The Best Gold Interview of 2010

This week we feature an interesting interview with a well connected insider in the U.S. precious metals community and some surprising revelations on just how few people are selling gold and silver and what he thinks supply will look like down the road…

Jeff Clark, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report

Much of what passes for “insider” information these days is often conspiracy-edged or largely conjecture. True inside information is actually hard to come by. So what follows is the refreshingly candid and uncut version of my talk with a first-hand participant in the murky and little-understood world of gold bullion, mints, and bullion dealers.

Customarily, when considering a company for a potential recommendation, I hold a series of discussions with management. It was during one of these vetting procedures that I spoke with Andy Schectman of Miles Franklin – and heard some disturbing reports about supply that every investor should know. Andy is a bullion seller, so you’re welcome to take his comments with a grain of salt. On the other hand, what he sees week after week and what he hears from his high-level industry contacts might just make you pull back on that salt shaker and re-inventory the number of ounces you own…

Jeff Clark: Andy, tell us about the kinds of contacts you have in the industry and where you get your information.

Andy: I’m associated with two of the six primary mint distributors in the United States. There are only six primary precious metal distributors here because the qualifications are very difficult to meet. Aside from having $100 million in annual sales, you have to extend a $50 million line of credit to the U.S. Mint, and very few companies can do that. So in working with these companies, I’m privy to information that many others aren’t.

Jeff: So, what have you been hearing from them about supply for physical gold and silver?

Andy: I think in order to properly characterize what’s happening in the industry, it’s important to start from a big-picture perspective, which is that by and large the masses in this country are not involved in precious metals. In my experience, the move we’ve seen in gold over the last decade has primarily been from international investment – sovereign wealth funds in the Orient, petrodollars in the Middle East, India buying from the IMF, Russia and Japan accumulating, etc.

Most U.S. investors have lived through nothing but prosperity and good times, where they perhaps didn’t think they needed to own gold – but I think the rest of the world isn’t as optimistic about the future. So when you talk about supply, it’s important to acknowledge that most people in this country don’t own any gold and silver. To me, that’s what should really alarm people. 

Jeff:  Tell us how you would characterize supply right now.

Andy: Fragile. Availability of product changes almost weekly.

But it’s worse than that. When the market plunged 1,000 points in one day last month, two German banks bought about 35,000 or 40,000 one-ounce coins and cleaned out the Royal Canadian Mint overnight. Think about that: two banks cleaned out one of the world’s preeminent mints in one day.

Then you have the Austrian Mint recently announcing they were running into supply issues. And the U.S. Mint has been the model of inefficiency for the last several years. They have been either reluctant or unable to meet demand when it comes to Gold Buffalos, Platinum Eagles, and fractional Gold Eagles. They issue dribs and drabs of them, but certainly not enough to meet demand. 

Jeff:  And they frequently run out.

Andy:  They frequently run out, they frequently have delivery delays, and it’s a situation where very quickly we could see major disruption in the supply chain.

Jeff: We saw supply constraint in 2008, where dealers were running out of product. Do you think we’re headed there again?

Andy: I do. In 2008, when gold dropped from $1,000 to $700 very quickly, all product worldwide disappeared. Within weeks the U.S. Mint was shut down. The Canadian, Austrian, and Australian Mints were all eight to 12 weeks back-ordered or shut down. The Australian Mint stopped taking any new orders in July or August for the rest of the year. The Rand Mint, for the first time ever, sold out of all its product. One wealthy Swiss businessman flew his own 747 there and cleaned them out. 

So product was impossible to get, but not just from the primary mints; even the refiners that made 100-ounce silver bars couldn’t get them. No one could get anything, and it was a very scary time if you owned a gold company. There were many days I sat at my desk wondering how I was going to get product tomorrow, and there were times we couldn’t take orders whatsoever. And that comes from a company that’s done over $100 million in sales, is a member of the certified exchange, and that has contacts that run very deep in the industry – and I couldn’t get anything.

A friend of mine who owns a very prominent gold and silver company in Colorado has a store front, and back then he told me, “I want to put a sign on my window that says, ‘All we do is buy, we don’t sell,’ because one person will come in there and clean me out and there’s nothing to be had.”

So what I think is ahead comes from that experience. If you factor in that very, very few people in this country have even held a gold coin – let alone own any gold, or understand the reasons to own it, or will even accept the arguments for owning it – I think the primary distinguishing characteristic of this market will be that people won’t be able to get product when they want it. The rising price in and of itself will not be the main hurdle. For the most part, people will overcome price, because they’ll want to own it. The real issue will be getting product in a timely fashion, and that will become difficult for the average American. 

Jeff: What about supply from those selling coins and bars who bought at lower levels? Doesn’t that increase the available supply?

Andy: This is what I believe is a distinguishing feature of this market: there is a total absence of a secondary market. There isn’t one. Period. In years past, we used to do a lot of business with people wanting to sell. Today, virtually no one is selling their coins back to us. In fact, for every 100 transactions we have, maybe one is a seller – the other 99 are buyers. Our largest supplier, who provides over 60% of all bullion to the U.S. market, told me earlier this month they have days without one single buy back. And this is from the largest supplier in the U.S.

Jeff: Why do you think no one’s selling?

Andy: People are afraid. They’re afraid of what’s happening geopolitically, economically, fiscally, and want to hold on to their gold. As they should, because this is exactly the kind of circumstance gold is for.

So I would argue that as gold and silver creep higher, there will be more and more buying and less and less selling. And less selling means less product for buyers.

When you look at the fact that there is no secondary market, and then you throw into the mix that the mints are already running into production problems, and then add the troubles in Europe, which could easily spread, I think it’s easy to see how demand could outstrip supply. I assure you, there’s an awful lot of gold acquisition going on in other countries – the Swiss and Germans, for example, see the handwriting on the wall. They were buying everything up when the European crisis broke. It was bedlam for awhile.

And if all of a sudden people here wake up and feel they really need to own gold but can’t get it, we’ll be right back where we were in 2008.

But to your point, yes, nobody is selling anything right now and almost anything you buy will be dated 2010. That’s because there are no backdatedcoins to be had virtually anywhere. Maybe 20 here or 50 there, but nothing on a meaningful basis.

