Thai Guru's Gold und Silber ... (Informationen und Vermutungen)

From http://www.urbansurvival.com:

Wounded: 10,000
The sad stats from Iraq keep mounting up - today's is the passing of the 10-thousand mark of injured: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4147705.stm Officially, 1,300 have died, but remember that there are a large number of dead who are not counted in that figure because they were kept alive long enough to make it back to Germany, or on to Walter Reed. The actual honest accounting of dead may never be sorted out, especially when you figure in the reports of the hundreds of mercenaries who reportedly have died in the fighting and been buried in unmarked graves after being promised big paychecks if they survived.
In country: 22 dead from today's latest car bombing: http://english.aljazeera.net/N…50F-A471-72E651F93D32.htm

-END-

Paul Kasriel, Chief Economist at Northern Trust-Chicago, Il. is quoted in this past Monday's WSJ. Congrats to Paul Kasriel of Northern Trust for calling it the way he "REALLY" sees it, unlike most mainstream economists!

"Paul Kasriel, chief economist at Northern Trust in Chicago, says a scarier scenario would look something like this: Foreign central banks would lose faith in their U.S. dollar holdings and start dumping U.S. Treasurys. The dollar would drop sharply, inflation would rise and interest rates would rise, "which I think would do severe damage to the household sector and the housing market," he says. In the process, the ground for a new recession -- perhaps in 2006 -- could be laid. He puts the chances of a dollar crash at 25% and the chances of a recession in 2006 at 75%. This puts him out of the consensus. On average, the economists say the chances of a dollar crash are closer to 15%, with the odds of a recession by 2006 at 22%."

Kasriel also noted: that the ability of US consumers to pour more money into mutual funds is diminishing. According to Federal Reserve data, at the start of the ‘90s, US household deposits as a percent of total assets were 13.8%. As of Q3 ’04 they have fallen to 9.7%. During the same period, debt as a percent of total assets has risen to 18.1% from 14.8%.

Houston’s Dan Norcini with some market thoughts:

Hey Bill:
We are now down to open interest levels that were last seen in October 2004 when gold was trading at $420. All the guys who are long from $420 are still in the money and are sitting just fine. That looks like a solid support region and might be bringing in buying just above it. Will have to watch. So far - so good as that is what it looks like has been happening. It's a bit early to tell yet but the signs are encouraging.

Silver has formed a doji on the pit session charts followed by a nice up day today. That's a sign that the selling has temporary exhausted itself. The low at 635 is now support and needs to hold on any subsequent setbacks if silver is going to move on up from here. I like what I see here in silver thus far. It has come 20 points off that intra-day low from yesterday. My guess is that the new shorts from the previous day were unwilling to press it any further and were covering yesterday and today judging by the open interest figures and the price action. It has fallen a long way and is very much oversold on a short-term basis anyway. Stay tuned..........
Dan

March silver
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/SV/35

Rhody reports in on the lease rates:

Hi Bill:
Gold lease rates are now one third the level they were one month ago.

The declines were dramatic this past week, and these declines indicate that the present monetary intervention against gold is ended. With one month lease rates at .045%, this is bargain basement level. Silver lease rates have also declined about one third over this period, meaning the drop in gold lease rates is about twice as dramatic. Put another way, silver lease rates are back up to 4 and 5 times the rates for gold. (You can lease gold for an entire year for the cost of leasing silver for about two weeks.) If lease rates signal the level of liquidity in the "market", and silver is so tight, why was silver hit so hard on COMEX?????????????? The price correction in silver was a full 10%, while gold corrected about half that.

Did you know that as of right now, there is no precious metal bull? If you adjust the present prices of pms for inflation, just back to year 2000, the present price of gold in year 2000 dollars is $285 and silver is $4.30 per ounce. Where's the bull? Some pundits have been calling for a further correction in gold back down to $400. If we do go there, the inflation adjusted price becomes $268, and that's lower than the average price in year 2000. This means anyone who bought gold in 2000, has simply protected his investment from inflation. It further implies that if one hadn't bought back then, you would be doing just as well to buy now, as the wait has been for nothing except an inflation hedge. You wonder why the gold shares have been doing badly? That's why. An American gold mine has had his margins protected by the inflation hedge, but virtually all foreign mines have seen a huge inflation driven rise in their costs but the price of gold has been held down to 1999-2000 levels. Where's the bull? Remember ANOTHER?

