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The price isn't right, but it doesn't matter -- all that glitters won't be sold Buried in the Treasury's International Reserve Position report is an intriguing bit of math. The document details the total amount, by weight, of the Treasury's gold reserves, plus a dollar value for said metal. But some fast division reveals something interesting: The Treasury marks the value of its gold at $42 an ounce, the price settled on in 1973, two years after the United States scrapped the Bretton Woods System, which had held gold at $35 an ounce for decades. Wait -- what? Spot gold...

This could make for a fairly interesting Monday in the USA.

Last week the price of gold rose to $1,100, the highest ever recorded. Gold is still an important measure of the world economy. The theory of the 19th-century gold standard was that gold was “real money” in the same way as landed property was “real estate”. All types of paper money are capable of being created by banks or governments, so the supply is potentially unlimited. It was observed that gold holds its purchasing power over centuries, whereas paper money tends to depreciate towards the value of zero. Of course, the rise in the gold price reflects the weakness of...

Gold Bars Selling Like Hotcakes At Harrods Henry BlodgetNov. 8, 2009, 9:49 AM Gold smashed through an all-time high of $1,100 an ounce on Friday, bringing some solace to gold bugs who have been losing money on the metal since the 1980s. Gold still hasn't come anywhere near its late-1980's peak on an inflation-adjusted basis ($1,800 or so), belying the general theory that it's a great inflation hedge. As the world gold frenzy really takes hold, however, $2,000-an-ounce predictions are coming fast and furious, so there's always hope. The NYT surveys the gold landscape, checking in on the ultimate symbol...

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NEW YORK, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Gold futures in New York rose to a record above $1,100 per ounce on Friday as the dollar eased in the wake of disappointing U.S. employment data. At 9:48 a.m. EST (1448 GMT) December gold GCZ9 was up $10.20 at $1,099.50 an ounce at the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, having topped at $1,101.90 in morning trade. Spot gold XAU= reached a record at $1,100.90 per ounce.

he melt up in stocks on no volume was fully expected after the worst possible employment news to come in over 20 years: the market-economy disconnect is now complete, and all stocks are freeriding purely on Bernanke's printing press. At least gold vigilantes are beginning to whisper in Bernanke's ear he can go fornicate himself and his dollar destruction deathwish: let's see what happens when gold melts up ala the S&P to 1,200, 1,300 and maybe 1,500 in a few weeks. Look for some old-fashioned massive panic at the Federal Reserve. The melt up in stocks on no volume was...

Gold Reaches New Record Above $1,100 By Nick Godt MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures barreled to a new record high above $1,100 an ounce on Friday, as news that the U.S. unemployment rate topped 10.2% in October boosted expectations the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near zero well into next year, pressuring the dollar. Gold for December delivery, the most active futures contract, rose as high as $1,100.50 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained up to $1,101.90 an ounce in electronic trade. It recently gained $6.40, or 0.6%, to $1,095.80. The U.S. economy...

The Feds Have No Faith In Economic Recovery Economics / Economic Stimulus Nov 05, 2009 - 05:18 AM By: Michael_Pento The stock market has enjoyed a significant rally since the end of the first quarter. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported last week that the economy grew at a 3.5% annual rate in the third quarter--a figure they achieved by that claiming inflation was running at only a 0.8% annual rate, despite a sharp drop in the dollar, a spike in commodity prices and record highs for gold. The cyclical bull market in stocks and positive print on GDP has...

{snip ...] "Since interest rates are zero, you can borrow dollars at no cost at all and use them around the globe," says Jeffrey Kleintop, chief market strategist of LPL Financial, a privately held brokerage firm based in Boston. "For example," explains Kleintop, you can borrow dollars at zero, and invest in Brazilian bonds yielding 5.2%. As the real (Brazil's currency) has risen 26% against the dollar so far in 2009, such a carry trade would have earned 31%, or double the loss of value in the dollar. Gold and oil, especially, have an inverse relationship to the dollar, underscores...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Does India like gold, or dislike Washington's anti-gold dollar domination? Let Mary Anne and Pamela Aden tell the story. Their Aden Forecast first came to fame in the great gold bull market 30 years ago. The Adens are careful and adroit traders, and have a strong track record according to Hulbert Financial Digest, but they were speculating that gold might ultimately reach $5,800 when I last looked. ( See Oct. 8 column.) Last night they wrote in a hotline: "Gold is the big news this week. It hit another new record high today, quickly closing in...

