Oldtent Archives 2007 - 2008

Of having nicely covered their SHORTS.
and the colorations. Wish this were a more friendly usable site. Can’t color, can’t figure all the whistles and bells. Just me tho, a computer non ……….

U.S. Mint to Resume Distribution of American Eagle Gold Coins

By Vincent Del Giudice

Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Mint said it will resume limited distribution of its 1-ounce American Eagle Gold coins a week after suspending sales because investors and collectors depleted the supply.

In a memo today to authorized dealers, Cathy Laperle, a Mint official, said the coins will be allocated “on a weekly basis until we are able to meet demand.” The Mint will resume taking orders Aug. 25, Laperle said.

Citing “unprecedented demand,” the Mint halted sales Aug. 15. Gold prices soared over the past year, with the most active gold futures reaching a record $1,033.90 an ounce on March 17. Prices have since declined.

American Eagle coins are available in other weights as well as in silver and platinum, the Mint said.

In reading Bernanke speech it is clear that they are bumbling along on the edge of systemic failure. They talk about strengthening the system, but they are really talking about stopping the wheels from coming off.

Bernanke laughingly expects inflation to moderate in 2009 due to a slowing economy!! This is while the monetary spigots are wide open with negative real rates and while money is being created to provide defacto bailouts for the elite institutions and government debt goes into overdrive to fund foreign wars. Zimbabwe’s economy has not just slowed, it has ground to a halt yet its inflation rate is 11.2 million percent! A slowing economy produces less goods while negative real interest rates increases the money supply. The definition of inflation is “relatively more money chasing relatively few goods”. What part of that simple concept does an Economics Professor from Princeton not understand?

Precious metals are in a fire sale thanks to the Cartel. An excellent time to load up the boat with government subsidized metals!!
Cheers
Adrian

http://www.theaureport.com/cs/user/print/na/1570

Should there be one mental midget gold/silver analyst left who fails to realize just how managed the gold and silver markets are, they ought to read the stunning piece Ted Butler published today. Some excerpts…

The Smoking Gun

These facts speak for themselves. Here are the facts. As of July 1, 2008, two U.S. banks were short 6,199 contracts of COMEX silver (30,995,000 ounces). As of August 5, 2008, two U.S. banks were short 33,805 contracts of COMEX silver (169,025,000 ounces), an increase of more than five-fold. This is the largest such position by U.S. banks I can find in the data, ever. Between July 14 and August 15th, the price of COMEX silver declined from a peak high of $19.55 (basis September) to a low of $12.22 for a decline of 38%.

For gold, 3 U.S. banks held a short position of 7,787 contracts (778,700 ounces) in July, and 3 U.S. banks held a short position of 86,398 contracts (8,639,800 ounces) in August, an eleven-fold increase and coinciding with a gold price decline of more than $150 per ounce. As was the case with silver, this is the largest short position ever by US banks in the data listed on the CFTC’s site. This was put on as one massive position just before the market collapsed in price.

This data suggests other questions should be answered by banking regulators, the CFTC, or by those analysts who still doubt this market is rigged. Is there a connection between 2 U.S. banks selling an additional 27,606 silver futures contracts (138 million ounces) in a month, followed shortly thereafter by a severe decline in the price of silver?….

www.investmentrarities.com/08-22-08.html

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BERLIN, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Germany’s Bundesbank on Friday rejected calls that it should sell some of its gold reserves to help boost the slowing German economy, telling Reuters financial and political uncertainty make the reserves even more important than before.

“Gold sales are not a suitable way to sustainably consolidate the public accounts,” the Bundesbank said after a query about trade union proposals that it sell gold to fund some of a 25 billion euro ($37 billion) economic stimulus package.

“National gold reserves have a confidence and stability-building function for the single currency in a monetary union. This function has become even more important given the geopolitical situation and the risks present in financial market developments.”

The Bundesbank is the world’s second-largest holder of gold after the U.S. Federal Reserve, and has sold just 20 tonnes out of total reserves of over 3,000 tonnes in the past five years.

These sales were to allow the German finance ministry to mint gold coins, unlike the much more active sales programmes of other central banks which wanted to shift their portfolios from gold to a more diverse array of assets.

To reduce volatility in the price of gold , 15 European central banks agreed in 2004 to limit gold sales to 500 tonnes a year over the next five years.

The Bundesbank is expected to make a formal statement about any gold sale plans around September, when the final year of the Central Bank Gold Agreement starts.

“The Bundesbank reaches decisions about the nature and size of reserves autonomously. The board of the Bundesbank decides every year afresh about changes in the level of its gold holdings,” the central bank said.