He was a popular poster on the Kitco Forum. The quote I remember best from "Another" when queried about gold shares,: "You will be at the end of a long line of people selling gold shares." And so it has come to pass.

The gold price stinks, yet try to find some to buy, and silver is just as tight.

Want to hear the ultimate irony? The only people on earth right now who are benefiting from this so-called gold bull are Americans, and they are the people who caused this world financial crisis in the first place! Talk about profiting from one's mistakes.
Regards, Rhody

Regarding the silver tightness dilemma. Here is some helpful input from a very knowledgeable Café member who knows the silver market very well:

Bill,
Allow me to explain a bit of the silver market, especially at NYMEX, that MAY help to explain why a few Arabs are having a hard time acquiring $10 million worth of silver, and not buying it at the NYMEX, and why the price may go down even in the face of such large buy orders.

Personally speaking, and I request that you keep my name anonymous for this (call me Mr. XYZ), I have difficulty placing orders for more than about $200,000 worth of silver to be filled at once from coin dealers. Currently, I have 4 such orders placed with 4 coin dealers, and perhaps only one of the dealers had the bullion in inventory. Thus, you'd probably hesitate to place a larger order with only one dealer, too! All the rest of the dealers had to order silver from someone else--and so, I spread my orders around. Therefore, I have first hand experience, in knowing that there is tightness in the physical silver bullion market, even in the last week with lower prices. But this tightness always exists, because the coin dealers do not keep, or do not have, that much capital in the form of silver bullion.

Next, the NYMEX has limits. If you buy more than 150 contracts, you are no longer anonymous. That is a limit of 750,000 ounces, or about $4.8 million, at $6.40/oz. So perhaps the Arabs are concerned about remaining anonymous.

There is another limit, a position limit, of 1500 contracts per person, which, of course is much larger than the $10 million of the Arabs you heard about, so that limit is not a concern in this $10 million order, but if the order is for physical bullion, it also does not apply.

A third limit is that a delivery limit can be invoked after delivery of 1,500,000 ounces total for all market participants in one month! Yes, that's right, if 1000 people demand a total of more than 1.5 million ounces of silver off of NYMEX, then NYMEX can halt all physical deliveries once that limit is reached! At $6.80/oz., that's just over $10 million, or precisely $10,200,000.

Now, personally speaking, I know I would have a hard time filling a $10 million order. And I would also not feel comfortable doing that volume of business all in one place, especially not at NYMEX, due to their position limits. I might do 1/3 of the order through NYMEX, but the rest I'd try to do through the coin dealers, and that would also be a lot of risk, and a lot of work.

Furthermore, at this time, you know that the bullion price is moved up and down by the excessive paper futures contracts. You can read Ted Butler for more on this theme. The paper contracts are generally in excess of 100,000 contracts, which far exceeds the silver at NYMEX, sometimes more than ten times as much in paper contracts as physical silver. Therefore, that is another reason why I would be very careful about buying silver with a futures contract at NYMEX, even in "small" amounts of only a few million dollars.

I hope that helps explain the silver market at this time.

Sincerely,
Mr. XYZ

My only retort to XYZ is silver is like heavy dollar bills. Forget the Arabs for this exercise. If I am in the silver business and can buy silver in the US for X-5 and sell the same grade material in Europe at X+5, after factoring transportation costs, I would do so. It would be a lay-up arbitrage and an easy, no-risk money maker after further paying insurance costs. Especially since the transactions can be hedged. It would be like buying cheap dollars in the US and selling expensive dollars in Europe.

In response to a veteran Café member who is doing what he can to help out those poor souls in South Asia:

Thanks Bill. If you could do that it would be great. If you want to add this website link it might help too. http://www.gfa.org/gfa/tsunami. Our charity has committed to sent 100% of all the Tsunami Relief donations over to the affected area to help. We are not taking even one penny out to cover any administrative charges. Keep up the good work.
Wendell

The gold shares continue to stink up the place, flopping around with little sponsorship. The XAU lost .17 to 93.34, while the HUI gave up another .39 to 201.76.

Gold specs are liquidating like crazy and a number are pouring in on the short side. Meanwhile the cash market is on fire. If the silver fundamentals are as extraordinarily bullish as our information says it is, both precious metals are setting themselves up for serious upside fireworks – once this composure period and technical damage fallout period ends.