Five days after he took delivery of a metal detector and seven steps into his first treasure hunt, a novice archaeologist has helped to rewrite Scottish history and may be a millionaire after he unearthed four 2,300-year-old torcs made of pure gold a few feet from his parked car. David Booth, a game warden at Blair Drummond Safari Park, in Stirlingshire, bought his £240 detector from a website that claimed “treasure need not be an idle dream”. What then seemed an absurd sales puff has proved strangely prophetic. The hoard he discovered at the edge of a field was described...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Gold was modestly higher Thursday as the dollar firmed and investors took a step back following the metal's recent push near $1,100 an ounce. December gold rose $3.70 to $1,091.10 an ounce in electronic trading after jumping as high as $1,095.20 an ounce earlier in the session. The advance came as the dollar regained some ground against rival currencies on safe-haven demand. The greenback was up 0.4% versus the U.K. pound and was flat against the euro. A stronger greenback makes commodities that are priced in dollars more expensive for holders of other currencies. Gold surged...

After the Indian central bank's 200 ton gold purchase from the IMF, the gold market is speculating as to which central bank could be next. In their latest commodities daily, Deutsche Bank conveniently shows us which central banks are underweight gold, and thus could be most likely to start buying en masse, just like India has.

Four Reasons Hyperinflation Hasn’t Hit The US... Yet Keith Fitz-Gerald Nov 04, 2009 11:30 am This uncertain limbo isn't good now, or ever. Everything we know about classic economic theory suggests the US economy should be experiencing Zimbabwe-like hyperinflation right now, thanks to the nearly $2.2 trillion the US Federal Reserve has pumped into the system. But we’re not... yet. Classic economic theory says that money supply can be used to stimulate the economy and our central bankers seem to agree. That’s why they’ve pumped more than $1 trillion dollars into the economy, engineered countless bailout bonanzas for zombie institutions,...

Gold prices yesterday surged to an all-time high after India's central bank bought 200 tonnes of the precious metal, swapping dollars for bullion as the country's finance minister warned that the economies of the US and Europe had "collapsed". India's decision to exchange $6.7bn for gold, equivalent to 8 per cent of world annual mine production, sent the strongest signal yet that Asian countries were moving away from the US currency. The purchase by New Delhi's Reserve Bank from the International Monetary Fund pushed gold prices to a record $1,087.45 per troy ounce, up 2.7 per cent on the day,...

Spot gold ran to a record high above $1,090 per ounce on Wednesday, latching on to a weaker dollar with continued support from the IMF's sale of gold to India's central bank. The dollar index declined 0.34 percent as investors awaited a Fed statement later on Wednesday. Spot gold hit a record high of $1,092.60 an ounce and was bid at $1,091.05 an ounce at 0915 GMT, compared with $1,084.50 late in New York on Tuesday. U.S. COMEX gold futures also hit an historic $1,093.70 in electronic trade, and were later up $7.40 at $1,092.40. Buying on the back of...

The $US6.7 billion ($NZ 9.3 billion) sale of 200 tonnes of gold to India's Reserve Bank by the International Monetary Fund propelled the precious metal to a new record high of $US1087.45 per ounce in New York this week. Throughout October and November, gold has hit four new highs after it broke through the $US1000 mark in late-February this year. Recently, with the US dollar, Euro, British Pound and Yen all weakening in the face of the global recession, governments and investors alike are turning from currencies to gold instead to underpin their respective treasuries and share portfolios as a...

When two months ago we discussed the IMF's selling of one eighth of its gold reserves of which as most know by know half was recently acquired by India, we came to the conclusion that the IMF's proposed naive and subjective purpose for this disposition which was framed as "safeguarding against disruption in the gold market" would instead end up with "rioting in goldbugland." Based on gold price action over the past 3 days, we have been so far correct. And the concern for the IMF (and all Central Banks as well) is that India's example will be promptly followed...

Scary Specter Of '30s-Style Economic Depression Commodities / Gold & Silver Stocks Nov 04, 2009 - 02:24 AM By: The_Gold_Report Jay Taylor, who publishes Gold, Energy & Technology Stocks and hosts his "Turning Hard Times into Good Times" radio program each week, is hoping and praying for deflation to help the U.S. heal its wounds and find its way back to prosperity. He has reasons to think the dollar might bounce back, too. Nevertheless, Jay reminds The Gold Report readers about frightening parallels to the 1930s and doesn't dismiss the possibility of a hyperinflation that renders the U.S. dollar about...

