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

    The Wallace Street Journal



    The Middle Finger, and Hope for Silver


    By David Bond, Editor
    The Silver Valley Mining Journal


    Wallace, Idaho – Unbeknownst to the millions of tourists who visit this bewitching French capital at least once in their lifetimes, a giant extended finger of insolent ill will protrudes larger than life from the city's legendary skyline.


    No, it is not the Eiffel Tower. We will get to what it is after a few digressions, but suffice to say this gesture of insolent ill will is not aimed at Americans. It wasn't even aimed at the Nasties.


    In fact, dining over quail, cheese, poissons and a few agreeable wines with new friends and Paris' best and brightest at La Grande Cascade, we were taken aback at how Un-un-American our Parisian friends were; indeed how un-un-American the whole city is.


    Paris is one of the last neighborhood cities left on earth. Paris and London each sport a population of about 12 million but there are important differences; in London, about 3 million actually live in the "City" proper; the rest are in the 'burbs. In Paris the opposite is true: 9 million of its 12 million citizens live in town. So Paris is and remains a city of neighbourhoods. Non-smokers and dog- and cat-haters would be mortified in such a place as Paris; everyone has a dog, although leashes are a scarce sight, and if there are places (other than in front of the Mona Lisa, or inside the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral) where smoking is prohibited, we could not find any. Everybody, it seems, smokes and has a dog. Reminded us a bit of northern Idaho, except even in Wallace, the health Nazis have run smokers out of the restaurants and many of the bars.


    (Here was an odd scene: a group of Americans huddled in the rain outside a hotel entrance, smoking, suffering out of habit. Inside the lobby, meanwhile, a festoon of ashtrays and comfortable seating awaited us.)


    We were on a mission in Paris, to establish a beach head for the Silver Revolution. It will be a tough sell. Northern Europe is feeling a bit smug these days. The Euro is exceptionally strong. (Our earlier suggestion that a quick way to riches would be to track our travel itinerary and go long the currencies of the country we are visiting has proved up nicely. The Euro, the Pound Sterling and the Swiss Franc have all enjoyed recent highs versus the Federal Reserve Not as we have traipsed from place to place on the Continent and the UK. The counterbalance to our USD's increasing valueless-ness is the rotgut low price of wines and beers we would pay a fortune for stateside.)


    The French think we Yanks are a tad crackers for stirring things up in the Middle East. History may prove them right, and it may prove them wrong. The French stopped the Arabs at Poitiers in AD 736 and have been having problems with them ever since; Arabs now account for 12 percent of the population of Paris. But after 400 years of increasingly mechanized bloodshed, the Continent is ready for a little peace and quiet, and doesn't want to think about the gloom and doom of a very real looming currency crisis.


    When it does, the man they'll be looking up is Paris businessman Eric Lemaire, who has launched a website, http://www.24hpm.com (24-hour precious metals, get it?) aimed at the European reader. Eric works all of those 24 hours, half in support of his family and his business (he employs about 100 people in Paris) and the other half tweaking and tuning his site. The site is available in three languages. It is more than a labor of love for the 42-year-old Lemaire; it is his passion, his plea to his countrymen not to forget the perfidies of the American and British central banks in the 20th Century, who muscled Europe's gold away from them and set the stage for planetary depressions and two world wars.


    It will be, as we said, a hard sell. As often happens with new fiat money such as the Euro, a period of bliss and a false sense of prosperity ensues and people don't want to think hard times can return. Eric laughingly paraphrases Alan Brownspan: 'Yes, I can guarantee you that Social Security entitlement benefits will be paid in full. What I cannot guarantee is the purchasing power of those benefits when they are paid.' And he wonders how many Americans heard or understood the threat implied in Brownspan's words.


    Eric's pitch is that silver is money, which in the French language (and about 50 others) is self-evident. L'argent means silver in French. L'argent also means money. The reason for that sameness is beyond the purview of this rant, but it should not be lost on those who care about preserving their personal or corporate wealth. Yet he pulls out of his pocket a 1-ounce triple-nine "10 Sterling" silver round and his countrymen assembled about the table at the Grande Cascade are astonished that such a barbaric thing still exists – or that it could buy a meal or a round of drinks or a couple of rolls of film in Wallace, Idaho.