Jeff:  It sounds like regardless of what’s going on in America, global supply could be in jeopardy if this trend continues.

Andy: Absolutely, especially with the fact that there is no secondary market. Really, the people who enter the game late are going to be at the mercy of the mints. And if the mints run out of supply, or just stopped selling for whatever reason, it’s “game over” for those who want to accumulate. Right now there’s as good a supply as I’ve seen in a couple years, and that’s at a time when we’ve already witnessed the Royal Canadian Mint running out of gold for a week or so, the Austrian Mint also running out of product, and the U.S. Mint rationing Silver Eagles for a short time.

Jeff: And you’re calling this a good supply market?

Andy: Yes. It’s as good as we’ve seen in a couple years. 

Jeff: That’s scary.

Andy: I don’t think you’re exaggerating by saying that. And the message is, “Buy now while it’s still available.” I know it may sound like I’m trying to sensationalize it, but I’m really not. Based on what I know, it’s my opinion that if 5% of this country put 5% of their money into gold, there would be nothing left tomorrow morning. Supply is that small compared to the tremendous amount of money that’s out there.

Here’s another example. I had a meeting with a money management company here in Minneapolis that manages some of the oldest money in the entire country, literally billions of dollars. And when I spoke with them, I discovered the principals of the firm had never held a gold coin. They asked me questions that were as rudimentary as what I would get from a complete novice. By the end of the conversation, they said they would start with a $5 million order. I later learned this was a small order for just one of their clients. It was just dipping a toe in the water for these people.

Well, it won’t take too many of these kinds of people waking up to gold to drain the supply chain. Most of the wealth in this country is driven through money managers, and at some point these people will tell their managers, “I don’t care what the price or premium is, get me gold.” When they come knocking in large numbers like that, the supply chain will dry up overnight. I know this to be true. If we see an event that drives money managers to buy physical gold, the supply will be gone.

Jeff: Some of that money is already going into the ETFs.

Andy: Yes, but not when you consider the total capital that’s available. And keep in mind that the prospectus for GLD and SLV state that, more or less, you can’t take possession of the metal. So, do you “own” gold if you have shares in GLD or SLV, or any ETF, for that matter? If you can’t put the coin or bar in the palm of your hand, the answer is no.

Jeff: Are you seeing any difference between gold and silver? Is one more difficult to come by than the other?

Andy: We’ve seen a lot of demand for silver, probably more so than gold, and the U.S. Mint has already rationed Silver Eagles once this year. Junk silver bags are becoming much harder to get. And I think the higher gold goes, the faster silver will disappear. At some point the American public will realize they should have some gold and silver, and we could see a situation where the gold price could get out of reach for some investors. Those people will turn to silver and, as a result, it will probably be tougher to get than gold.

Jeff: If supply gets scarce, do you expect premiums to shoot up?

Andy: Absolutely. In 2008 the premiums were astronomical. Silver Eagles were $5.50 to $6 over spot. Gold Eagles were $100 to $150 over spot. The premiums went parabolic. That could easily happen again.

Jeff: And that was due to constrained supply.

Andy: Yes. When the price fell off the table, everything disappeared quickly. That’s counterintuitive, I know, because logic would dictate that as the price of something falls, demand is waning. But as the price fell, I think it became more attractive to large interests around the world, and everything got gobbled up fast.

Looking ahead, I can tell you that the only way you’ll see premiums stay where they are is if the mints are able to keep up with demand, and based on what I see I would argue there is no way they can. They can’t even keep up now. On top of that, as I stated, people aren’t going to sell their gold this time unless they absolutely have to, so there won’t be any supply coming from sales.

Jeff: So your message to someone who owns little or no physical metal now is what?

Andy: Acquire as many gold and silver ounces as you can. In the end it’s not about price paid, it’s about number of ounces. View the supply issue as critically as you would the price, because I believe that more than anything else, the lack of available supply will mark this industry.

Jeff: Excellent advice, Andy. Thanks for your input.

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Gold Meltdown or Mania - Batten Down the Hatches

We’ve had a few questions lately about investing in gold and silver mining shares.  Louis James of Casey Research shares his thoughts on what the possible impact of another downdraft in world financial markets will have on not only gold and silver but also on precious metals shares…

by Louis James, Senior Editor, Casey’s International Speculator

As Doug Casey said recently, we expect things to come unglued soon. With the ongoing madness in Europe, it seems to me that things are starting to look visibly less well glued already.

In contemplating the possibility of another stock market meltdown, it seems important to me that in spite of the exuberance with which investors rushed back into the market over the last year, the memory of 2008 remains vivid, tempering enthusiasm with caution. For example, the market still has relatively little appetite for early-stage, grassroots exploration projects; by our latest estimates, Mr. Market is willing to pay on the order of ten times more for Proven & Probable ounces in the ground than for less certain resource categories. With this evidence of caution in mind, and the great unwinding of the broader credit markets well underway, it seems likely that our sector is less leveraged than it was before the crash of 2008.

If a panic in the broader markets put liquidity-crunch-induced pressure on the gold price, the meltdown should be less severe than in 2008 and the eventual rebound could be dramatic, possibly triggering the mania we’ve been calling for. Remember: the market crash drove gold almost down to $700 in October ’08, but the same fear drove it almost back to $1,000 by February ’09. Silver topped that with a 60% rebound over the same period.

As the debt-glue holding everything together continues to lose its grip, the ride will only get rougher. As bad as 2008 was, if the Crisis Creature appears to be coming back when everyone on Main Street thought it was dead, the fear should be much worse – and that should drive gold way, way north. It’s possible the fear, coupled with the lack of any safer alternatives, could prevent gold from melting down at all, sending it instead straight through the roof into the clear blue Mania Phase sky.

With its industrial metal aspect, however, another big economic meltdown could hit silver harder than gold, and it might take longer to recover, especially if base metals don’t rebound the way they did in 2009. That said, silver has always tracked gold, so when gold heads for the moon, we expect silver will as well. It could reach even higher, if supply is cut by reduced base metal demand, as most silver production is as a by-product of base metal mines.