GATA BE IN IT TO WIN IT!

MIDAS

There was so much feedback to Dennis Gartman’s outrageous and "over the top" comments re GATA and the investing public, I thought it would be interesting for all (especially newer Café members) to do some follow-up to put this buffoon in his place. The best way to do so is not by my name calling (which I am delighted to engage in at moments like this), but to go back in history and review what the man has said over the years. Once you read his utterances over time, it becomes very apparent the man is a shill for the establishment and The Gold Cartel – and knows remarkably little about the gold market.

His attacks on GATA are not new. He has been on our case for almost 6 years now. GARTMAN went after us soon after GATA’s formation and started the discourse, or feud, if you would like to call it that. Anyway, I would like to thank him for serving GATA so many softballs over the years and helping to make our case for us. This man is both arrogant and gold clueless; nothing more than a visible mouthpiece for the cabal camp.

More importantly, over a half decade ago, GATA explained to the world why the gold price was where it was and where the price was going and why. At the time, virtually NO ONE out there in the mainstream investment world was saying what we were. GATA has been right, which is our vindication…and this is only the beginning.

I need say little more. Gartman hangs himself:

April 23, 1999 - Spot Gold $283.30 down 30 cents - Spot Silver $5.15 down 2 cents

Sing a little song, do a little dance. Anything to shake up this gold market. There is no volume and no activity. No real action. Just dullsville……

Harry Shultz is for us. Gold Field Mineral Services and Gartman are against us. From today's Gartman letter:

"Finally, we note that Gold Field Mineral Services Ltd., perhaps the most influential research group in the precious metals' industry, has openly condemned the proposed suit and investigation against the US government and the world's largest gold trading organizations that the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) is proceeding with as composes of "rather exaggerated ideas." We concur completely. "

We are curious as to why Mr. Gartman says what he says. He never called to talk to us. It is news to us that GFMS condemned us.

(SO GARTMAN CONDEMENED US ALMOST SIX YEARS AGO, ONLY because we had the audacity to confront the establishment and his clients. The truth means nothing to this guy.)

July 8, 1999 - Spot Gold $256.50 down 30 cents - Spot Silver $5.24 up 2 cents

The strangest commentary came from the highly regarded Gartman Letter. This is what Mr. Gartman had to say today:

"Finally, Her Majesty's government in the UK responded to reports made by a Tory member of Parliament (Mr Quentin Davies) that the Bank of England's gold auction was done primarily to "save the bacon of firms that are running…short positions" in the gold derivatives markets. The Treasury's spokeswoman, Ms Patricia Hewitt, called such report "nonsense…and wild rumours." We've no doubt that several firms are indeed quite heavily short of gold, including Goldman Sachs (having inherited a short position from Long Term Capital Management) and Barrick (having accumulated a large short position over the past several years to hedge its gold production going forward.); however, this is the UK we're talking about, and not the former governments in Nigeria, or Indonesia or Cameroon where corruption is rampant. We may be naïve, but we find it preposterous to believe that an MP would even broad the subject on the floor of the Parliament. We congratulate HM's government for putting the rumours to rest swiftly and succinctly.

An open letter to Mr. Gartman,

From Bill Murphy
Gold Anti Trust Action Committee Chairman

Dear Mr. Gartman,
You have told your readership that GFMS condemned our investigation into the manipulation of the gold market and that you agreed with their condemnation. Do you also condemn Newmont Mining, Homestake, Ashanti, Placer Dome, Gold Fields and AngloGold for "demanding" a similar investigation?

Part of our investigation is trying to determine if Long Term Capital Management was let out of a "borrowed gold position" in an off market "rigged" transaction. That could very well be a violation of anti-trust laws. And of all people, you say in your own commentary that such a transaction has occurred. What gives?

And finally, what did you expect Her Majesty's government to say from the getgo? Oh, yes the sale is part of some sort of collusive activity! Do you recall President Nixon, " I am not a crook" or President Clinton "wagging his finger" denying any Monica Lewinsky involvement? Did you believe them too? Remember the embarrassed grin on former Clinton Press Secretary, Mike McCrary?

You have a very good reputation, but you sure are missing the boat on this one.