    He reminds his guests that it was not wheelbarrow loads of silver the Germans of 1932 were taking to the grocers for a loaf of bread. It was boatloads of paper, and hideous war ensued. In the very fine spirit of Mexico's Hugo Salinas Price, Eric Lemaire is taking silver's case to the people. And just as Hugo is winning over Mexico, Eric will prevail in Europe.


    Never forget that Paris was the birthplace of civilized revolution. While the French Revolution climaxed with the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 and the beheading of Louis XVI in January 1793, it had been fermenting as far back as 1715 under the rein of Louis XIV, at first peacefully, then with increasing violence (or as money guys would say these days, "velocity"). During those years much of France's nobility's gold and silver went overseas, to America, to finance the fomenting American Revolution. It's a truth many of us schooled in the U.S. have forgotten, but it is not a kinship the French have forgotten.


    "Do not be mistaken," inveighs Eric as he pulls a famous illegal U-turn on the Champs Elysee, muttering "No cops." (Everything you've heard about driving in Paris is true. There are no rules and fewer laws – not even any stop signs, and no need for meaningless lane demarcations. Smart Cars snub the world. Yet there is order in this chaos, the only rule being: The guy who gets there first wins.)


    "Our nation is very friendly to your people, and I wouldn't know one person here who wouldn't fight for the US if she was attacked. Paris still remembers Ben Franklin and Hemingway," he reminds us.


    And though he feels alone at times, Eric Lemaire of Paris is not alone. Hecla Mining Company's Phil Baker came up to Zurich yesterday to pitch the Continent's analysts as part of the Denver Gold Forum's annual jaunt to Europe, a high-powered confab of miners and funds. Instead of devoting his allotted time to flogging Hecla stock, Baker pitched the product. What a welcome breath of fresh air. Yes, Hecla's a great and low-cost mining company, they've got great properties all over the Western Hemisphere, and blah-blah-blah. But here's the real story, the end product: silver.


    The digital-versus-silver argument in photography just doesn't wash. Third-world nations developing a taste for archiving their families' histories pictorially will turn to silver film, not digital cameras, and because conservatively 60 percent of silver used in photography is returned to the supply chain via recycling, any diminuition of silver's use in film is largely zero-sum. Medicine is huge: silver is the most effective killer of bacteria known to man, and unlike pharmaceuticals, the bugs don't grow immune to it. Silver is the Third World's savior, able to purify water, able to boost efficiencies in electrical transmission, able to heal. And it has no market-rational substitute.


    Europe may be hearing this message for the first time this year. And another message: silver will be higher priced and increasingly volatile over the next few years, as above-ground supplies dry up and demand heightens. "Europeans are surprised and amazed to learn about its uses," Hecla's IR veep, Vicki Veltkamp, tells us over dinner at the Baur au Lac. It will take a while to sink in. Italy has been the most receptive so far.


    So keep slogging away, Eric my friend. There's no lonelier place than to be ahead of the curve. Fear not. If there's anything left of us after the U.S. concludes Chapter Two of the Great Crusades, The Yankees are coming. The Yankees are coming.


    Oh, and about that big green weenie in the heart of Paris. Next time you look at a picture of Notre Dame de Paris cathedral, study the tall center spire. It sticks out green-black, tarnished, unloved in contrast to the immaculately scrubbed rest of the building. Notre Dame was constructed over several centuries, but mainly finished in AD 1345. Not until 1845, five centuries later was that big center spire erected. The French do not consider that center spire to be OEM. A tacky add-on, they think. So they refuse to clean it despite entreaties from the Vatican. Sticks out like a sore thumb, that spire, and the French prefer it that way.


    In such minor acts of defiance are born and nurtured revolutions. Vive la France!

    Pezi, es ist besser du gehst zum arzt ohne das du auf die Autobahn musst. Mache mal Urlaub zumindest bis deine visionen ?( vorbei sind ..kann ich dir nur empfehlen :))


    Und mit dem Rauchen wuerde ich aufhoeren, weg mit allen Flaschen und medikamenten die du vielleicht nimmst.


    Keine Sorge,wenn Gold bei 410 Dollar ist dann meldet sich jemand bei Dir.


    Der Oma wuerde es auch gut tun, also raus ins gruene mit dir, oder auf.... wen und was auch immer !!. :D


    Draussen findest du deine Sternderl viel schneller als hier, geht mal in die Abteilung Hemden und Knoepfe.



