Rumors swirling: The U.S. gov't is planning to confiscate gold
Controversial report reveals the tricky way they could do it... 



These are the 12 riskiest countries in the world today
Includes the country most likely to go "belly up." 

HUI - Gold Ratio, GLD and the Ratio Spread Trade

 

posted by Trader Dan at Trader Dan's Market Views - 4 hours ago

The following chart details this ratio from which one can determine the performance of the gold shares in general against the price of the actual metal. It was in 2006 when I believe that the hedge fund wo...

A technical look at the US Dollar

posted by Trader Dan at Trader Dan's Market Views - 5 hours ago

Following are some price charts of the US Dollar to give an overview of where it stands from a technical analysis perspective. We will look at all three major time frames, the daily, weekly and monthly as ...

Weekend Update and a Message From Turd

posted by Turd Ferguson at Along The Watchtower - 2 hours ago

First of all, here are your charts to ponder over the weekend. The CRB made its seventh, consecutive higher weekly close yesterday. Again, your house may be going down in value and the banks may be insolve...

Pour Some Coffee and Read This

posted by Turd Ferguson at Along The Watchtower - 9 hours ago

Its early Saturday am in the US. Reader Eric posted this link in the comments section of last night's thread and several other readers suggested that I link to it here so that everyone will be encouraged t...

Protests Spread To Vietnam

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/26/2011 14:32 -0500

After protests recently shifted to Korea, they have now migrated to very tightly controlled Vietnam (and some were wondering what the reason for the orchestrated take down of rice in the past week was), in the first public demonstration by unhappy farmer against the controlling regime in many years. In the meantime, as the media blackout over developments in Korea, Bahrain and just as importantly Algeria continues (not to mention China), keeping in mind that as Nomura predicted, a shut down in Algerian and Libyan oil production is all that is needed for crude to hit $220, we now look forward to Venezuela to join the revolutionary ranks, with the culmination being when Afghanistan and Pakistan, and associated nukes, go in play.

Will AIG Implosion 2.0 Lead To QE 3.0?

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/25/2011 18:00 -0500

There was a time when everyone thought CDOs are perfectly safe. That ended up being a tad incorrect. It resulted in AIG blowing up, recording hundreds of billions in losses and almost taking the rest of the financial world with it, leading ultimately to the first iteration of quantitative easing. A few years thereafter, several blogs and fringe elements suggested that munis are the next major cataclysm and will likely require Fed bail outs (some time before Meredith Whitney came on the public scene with her apocalyptic call). It would be only fitting that the same AIG that blew up the world the first time around, end up being the same company that does so in 2011, and with an instrument that just like back then only an occasional voice warned is a weapon of mass destruction: municipal bonds. AIG dropped over 6% today following some very unpleasasnt disclosures about its muni outlook, and corporate liquidity implications arising therefrom: "American International Group Inc., the bailed-out insurer, said it faces increased risk of losses on its $46.6 billion municipal bond portfolio and that defaults could pressure the company’s liquidity." So how long before we discover that Goldman has been lifting every AIG CDS for the past quarter? And how much longer after that until someone leaks a document that the company's muni strategy was orchestrated by one Joe Cassano?