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BlackRock's Gold ETF (IAU) has seen fund inflows every day in 2016 (no outflows at all) and with the stock trading above its NAV for most of the year, the world's largest asset manager has made a significant decision: •*BLACKROCK SAYS ISSUANCE OF GOLD TRUST SHARES SUSPENDED• *BLACKROCK SAYS SUSPENSION DUE TO DEMAND FOR GOLD ... It appears the huge demand for physical gold (and lack of supply) is finally catching up with the manipulation of paper prices. If this is anything other than a brief technical suspension, it could well unleash panic-buying as we already pointed out - there...

As Bitcoin soars over $600, another alternative to the fiat currency system is being monkey-hammered lower this morning as status quo support does everything it can to rotate stocks above the key levels we discussed earlier... because stocks rising on anything but fundamentals cannot be exposed for the liquidity-fueled excesses a rising precious metals price would unveil. Gold is still holding above recent lows but Silver has broken to fresh 3-month lows...

Gold prices continued to plummet Monday on concern that Cyprus will have to sell excess reserves of the precious metal to raise about $522 million to help finance that country's $13 billion international bailout, Dennis Gartman, editor of The Gartman Letter, told CNBC. "There are a lot of people throwing up their hands. Throwing positions overboard. Panic is everywhere," Gartman said in a "Squawk Box" interview on Monday. "I've never seen anything like this. I mean it."Article Continues Below Gartman: Major Sell Off in Oil & Gold A look at what's driving down the prices of crude and the...

The uber-popular SPDR Gold Shares ETF "GLD" is the subject of a long and fascinating profile in the WSJ titled: How A Fund Helped Make Gold Prices Glitter. The gist is that in 2004, gold was a dreary, forgotten asset and so the gold industry got together and democratized gold by creating an ETF that tracked the commodity and that since then there's been this huge boom. Now it is true that the ETF is now one of the biggest holders of gold in the world, and it is true also that gold has boomed since the launch of the...

If things continue this way, St. Pats day will be remembered as the crash day. Hope for better but with the Asian markets down 2-5%, it is hard to imagine a good day tomorrow.