    Gruss


    Eldorado

    Here is a question that pops up over and over again: does the future hold inflation or deflation?



    Inflationists point out that rising energy prices will cause prices in general to rise, and that is inflationary. Deflationists say that slowing economic growth will cause prices to fall. However, these are not the issues. They are the consequences of events and circumstances.


    Inflation is not a general increase in prices, and similarly, deflation is not a general decrease in prices, just as fever is not an infection. Fever is the consequence of an infection and if you don't know that, how would you know to look for the infection and cure it? You can mitigate the fever with drugs, but that won't make the infection go away. As long as people think inflation is an increase in prices and deflation is a decrease in prices they will not be able to look beyond the nonsense promoted by the general media.


    Monetary inflation is an increase in the supply of money and deflation is a decrease in the supply of money. That is it. But when the money supply increases, money loses value in relation to goods and services and that can lead to a general increase in prices. The increase in prices, however, is a consequence of money losing value. Price increases themselves are not inflation. Suppose that the money supply remains constant but that the supply of steel is interrupted for some reason. The price of steel will most likely rise, but that is not inflation. It is true that if steel output is diminished then the amount of money relative to available steel will increase and the same would occur if steel output remained constant and the money supply increased. Both events would lead to higher steel prices but only the latter increase would be due to inflation.


    Deflation, of course, is just the opposite: a decrease in the money supply.


    But what is money supply? Senator Ron Paul asked Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, what he considered to be the best tool to measure money supply. Greenspan plainly admitted that he was at a loss for picking out what such a measure might be. When Senator Paul suggested that it must be difficult to manage something you cannot even define, Chairman Greenspan not only agreed with him but also said it was "impossible". What a startling admission by United States' leading maker of monetary policy. If we don't know what money supply is, how can we determine whether the money supply is increasing or decreasing?


    We could count the number of notes and coins outstanding, but that does not give us a clear picture of money supply since it does not account for debt, and debt plays an enormous role in our current financial system. There are monetary aggregates, such as M1, M2 and M3 that include various forms of deposits at financial institutions as well as notes and coins in circulation. The concept behind these categories is that they represent decreasing levels of activity, with M1 being the most active. I often use M3 for my own calculations since it is the broadest measure of money. But in reality M3 still does not account for all of the money outstanding.


    According to the Quantity Theory of Money, MV = PT.


    M is the money supply,
    V is the velocity of money,
    P is the average price level and,
    T is the total number of transactions.


    While the above equation is not a definition of money, it can give us some indication of what might be going on. The national income (I) is the total income earned in a country and is a known entity. It is also equal to the total number of transactions times the average price level: I = PT (note that P and T cannot be measured directly). That implies that the national income also equals MV, the product of the money supply and the velocity of money.


    The US national income doubled from 1990 to 2004, from $5.1 trillion to $10.3 trillion. All we really know then is that the product of money supply and the velocity of money doubled as well. How much of that was due to an increase in money supply and how much of it was due to changes in the velocity of money, we don't know.


    We can get some idea of what the money supply did by looking at M3. From 1990 to 2004, M3 increased by almost 130%. Assuming then that the total money supply increased by a similar percentage, and since that increase is greater than the increase in national income, one could infer that there has been an offsetting decrease in the velocity of money.


    Could it be that the dollars that China and Japan are hoarding have reduced the velocity of money relative to the inflation of money? Given that China and Japan together hold over 20% of the outstanding US Treasuries, which is equal to about 9% of M3, I would say the answer is yes.


    Now to get back to the question of which will win out: inflation, or deflation.


    The United States is saddled with a lot of debt. Individual, corporate and government debts are all at unprecedented levels. Debt expansion in the US is a consequence of record low interest rates during a period of relatively high economic growth and prosperity. Those who argue that inflation is more likely say that the economy cannot withstand a dramatic increase in interest rates and therefore the Federal Reserve will not allow interest rates to rise either too rapidly, or too far. They also contend that the Federal Reserve will most likely reduce interest rates at the first sign of economic trouble and low, or falling interest rates, will be conducive to even more debt creation, which is also an increase in money supply, and therefore inflationary.


    Deflationists argue that the amount of outstanding debt, and borrowers' ability to pay the interest and principle due on that debt, are the real risks. Should the economy slow down, or interest rates rise, we could see an increase in the amount of defaults and bankruptcies. If the lenders do the correct thing, which is to write the bad debt off their books, the money supply will be reduced and that is deflationary.