NEW YORK: Gold prices surged to a new high Tuesday on news that India's central bank bought US$6.7 billion worth of gold from the International Monetary Fund ....... Read more at The Star Online

Gold futures resume climb after factory orders India central bank buys give an early lift; dollar in play By Nick Godt & Polya Lesova, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures got back their earlier gains Tuesday after a report showed the U.S. factory sector has continued to rebound, knocking the U.S. dollar further off its session highs. Gold for December delivery rose $23, or 2.2%, to $1,077 an ounce in electronic trading on Globex. Silver and copper futures turned higher. Gold had traded under $1,060 ahead of the factory orders report, coming off highs near $1,067 in European trading....

<p>India's central bank confirmed Tuesday it had purchased 200 tons of gold bullion from the International Monetary Fund, effectively boosting its holdings by more than 50% and diversifying its $285 billion foreign-exchange stockpile.</p> <p>The sale was part of the IMF's previously announced plan to sell 403.3 metric tons of bullion as part of efforts to shore up the institution's finances.</p>

Gold Confiscation Risk Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Nov 02, 2009 - 02:05 AM By: Howard_Katz Things are looking good for the gold bugs these days. September and early October saw the (long awaited) break above $1,000. This past week saw the technical pull back to the breakout point, and Thursday was the turnaround day. Friday saw some very bullish candlestick signals in many of the gold stocks. But one thing has been bothering many gold bugs. In 1933, the U.S. Government confiscated the people’s gold. The Government even went into safety deposit boxes (in private banks) and took...

Are Bank Safe Deposit Boxes Safe? No Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Nov 02, 2009 - 06:02 PM By: David_Vaughn Got a lot of email when I suggested that safe deposit boxes are not safe from bank or government intrusion. In most minds the “safe deposit box” is the “holy grail.” Our comfort will always be OK as long as our safe deposit box remains safe from others ill intent. Noticed the last few years how the Swiss Banks are no longer confidential places for one to store anything of value? The US government has applied pressure on Switzerland...

WASHINGTON, Nov 02, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- BKIAF | Quote | | News | PowerRating -- The International Monetary Fund announced on Monday the sale of 200 tons of gold to India's central bank, almost half the total sales volume of 403.3 tons that was approved by the Executive Board in September. "I strongly welcome this transaction with the Reserve Bank of India," Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a statement. "This transaction is an important step toward achieving the objectives of the IMF's limited gold sales program, which are to help put the Fund's finances on a sound...

The corkscrew earrings I got for my 16th birthday felt way too '80s to wear, but I still liked to look at them sometimes. As for the dome-shaped ring with the ripple running over it, my mother couldn't figure out how to wear it, so she gave it to me to try. Could I really trade these things for a pile of twenties? What about the bracelet that friends of my parents gave me for my bat mitzvah, thrillingly ensconced in a red Cartier box? Or the earrings my grandfather made at his shop on the Lower East Side?

How And Why China Will Flood The Gold Market Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Oct 31, 2009 - 09:07 AM By: DailyWealth Jeff Clark of Casey Research writes: As you read this, the Chinese government is doing an extraordinary thing... something nearly unheard of in the modern world. It is encouraging citizens to put at least 5% of their savings into precious metals. The Chinese government is telling people gold and silver are good investments that will safeguard their wealth. After last year's meltdown in the stock market, people believe it. After all, Chinese citizens don't receive government retirement...

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Wednesday that Russia is considering selling gold on world markets to cash in on high prices as the government faces its first budget deficit in a decade.Kudrin's remarks follow a report last week that the Gokhran precious metals depository was planning to sell up to 50 metric tons, or 1.6 million ounces, of gold in London by the end of the year. With gold prices reaching record highs of over $1,000 per ounce, the sale could bring Russia some $1.7 billion.The finance minister gave no details Wednesday in remarks to journalists carried by state news...

Barrick Gold Corp. (TSX:ABX) lost US$5.4 billion in the third quarter due to the windup of its gold hedging program, but the big miner said this move, as well as several low-cost projects set to come online in the next few years, position it to prosper from a rising gold price. "Our production will be higher next year and at lower costs. We have a world-class pipeline of projects under construction and a number of additional projects in various phases of feasibility studies," Barrick president and CEO Aaron Regent said on a conference call Thursday. "Our company structure has been...

A fierce war of words has erupted in recent weeks between the two major camps in monetary circles. The first camp - the gold bulls/dollar bears - have been loudly voicing their twin belief that the gold price is poised to skyrocket while the dollar price is perched for a collapse. The other side - the gold bears/dollar bulls - are making the counter claim the gold price is setting up for a crash. There is another train of thought espoused by some that a slow, steady decline of the dollar's exchange value, rather than being a catastrophic event, is...

or over more than 18 months we have watched the gold price churn below $1,000 and in the process forming three tops, before breaking out to above $1,050 in early October 2009. Why will it not fall back to well below $1,000 and possibly as far as $850 this time? We say this because the moves occurred at a time when many facets of the gold market were absent from the gold market, such as investment demand, low jewelry demand and central bank demand. Traders held sway over the gold price and it is they that decided that the moves...

