Rare earth elements (REEs) have been the mystery metals of the mining world for years. Now, suddenly, everyone’s heard about them.

That’s a question that Westerners have been asking for, oh, several millennia now. Or at least since Marco Polo aimed his ponies down the old Silk Road in 1271.

Each year, generally in May, the Energy Information Administration publishes a less-than-eagerly-anticipated tome called the International Energy Outlook, 250+ pages of mind-numbing text, charts, graphs, and tables.

There’s a lot of Internet chatter these days about the possibility of the U.S. government seizing its citizens’ private gold holdings. What are the chances?

Precious Metals

Gold jumped up about midway through trading in the Far East and continued its rise through London and the Comex open to an intraday high just north of $955. But at around 10 a.m. in New York the yellow metal got knocked down below $950 where it stayed through the Globex close, finishing at $949.10/oz., up $11.40. Overnight, gold is little changed.

Gold started the summer doldrums looking strong and has retreated since, but what are its prospects for the rest of the year and beyond? That will largely be determined by the interplay between supply and demand; let’s take a look at the supply side.

It’s possible that no concept in history has ever come so far, so fast, and with so little substance behind it, as “global warming.” Or, to be precise, anthropogenic global warming(AGW) – the kind caused by us puny humans rather than by that fireball that keeps the planet habitable.

Gold developed a slight upward trend late in Hong Kong and rode that trend mostly sideways through the end of the day to a marginal gain. The yellow metal closed at $925.30/oz., up $4.50. Overnight, gold is up sharply. 

Tuesday, October 9, 2007 started as a nice day in New York City. A lovely early fall day, with the temperature still a balmy 80° at 2:00 in the morning. By evening, though, the temperature had dropped twenty degrees, the clouds had rolled in, there was thunder and rain. As with the weather, there were some hints of trouble here and there on Wall Street. But all in all, things could not have seemed better. Little did we know, the stormy end of 10/9/07 signaled a very large bubble that had just popped.

The spot price of gold has fallen more than 20% from its all-time high, reached in March of 2008. But if you think that means demand has declined, think again.