Precious Metal Pullbacks in Perspective

If you're bullish about the long term for gold and silver, it's mouthwatering to watch them undergo a major correction after taking earlier profits that added to your deployable cash. For a little historical perspective on pullbacks, consider the following charts.

Surviving The Rollercoaster - UBS Charts The Global Secular And Cyclical Shifts

While the top-down macro perspectives on where we go from here remain stuck in a bi-modal distribution and bottom-up fundamentals may help at the margin but remain dominated by correlated risk asset flows, UBS has created a veritable smorgasbord of charts and technical analysis of the major asset classes. From presidential and economic cycles & secular equity regimes, across precious metals and the USD & the super bull cycle, to bond market bubbles, there is a little here for every connoisseur of cartography or devourer of data.

The Osawatomie Speech: A Defining Moment In History

Posted by: Econophile

Post date: 12/09/2011 - 14:14

  President Obama's speech at Osawatomie, Kansas this week was deceitful, inaccurate, revisionist, and demagogic. He has clearly drawn a line in the dirt. He is at war with the...

Audio: In A Broken System, You Must Be Your Own Central Bank, Sinclair Tells King World News

December 9, 2011, at 3:14 pm
by Jim Sinclair 

Dear CIGAs,

Eric King of KingWorldNews.com has released the complete audio version of yesterday’s interview. Please check it out by clicking the link below.
Click here to listen to the full interview…

 

 

In The News Today

December 9, 2011, at 10:13 am
by Jim Sinclair 

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

This looks like cannonballs and these are only the figures we can see.
"One step forward, two steps back," said Alan Clarke, UK and euro zone economist at Scotia Capital. "The euro zone leaders might as well not bother. Pack their bags, go home, enjoy the weekend and do their Christmas shopping."




More…

 

 

Jim’s Mailbox

December 9, 2011, at 10:10 am
by Jim Sinclair

Strong Consumer Expectation Will Setup Gold’s Next Advance  
CIGA Eric

Improving outlook for the economy, yeah right? Says who? Individuals come to support, even blindly believe without proof, an argument because crowd stands behind it. The crowd says, come join us, if we’re wrong, we’ll be wrong together. Crowd behavior, the power of the mob, is a seductive force that ensures 99% of the investment population will be on the wrong side of the trade at the wrong time.
The crowd will come to believe that gold is a sale because confidence is rising. Those that use objective analysis and discipline know that rising confidence will setup its next decline and provide the fuel for another gold advance as the monetary and debt crisis continues to worsen.
Rising confidence is bullish for gold because mathematics reveals that it has a strong inverse correlation with gold when confidence in centralized economic management is deteriorating.
University of Michigan Consumer Expectations (CE) and Gold: A Correlation Study

Headline: Consumer sentiment strongest since June
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Consumer sentiment rose to its highest level in six months in early December due to signs of better labor conditions and an improving outlook on the economy.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s preliminary reading on their overall index of consumer confidence climbed for a fourth straight month to 67.7. This compared with 64.1 in November and a low of 55.7 back in August.
The early December figure exceeded the 65.5 predicted by analysts recently polled by Reuters.
"News about recent economic developments were much more positive in early December. Reports of net job growth have increased in each of the past three months, as have assessments of current conditions in the economy," survey director Richard Curtin said in a statement.
Measures of consumers’ current and future assessment of economic and financial conditions also rose to their highest levels since June.
The survey’s barometer of current economic conditions edged up to 77.9 in early December from 77.6 in November. Analysts had predicted a reading of 78.0.
More…

Bank Of Countrywide Lynch On The Top Ten Macro Themes For 2012

As we head into the artificial investing horizon of year-end, sell-side research is compelled to offer its best-guess at what will be key for the year ahead. We certainly head into 2012 with considerable potential downside risks - US recession?, breakup of the Euro?, hard-landing in China? - and BofA Merrill Lynch's RIC Report bears these in mind as it suggests investors position for these ten key macro themes (some positive, some negative) from slower global growth to a weakening US consumer and QE in US and Europe. Starting from a neutral equities, long gold, long US corporate bonds, they favor growth, quality, and yield in one of the more complete summaries of expectations we have read.

Weekly Bull/Bear Recap: December 5-9, 2011

Summary of the key bullish and bearish geopolitical, macroeconomic and financial events in the past week.

Stocks 'Volumelessly' Soar But Credit Tells A Different Tale

The headlines will crow of the resilience of the US equity market, of the outperformance of US financials today and the better-than-expected consumer sentiment print this morning but just below the surface in both European and US credit markets, something is stirring. Investment grade credit outperformed (not exactly as reflection of the need to add risk fast), European financials (senior and sub) were significantly weaker (day and week), high yield credit notably underperformed stocks and investment grade credit, US financial credit spreads have leaked notably wider from yesterday's early US session to the close today - not tracking the stocks higher at all, and just to rub some salt into the wound, sovereign spreads in Europe weren't exactly ebullient as basis swap spreads decompressed (worsened) to over one week wides.
ES (the e-mini S&P futures contract) leaked higher and higher on low volume (accounting for the roll) supported by TSY weakness (and curve shifts) and Oil's exuberance as the S&P had two targets in mind it seems: the 200DMA and the YTD unch line. Commodities rallied with Gold clinging to the USD's weakness on the day but Gold underperformed on the week as Copper led the charge (though all ended the week lower). The squeeze and algo-driven (CONTEXT and ES were very closely correlated today) rally today remains worrisome until we see higher beta credit join the party - and that doesn't mean HYG which saw record inflows this week and helps explain its idiosyncrasies.

Guest Post: When Things Fall Apart: Disorientation, Desperation, Chaos

We're not used to things falling apart, and so our first reaction is disorientation. What we've been trained to expect by constant intervention in supposedly "open" markets is that Central States and central banks will "save the day" with a new intervention: an interest rate cut, a new round of money-printing, emergency loans, new bailout funds, the list has been almost endless since the initial evidence of the Great Unraveling appeared in 2007. So when official interventions are announced to great fanfare and then fail to goose the market, we're disoriented. The problem with depending on intervention "sugar" for sustenance is that the market slowly loses its sensitivity to the mechanisms of control (insulin), and at some point the sugar no longer generates a response. We are very close to that point now, as the expected "grand EU treaty agreement" is duly issued as expected and global markets are holding their breath, hoping that some new intervention will keep the teetering financial system from falling over the edge. This is desperation.




Another Sweet deal for Buffett – Who pays? You do!

Posted by: Bruce Krasting

Post date: 12/09/2011 - 13:42

Buffett's deep pockets allow him to play White Knight when fast cash is needed. I think that makes he's a predator. 

 

 

 

 

The Shriveling Middle Class In California

Posted by : testosteronepit

Post date: 12/09/2011 - 14:16

California on the way to a banana republic. Culprits: declining incomes and disappearing jobs. Where the heck is the recovery? 

 

 

 

 

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