... Der Cap'n of the Privateer sure thinks so:
GTW -
Another Leg On The Bull Market
$US586.70
That number - Gold's spot future closing price in the US on March 30 - says it all. Accompanied by a soaring Silver price, Gold has broken decisively through its previous bull market high ($US 572.50 spot future close on Feb. 6, 2006) and firmly established the next leg on its bull market. Don't worry about the $US 4.90 fall on March 31, the "damage" has already been done.
Technically, you can see it on the chart above where the shorter-term (25 day) moving average has crossed back above its longer-term (50 day) counterpart. You can see it on the strategic $US 5 x 3 point and figure chart which has broken decisively (3 clear "X"s) above its previous double top high.
You can see it most clearly of all on the $US 2 x 3 point and figure chart. Note the upchannel on this chart. It is anchored back at the bottom of the current bull market in the $US 255 area. Note that when Gold reached its previous bull market high ($US 572.50 spot future close) back in early February, it had broken well above the TOP of this upchannel. Gold then "distributed" below that high in a range between $US 540 and 570. Now, with the move up above the $US 585 level, Gold has decisively breached its old high. That gives distribution above the TOP of the channel followed by a decisive new high. Normally, an upmove will accelerate - sometimes with great speed - once such a formation is established. Well, the formation IS established - note the much steeper uptrend line on the chart.
It is a fact that in terms of several currencies (including the Aussie Dollar and the South African Rand), Gold is now at ALL TIME HIGHS. At its bull market high spot close of $US 586.70 on March 30, the metal still languishes almost 30% below its $850 US Dollar all time high set in January 1980. On March 30 - at $A 820.60 - Gold in Aussie Dollar terms was almost 7.2% ABOVE its January 1980 highs. This is because the Aussie Dollar has been one of the prime victims of the unravelling of the currency "carry trade" as the regime of global higher interest rates starts to bite hard. Borrowing in low rate nations to lend in higher rate ones is no longer the "sure thing" it has been for years. The nations which were the prime beneficiaries of this "trade" are seeing their currencies suffer accordingly. This is especially true in Australia, whose Central Bank has not raised official rates since March 2005.
And here lies the fundamental problem. To quote the headline from the Early April issue (Number 549) of The Privateer - published on April 2 - "The Global 'Squeeze' Is On". The "squeeze" in question is, of course, the now worldwide move to HIGHER interest rates. We analyse this in detail in The Privateer. Suffice it to say here, as the "squeeze" pertains to Gold, what we have said on these pages many times before...
Any really BIG upmove in the Gold price coincides with RISING interest rates. And the faster rates rise, the BIGGER the upmove in the Gold price.
To understand this is simple. Just reflect on your own ability to borrow money and how this ability has changed - hopefully for the better - as you grew older and became more economically estabished. It is universally known that the better "credit rating" one has, the easier it is to borrow money and the lower the rate demanded to borrow money. An indivdidual with high proven earning power and an established track record of servicing and REPAYING debt incurred in the past can borrow much more money at much lower interest rates than an individual who does not posess these attributes.
While lending practices have been warped out of true by the credit excesses of the past decade or more, the principle still stands. It is the source of the old question asked about bankers: "Why is it that they are most willing to lend to the people who don't need the money?".
In the REAL world of economics and finance, as opposed to the credit-creating maelstrom which is the modern world of banking, REPUTATION COUNTS. A reputation is built on promises fulfilled. Always remember that a loan is an UNFINISHED transaction. Only when the interest payments have been met and the entire principal sum has been repaid is the transaction finished. And even then, the transaction has gone sour for the lender if what is repaid does not have an equal or very near equal purchasing power to what was lent in the first place.
Now, expand these simple observations up to the level of global finance and money. If there is anything which should be obvious, it is that the reputation of modern paper fiat currencies backed by nothing but promises to pay is in tatters. It is common knowledge wherever one goes that NONE of them has or will retain its purchasing power over time. Further, it is equally common knowledge that the erosion of that purchasing power is accelerating - in many nations at alarming rates of speed.
What is gaining in the background is an even more insidious knowledge. This is the growing realisation that the level of debt which now burdens the system is of a magnitude that it can NEVER be repaid at all. This is most obvious in the case of the US and the currency which still "underpins" the entire global system, the US Dollar. The Bush Administration has just raised the "debt limit" of their Treasury for the fourth time in not much more than five years. It has issued paper obligations which are now owned by foreigners in an amount equal to or more than its Gross Domestic Product for an entire year. The total of its public and private funded and unfunded obligations approaches $US 100 TRILLION - a truly absurd number.
Interest rates high enough to compensate for the gargantuan risk involved in holding either the currency or debt paper of modern nations have been seen only in history's most hysterical bouts of paper hyperinflation. What we have seen so far is merely the tip of the iceberg. At the end of the 1970s, official US rates of 20% plus were required to lure the global financial system back into Dollars. Rates of even half that level today would break the back of the US economy like a twig caught in a hurricane.
The realisation is dawning outside the US that a radical reshaping of the global financial and MONETARY system is not only necessary but URGENT. Any such reshaping would, as it always does, rebound with the biggest impact on the foundation nation of the system being reshaped. That nation is, of course, the United States. It happened to Greece, to Rome, to Byzantium, to Spain, to France, and to Britain. Once the "promises to pay" overwhelmed the dwindling means of creating REAL wealth with which to pay, their currency toppled and their empire followed it down.
We are now fast approaching another such historical turning point. Its arrival has been greatly hastened by the deadly combination of power lust and fiscal insanity which is the Bush Presidency. Yet after more than five years of it, GLOBAL interest rates have only just BEGUN to go up.
Rising interest rates are the SURE signal of falling confidence in the workings of a financial system. They are the sure signal of rising awareness of the fragility of the system and the rising risk of remaining within the system. They are - always - the last resort of the fiat money issuers and are only resorted to on an OFFICIAL level when they are faced with the prospect of LOSING the ability to "create" money with the flick of a pen or with the press of a key.
Lose control of the nation's money, and you lose control of the nation. It's as simple as that. That is why no government has ever given up that control willingly. When interest rates start to rise, especially when they start to rise in a world already choked to near asphyxiation with debt, one can know that we are entering desperate times - desperate for those who know that their power rests on their control of what circulates as money.
The BIG rise in Gold this week is a signal that the struggle has just ramped up another notch. Before this Gold "bull market" is over, it will have seen the demise of the global monetary system as it is presently constituted. If you who are reading this are STILL sitting on the sidelines and own no Gold, there is little left we can tell you. Just reflect on what we have already said. Gold's big rises ALWAYS come in times of RISING interest rates. The US has been raising its rates (from absurd lows in baby steps) since June 2004 - when Gold was $US 395. The rest of the world began to join in at the end of 2005 when Gold was $US 500. Now, only three months later, "the "squeeze is on" and Gold is nearing $US 600. That should tell you something.
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©2006 The Privateer Market Letter
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