Either way, I don’t care if gold drops in the weeks and months ahead; the overall trend is for widespread economic fear and uncertainty to continue, holding gold prices up and eventually driving them higher. That makes the current retreat look like a great buying opportunity. In fact, putting my money where my mouth is, I picked up some more gold buffaloes just yesterday, when gold dropped to $1158. As I type, it has rebounded to $1181. I plan to buy more every time I see a sharp drop like this over the summer.
So, in addition to our multiple recent calls to take profits and go to cash, I want to reiterate that gold is cash. And it’s a whole lot more attractive than the dollar, the euro, or any paper money at present – not just as a speculation but for security as well.

What about the stocks?

Unfortunately, the stampede to safety that drives investors to gold is not likely to drive them immediately to junior exploration stocks. “The most volatile stocks on earth” is not what fearful people will be looking for – not until the panic sufficiently recedes and greed joins fear in equal measure in the marketplace…or in greater measure, come the Mania Phase.

If I’m right about fear being the driving force in the markets in 2010, whereas greed drove them in 2009, gold will have to deliver a serious wake-up call – perhaps holding over $1,500 – to really get the show on the road again for the gold stocks. If that happens while fear of a global economic slowdown continues to push oil prices lower, gold producers should be able to report extraordinary profit increases, even as other industries are tanking, and finally penetrate deeply into the awareness of broader pools of investors.

Cashed-up majors won’t have to wait for that to benefit; they may seize the opportunity created by market weakness to buy successful explorers, with significant discoveries in hand, while they are on sale. Well, some of the more nimble ones, like Kinross or Agnico-Eagle, might. The bigger companies, like Newmont and Barrick, didn’t lift a finger to pick up any bargains after the crash of 2008 and may be too cautious to act the next time around as well.

Be that as it may, acquisitions will increase the demand for quality exploration projects – the pipeline from exploration to development must be kept full – and good prospectors should at last get their day in the sun.

Punctuating this sequence will be the occasional big win on a new discovery. There haven’t been that many this cycle – not enough to replace all the gold the majors are depleting every year – but there have been some, and the market always loves a discovery.

After the first quarter of ‘09, greed outpaced fear and great development stories did phenomenally well; we saw better gains on large and growing gold stories than we did on the big producers. If fear retakes predominance in 2010, it’s profitable production that should do best, and I’d expect the biggest winners overall to be new, emerging, and highly profitable precious metals production stories. Spectacular discoveries should also do spectacularly well, but those are harder to predict. New and rapidly expanding production should be the sweet spots.

Generally, I think we’ll see our markets trading largely sideways over the next few months, with great volatility, until the debt-fueled “growth” in the global economy is exposed for the sugar high that it is. We’ve been forecasting that scenario for long enough here at Casey Research.

I expect this to play out by the end of this year, or 2011 at the latest, depending on how fast fear returns to the broader markets.

What to do

If I’m right about this, the strategy called for is a more cash-focused version of our “Buy only the Best of the Best” program. Buy nothing new unless you’re offered a great bargain in a solid company that can deliver significant new or expanding production. Nothing less than 50,000 ounces gold-equivalent per year in production will get much notice, and anything less than 100,000 ounces per year AuEq will have to struggle for respect. A solid company, of course, has great people, lots of cash, and the goods in hand.

If you want to speculate on a discovery, make sure you have very good reason to believe the project has much better than average odds of delivering a discovery – and it has to have world-class potential. That’s not hundreds of thousands of ounces but millions of ounces of gold, or equivalent.

If things do come truly unglued this year, we may well see 2008-style bargains on great companies with the staying power to recover and go on to new highs. Watch for it. Prepare for it.

Buy Low, Sell High – it’s a formula that requires patience but is the only way to go.

-=-=-=-

Louis James has been guiding his subscribers through the ups and downs of the market with a steady hand. It’s no coincidence that every single one of his 2009 picks was a winner. Learn more about Louis’ hands-on approach and the profit opportunities Casey’s International Speculator offers – details here.

Eric Sprott, Jim Puplava and Associated Thoughts

Wild Bill’s Weekly Wanderings 26 July 2010

Following on from last week this week we feature more from people whose opinion we respect.

Among the best is Eric King.  Eric operates with conviction - as does Eric Sprott. Last week, Eric K interviewed Eric S and I urge readers to check out the audio at
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/7/20_Eric_Sprott.html

For those of us that prefer to read, I provide a summary of the main points of the interview here.

Eric Sprott with Eric King

The busted “Bailout and Stimulate” formula

The net impact of the stimulus contributions and promises made since 2008 have resulted in a combined budget deficit of close to $2.5 trillion dollars and an incremental net increase in GDP of $200 billion. A $200 billion return for a $2.5 trillion increase in debt represents a terrible return on investment. It implies that the net impact of the stimulus on GDP since 2008 has been a mere 9 cents for every deficit dollar spent. Buying dimes with dollars is bad business, government-funded or not.

(Quoted from the May issue of “Markets at a Glance”.)

It’s the DEBT, stupid! After the stimulus program has been applied and then terminated, the debt has markedly increased, there’s no growth to speak of, and no one has any idea how this debt can be repaid…

Most large banks around the world are operating with way too much leverage. The risk in the system is “unbelievably immense relative to the amount of capital in the system”.

Quantitative Easing II (QE 2) – may be beginning already… Apart from the direct stimulus provided by TARP etc., there has been effectively a ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) in place now for quite some time. The banks can borrow at 0%, lend out at something above 0%, lever that up, and do quite nicely - thank you very much. Pretty soon, they can start reporting favorable earnings…

[Aside: while the above is happening, the banks are quietly starting to write off some of the toxic assets still on their books – which they have been allowed to mark to wishful model, rather than marking to market.
Damn – I wish I could persuade my bank to treat my overdraft as virtual in this way. I can just imagine the look on the face of my so-called “personal banker” if I said “Hey listen – everything’s cool – My overdraft of $10,000 dollars is really only $1, 000 according to my model – so I can borrow another $9,000 right?” What a sick joke.]

