When it comes to Japan, political change should translate into long-term profits for global investors.
I was dismayed to see The Financial Times article about the new Central Bank Gold Agreement, where central banks agreed to limit their sales of sovereign gold to 400 tonnes a year. The European central banks, which includes the European Central Bank itself and the 16 banks of the Eurozone, plus Sweden’s Riksbank and Swiss National Bank, have all signed on with the new plan.
Markets were cheered Wednesday when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected global growth of 2.5% for 2010, a slight increase from its earlier forecast of 1.9% growth. That’s good news for investors – but consumers in the United States and investors focused on it may not see much benefit.
The G-8 summit starts today in L’Aquila, Italy. The G-8 are the old guard: US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia. And their opinions are starting to look a little redundant in the aftermath of the credit crisis.
While the long-term outlook for oil prices remains bullish, don’t be surprised to see a near-term correction. After tumbling to a low of $33.98 a barrel on Feb. 12, crude oil more than doubled in price, soaring to $69.82 on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nasdaq: CME) – before tumbling nearly 4% on Thursday on a worse-than-expected jobs report.
China is making preparations for the ultimate demise of the dollar … and so should you. Stories knocking the dollar never get much exposure in the mainstream media (many outlets wrongly consider it unpatriotic to bash the buck).
Currencies rally… More on the BRIC’s… New Zealand’s GDP contracts.. Bernanke gets grilled! And Now… Today’s Pfennig!
In early Tuesday trading in the Far East, gold didn’t do much of anything until shortly before 11:00 a.m. in the morning in Hong Kong. From that point, gold got sold off about $8 in an hour. Not a lot, but a pretty big move for the usually quiet Far East market. As it turned out, that was the low for world gold for the day. A quick retest of that price at 3:00 p.m. in Hong Kong…and gold was on its way higher…and the US$ much lower. This lasted through London trading, but ran into the usual brick wall at the Comex open in New York. Once the London p.m. gold fix was in at 3:00 p.m. [10:00 a.m.…
The gold price was so quiet on Monday morning in Far East trading that I smacked the side of my computer screen to see if I could get the price to move…but, alas, it did not.
Friday was an extremely quiet day in the gold and silver markets everywhere on planet earth…and volume was extremely light. The only thing of note was the fact that the highs of the day in gold, silver and the HUI came at precisely the same time…high noon in Comex trading in New York…almost to the second. To see gold and silver simultaneously have the rug pulled out from under their respective prices as they go vertical is commonplace…an almost daily occurrence. But the HUI too…with no lag time at all…not even five or ten minutes???