-END-

Bill:
You know I have long held that Friday is not just irrelevant, but very often the opposite of the true trend. Now August is the quietest month of the year, and the easiest to manipulate the markets. I think that is one of the reasons gold tends to behave so poorly at this time. So having nothing to do at 9 AM, and getting very annoyed by the usual market machinations, I decided to look at the Fridays of August in both the HUI and the Dow. This is what I found.

On August 1, the HUI declined 13 points, then another 22 points on the 8th, 12 points on the 15th, and at this post, about 14 more points today, the 22nd. That leaves us one more Friday. That is about an unimaginable decline of about 15% in the HUI so far on just 4 Fridays in August. If one extrapolated these figures, the HUI would have declined over 800% in one year, easily a record. But surprisingly, the HUI today is back up to the same level as it was on August 8. In other words, even with the 13% decline of the past 3 Fridays, the HUI barely declined.

But the Dow has behaved the opposite during this same frame. So far on the Fridays in August, the Dow has been up nearly 5%. Again using the magic of extrapolation, if we computed this out over an entire year, the Dow would have been up over 300%, again a record. But yet it is still under its price of August 8th. Go figure.

My conclusion. This month has proven again the irrelevance and even absurdity of Fridays in the financial markets: once we turn into September, the true trend will reassert itself. Finally, read Adam Hamilton’s piece today. I think he really nails its. One of the indicators that I follow is the Rydex bull-bear ratio which is mirroring Adam’s VXO analysis. Something very dark and totally unexpected awaits us, either next month or October. Chuck

Another reason given for the dollar strength was Fed Chairman Bernanke’s banal comments emanating from Jackson Hole…

REUTERS US DOLLAR HOLDS GAINS AFTER FED’S BERNANKE SAYS DROP IN COMMODITIES, STABLE DOLLAR “ENCOURAGING”

REUTERS US TREASURIES SLIGHTLY PARE LOSSES AFTER BERNANKE REMARKS THAT INFLATION MAY MODERATE

US DOLLAR HOLDS GAINS AFTER FED’S BERNANKE SAYS DROP IN COMMODITIES, STABLE DOLLAR “ENCOURAGING”

REUTERS US DOLLAR TRIMS GAINS VS EURO AFTER FED’S BERNANKE SAYS INFLATION TO SLOW THIS YEAR AND NEXT

US DOLLAR TRIMS GAINS VS EURO AFTER FED’S BERNANKE SAYS
INFLATION TO SLOW THIS YEAR AND NEXT

US DOLLAR TRIMS GAINS VS EURO AFTER FED’S BERNANKE SAYS
INFLATION TO SLOW THIS YEAR AND NEXT

Predictable propaganda … Jesse notes:

Bernanke’s strategy is obvious. It is obvious because he has no choice. He must paint the roses red, and hope that this will hold off the destructive rage of the Mad Queen.

jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2008/08/bernankes-strategy-painting-roses-red.html

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That logo is where J.S got the touch points on his French Curve used up to 1980

Dinosaur and their logo…….leave it up to you to put those two together…..LMAO

Whoops…..Dinosaur WAS their logo!!

Or are you more of a diagonal kind of guy.   Or is it just all about circles and spheres?

  Have quickly become some of the most despised characters in the Tent.

   Where will I go now?

Hey I just got in after flipping our aahhem partner into the cooler [later in a stoner post]
Dinasours hmmm used to fill my car up with gas at one of those joints….now what was the name of those gas stations…Ment ! do you know?

The local coinshop locked up (lubricity, I mean liquidity) about two weeks ago.  Couldn’t sell for anything near spot.  Yesterday I bought silver maples for 15.83/oz or U$D 1.99 over spot. Gold maples 887. Tulving. If you want ounces of metal then you GATA pay the price. A couple of weeks ago picked up junk 90% coin at 15.83-or-11+ X Face value. — Kind of high compared to spot but … but an ounce is an ounce.
You guys- remember if you sell a loser you pay no tax. Everybody talks about missing the train. Maybe you can put in a buy stop? Does that exist?; the opposite of a stop sell. Then you could catch the train? Remember you do not have to get in right at the peak or right at the low to make big bucks in a generational bull market. The only reason I mention this is because this is what I think. (now, until flip-flop time when my mind changes

I’m also thinking fresh start feels good (Ask Farmboy) but shorting stocks? Hmmmm I wouldn’t sell my neighbors pick-up truck but how exciting it would be to run uphill on the back of a falling dinosaur eh? I love the smell of roasted dinosaurs. Maybe Irish knows more about dinosaurs than I do. Equis definitely knows more about the ancient critters having worked with those prehistoric mining machines for so long.