From “green shoots” to cliff diving

The current set of economic data points for the US is just horrible – and the trend indicates even worse to come. Printing money is losing its effectiveness as more and more is printed.

[Aside: It’s just like drug addiction, and for a very good reason – the processes are analogous. As a drug addict increases consumption of whatever it is, the body becomes habituated to the dose – which means that the dose has to be increased to produce the same kick. In the same way, as a society becomes addicted to the availability of cheap credit in order to function, the greater the increase in credit required to maintain the same level of economic activity.]

At all levels, national, state, corporate an individual, we have to reach rock bottom, i.e., we have to either renege on our debts or come forward with a credible plan for debt reduction. The Keynesian approach of continually increasing debt to pay off debt definitely cannot work in an environment where economic growth is anaemic at best.

[Aside: In China, on the other hand, where there is currently a supposed 10% annual growth, it just might work… Oh wait – they just happen to have N trillion US dollars in reserves, right? Seems like the Chinese might not need life support after all. Note to Mr Geithner: maybe, just maybe, it’s not such a good idea to keep lecturing your banker. And please don’t keep telling us you support a strong US dollar policy – that’s another really sick joke.]

Gold

Eric agrees with Ted Butler that there has been extensive manipulation of both the gold and silver paper markets by the bankers.

[Aside: The powers that be might prefer to say that the precious metals paper market prices were “regulated” or “governed” – sounds so much more reassuring, eh?]

Just imagine what would happen if the price of gold were $250 per ounce today. The worldwide demand for gold would be extraordinary… The continuing financial shenanigans are almost certain to ensure an inevitably rising gold price (probably with hiccups though) over time.  The price of gold is the canary in the coalmine – which is why there have been and are so many public pronouncements about it from such luminaries as Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker.

Social breakdown coming to the US?

If jobs cannot be produced, some people are going to get desperate….

US dollar outlook?

All fiat currencies eventually assume their intrinsic value – zero!   Owning these currencies or storing your assets in them is unsafe!  Now your usual investment advisor might – if push came to shove –recommend that say 5% -10% of your net worth be in precious metals – Eric stated candidly that WAY BEYOND 50% of his assets were in gold and silver – and that he slept very well at night!

He advised us listeners to “go and do thou likewise”. Pretty powerful stuff.

Jim Puplava and Financial Sense

Why did I make the association of Eric King with Financial Sense?  Well, for one thing, Eric and Jim are good friends. I have listened to Financial Sense religiously since it’s inception on the Internet.  I never cease to be amazed and grateful that such a high quality program is available for free. After all, one can pay a lot of money for vastly inferior offerings – on mainstream media, for example…

Thank you for the fantastic public service you provide, Jim.

What I like most about Financial Sense is the quality of debate on the show. I perceive Jim as being ultimately fair-minded – he always presents both sides of an argument, and asks listeners to think for themselves and make up their own minds. In an age which is characterized by communication using slogans or political soundbites – like swarms of locusts, in the words of Leonard Cohen – see below - this is truly a rare and valuable gem.

On a more personal note than usual, throughout my life, I have experienced bouts of intense depression. Curiously, I always know when the depression is lifting – some piece of music grabs me by the gut and won’t let me go. I am moved so intensely that I am lifted out of that terrible state of intense self-absorption. One time it was the haunting slow movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. Most recently the catalyst for rebirth for me has been Leonard Cohen’s Anthem.

Such power and passion! Mr Cohen, I imagine us sitting down together and sharing a bottle of wine, and then I would say this to you: “ Thank you for cracking open my hardened heart and letting the light into my life. In the words of Jacob Boehme, the great Christian mystic, “What kind of spiritual triumph it was I can neither write nor speak; it can only be compared with that where life is born in the midst of death, and is like the resurrection of the dead”.

Sadly for me, I don’t imagine we will ever meet, one reason being that you and I are both getting older…  Good luck with the remainder of Act III, my friend….

Silver Price Charts: What Can They Tell Us?

An NZ Video Guide to Investing in Silver: Part 2

Here’s the second video in our new ”Gold and Silver Videos”  category.  The first video An NZ Video Guide to Investing in Silver covered a range of topics on silver investment.

In this video “Wild Bill” (who also writes our “Weekly Wanderings” column every week) returns and hones in on silver’s price performance with a discussion of US and NZ silver price charts, including:

• Silver’s performance over the past 10 years in US dollars
• Charts of Silver in NZ dollars versus Silver in US dollars
• A look at silver’s performance versus gold
• Taking the historical price movements into account, how best to purchase silver
• The gold/silver ratio and how to use this measure as a trading strategy

Please post a comment below and let us know what other topics you’d like to hear more about in future videos…

An NZ Video Guide to Investing in Silver: Part 1

Silver: A Tightly Coiled Spring

Here’s the first video in our new ”Gold and Silver Videos”  category. 

In this video Gold Survival Guides resident intellectual “Wild Bill” (who also writes our “Weekly Wanderings” column every week) talks about:

• Silver’s characteristics - its similarities but also its differences from gold
• The silver paper market versus the silver physical market
• How silver may perform under an inflationary environment versus a deflationary environment
• The supply and demand characteristics of silver
• Discusses the volatility of silver and how this is an advantage if used correctly
• And the alternatives for investing in Silver in New Zealand.

Video Part 2 to come in a week or so where “Wild Bill” will be looking at some Silver charts in more detail… Post a comment below and let us know what other topics you’d like us to cover in these videos…

Compelling Reasons to Buy Silver

Wild Bills Weekly Wanderings 22 June 2010

This week, in our wanderings, we have come across the following items.

• Gerald Celente looks ahead.
• Ambrose embraces gold’s currency role.
• The Compelling Case for Silver?

 

Will We See Another May 6th Flash Crash for Stocks?

Watch Gerald Celente’s comments on the day that the Dow Jones plunged almost 1,000 points on May 6th. 

Gerald Celente heads up the Trends Research Institute, one of the top forecasting groups in the world today.  As Peter Cooper says in his blog…

“It is astonishing to find Russia Today as a bastion of free speech, albeit directed in a contrarian fashion.”

