail consumers to get a fair deal. In June 2006, the FSA created its Retail Distribution Review (RDR) programme which they are enacting in order to enhance consumer confidence in the retail investment market. The RDR has a target for full-implementation of 31 December 2012. The RDR is expected to have a significant impact on the way in which financial services are delivered to retail investors in the UK. The primary delivery mechanism of financial services to retail customers is via approximately 30,000 Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs) who are authorised and regulated by the FSA. They are expected to bear the brunt of the force of the RDR. Gold bullion is set to benefit from the axing of commission for IFAs and the implementation of the RDR “should be regarded as a game changer” for gold as an investment in the UK, according to the World Gold Council. Managing director of investment Marcus Grubb, says: “These extremely challenging times mean it’s impossible to quantify the risks for UK investors. They are facing an unprecedented combination of threats to their assets including extreme and unexpected market shocks that can trigger widespread value destruction.” “As UK investors reduce allocations to traditional investments such as equities and bonds and increasingly dash to cash, they face a double whammy, with the potential for stagnation of capital due to the lack of returns from cash and the increased possibility of inflation as a result of ongoing monetary stimulation.”

Gold inched up on Tuesday ahead of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's Congressional testimony today and Wednesday which should provide the market with information as to whether the US central bank will flood the market with more US paper.

Maybe I'd have more followers if I tore a page out of the BI playbook, but I think I'd rather try to keep following ZH's lead and just try to write well, succinctly, and - if possible - with a bit of novelty.

The debate on how to deal with false or misguiding campaign speech is neither new nor likely to be resolved soon, but as Europe’s economic crisis continues to deepen, and as social and political tensions rise, elemental questions of democracy once limited to seemingly distant European Union institutions are now spilling over to national governments. In the case of Spain, broken campaign promises coupled with the notion that Brussels and Berlin may have de facto hijacked the national political process are seeding the ground for an imminent political crisis. Indeed, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s systematic adoption of policies that are in complete breach of the promises which took him to power only a few months ago are casting doubts on the legitimacy of his political leadership.

Peak oil is a phenomenon many will be aware of – peak gold remains a foreign concept to most. Peak gold is the date at which the maximum rate of global gold extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. The term derives from the Hubbert peak of a resource. Unlike oil and silver, which is destroyed in use, gold can be reused and recycled. However, unlike oil gold is money, a store of value and a foreign exchange reserve and gold is slowly being remonetised in the global financial system and indeed may soon play a role in a new international monetary system. Ore grades have fallen from around 12 grams per tonne in 1950 to nearer 3 grams in the US, Canada, and Australia. South Africa's output has halved since peaking in 1970. Peak gold may not have happened in 2000. Nor may it have happened in 2011. However, the geological evidence suggests that it may happen in the near term due to the increasing difficulty large and small gold mining companies are having increasing their production. The fact that peak gold may take place at a time when the world is engaged in peak fiat paper and electronic money creation bodes very well for gold’s long term outlook.

Today's AM fix was USD 1565.50, EUR 1281.10 and GBP 1011.96 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1576.50, EUR 1284 and GBP 1012.91 per ounce.

Gold rose by 0.5% in New York yesterday and closed up $8.20 to $1,576.60/oz. Silver rose 0.93% or 25 cents to close at $27.09/oz.

Gold gradually ticked lower in Asian trading and has seen further slight weakness in European trading. Still robust physical demand is supporting gold at these levels and strong support is at the $1,500/oz level. 

The Borg collective formerly known as the US middle class may have no money left (and its credit cards have long since been maxed out), but at least it has every internet-connected gizmo known to man and Klingon. Not surprisingly, this development has not been lost on the very same retailers who are competing dollar for dollar with the vendors who sell these same faddy gizmos to the same Borg collective. For now retailers are losing. But, like stock traders and the administration they are full of hope. And spam. And will make it known. As SM reports, spam emails from retailers "jumped 20% in the first half of the year over the same period in 2011, according to a survey released this week by Responsys, a California-based marketing software company. In June alone, these stores sent an average of 18 emails per subscriber, up 21% on last year." Expect this number to only go up until virtually every email coming into one's inbox is a groupon ad, a penis enlargement device, a PFG "try us for 30 days for free" offer, or a 90%-off "one time only" for the latest value investing congress. Because the only cost associated with spamming people is printing extra email lists. The Fed Chairman can vouch for the sunk cost associated with hitting CTRL+P. So how long until iPhone spam filter makers are more profitable than Belgian caterers?

A lack of transparency, a lack of enforcement of law and a compliant media which failed to ask the hard questions and do basic investigative journalism led to the price fixing continuing and the manipulation continuing unchecked on such a wide scale for so long - until it was exposed recently. Similarly, the gold market has the appearance of a market that is a victim of “financial repression”. Given the degree of risk in the world – it is arguable that gold prices should have surged in recent months and should be at much higher levels today. The gold market has all the hallmarks of Libor manipulation but as usual all evidence is ignored until official sources acknowlege the truth. However, like LIBOR the gold manipulation 'conspiracy theory' is likely to soon become conspiracy fact.  It will then – belatedly - become accepted wisdom among 'experts.'  Experts who had never acknowledged it, failed to research and comment on it or had simply dismissed it as a “goldbug accusation.”  Financial repression means that most markets are manipulated today - especially bond and foreign exchange markets.