    I am in the deflationists' camp.


    How will commodity prices and the price of gold be affected?


    I expect China will allow its currency to appreciate against the dollar and since that implies it, and Japan, no longer need to hoard as many trade dollars as they are currently hoarding, the dollar exchange rate will fall (see last week's commentary at http://www.paulvaneeden.com). It also means that China and Japan will buy fewer US Treasuries, implying US interest rates will rise. A rise in US interest rates will stifle the US economy and that is when the debt load will become a factor. With rising interest rates and a slowing economy we could see a dramatic increase in personal and corporate bankruptcies, which is, of course, deflationary.


    But offsetting this deflation of the money supply could be an increase in the velocity of money since Japan and China will not be hoarding as many dollars. An increase in the velocity of money appears inflationary, as it can make prices rise. So even though we may be experiencing deflation in the true sense of the word, it could well be masked by an increase in the velocity of money.


    If, indeed, we see a slowdown in US economic growth we should also see an increase in unemployment. An increase in unemployment, rising interest rates, slowing economic growth and an increase in bankruptcies are not going to make US consumers feel wealthy. We will see the wealth effect in reverse as consumers begin to save and cut down on their spending.


    But at the same time, the US dollar will be falling. The US is grossly dependent on foreign products, so even though we might be in a deflationary period we could still see the prices of imported goods rise. Oil is one such item. An increase in the oil price, however, ripples through the whole economy and puts upward pressure on prices. Most significantly, it causes the price of gasoline to rise, directly impacting the disposable income of consumers.


    The US might surprise me and reduce its oil consumption, but will it be enough to offset the falling dollar? Keep in mind that oil prices could fall in Europe, China and Japan while the price of oil rises in the United States.


    Less consumer demand and slower economic growth will have an impact on discretionary purchases. So I expect we will see the prices of capital goods, luxury items and non-essentials go down in the US assuming that they are not imported or made from a high percentage of imported items. Automobiles come to mind. Look at the state of the US automobile industry and you will see that it is already in shambles. I would not be surprised to see an American automobile manufacturer declare bankruptcy. GM ??


    To people looking only at prices and thinking that they are observing inflation or deflation, the picture will be muddy. Most people look at the Consumer Price Index and assume they are getting a clear picture, but they're not. The Consumer Price Index is a very unreliable gauge of inflation, real or imagined. Even so, those that look at the prices of food and energy, as well as imported materials, will think we are experiencing inflation. Those that look at the prices of capital goods will think we are in deflation. But if you look at the money supply, I think that the biggest threat is deflation and there is, in my opinion, not a thing the government can do about it.


    By having both a trade deficit and a budget deficit, especially given their magnitudes, the government's hands are tied. China and Japan will decide the fate of the US dollar and the US economy. :D


    Now, regardless of whether we see inflation or deflation in the United States, the price of gold in US dollars will rise if the dollar falls. It is as simple as that. If the US were the only economy in the world, and the US dollar the only currency, then we could have predicted what will happen to the gold price under either inflationary or deflationary conditions. But the reality is that gold is truly an international currency. Its price is relatively constant, and rises over time in proportion to the inflation of fiat currencies. When measured in one specific currency, such as the dollar, the gold price becomes inextricably linked to that currency's exchange rate.


    If you're trying to figure out whether the gold price will rise or fall depending on whether the US experiences inflation or deflation you are wasting your time. In the short term the gold price in US dollars will rise or fall depending on what the US dollar exchange rate does. In the long term the gold price in US dollars will depend on the inflation rate of the dollar. Since the dollar is a fiat currency, it is bound to be inflated until it is worthless, however long that may take.


    Paul van Eeden

    SPOT gold prices headed higher due to a weaker dollar. With concerns lingering in markets about the threat of inflation to the US economic growth, gold prices seemed to have found some safe-haven interest. The inflation data released this week has further bolstered this view.



    Physical buying and bargain-hunting are adding support. Sentiment for gold looks to have changed currently, and if dollar continues to weaken, we can expect the resumption of the bullish trend in gold again.


    Spot gold prices headed lower initially and then rallied higher against our expectations. Important resistance at $430 has been taken out and this will again tend to contain any downside attempts. As mentioned earlier, a spike above $431 will be bullish in the near-term.