Gold rallied on this big fall. Could it happen again? Well, we have not had an convincing reason for why it happened on May 6th, except the most obvious conclusion is that a lot of people decided to sell at the same time.

Celente is 80 per cent in gold and hedged in currencies.

 

Mainstreamer Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on Gold

Evans-Pritchard is a respected financial columnist for the UK Daily Telegraph. In this piece, he looks at the severe underlying problems ahead for both the US and the Eurozone, suggesting that, once again, as throughout history, gold is resuming its mantle as the real reserve currency of the world.

Gold reclaims its currency status as the global system unravels

We already know that the eurozone money markets seized up violently in early May as incipient bank runs spread from Greece to Portugal and Spain, threatening the first big sovereign default of our era.

Jean-ClaudeTrichet, the president of the European Central Bank (EC), talked days later of “the most difficult situation since the Second World War, and perhaps the First”.

The ECB’s latest monthly bulletin gives us some startling details. It reveals that the bank’s “systemic risk indicator” surged suddenly to an all-time high on May 7 as measured by EURIBOR derivatives and stress in the EONIA swaps market, exceeding the strains at the height of the Lehman Brothers crisis in September 2008. “The probability of a simultaneous default of two or more euro-area large and complex banking groups rose sharply,” it said.

This is a unsettling admission. Which two “large and complex banking groups” were on the brink of collapse? We may find out in late July when the stress test results are published, a move described by Deutsche Bank chief Josef Ackermann as “very, very dangerous”.

And are we any safer now that the EU has failed to restore full confidence with its €750bn (£505bn) “shock and awe” shield, that is to say after throwing everything it can credibly muster under the political constraints of monetary union? This is the deep angst that lies behind last week’s surge in gold to an all-time high of $1,258 an ounce.

The World Gold Council said on Friday that the central banks of Russia, the Philippines, Kazakhstan and Venezuela have been buying gold, and Saudi Arabia’s monetary authority has “restated” its reserves upwards from 143m to 323m tonnes. If there is any theme to the bullion rush, it is fear that the global currency system is unravelling. Or, put another way, gold itself is reclaiming its historic role as the ultimate safe haven and benchmark currency.

It is certainly not inflation as such that is worrying big investors, though inflation may be the default response before this is all over. Core CPI in the US has fallen to the lowest level since the mid-1960s. Unlike the blow-off gold spike of the Nixon-Carter era, this rally has echoes of the 1930s. It is a harbinger of deflation stress.

Capital Economics calculates that the M3 money supply in the US has been contracting over the past three months at an annual rate of 7.6pc. The yield on two-year Treasury notes is 0.71pc. This is an economy in the grip of debt destruction.

Albert Edwards from Societe Generale says the Atlantic region is one accident away from outright deflation - that 9th Circle of Hell, “abandon all hope, ye who enter”. Such an accident may be coming. The ECRI leading indicator for the US economy has fallen at the most precipitous rate for half a century, dropping to a 45-week low. The latest reading is -5.70, the level it reached in late-2007 just as Wall Street began to roll over and then crash. Neither the Fed nor the US Treasury were then aware that the US economy was already in recession. The official growth models were wildly wrong.

David Rosenberg from Gluskin Sheff said analysts are once again “asleep at the wheel” as the Baltic Dry Index measuring freight rate for bulk goods breaks down after a classic triple top. The recovery in US railroad car loadings appears to have stalled, with volume still down 10.5pc from June 2008.

The National Association of Home Builders’ index of “future sales” fell in May to the lowest since the depths of slump in early 2009. RealtyTrac said home repossessions have reached a fresh record. A further 323,000 families were hit with foreclosure notices last month. “We’re nowhere near out of the woods,” said the firm.

It is an academic question whether the US slips into a double-dip recession, or merely grinds along for the next 12 months in a “growth slump”. For Europe, nothing short of a sustained global boom can lift the eurozone out of the deflationary quicksand already swallowing up the South.

Spain had to pay a near-record spread of 220 basis points over German Bunds last week to clear away an auction of 10-year bonds, roughly what Greece was paying in March. Leaked transcripts of a closed-door briefing to the Cortes by a central bank official revealed that Spanish companies have been shut out of the capital markets since Easter. Given that the Spanish state, juntas, banks and firms have together built up foreign debts of €1.5 trillion, or 147pc of GDP, and must roll over €600bn of these debts this year, this is a crisis unlikely to cure itself.

By their actions, investors show that they do believe the EU can be relied upon to back its rescue rhetoric with hard money, and for good reason. Germany’s coalition risks breaking up at any moment, fatally damaged by popular fury over the Greek bail-out. Far-Right populist Geert Wilders is suddenly the second force in the Dutch parliament. Flemish separatists have just won the Belgian elections in Flanders. The likelihood that an ever-reduced group of German-bloc creditors facing disorder and budget cuts at home will keep footing the bill for an ever-widening group of Latin-bloc debtors in distress is diminishing by the day.

Fitch Ratings said it will take “hundreds of billions” of bond purchases by the ECB to stop the crisis escalating. Since Bundesbank chief Axel Weber has already deemed the first tranche of purchases to be a “threat to stability”, it is a safe bet that Germany will fight tooth and nail to prevent such a move to full-blown quantitative easing. The blood-letting along the fault-line between Teutonic and Latin Europe will go on, as the crisis festers.

Yet the markets are already moving on, in any case. They doubt whether the EU’s strategy of imposing of wage cuts on half of Europe without offsetting monetary and exchange stimulus can work. Such a policy crushes tax revenues and risks tipping states into a debt-deflation spiral, as if everybody had forgotten the lesson of the 1930s.

Greece’s public debt will rise from 120pc to 150pc of GDP under the IMF-EU plan. There is a futile cruelty to this. As Russia’s finance minister Alexei Kudrin acknowledges, a Greek “mini-default” has become inevitable.

EU president Herman Van Rompuy confessed that the EMU lured countries into a fatal trap. “It was like some kind of sleeping pill, some kind of drug. We weren’t aware of the underlying problems,” he said.