Back in January, an article by Reuters' head financial blogger on the topic of the Greek bond restructuring, which effectively said that Greeks have all the leverage, prompted us to pen Subordination 101 (one of the year's most read posts on Zero Hedge), in which we patiently explained why his proposed blanket generalization was completely wrong, and why litigation arbitrage in covenant heavy UK-law bonds would be precisely the way to go into the Greek restructuring. 4 months later, those who listened to us made a 135% annualized return by getting taken out in Greek UK-law bonds at par, whereas those who listened to Reuters made, well nothing. What is amusing, is that such examples of pseudo-contrarian sophistry for the sake of making a statement, any statement, or better known in the media world as generating  "page views", no matter how ungrounded in financial fact, especially from recent Loeb award winners, is nothing new. To wit, we go back to May 29, 2008 where courtesy of the same author, in collaboration with another self-proclaimed Twitter pundit, we read "Defending Libor" in which the now Reutersian and his shoulder-chipped UK-based academic sidekick decide that, no Carrick Mollenkamp and Mark Whitehouse's then stunning and quite incendiary discoveries on Liebor are actually quite irrelevant, and are, to use the parlance of our times, a tempest in a teapot. His conclusion: "What the WSJ has done is come up with a marginally interesting intellectual conundrum: why is there a disconnect between CDS premia, on the one hand, and Libor spreads, on the other? But the way that the WSJ is reporting its findings they seem to think they’re uncovering a major scandal. They’re not." Actually, in retrospect, they are.

The Great Recession and the poor job market has stressed the middle class to its limit.   However, the seeds have long been sown from the poor fiscal and monetary policy implementation.

UPDATE: Disturbing video of the bloody reality on Saudi streets tonight

Remember Qatif - the "weakest" Saudi authoritarian link, whose daily protests, many of them violent, threatened to topple the government last spring when soaring global food inflation set the MENA region on fire and led to the overthrow of numerous regimes in the Mediterranean rim? It's back, only this time not based on food price concerns, but inflamed religious tensions, arising from the arrest, and shooting, of a senior religious opposition figure, Shia cleric Ayatollah Al-Neme. As of minutes ago, Redha Al-boori reports on Twitter, that there have been at least two casuualties as a result of confrontation between Saudi forces using live ammo and protesting Shiites.

Negative interest rates continue to penalise pensioners and savers in European countries and this will lead to further diversification into gold. Financial markets are already starting to wonder about the solidity of last week's summit measures to tackle the euro zone crisis and soon they may question whether even looser monetary policies will help prevent recessions and sovereign defaults. With Independence Day today (Happy July 4th to all our American followers, clients and friends), the ECB decision tomorrow and NFP on Friday, trading should be quite today but as we know illiquid markets can lead to outsized market moves. We tend to try and avoid predictions in GoldCore as the future is largely unknowable and there are so many variables that drive market action that it is nigh impossible to predict the future price of any asset class. However, our opinion has long been that over the long term all fiat currencies will depreciate and devalue against the finite currency that is gold. For this reason we have long held that gold would reach its inflation adjusted high of $2,400/oz and silver its inflation adjusted high at $140/oz and the equivalent in euros, pounds and other fiat currencies. Gold at just over $1,600/oz today remains 33% below its record nominal high in 1980. Silver at just over $28/oz today remains 80% below its record nominal high in 1980. However, we have tended to focus on the important diversification, store of value and safe haven benefits of owning physical gold (and silver) bullion.

Debate between Krugman and the CFR rages on in round 2 on whether currency devaluation created the Icelandic Miracle or Mirage.  

Fundamentals (inflation expectations, longer-term savings and investment objectives) should be driving current demand for gold coins. And, this is exactly what we are seeing. In June 2012, the US Mint sold 54,500oz of coinage gold, up on 53,000 in May 2012. Total for H1 2012, US Mint sales of gold coins in terms of total weight sold are down 41.3% on H1 2011 and it is down 49.8% on H1 2010 and 50.3% on H1 2009. Dramatic? Sure, when one disregards consideration of drivers for 2009-2011 demand for coins being coincident with extreme risks in other markets. Total H1 2012 demand was at 338,000oz still well ahead of H1 average demand for 2000-2007 period when it was 165,679oz, but down on 531,750oz average for H1 2008-2011 crisis period. Exactly the same picture - return to fundamentals - is seen in the number of coins sold. Consistent with still robust demand drivers, H1 2012 average coin sold contained 0.60 oz, while H1 2000-2007 period average was 0.51oz and H1 2008-2011 period average was 0.76oz.