    A long-term triangle pattern is seen in the chart above, which is bullish in nature. We can expect gold prices to edge higher towards $438-40 levels now, being the daily falling channel resistance point.


    Caution needs to be exercised on getting excessively bullish based on the current up trend and only a daily close above $442.50 could be the trigger for a rally towards the recent high at $446 or even extend higher to our earlier long-term objective at $475. We will continue to maintain the wave counts as in the previous update, till we see a clear break of $443.


    As per our recent wave counts, the third wave ended at $433 followed by a fourth wave correction to $371 and the fifth wave also looks to have ended at $457.75. This was followed by a corrective move wave "A" to $410.50 followed by a wave "B" pullback to $446.70.


    Currently we are tracking a wave "C" and as per equality target should test the psychological $400 levels. Positive divergence is noticed in both the indicators, where prices made a lower low not confirmed by the same in the indicators.


    RSI is in the neutral zone now indicating that it is neither overbought nor oversold. The averages in MACD are still below the zero line of the indicator in the daily chart signaling bearishness. Only a crossover of the averages above the zero line in the indicator will signal a clear bullish reversal. Prices are above the short-term 8-day EMA at $429.70 and the 34-day EMA is at $429.30 and the convergence of the two averages can be interpreted as an additional sign of bullishness.


    Therefore, look for gold prices test the resistance levels in the coming week.


    Supports are at $433, 430.50 and 426. Resistances at $ 435, 438 and 442.50 respectively.

    Looks like Gold's resistance levels are at equidistance to its support levels. The triangle may not be perfect - nobody and nothing is - though you could've have made the same argument for support vs. resistance.


    Some, including myself, have been preaching of an imminent tanking of PM's and its shares in the short term - actually following l.t. cycles via Ian Notely's theories. The slump has manifested itself rough and dirty in the shares; Not so in the underlying precious metals itself!


    Now, every guru and his brother is recommending to totally desert the mining sector, as it has been proven that they never will make a comeback!


    Exactly - Never will they make a comeback for your run of the mill guru and his followers as these extremists will not have another opportunity to build and accumulate a portfolio of miners at bargain prices.


    The miners have never before been as sold out, sold short and generally abandoned in a secular gold bull market as today. When, and not if the turn around happens - and I suspect sooner than anyone believes - the crowding in effect will be of such magnitude that no-one able, willing and liquid will make it back in!


    ... Position yourself accordingly in this environment of sheer desperation in the mining sector ... Hey and sell your Google, as long as its market cap is higher than the total US Auto industry ....


    ... and the following comments about gold industry execs are not totally undeserved :

    Interesting comments
    (whatsup) Apr 22, 14:32

    ZURICH -- London based resources investment manager Graham French delivered a brutal but deserved rebuke to the majority of gold company bosses for putting bankers ahead of shareholders.
    French was a keynote speaker, along with US Global’s [GROW] Frank Holmes, at a luncheon convened for the European Gold Forum.
    French is one of the most influential equity owners in the industry. His group has around $12 billion invested in precious metals and the particular fund he manages, the Vanguard Precious Metals Fund [VGPMX], is worth $1.3 billion, and has been a top performer over the long-term.
    He dressed down gold producers for failing their owners in several areas including hedging, returns below the cost of capital, a fetish with retaining earnings rather than distributing them as dividends, elevating growth above returns, and avoiding rights issues for fund raisings.
    French blasted the deference to banks. “When we asked gold producers why they hedged at $300 an ounce. . . they said because the bankers told them to. Now I ask them, playing Devil’s advocate, why they aren’t hedging at $430 an ounce, and they say it’s the bankers again!”