Gold Gives A Precious Insight Into Economy What a strange and fascinating commodity gold is – a store of value that is no one's liability, which cannot be printed or debauched by governments but which, with no income stream, has no objective value. A simultaneous hedge against both deflationary slump and inflationary spiral, it is little wonder gold should be the investment of choice for the Armageddon crowd. By Tom Stevenson Published: 6:26PM BST 24 Oct 2009 Gold attracts conspiracy theories like no other asset. Google "Yamashita's Gold" and enter into a half-plausible thriller of Japanese wartime loot and abandoned...

CNBC featuring David Goldman Video at Link

Around 2005, I wrote an article that predicted that when the US housing bubble broke, there would be a stock/financial crash - and this: "When markets collapse, the US Fed and other central banks will end up having to buy up the markets, and basically monetize them...in the $trillions" I don't remember the exact quote but that is what I said. Well, here we are. The Fed has spent $3-4 trillion directly, and another roughly $19 trillion buying/guaranteeing bad assets and giving mortgage bonds and such support. The ECB also did roughly $4-6 trillion of market bailouts/backstopping. Japan and other...

Enter The Dragon, Chinese Citizens Significantly Increasing Gold And Silver Ownership Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Oct 23, 2009 - 05:33 AM By: GoldCore Gold is currently trading at $1,054.60/oz. In euro and GBP terms, gold is trading at €704.60/oz and £637/oz. Support for gold is currently seen at $1,043/oz and resistance at $1,070/oz. Gold closed Friday night trading at $1,058.70/oz. In euro and GBP terms gold is trading at €704.55/oz and £642/oz. Gold looks set for its fourth week of gains (if it can remain above $1,053/oz) and this would be bullish technically. While fears about the Chinese...

U.S. Dollar Crash Is Not Going To Happen Currencies / US Dollar Oct 22, 2009 - 01:26 AM By: Mike_Whitney The dollar is not going to crash. In fact, many economists believe that the dollar will rally when the Fed ends its quantitative easing program (QE) sometime in early 2010. The Fed is on track to buy nearly $2 trillion dollars of mortgage-backed securities, US Treasuries and agency debt. In other words, the Fed is printing money and pumping it into the housing market to keep the market from collapsing. This keeps interest rates low, but it also weakens the...

Go For Gold: If The Fed Keeps Printing, The Dollar Will Keep Falling Posted Oct 22, 2009 07:30am EDT by Peter Gorenstein Gold bugs are buzzing with excitement. While the dollar continues to tank, the cheers from folks like Peter Schiff get louder. Ahbay Deshpande portfolio manager with the First Eagle Gold Fund takes a more measured approach to gold. He says talk of $5000 gold – an idea recently promoted by Schiff on Tech Ticker - is probably premature. However, "eventually we'll get there," he says, noting that "as sure as the Federal Reserve will print money and credit...

Allen Lewis emails: This was brought to my attention today. Now you don't even have to have USD (or EUR or JPY or any other fiat currency) for collateral. It will be interesting to see how many CME member firms take advantage of this, and if the idea spreads to other exchanges: NEW YORK, Oct 19 (Reuters) - CME Group Inc , the world's top derivatives exchange operator, began accepting physical gold as collateral for all trading products, marking the first time an exchange has allowed gold bullion to be used for margin requirements. CME's latest move underscored the rising...

At The Value Investing Conference, All Anyone Wanted To Talk About Was Gold Joe WeisenthalOct. 21, 2009, 7:15 AM Rolfe Winkler makes an anecdotal, but important, observation from this week's Value Investing Conference Looking out a few years, I’m as bearish as anyone, I admit. But I’m a little worried that suckers could get caught in this gold rally. A hedge-funder I spoke with at the Value Investing Congress said half of the sessions were devoted to doomsday scenarios, precious metals, etc. Today there was a keynote from Eric Sprott of Sprott Asset Mgmt. Fully 70% of his assets under...

Major institutions should be broken up if necessary, Greenlight manager says NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Greenlight Capital manager David Einhorn said Monday that his hedge-fund firm is betting on the possibility of a major currency collapse and a surge in interest rates, citing ballooning government deficits in some of the world's most developed countries.The hedge-fund manager, who warned about Lehman Brothers' frailty before it collapsed last year, also said financial institutions that are deemed as "too big to fail," such as Citigroup Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!c/quotes/nls/c (C 4.57, -0.02, -0.38%) , should be broken up. ReutersDavid Einhorn of Greenlight Capital. Greenlight has...