What he has yet to admit is that the North-South imbalances built up since the euro was launched - indeed, because the euro was launched - cannot be corrected by further loans from the North or by pushing the South in depression. The political fuse will run out before this reactionary and self-defeating policy is tested to destruction.

Compelling Reasons to Buy Silver

The commentary below was posted by Peter Cooper of arabianmoney.net.

 ArabianMoney accepts all the excellent reasons for buying silver in this nice video. But the danger of another big silver price correction as in the 2008-9 financial crash is too great to buy right now.

We reckon another big crash is coming soon and that will be the ideal point to buy silver at a discount to current prices. Silver may not fall by as much as 2008-9. We hope not: 50 per cent was a very big price swing for holders of this metal. But buying on the dips is going to be a winning strategy going forward into an era of debt monetization and inflation.

Silver has been money since before Roman times and will not only keep its value but has the potential to be the best investment of all time.

Please watch this video!

Here at Gold Survival Guide, we have our own views on silver….

We think it is so important that we are are preparing a special item for inclusion on the site. STAY TUNED!

The 2010 Silver Buying Guide

Silver has been much more prominent of late.  Today Casey Research cover 4 reasons why you should think about owning silver along with 2 drawbacks to consider as well.  Plus 4 options for storage and also if now is a good to time to be buying…

By Jeff Clark, Senior Editor, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report

Silver has been sizzling and causing lots of buzz in the industry. Investors are excited.
Part of the hubbub is due to its current run. Since its February 8 low, silver has roared ahead 22.4% (through June 21) and has doubled from its November 2008 low.

This excitement has spilled over into greater investment demand – especially so for coins. The U.S. Mint sold more Silver Eagles in the first quarter of this year – just over nine million – than any prior quarter in its history. The Royal Canadian Mint produced 9.7 million silver maple leafs in 2009, also a record.

Take a look at the jump in U.S. Mint coin sales since 2007.
 

 

Silver bullion ETFs are growing, too, experiencing a five-fold increase in metal holdings since 2006.

There’s plenty we could talk about with silver, but our goal is to make money. So let’s focus on answering just two questions: Is today’s price expensive or cheap? And, what are the best silver coins, ETFs, and stocks to own? 

We have all the answers straight ahead, including lots of actionable info, so let’s jump right in…

Why Should I Buy Silver?

There are several reasons to own silver in addition to gold.

First, it’s cheaper! Known as the poor man’s gold, those with limited budgets will find it easier to purchase. You might hesitate plunking down $1,200 for an ounce of gold, but you can pick up 32 ounces of silver for half that amount.

Second, silver has wide industrial use and this component can help or hinder its price. As its consumption increases across a growing number of industries, this should help place a floor under demand. And because of its unique properties, new uses continue to be discovered.

Third, silver is money and has served this role more than any other material on earth, save gold. Due to its historical role, silver will always have monetary value and offer similar protection as gold to the ongoing global currency devaluations, and will definitely benefit from the inflation hurricane we see as inevitable.

Silver is more practical as a currency used for everyday purchases. When the time comes, you can sell the requisite number of silver coins to cover a specific need, as opposed to being forced to liquidate a high-dollar-value gold holding. Silver is perfect when smaller amounts of cash are required.

Fourth and last, silver could possibly outperform gold before this bull market is over. The market capitalization of silver (and silver stocks) is much smaller, making its price more susceptible to demand spikes than gold.

In the latter part of the 1970s precious metals bull market, gold gained over 700% – but silver soared over 1,400%. If you’ve got a bit of Gordon Gekko in you, we recommend investing a portion of your dollars in silver.

Caution - Hot!

Like all things, silver has its drawbacks, two in particular.

First, the price is volatile. Over the past 12 months, silver has seen gains of 53.8% and 22.9% and drops of 21.9% and 19.6%, all within a period of months or even weeks.

If you’re going to own silver, you must be prepared for big price gyrations. The best way to do that: buy it and forget about it. And…

►Make price volatility your friend. Big price swings present the opportunity to snag silver at a big discount. We give some guidance on prices below.

Second is the storage issue. As your pile grows, the advantage to storing gold will become self-evident. At $1,200 gold and $18.50 silver, $10,000 will get you eight gold eagles that will fit nicely in the credit card slots of your wallet; however, it will buy 540 silver eagles, weigh nearly 34 pounds, and fill a small bank safe deposit box.

►How to store physical silver. There are several ways to solve the storage dilemma, even if you plan to buy like the Hunt brothers.

1. Spread your holdings around. Not only is it wise to avoid keeping all your physical silver in one place, diversifying your storage arrangements allows you to buy more. Hide some at home in several locations (no cookie jars, though), and obviously tell only one trusted person. Store some in a bank safe deposit box and use more than one bank as your holdings grow.
2. Buy bars. Silver bars take up less space than a pile of coins of the same weight. We wouldn’t start out with nor have all our holdings in bars, because you want the advantage coins offer. But the larger your holdings, the easier it will be to store some of it in bar form.
3. Use pool accounts and unallocated storage. With a pool or unallocated account, you’re essentially getting free storage no matter how big your stash. That’s hard to beat. You’ll pay fabrication and delivery charges if/when you convert your holdings and take delivery, but in the meantime, you save on storage costs. Great value for the large holder.
4. Private storage. Store your silver with a private vaulting company. The advantage is that it’s outside the banking system; the disadvantage is that it’s usually expensive, though it can be cost effective for large holdings. Do your own due diligence if you go this route because we can’t vouch for any facility, but you could start by checking out delawaredepository.com. Keep in mind that using a vaulting facility beyond a reasonable driving distance will mean added shipping/insurance costs and restrict quick access.

Is Now a Good Time to Buy?

With the gains we’ve seen in silver, would we buy right now?

Let’s first look at the big picture. The following chart shows how far silver is below its inflation-adjusted peak reached in 1980.

 

Another clue some investors watch is the gold/silver ratio (gold price divided by silver price) shown below.
 

 

Since our current bull market in precious metals began in 2001, the ratio, while fluctuating wildly, has never gone below 45. And yet look where it went during the precious metals peak in 1980: it bottomed at 17. Even though gold was soaring at the time, silver outran it.

