Perfect Storm For Gold & Silver - Silver Surges 6% In Week To $40.28 – GFMS Forecast $50/oz This Year

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/08/2011 07:47 -0400

The GFMS World Silver Survey released yesterday shows that investment demand increased by a very 47% in 2010 and industrial demand is very robust. Silver’s nominal high of $50/oz is looking like it will be seen sooner rather than later given the degree of demand and momentum. Any sell off will likely be short but sharp prior to a resumption of silver’s secular bull market and silver’s inflation adjusted high of $150/oz remains a long term price target. The long term silver chart above shows how silver rose from $1.28 to $49.45 (on a weekly basis) from 1971 to 1980 or a rise of 38 times. Given that the conditions today are far more bullish than they were in the 1970’s silver may replicate this performance. Were silver to replicate the 1970’s performance it would have to rise from a low of $4.10 in 2001 to over $150/oz – which as it happens is the all important inflation adjusted high. Whether silver will plunge or not at some stage is irrelevant if one is buying for diversification, safe haven and store of value reasons. When silver reached $10, $15 and $20 there were similar warnings which may have dissuaded some of the public from buying for the long term and diversifying.

 

 

Guest Post: Guess Who's Almost Out Of Silver

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/08/2011 12:11 -0400

According to Jamie Dimon, he did America a favor when he agreed to take bailout money from taxpayers (and we didn’t even have the decency to thank him). Last week ,we learned that the JP Morgan CEO likes his catastrophe’s predictable, but as Mick Jagger once observed, “You can’t always get what you want.” So in case you’re wondering who might be stupid enough to buy silver at $40, chances are extremely high it’s going to be the guys who sold at $15, $20, $25, 30, 31, 32, 33….. On April 6, Bloomberg reported Comex Silver Stockpiles as of April 5, and if you scroll down through the report, you’ll notice that JP Morgan has enough silver to fill, wait for it, 6 contracts. Yep 30,844 troy ounces, that’s all.

 

 

 

Marc Faber: "Everything Is Going Up. Only At The Federal Reserve Is There No Inflation"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/08/2011 08:55 -0400

Marc Faber was on CNBC earlier, once again discussing things so patently obvious only the Fed can not grasp them. Namely that as long as cheap money floods the system hard assets will continue rising in value, and gold will continue surging. Which is merely part of the bigger picture: nominal prices continue rising as real prices, denominated in paper and linen, continue to decline. But have no fear: Bernanke can fix everything in 15 minutes. Only that's total BS: "One day they will increase it by a quarter percent. But what does it mean when commodity prices are going through the roof, energy prices are going up, health care costs are going up, insurance premiums are going up?" Somehow, Bernanke believes, a hike will immediately undo months and years of downstream costs progressing through the system. And surely subprime is contained... As for the proverbial gold bubble: "If it were a bubble a lot of people would have gold. The whole world would be trading gold 24 hours a day. But I don't think it's really a bubble. I think gold is maybe cheaper today than it was in 1999, when it was $252." Oddly enough nobody mentions that gold is the only market that is now not part of the Fed's central planning "wealth effect" mandate (and the price suppression mandate is failing by the day): surging gold prices are an indication of one thing only: the market's desire to impose its own gold standard at a mark to market price equivalent for dollar destruction. It is this aspect of the metal: to correlate with Fed stupidity, that makes it such an attractive investment. And since Fed stupidity is endless, does it mean gold's fair value is infinite?

 

 

 

Lockhart Speaks: Ignore Reality, Inflation Is Transitory

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/08/2011 08:06 -0400

The borg collective is out in full force, with more gibberish on 'transitory inflation' coming from Atlanta Fed's Lockhart: "As I've said before, my expectation is that commodity price increases that are now translating into accelerating headline inflation will be transitory. In support of this claim, I'll make three points. First, these increases have been driven by global pressures in markets for food commodities, energy, and other commodities. These pressures are largely the result of supply-and-demand factors, some of which are one-off in nature. Second, inflation indices are made up of a wide spectrum of goods and services that don't uniformly have these commodities as inputs. Roughly two-thirds of consumer spending is on services, which are not materials-intensive. And, third, to the extent that some goods and services have these commodity inputs, the pass-through to ultimate consumer prices is limited." Fair enough: on the other hand one can present the following point indicating inflation is only transitionary to higher prices: "reality."

Dallas Fed's Fisher Says Fed's Duty Is "Not To Monetize" Debt

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/08/2011 10:27 -0400

Some stunning remarks from Dallas Fed's Dick Fisher: " Our duty is most distinctly not to monetize?or even be perceived as monetizing?the debt of fiscally imprudent government. Throughout the history of nations, monetizing the budgetary excesses of governments has proven to be a direct path to economic perdition. Having already peeked inside that door, I feel strongly that we must now shut it, lock it and throw away the key." Well, thanks Dick. You are only $2.6 trillion dollars late.

Fresh Silver Breakout Sends Price To New Three Decade High

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/08/2011 10:58 -0400

Is it time to start quoting that famous William Butler Yeats poem yet?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Post: The Devolution Of The Consumer Economy, Part II: Rising Costs, Declining Wages

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/08/2011 11:22 -0400

Earlier this week I discussed the devolution of the consumer economy with a focus on the diminishing returns of consumption and the limits imposed by servicing ever-growing debts. Today I will address a series of other interconnected reasons why the consumer economy is devolving. The cost structure of the entire U.S. economy has bloated to unsustainable levels. Here's the basic mechanism: when money is "free," costs rise. If you had to explain why sickcare in the U.S. consumes 17% of our nation's GDP while other developed nations provide universal care for half that cost per capita (7-9% of their GDP), the answer boils down to "there's an unlimited amount of free money here for sickcare." There are no real limits on Medicaid or Medicare spending, and none on insurance cartels (it's a free market for health insurance, except there's only two providers in your area and their prices are the same--welcome to a "free market," hahahahaha).

 

 

 

Brent In Euros Just Off All Time Highs - Is The Free Liquidity Run Almost Over?

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/08/2011 11:59 -0400

As always happens following massive liquidity injections, there comes a time when the price of oil ends the party prematurely. And with localized Cushing issues preventing another 10% to be tacked on to the cost of gasoline for now, we once again look to Europe for the fair view of what is happening with the energy market. To our surprise we find that there is now only a 5% difference between the all time highs hit in 2008 and currently in the price of Brent expressed in euros. Yet what is of particular interest is that the liquidity induced rally may be about to fizzle: we have no experienced the same near-parabolic blow off top move that we saw at the end of the summer 2008 rally (which ended up with the market plunging over 50%), and the first QE1 which plateaued oil prices and only further hopes of more QE prevented the market from dropping. Is the same fate in store for crude if indeed the Fed is prepared to let the market find its natural clearing price without daily injections of billions.