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Market analyst Paul Mylchreest, who wrote the 2006 report for Credit Agricole's Cheuvreux brokerage house concluding that the gold market was being manipulated surreptitiously by central banks (http://www.gata.org/files/CheuvreuxGoldReport.pdf) and, the following year, a similar report for Redburn Partners, (http://www.gata.org/files/RedburnPartnersGoldReport_11-12-2007.pdf), has revisited the gold market in a study for his own analysis service, the Thunder Road Report. Mylchreest examines the gold traded in the world's biggest gold market, London, and concludes that either a tiny amount of real metal is supporting a spectacular volume of paper trades, "an accident waiting to happen," or else that...

"A dollar is worth only 70¢ now," my Dad jabbered as we worked in the backyard. "And they say it'll only be worth 50¢ in a few years." It was the mid-‘70s. I was helping my Dad build a dirt road to our barn and he wasn't happy. Not about the hard work or humidity, but from what was happening to the dollar. Inflation was starting to kick into high gear, grabbing headlines that even a girl-chasing teenager could understand. I remember being appalled by the thought of going to the store and having the clerk demand $1.30 for an...

The G-20 meeting last week was hoped to be a watershed for the global economy. It was hoped that accepted that there has to be a global solution to the financial crisis that triggered the credit crunch and the worldwide recession. Those solutions had to include the full cooperation of other key governments, including China, before we could hope for a sound recovery of the global economy. If we have more superficial statements with no real action, expect yet another crisis as confidence is lost, not only in currencies, but in global money systems. You all know the old adage,...

{snip} Currently, dollars account for about 62 percent of the currency reserve at central banks -- the lowest on record, said the International Monetary Fund. Bernanke could go down in economic history as the man who killed the greenback on the operating table. After printing up trillions of new dollars and new bonds to stimulate the US economy, the Federal Reserve chief is now boxed into a corner battling two separate monsters that could devour the economy -- ravenous inflation on one hand, and a perilous recession on the other. "He's in a crisis worse than the meltdown ever was,"...

The recent surge in the price of gold could "collapse" and quickly move back toward the $1,000 mark as the precious metal has not confirmed its upward trend yet, Daryl Guppy, CEO of Guppytraders.com, told CNBC. "There's a possibility that this rally is going to collapse relatively quickly and take us back and retest the $1,000-1,020 (per Troy ounce) level," Guppy said. "What we need is the creation of this trend before we can look at these 1,500 targets as being reasonably achievable," he said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Gold rose to a record high above $1,070 an ounce on Wednesday as the dollar slid to new 14-month lows against the euro and oil prices rose toward $75 a barrel, boosting interest in commodities as an asset class. But with the precious metals all having posted sharp gains in recent sessions, they could be poised for a period of consolidation before hitting fresh highs, analysts said. Spot gold reached a high of $1,070.40 an ounce, and was bid at $1,065.20 an ounce at 0935 GMT against $1,063.35 late in New York on Tuesday. The dollar index...

Gold Hits New Record High as Dollar Slips Published: Tuesday, 13 Oct 2009 | 5:39 AM ET Text Size By: Reuters Gold rose to a record high at $1,063.60 an ounce on Tuesday as the dollar slipped against the euro, increasing the metal's appeal as an alternative asset. Firmer oil prices and an improvement in physical demand for gold [US@GC.1 1068.4 11.7001 (+1.11%) ] after a sluggish year for jewellery buying are also lifting gold prices, analysts said.

Gold Price 'Set To Double In Four Years'Gold prices, which hit record highs last week, could nearly double again in the next four years, according to a report to be published tomorrow. By Garry White Published: 11:06PM BST 10 Oct 2009 Analysts at Edison Investment Research have predicted that the price of gold price could hit $1,879 (£1,185) an ounce by 2013, driven by the aggressive monetary policy of central banks around the world and a chronic shortage of the precious metal. Charles Gibson, a gold expert at Edison, argues in the report that the peak in the gold price...

Rumors are flying that secret meetings are taking place between Arab states, China, Russia, Japan and France, to dump the dollar and replace the U.S. currency’s role in the pricing of oil. The dollar fell against the euro, yen and Swiss franc, while gold hit new highs of $1,041 an ounce. Is there any truth to the rumors that the dollar is being replaced by a basket of foreign currencies, and what will be the impact your investments and the U.S. economy?