The ratio might show relative strength between gold and silver, but it’s not a good buying indicator. A falling ratio could mean silver is rising faster than gold, like it is currently, or it could mean silver is falling slower. As a result, we’d use the ratio to determine silver’s upside potential but not necessarily when to place an order.

These big-picture signals tell us silver is undervalued and, at the moment, a better bargain than gold. And given the currency crisis we’re convinced is in the cards, we wouldn’t want to be caught without any. If you have a long-term mindset, silver is a buy today.

Would we wait for a better price?

If you do not own any, and plan on holding what you buy until a mania develops, then we wouldn’t wait. The risk of buying silver at current prices is lower than owning none at all.

If you do own some but want to add to your holdings, we’d probably wait for a drop in price, in part because silver could more easily fall when the economy is found to be more fragile than what many believe. And with industrial uses comprising approximately half of silver’s demand, it would be more susceptible to sell-offs than gold if our research is correct about global economies. 

Further, summer usually brings pullbacks in prices, and this can be especially true for silver stocks. This is the tendency, though we can’t be sure if this summer will follow past trends. Still, our best guess is to anticipate another leg down this year. If you already own silver, we’d look for a correction to add to your holdings.

In our opinion, owning no silver in this bull market would be a mistake. And your first (and biggest) investment in silver should be in a physical form.

How much physical silver should you have? There’s no right answer and one size will not fit all. But we do recommend holding more gold than silver. Our suggestion for your precious metal holdings is roughly 80% gold and 20% silver.

Like gold, silver comes in different forms. We’d start with the more popular one-ounce coins and then branch out into other types as your holdings grow.

—-
[The above is an excerpt from the May issue of Casey’s Gold and Resource Report. Find out our top recommended dealers, including special pricing, along with Jeff Clark’s picks for the “best silver ETF” and the “two best silver stocks in the world.” And our June issue is our annual Summer Buying Guide. You can check it all out risk-free, for just $39/year, with a 3-month, 100% money-back guarantee. Get it right here.]

How Low Will the Silver Price Go?

What can we learn about where the price of silver may go in the future?  Casey Research has a very interesting graph showing the size of silver price corrections over the past decade.  Read on to learn what this might mean for the future and how to use these corrections to your advantage…

-Jeff Clark, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report

We released our 2010 Silver Buying Guide 2 weeks ago and the silver price promptly cratered. So does this change our view of gold’s shiny cousin? Hardly.

While industrial uses comprise about half (53%, according to GFMS) of silver’s demand, making it susceptible to bigger falls than gold in a weak economy, it is equally clear silver also responds well to inflation, as well as serious financial “dislocations” (to put it nicely).

There are many examples of this, perhaps the best being the late 1970s. The economy in the middle of that decade was going nowhere, so some investors dumped their silver holdings because demand would supposedly be weak. A big mistake, as we now know, because silver’s greatest advance occurred at a time industrial demand was, at best, flat. Instead, silver rose due to monetary concerns and rampant inflation, giving investors 500%+ returns in the latter part of that decade, with an easy chance for even higher gains.

So if you’re buying silver to protect yourself against inflation and out-of-control government spending, then – as Doug Casey is fond of saying – sit tight and be right.

Still, it might be useful to contemplate how far silver could fall, particularly if you don’t own enough and are looking to add to your holdings.

The following chart examines all the major corrections in the price of silver in the current bull market (2001 to present). I only included corrections greater than 10%, many of which were big and sudden, much like we’re experiencing now.

You can easily see how volatile silver has been. Yet amidst all that volatility, the price has risen 334% from its 11-21-01 low (as of May 21).

Based on this data, we can make some projections. Our recent high in silver was $19.64. Therefore…

 

These projections cast a wide net, to be sure, but there are still some conclusions we can draw:

1) The current correction in silver, as sharp as it is, is not out of the ordinary. Nothing is happening to the silver price right now that hasn’t occurred before.

Diagnosis? Normal.

2) If you agree with our analysis that says inflation is inevitable and that fiat currencies will sooner or later be taken off life support, then scary drops become great buying opportunities. Imagine if you had bought during that waterfall decline in 2008; you could’ve paid less than $9 for an ounce of silver. That would make the current correction less worrisome. By extension, buying during today’s big downdrafts will give you peace of mind tomorrow when we see another correction at higher levels.

Treatment regimen? Buy the big corrections.

3) Adjusted for inflation, silver’s peak in 1980 would exceed $100 today (and that’s based on distorted government CPI numbers).
 

Prognosis? Excellent.

Since we don’t know where the next bottom is, one effective way to handle purchases is to buy in tranches. You could place limit orders at a couple different levels.

But we might save the Big Purchase for a true fire-sale price, something greater than the average sell-off. There won’t be a big flashing light that says “Buy Now!” when the bottom forms, but the bigger the drop, the easier it will become to ease into the market.

Easy? Yes, if you have lots of cash (we currently recommend in Casey’s Gold & Resource Report that one-third of assets be in cash). That big stash is going to give you the ability to load up on the cheap.

If you don’t have a significant amount of Federal Reserve notes saved, it’s not too late to start. And I’ll bet you a six-pack on a Tahitian beach you’ll feel differently about this sell-off if you have a big pile of cash waiting to deploy.

The big SALE! may very well be on its way. I hope you’re getting ready for it.

What silver investments are we buying on the corrections? Check out our 2010 Silver Buying Guide, which includes a list of the dealers with the cheapest prices on all forms of physical silver, a brand new silver ETF recommendation, and the two best silver stocks in the world. You’ve got nothing to lose – a one-year subscription to Casey’s Gold & Resource Report is only $39, and you can try it risk-free for 3 months here.

Why Are Silver Sales Soaring?

Yikes.  

This is especially explosive when you consider that roughly 40% of all silver is used for industrial applications, 30% for jewelry, 20% for photography and other uses, and only 5% or so for coins and medals.

To be sure, mine production is not the only source of silver. In 2009, approximately 52.9 million ounces were recovered from various sources of scrap. Further, the U.S. imported a net of about 112.5 million ounces last year. (Dependence on foreign oil? How about dependence on foreign silver!) So it’s not like there’s a worry there won’t be enough silver to produce the Eagle you want next month. 

