Tag Archive: gold price

China’s Nuclear Option to Sell US Treasurys, Report 19 May

2019-05-21

There is a drumbeat pounding on a monetary issue, which is now rising into a crescendo. The issue is: China might sell its holdings of Treasury bonds—well over $1 trillion—and crash the Treasury bond market. Since the interest rate is inverse to the bond price, a crash of the price would be a skyrocket of the rate. The US government would face spiraling costs of servicing its debt, and quickly collapse into bankruptcy.

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Nonmonetary Cause of Lower Prices, Report 5 May

2019-05-07

by Keith Weiner

2019-05-07

Over the past several weeks, we have debunked the idea that purchasing power—i.e. what a dollar can buy—is intrinsic to the currency itself. We have discussed a large non-monetary force that drives up prices. Governments at every level force producers to add useless ingredients, via regulation, taxation, labor law, environmentalism, etc.

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Is Keith Weiner an Iconoclast? Report 28 Apr

2019-04-30

by Keith Weiner

2019-04-30

We have a postscript to our ongoing discussion of inflation. A reader pointed out that Levis 501 jeans are $39.19 on Amazon (in Keith’s size—Amazon advertises prices as low as $16.31, which we assume is for either a very small size that uses less fabric, or an odd size that isn’t selling). Think of the enormity of this. The jeans were $50 in 1983. After 36 years of relentless inflation (or hot air about inflation), the price is down to $39.31. Down...

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Gold Consolidates Above $1,300 After 1.2 percent Gain Last Week

2019-01-29

by Mark O'Byrne

2019-01-29

Gold futures settled above $1,300 an ounce on Friday, with prices for the yellow metal at their highest since June as the U.S. dollar pulled back and investors eyed geopolitical turmoil and global growth worries. Rising gold prices reflect “political uncertainty” in the U.S., Eurozone, Venezuela and pockets of South America, as well as China-U.S. trade talks, said George Gero, managing director in RBC.

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Rising Interest and Prices, Report 13 Jan 2019

2019-01-14

by Keith Weiner

2019-01-14

For years, people blamed the global financial crisis on greed. Doesn’t this make you want to scream out, “what, were people not greedy in 2007 or 1997??” Greed utterly fails to explain the phenomenon. It merely serves to reinforce a previously-held belief.

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Surest Way to Overthrow Capitalism, Report 6 Jan 2019

2019-01-07

by Keith Weiner

2019-01-07

One of the most important problems in economics is: How do we know if an enterprise is creating or destroying wealth? The line between the two is objective, black and white. It should be clear that if business managers can’t tell the difference between a wealth-creating or wealth-destroying activity, then our whole society will be miserably poor.

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Change is in the Air – Precious Metals Supply and Demand

2019-01-02

by Keith Weiner

2019-01-02

Last week, the price of gold rose $25, and that of silver $0.60. Is it our turn? Is now when gold begins to go up? To outperform stocks? Something has changed in the supply and demand picture. Let’s look at that picture. But, first, here is the chart of the prices of gold and silver.

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Are Stocks Overvalued, Report 24 Dec 2018

2018-12-27

by Keith Weiner

2018-12-27

We could also have entitled this essay How to Measure Your Own Capital Destruction. But this headline would not have set expectations correctly. As always, when looking at the phenomenon of a credit-fueled boom, the destruction does not occur when prices crash. It occurs while they’re rising.

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Why Do Investors Tolerate It, Report 17 Dec 2018

2018-12-18

by Keith Weiner

2018-12-18

For the first time since we began publishing this Report, it is a day late. We apologize. Keith has just returned Saturday from two months on the road. Unlike the rest of the world, we define inflation as monetary counterfeiting. We do not put the emphasis on quantity (and the dollar is not money, it’s a currency). We focus on the quality. An awful lot of our monetary counterfeiting occurs to fuel consumption spending.

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The Prodigal Parent, Report 9 Dec 2018

2018-12-10

by Keith Weiner

2018-12-10

The Baby Boom generation may be the first generation to leave less to their children than they inherited. Or to leave nothing at all. We hear lots—often from Baby Boomers—about the propensities of their children’s generation. The millennials don’t have good jobs, don’t save, don’t buy houses in the same proportions as their parents, etc.

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Inflation, Report 2 Dec 2018

2018-12-03

by Keith Weiner

2018-12-03

What is inflation? Any layman can tell you—and nearly everyone uses it this way in informal speech—that inflation is rising prices. Some will say “due to devaluation of the money.” Economists will say, no it’s not rising prices per se. That is everywhere and always the effect. The cause, the inflation as such, is an increase in the quantity of money. Which is the same thing as saying devaluation.

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A Golden Renaissance, Report 25 Nov 2018

2018-11-26

by Keith Weiner

2018-11-26

There is the freedom of speech battle, with the forces of darkness advancing all over. For example, in Pakistan, there are killings of journalists. Saudi Arabia apparently had journalist Khashoggi killed. New Zealand now can force travellers to provide the password to their phones so the government can go through all your data, presumably including your gmail, Onedrive, Evernote, and WhatsApp.

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The Interesting Seasonal Trends of Precious Metals

2018-11-20

by Dimitri Speck

2018-11-20

Prices in financial and commodity markets exhibit seasonal trends. We have for example shown you how stocks of pharmaceutical companies tend to rise in winter due to higher demand, or the end-of-year rally phenomenon (last issue), which can be observed almost every year. Gold, silver, platinum and palladium are subject to seasonal trends as well.

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The Ultimate Stablecoin, Report 18 Nov 2018

2018-11-19

by Keith Weiner

2018-11-19

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away we wrote a series of articles arguing that bitcoin is not money and is not sound. Bitcoin was skyrocketing at the time, as we wrote most of them between July 30 and Oct 1 last year. Back in those halcyon days, volatility was deemed to be a feature.

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The Failure of a Gold Refinery, Report 12 Nov 2018

2018-11-13

by Keith Weiner

2018-11-13

So this happened: Republic Metals, a gold refiner, filed bankruptcy on November 2. The company had found a discrepancy in its inventory of around $90 million, while preparing its financial statements. We are not going to point the Finger of Blame at Republic or its management, as we do not know if this was honest error or theft.

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Wizard’s First Rule, Report 4 Nov 2018

2018-11-06

by Keith Weiner

2018-11-06

Terry Goodkind wrote an epic fantasy series. The first book in the series is entitled Wizard’s First Rule. We recommend the book highly, if you’re into that sort of thing. However, for purposes of this essay, the important part is the rule itself: “Wizard’s First Rule: people are stupid.” “People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything.

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Does the recent spate of Central Bank gold buying impact demand and price?

2018-11-05

by Ronan Manly

2018-11-05

There has been a lot of media coverage recently about the re-emergence of central bank gold buying and the overall larger quantity of gold than central banks as a group have been buying recently compared to previous years. For example, according to the World Gold Council’s Gold Demand Trends for Q3 2018, net purchases of gold by central banks in the third quarter of this year were 22% higher than Q3 2017, and the highest quarterly level since Q4 of...

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