Tag Archive: gold price

Yield Curve Compression – Precious Metals Supply and Demand

The price of gold fell nine bucks last week. However, the price of silver shot up 33 cents. Our central planners of credit (i.e., the Fed) raised short-term interest rates, and threatened to do it again in December. Meanwhile, the stock market continues to act as if investors do not understand the concepts of marginal debtor, zombie corporation, and net present value.

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Permanent Gold Backwardation, Report 30 Sep 2018

Sometimes, one just needs to look in the right place. And often in those cases, it just takes a conversation to alert one where to look. We had a call with a Swiss company this week, to discuss gold financing for their business. They reminded us that there is a negative interest rate on Swiss francs. And then they said that a swap of francs for gold has a cost. That is, the CHF GOFO rate is negative (the dollar based 12-month MM GOFO™ is +2.4%).

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Why Are Wages So Low, Report 23 Sep 2018

Last week, we talked about the capital consumed by Netflix—$8 billion to produce 700 shows. They’re spending more than two thirds of their gross revenue generating content. And this content has so little value, that a quarter of their audience would stop watching if Netflix adds ads (sorry, we couldn’t resist a little fun with the English language).

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Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Avocado Toast, Report 16 Sep 2018

For about ten bucks a month, Netflix will give you all the movies you can watch, plus tons of TV show series and other programs, such as one-off science documentaries. They don’t offer all movies, merely more than you can watch. Oh, and there are no commercials. They don’t just give you old BBC reruns, which you know they can get for a pittance.

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Why the Fed Denied the Narrow Bank, Report 9 Sep 2018

It’s not every day that a clear example showing the horrors of central planning comes along—the doublethink, the distortions, and the perverse incentives. It’s not every year that such an example occurs for monetary central planning. One came to the national attention this week. A company called TNB applied for a Master Account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

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Illicit Arbitrage Cut by Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Report 3 Sep 2018

This week, we are back to our ongoing series on capital destruction. Let’s consider the simple transaction of issuing a bond. Party X sells a bond to Party Y. We will first offer something entirely uncontroversial. If the interest rate rises after Y buys the bond, then Y takes a loss. Or if the interest rate falls, then Y makes a capital gain. This is simply saying that the bond price moves inverse to the interest rate.

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As Emerging Market Currencies Collapse, Gold is being Mobilized

In recent weeks, global financial markets have been increasingly spooked by an intensifying crisis in emerging market currencies including those of Turkey and Argentina. Add to this the ongoing currency crisis in Venezuela and the currency problems of Iran.

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Another Gold Bearish Factor, Report 26 August 2018

Last week, we said that the consensus is that gold must go down (as measured in terms of the unstable dollar) and then will rocket higher. We suggested that if everyone expects an outcome in the market, the outcome is likely not to turn out that way. We also said that this time, there is likely less leverage employed to buy gold and that gold is less leveraged as well.

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Submerged Lighthouse Syndrome – Precious Metals Supply and Demand

Last week, the lighthouse went down 24 meters (gold went down $24), or 50 inches (if you prefer, silver went down 50 cents). However, let’s take a look at the only true picture of supply and demand. Are the fundamentals dropping with the market price?

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Annual Mine Supply of Gold: Does it Matter?

The topic of how much extractable gold is left in the world has become increasingly discussed within the last few years. This is because of increased focus on ‘peak gold’ and also a concern about remaining levels of unextracted gold reserves. Peak gold is a term referring to the phenomenon of annual gold mining supply peaking (i.e. the rate of gold extraction increases until it peaks at maximum gold output and subsequently diminishes).

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In Next Crisis, Gold Won’t Drop Like 2008, Report 19 August 2018

Last week, we discussed the tension between forces pushing the dollar up and down (measured in gold—you cannot measure the dollar in terms of its derivatives such as euro, pound, yen, and yuan). And we gave short shrift to the forces pushing the dollar down. We said only that to own a dollar is to be a creditor. And if the debtors seem in imminent danger of default, then creditors should want to escape this risk.

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Fundamental Price of Gold Decouples Slightly – Precious Metals Supply and Demand

Keith Weiner’s weekly look on Gold. Gold and silver prices, Gold-Silver Price Ratio, Gold basis and co-basis and the dollar price, Silver basis and co-basis and the dollar price.

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Gold Sector – An Obscure Indicator Provides a Signal

The Goldminbi. In recent weeks gold apparently decided it would be a good time to masquerade as an emerging market currency and it started mirroring the Chinese yuan of all things. Since the latter is non-convertible this almost feels like an insult of sorts. As an aside to this, bitcoin seems to be frantically searching for a new position somewhere between the South African rand the Turkish lira.

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Monetary Consequence of Tariffs, Report 12 August 2018

Last week in Monetary Paradigm Reset, we talked about the challenge of explaining a new paradigm. We said: “The hard part of accepting this paradigm shift, was that people had to rethink their entire view of cosmology, theology, and philosophy. In the best case, people take time to grapple with these challenges to their idea of man’s place in the universe. Some never accept the new idea.” We were talking about the fact that money is the unit of...

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Monetary Paradigm Reset, Report 5 August 2018

Keith Weiner’s weekly look on Gold. Gold and silver prices, Gold-Silver Price Ratio, Gold basis and co-basis and the dollar price, Silver basis and co-basis and the dollar price.

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Spotlight on the HUI and XAU Gold Stock Indexes

Probably the two best known gold mining stock indexes in the world’s financial markets are the HUI and the XAU. HUI is the ticker symbol for the NYSE Arca Gold BUGS Index. XAU is the ticker symbol for the Philadelphia Gold and Silver Index. Both of these monikers make an appearance on many gold related websites and many general financial market websites as well, so its worth knowing briefly what these indexes are and what they represent.

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A Dire Warning, Report 29 July 2018

Let’s return to our ongoing series on the destruction of capital, and how to identify the signs. Steve Saville posted a thoughtful article this week entitled The “Productivity of Debt” Myth. His article provides a good opportunity to add some additional thoughts. We have written quite a lot on this topic. Indeed, we have a landing page for marginal productivity of debt (MPoD) with four articles so far.

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Crying Wolf – Precious Metals Supply and Demand

The price of gold fell another ten bucks and that of silver another 28 cents last week. Perspective: if you are waiting for the right moment to buy, the market is offering you a better deal than it did last week (literally, the market price of gold is at a 7.2% discount to the fundamental price vs. 4.6% last week). If you wanted to sell, this wasn’t a good week to wait. Which is your intention, and why?

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Crying Wolf, Report 22 July 2018

Keith Weiner’s weekly look on Gold. Gold and silver prices, Gold-Silver Price Ratio, Gold basis and co-basis and the dollar price, Silver basis and co-basis and the dollar price.

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Getting Their Pound of Flesh – Precious Metals Supply and Demand

Keith Weiner’s weekly look on Gold. Gold and silver prices, Gold-Silver Price Ratio, Gold basis and co-basis and the dollar price, Silver basis and co-basis and the dollar price.

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