If you care, it would be my pleasure to get you up to speed and explain to you a good bit of what we know is going on here and will start by sending you this Midas. You might also like to know that I spoke with a major gold producer today and they are in "battle station mode." That letter to Prime Minister Blair was not sent to the head of state of England with nothing to back it up. The CEO's that sent the letter are very conservative people and very proper. You can be sure that was just a warning salvo; ie, "do something about the mess you have created or face the consequences". Along that line, Prime Minister Blair cancelled a 3-day overseas trip today to "work on the Northern Ireland problem". As far as I know the Northern Ireland problem has been around awhile. Perhaps, Mr. Blair has another, new big problem to deal with.

All the best,
Bill Murphy

This guy Gartman is incredibly pompous. The egocentric, smug attitude he espouses with comments such as, "The gold market had become far too heavily invested-in by the public, and those public investors have to be taken out."

What is the market if not a place of public exchange? Too heavily invested? Does his market have monetary limits, as well as a covenant for only the privileged or upper class? Is this a Freudian slip from a shill of the market makers, showing their disdain for the dirty, common, steerage, public investor that dares to enter into their elite playing field? "Have to be taken out", sounds like God has decided to thin the herd… Good grief! What a superiority complex! Admittedly, it is always a concern when an insider portends the direction of a highly manipulated market. But, what audacity! What unmitigated gall! He continues with his digs at GATA with this condescending depiction, "GATA folks are again aflame as they blame the weakness upon various market machinations by governments and large Wall Street organizations. This is utter nonsense of course but we shall never be able to convince GATA of that fact... and even if it is not nonsense; even if GATA were truly on to something, we should care not a whit for the market will move where the market needs to move."

Where the market needs to move? We shall never be able to convince GATA? Even if GATA were truly on to something? GATA folks? Reading between the lines, his implications can be interpreted in a number of interesting ways, which I shall leave up to the reader. But, does the market move to where it needs to move because it is being steered? Is his definition of weakness the incessant price capping which can be regularly evidenced by minute to minute charts? Does the fact that central banks have admitted to intervention constitute utter nonsense? And, his gleaming gem of candid truth about the possibility of manipulation, which is answered with a resounding, so what! This is a remarkable insight to the superiority that his ilk seems to feel and their complete lack of principles, values, or sense of fair play. Such a megalomaniacal outlook and lack of conscience is text book sociopath!

Moreover, why does he imply there was any discussion, "We shall never be able to convince GATA…" when no one from his camp, Wall Street, or the financial media will discuss the specifics of this matter, never mind debate it. But alas, why should they stoop to discussion with us knuckle dragging folks from the back woods, who could never possibly understand complex, sophisticated financial markets, when they care not a whit! His incessant need to ridicule GATA is an indication of our camp’s correct assessment of the fraud. Otherwise, why does he dignify us with regular mention? Could it be that we are the proverbial thorn in their side? I would pay dearly to see Gartman debate Bill Murphy. Why don’t these guys ever put their money where their mouth is? If we GATA folks are so easily dismissed as paranoid and delusional, why won’t anyone from these bullion banks or Wall Street sit down to a discussion. What are they afraid of? We may eventually learn as the drawn out legal proceeding, Blanchard vs. Barrick and J.P. Morgan Chase, serves as our debate of this matter. Go GATA!
Rich

I will debate Dennis Gartman on gold any time, any place. And GATA will sponsor the debate. How about doing so at the Washington Press Club Mr. Gartman?

Russel weist darauf hin, dass der Dollar 1930 eine stabile Zufluchtswährung war und dieses Mal alles andere als ein sicherer Hafen ist. Von daher wird es bei einem deutlich schwächeren Dollar eine Flucht ins Gold geben:

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/russell/russell010605.html

Vom Börsenbrief "Global Watch - The Gold Forecaster" gibt es ein kostenloses Exemplar zur aktuellen Gold-/Silberentwicklung zum Lesen:

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1105066800.php

January 6 – Gold $420.50 down $5.70 – Silver $6.48 down 7 cents

Disgust / Gartman Responds

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitudes in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way." Dr. Viktor E. Frankl

GO GATA!!!