Still, why so much buying? The silver price ended the quarter up 15.5% from its February 4 low – but it was basically flat for the quarter, up a measly 1.9%. We tend to see buyers clamoring for product when the price takes off, so the jump in demand wasn’t due to screaming headlines about soaring prices.

I have a theory.

For some time, silver has been known as the “poor man’s gold.” Meaning, silver demand tends to increase when gold gets too “expensive.” The gold price has stubbornly stayed above $1,000 for over six months now and spent much of that time above $1,100. You’d be lucky to pay less than $1,200 right now for a one-ounce coin (after premiums), an amount most workers can’t pluck out of their back pocket. But Joe Sixpack just might grab a “twelve-pack” of silver.

What would perhaps lend evidence to my theory is if gold sales were down in the face of these higher silver sales.

The U.S. Mint reported a decline in gold bullion sales of 20.8% this past quarter vs. the same quarter in 2009. Further, other world mints have seen sharp declines in gold bullion coin sales as well: the Austrian Mint reported an 80% drop in sales for the first two months of the year and the Royal British Mint a 50% decline in gold coin production for the first quarter.

What’s even more dramatic is the difference in the dollar value of the sales. Gold Eagle sales in the U.S. dropped $10,263,500 from a year earlier – but silver sales increased by $61,855,290. So, not only did silver sales make up the drop in gold sales, they exceeded them by $51,591,790.

Is the rush into “poor man’s gold” underway?

Why the answer to that question is significant is that a shift toward silver for this reason could signal we’re inching closer to the greater masses getting involved in the precious metals arena. And that – for those of us who’ve been invested for awhile now – would be music to the ears. Because when they start getting involved, the mania will be underway, and from that point forward, it’s game on.

I’m not saying the mania is starting, and I actually think we could see another sell-off before things take off for good. Gold could dip to $1,000 and maybe even $950, with silver going to the $14-$15 range. But as clues like these begin to build up, we’ll know we’re getting closer. (And any drop to those ranges would clearly be a major buying opportunity.)

Everyone talks about gold, myself included, but a meaningful portion of one’s precious metals portfolio should be devoted to silver. The market is tiny, making the price potentially explosive. Remember that in the ‘70s bull market gold advanced over 700%, but silver soared over 1,400%.

Don’t be a “poor man” by ignoring gold’s shiny cousin.

While buying silver is a must, it’s the silver stocks that will truly soar in a mania. And I’m convinced we recommend the two best silver producers in the world. Get their names and our suggested entry points with a risk free trial to Casey’s Gold & Resource Report… click here.

The Smoking Gun – Proof of Manipulation in the Gold and Silver ‎Markets

Last week in our Weekly Wanderings, we brought you the story of Andy Maguire’s whistle-blowing testimony to the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission).

Despite the importance of this financial news, it has received virtually zero coverage by the mainstream press. However, the alternative media, via the internet and the blogosphere have covered the story in detail. So much so, that King World News, which carried an exclusive scoop interview with Andy and Adrian Douglas of GATA, was subject to an intensive denial-of-service cyber-attack for several hours. Kudos must go to Eric King, who has been building up a huge worldwide readership for his pungent and informative interviews with highly placed people around the globe, particularly those connected with the precious metals markets. If you are at all interested in these markets, I cannot stress enough the importance of checking out Eric’s site regularly.

In this article I will summarize what has happened last week in connection with this story, which reads like the plot for a Hollywood thriller.

As we said last week, Andrew Maguire, a long-time precious metals trader in London, contacted the CFTC some time ago, explaining to them how the precious metals market was rigged – providing full evidence for his claims. Last week, there was a hearing of the CFTC to examine the position limits for precious metals trading. Bill Murphy and Adrian Douglas of GATA were in attendance, as was Jeff Christian, representing the bullion banks. During the hearing, Andrew Maguire was identified as having sent e-mails to Bart Chilton, a CFTC commissioner, and Eliud Ramirez, head of the commission’s enforcement division, alleging that JPMorgan had used its massive metals positions to manipulate the commodities markets.

In one e-mail, Maguire wrote, “It is common knowledge here in London among the metals traders that it is JPM’s intent to flush out and cover as many shorts as possible prior to any discussion in March about position limits,” referring to last week’s CFTC hearings.

Andy confirmed also that he knew JPM metals market traders in London, as the community of metals traders is small, and most participants are known to each other. Several of the JPM traders have bragged openly about their actions to manipulate the markets. Andy has come forth with this information at considerable risk to himself and his family. He and his wife were victims of a hit and run accident, just after he made this information public. Coincidence? I don’t think so….

Now a most extraordinary event occurred at the CFTC hearing. Just to set the scene, GATA have been toiling for 10 years to find evidence to show that the physical gold market is fraudulent, and that physical gold is being counted multiple times.  At the hearing, Bill and Adrian must have felt that all their birthdays had come at once! Jeff Christian, who was presented to the hearing as an expert in precious metals trading representing the bullion banks, made the astonishing admission that the physical gold market at the LBMA (the London Bullion Market Association) was really a paper market, and that the paper was leveraged against the physical market at 100 to 1!

Now what are the implications?

·         Firstly, GATA’s claims have now been substantiated – and by a member of the cartel!

·         Secondly, many people (and/or institutions) who think they own physical gold definitely do not. If they tried to take delivery, 99 out of 100 would not obtain it.

·         Thirdly, what has been stated above must be true in spades for silver – the silver market is much smaller.

·         Fourthly, this revelation makes an enormous short squeeze in the metals likely, if not imminent.  Andy says he has been contacted by wealthy individuals out of Asia who have asked for confirmation that the short positions are naked. Getting this assurance, they are now planning an attack from the long side against these markets.

Get ready for the mother of all short squeezes in the metals!! The time to take delivery of physical gold and silver is now!!

Update 7 April 2010:  Here is a short video on this topic we’ve just come across…

And here is the link to the article they reference:

http://inflation.us/silvershortsqueeze.html

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