    He urged companies to address their investors once more, not their bankers or advisors.
    “It’s about returns, not growth or geology, or maps, or anything else,” he said.
    French said that over the past 16 years, the gold sector’s cost of capital was 6%. However, the industry had only managed to achieve returns over that period of 2-3%. In other words, the gold equity industry is responsible for destroying wealth on a tremendous scale.
    Only twice has the industry returned a result higher than its cost of capital – in 1992 and 2003. French noted, with pained irony, that those two years also marked the sector being the best asset class. That translated into significant multiple expansion, but it was quickly squandered by a return to the old ways.
    Speaking to Resource Investor afterward, French agreed that part of the problem is entrenched pessimism. Company management is more concerned with stockpiling money in advance of a downturn in the cycle than it is with maximizing returns. Similarly, producers are not mining at higher grades to take advantage of higher metal prices, but are rationing deposits with ascetic zeal.
    Pay dividends
    French cited a University of Chicago study which showed that over nearly 60 years companies that paid the highest dividends outperformed the market on earnings and return on capital.
    The difference is staggering. Dividend payers achieved annual rates of return of 4.2% versus 0.4% for companies that did not pay dividends.
    A dividend is a reflection of management confidence, said French. Those who pay them are secure about future earnings. Those who retain them are less so, but even more dangerous, they are prone to use retained earnings for empire building.
    “I’m fed up with size arguments. . . claims that big is beautiful. It is about returns. I don’t give a damn how big your company is, just how much it returns” French said.
    His view highlights the professional battle between bankers and hedge funds, who are driven by short term fees and arbitrage tricks, and fund managers who rely on much longer time frames.
    Reward your shareholders


    Pretty good and heady stuff - Cheers frr

    frr


    Thanks, its an interesting posting and also a disgrace that bankers control indirectly mining companies. I hope the washout is finished soon and everybody can see that the GM shares are manipulated and people not ready to get in again at this point in time. The juniors got wacked most. There are still too many scary movies around and prophets of the doom.I don't know who is Ian Notely and it is correct that you warned prior of a heavy attack from the PPT. We'll install you as a tsunami warner if I may. :))


    I was also surprised to see my 195 HUI line smashed and I feel it was a very well orchestrated massive attack.
    Well, its hanging around 190 now and as far as I see it the 180 was the end of it. The RSA shares like HMY and GFI went further south today and the Rand is going strong despite all the romours and predictions.Another currency which is a miracle and suspect at the same time.


    Today I listened to CNBC and they reckoned that if France does not vote in favour of the EU an economic chaos will start, so or so !
    The bonds in the US are overvalued and they said that in the next five years equities will have a real annual return of only 2.5-3% after inflation and people should get out of bonds.


    Its amazing how they can control the sheeps with media and fake figures to keep them were they want them. Just listen to Bob Pisani & Maria Bartilova, and crazy Kramer and you know. The tell the crowd what is in and what is out.


    Anyhow, wish you all a nice weekend, the markets are fortunate closed ;)



    Regards


    Eldorado 8)

    Friday, April 22, 2005, 4:37:00 PM EST


    Gold and Dollar Market Summary


    Author: Jim Sinclair



    Dear CIGA:


    Bloomberg has just reported that the US government has asked the Chinese to intervene with North Korea. Intelligences sources have reported that North Korea may be preparing for a nuclear weapons test.


    What do you expect when you have a certified maniac running a country with long range nuclear delivery devices?


    First we get multiple days in a row with the Dow losing triple figures and then one day it’s up over 200 points and the glee is uncontained. Towards the close today, the DOW was down over 100 points before being jammed higher to post a 60 point loss overall. Have you ever had the feeling that this entire thing can be summed up with “Many Flew over the Cuckoos’ Nest?”


    You can’t deny that a lot happened today but if it substantively did I can’t find it. Looking at the weekly action of the USDX you have to ask yourself what is all the noise about. It certainly looks to me like a great deal of absolutely nothing.


    Gold


    The price of gold has religiously performed in the inverse of the US dollar. As much as KA and JES would like to be specific, you have to admit that the gold bears did shoot hard at the $433 level.


    The salient point is that there is now the highest probability that we are making our way not simply back up but to new highs. That is not tomorrow, but it is a summertime cool breeze at the back of the gold price. Remember the number $480 + before you pick your Berkshire tomatoes this year. :D

    I have explained over and over again that this is not a new bull market according to Dow theory. I have explained that this rally will serve to separate Phase I from Phase II of this great bear market. Most believe that this great secondary reaction has been a new bull market. Nothing could be further from the truth according to Dow theory. The charts are telling us that the downturn into Phase II has likely begun and that this will be a global event. You have been warned, Again!
    http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm


    [Blockierte Grafik: http://www.smiliemania.de/smilie132/00000123.gif]