I can’t remember a time over the past 6 1/3 years when I felt less inclined to do a MIDAS commentary. What is there to say? The Gold Cartel maneuvers this market around as their own cash machine, has done so for nearly a decade, and no one in this dopey industry says, or does, anything about it except the GATA camp. Could there be a more useless bunch of folks than the leadership in the gold industry? Excuse me, what leadership? Here we are in 2005 and gold is a few bucks higher than it was in early 1996. Oil can shoot to $45 and the dollar can fall apart and it means nothing when the casino is rigged. Today is one of total disgust. The day started out lousy when thebulliondesk.com posted this farce from the World Gold Council:

Into a new golden age
By Kevin Morrison
Published: January 6 2005

When the World Gold Council, an industry body funded by mining groups accounting for about 35 per cent of global gold output, wanted to launch a new advertising campaign for gold jewellery, it turned to photographers from National Geographic rather than from the glossy fashion magazines.

Michael Yamashita, William Albert Allard, Jodi Cobb and Joel Sartore are more used to taking pictures of people and landscapes in all corners of the globe than going on fashion shoots…

-END-

The entire article is in the Appendix. With all that is going on in the world, the dollar in the crapper, and the US facing horrendous fiscal problems, this farcical group continues to pound away promoting high fashion jewelry. JEWELRY!! Jewelers want LOWER gold prices, not higher ones. Can you think of a worse investment than high fashion jewelry? What does it lose when you walk out of Tiffany's...40%?

One thing for sure: the World Gold Council is consistent. Promotions like this have done ZIP to facilitate higher gold prices over the years, so they stay with what hasn’t worked and do it again and again and again.

By the way, this article says mining groups representing 35% of the world’s gold production support the World Gold Council. If you go down the roster, there are only around 20 independent companies which support the council out of thousands of gold/industry related companies around the world. Over the years 41 companies/groups affiliated with the gold industry itself have supported GATA at one time or another.

Course the World Gold Council has a substantial advantage over us. They send material to the likes of a bulliondesk.com and it is posted. GATA sends material to the same outfit, like the Dennis Gartman debate challenge this morning, and they refuse to post it.

Speaking of Dennis Gartman, he was on Bloomberg today. (Bloomberg has refused to allow GATA’s name to be mentioned in the past 6 years). Jesse relates what Gartman had to say on TV this January 6 at 12:40 PM EST:

We will see gold continue to move dramatically lower.

The dollar will show surprising strength this year.

I will not be surprised to see spot gold will trade well below 400 dollars per ounce.

No longer a bull on gold, and on commodity prices as well such as wheat.

Dollar has been egregiously oversold. Budget deficit and trade deficit do not have predictive quality as to where the dollar will go.

There will always be the goldbugs like GATA who argue there is a conspiracy to keep the price of gold down. I have always viewed it as a commodity. Its day is over.

Had 30% of his fund in gold last year and has taken all of it out. Moving into steel, railroads, container ships, Canadian oils. He is out of all metals including copper, zinc, etc. Now he wants to invest in the USERS of metals.

-END-

So, if you think he is right, you might as well fold up your gold shop right now.

For those who missed the Gartman press release:

http://web1.kitco.com/pr/1037/article_01062005134221.doc

Mr. Gartman’s answer to the debate challenge to a fellow Café member following this request: please debate bill murphy

Roger,
Why? These guys have one interest and one interest only: I've many. Bill has spent fifteen years gathering all sorts of bits of obscure data during that period that he will use to bludgeon me over the head on this one single issue, and I guarantee you that under that circumstance I shall come off as a loser. There will be data presented that will appear authentic and good, and I'll have no ability (nor the time) to refute it. The place will be filled with gold bugs cheering their hero on; I'll stand alone... Nah, it's a mugs game and I'm doomed to lose on this single question conspiracy theory.
Dennis

As usual, Mr. Gartman has his facts wrong. Been at this 6 years, not 15. He could bring half the gold establishment with him and it wouldn’t faze me. Would still win. Obscure facts? You mean like the truth? Appear authentic? You mean like facts emanating from Sprott Asset Management, the Fed, BIS, IMF, and the Russian central bank, etc.? Finally, if, as he says, he doesn't have enough knowledge to dispute me in person, how come he has enough knowledge to disparage GATA all the time in his newsletter?

The man is hopeless and a charlatan as far as gold is concerned. Could it be any more obvious he is nothing more than a shill for The Gold Cartel and the Wall Street establishment crowd?

Wall Street firms rig prices? Not possible according to Gartman. Riiiiiight!