    As our long time subscribers know, we haven't always been so keen on gold, but we have been in recent years due to the mega investment shift that happened in 2000 and the events since then. Remember, gold is the ultimate currency and it always has been. Throughout history, paper currencies have come and gone but gold is real money and it's maintained its value over the centuries. It has a 5000 year track record, which no other investment can claim. If nothing else, think of gold as an insurance policy. During these volatile and uncertain times, we don't believe you'll regret it.
    Aus:
    ...a 5000 year track record
    http://www.321gold.com/editorials/aden/aden042505.html

    Over the last 50 years or so, gold and oil have generally moved together in terms of price, with a positive price correlation of over 80 percent. During this time, the price of oil in gold ounces has averaged about 15 barrels per ounce. However, with recent soaring oil prices, the relationship has strayed far from this average. While oil prices recently set an all-time high of $56 per barrel, gold prices have not kept pace and the oil:gold ratio fell to an all-time low of 7.5:1. At US$56 per barrel oil, the gold price should be in excess of US$840 per ounce. Some experts are suggesting that, in two or three years, US$100 per barrel oil is very possible. At that price gold should be US$1500 per ounce.


    The gold silver:ratio has varied from 16:1 to 100:1. Currently it is about 66:1. Gold Fields Mineral Services expects this ratio to fall to between 40:1 and 50:1 in the near future. At a 50:1 ratio and a $1,500 gold price the price of silver should be $30/ounce. At 16:1 it would be $94/ounce.


    http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/barisheff042205.html

    Bearish Holt & Shapard Remains Hooked On Gold


    By Greg Edwards
    Dow Jones Newswires
    Friday, April 22, 2005


    ST. LOUIS -- Wistar Holt says he's the only money manager
    in St. Louis who is a true bear.


    How bearish is he?


    The only equities that Holt buys are gold-mining stocks.
    And he's been doing that since January 2001.


    "Gold is the place to be, almost exclusively," Holt said.


    His firm, Holt & Shapard Capital Management, manages
    $40 million in assets for about 250 clients, mostly
    individuals. The accounts are fully discretionary and
    fee-based.


    Holt said he became concerned about the valuation of
    the market in late 2000, got out entirely in January 2001,
    and began looking for other investments to hedge a downturn
    in the economy.


    "The only thing I could come up with was gold," Holt said.
    "It had just gone through a 20-year bear market, hitting
    a low of $255 an ounce in January '01, from $850 an ounce
    in May 1980." Recently it has been at about $435 an ounce.


    Today Holt & Shapard's investments are 70 percent in
    precious metals mining stocks, 15 percent in the Prudent
    Bear Fund, and 15 percentin the Prudent Global Income Fund,
    a foreign government bond fund.


    The mining stocks are Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. (AEM), Gold
    Fields Ltd. (GFI), Goldcorp Inc. (GG), Hecla Mining Co.
    (HL), Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp. (CDE), Harmony Gold
    Mining Co. (HMY), and Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM).


    Because his portfolio is so heavily concentrated in one
    area, Holt chose large-cap stocks to minimize risk.


    "The criteria for all of these is that they are
    primarily large-cap, established companies and they are
    also unhedged," Holt said. "If you are in a gold bull
    market, you don't want to be selling years-out production because you may be locking yourself into a price that
    ends up being significantly lower than it is when that
    time comes."


    Holt's returns, net after fees, were 31.2 percent in 2001,
    155 percent in 2002, 20.1 percent in 2003, a loss of 17
    percent in 2004, and a loss of 4.2 percent through the first quarter of this year.


    Holt isn't discouraged by the downturn this year and last:
    "We think gold is still very much in a long-term bull
    market," he said.


    "I think gold will do well for several more years,
    maybe even longer," he said. "At some point, gold will
    get overvalued, and the market will presumably be
    undervalued, and I may go 180 degrees back the other way."


    However, he said, "we're miles from that now."


    Holt said his investing style has long been "deep value."
    He spent 22 years with Wall Street firms, including Smith
    Barney and Paine Webber. Eventually, he said, he no longer
    fit in.


    "My style just ran counter to Wall Street and New York,"
    he said. "I was pressured to buy traditional equities, to
    not be so bearish."


    Holt said the administration and the Federal Reserve have
    done everything they can in recent years to stimulate the economy and forestall a recession.


    "According to Austrian economics, which I subscribe to,"
    Holt said, "when you massively stimulate the economy to
    avoid a downturn, all you're really doing is deferring it.


    "The downturn will be worse because of this," he said.
    "That's why we remain entirely out of traditional equities."

Schriftgröße:  A A A A A