It’s not only this writer who is distinctly nervous about the US Federal Reserve Bank’s more aggressive approach to attempt to control inflation. This approach has come after numerous suggestions over a period of months that the problem did not exist and any inflationary tendencies were but ‘transitional’. Other central banks around the world followed the Fed’s mantra but, despite this, global inflation now seems to be running at levels not seen for a couple of decades. Some previously strong economies are seeing near hyperinflation figures – take Turkey for example where inflation is running ..read more

Over the past few weeks and months the gold price has seen several rallies taking it back above the $1,800 level. Each time, to date, it has been unable to hold on to this price improvement. Likewise, silver has hovered above and below the $23 level and yet again brought down a fraction below this at the close of last week’s trading. However both started the current week in positive territory in European trade. It remains to be seen whether this positive note will transfer to the North American markets as the week progresses. Gold moved back above what is turning out to be the key $1,800 pric ..read more

Many observers have stated that the seemingly non-ending rise in the value of Bitcoin has diverted a significant amount of investment dollars away from gold as a perhaps better form of wealth protection and accumulation. This is despite gold’s record over thousands of years as an excellent safe haven against currency depredations through war, plague, famine, inflation and economic collapse, to name but a few. Others have considered the rise of Bitcoin as a total economic illusion and the epitome of an investment bubble – and I put myself in these latter ranks – but I have certainly been prove ..read more

Just when I’d felt that gold and silver prices were due for a nice upwards surge, they were hit by a double, or even triple, whammy and lost their recent gains. That was until they saw a pick-up in Europe over the US Thanksgiving holiday due to the emergence of a worrying strain of a new coronavirus mutation in Africa. I was somewhat at a loss to explain why they were so badly affected initially and believe they will continue to recover when more rational analysis returns. I could be mistaken, though, as, in this writer’s view, current markets are behaving far from rationally. Meanwhile bitco ..read more

Whether the current higher inflation levels in the US have been the Federal Reserve Bank’s intended policy all along is perhaps a moot point. We have to assume that although the central bank may have been working towards higher inflation levels, they are currently running above anticipated percentages. Certainly the effective pumping of liquidity into the US economy to protect it from the depredations of the Covid-19 pandemic will, in hindsight, have led to an inevitable inflation rise. But, in mitigation, one doubts that the Fed had foreseen quite how high, and how prolonged, the inflationar ..read more

All eyes are now on the Federal Reserve meeting this Wednesday at 2pm eastern time. Why is the pending meeting so important? Because the Fed is expected to announce the tapering of its $120 billion per month bond buying program, which began at the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic last year. Exactly how much of a reduction in bond buying will the Fed announce? We cannot be sure yet; however, the mainstream consensus is that a reduction of $10 – $20 billion per month for the coming 1 – 2 quarters is likely. Bond Taper and Gold Price It is important to remember that the US Federal Reserve has n ..read more

U.S. consumer prices rose last month at the fastest annual pace since 1990, cementing high inflation as a hallmark of the pandemic recovery and eroding spending power even as wages surge. The consumer price index increased 6.2% from October 2020, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday. The CPI rose 0.9% from September, the largest gain in four months. Both advances exceeded all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Higher prices for energy, shelter, food and vehicles fueled the supercharged reading and indicated inflation is broadening out beyond categories associated w ..read more

Is gold’s long-awaited surge to $3000 an ounce finally underway?  Are all the traffic lights green? Throughout the Western world (and China too), aging populations need a lot of medical care, and the only government and central bank “solution” is… More debt and more money printing. Supply chain horror and Coronavirus are creating stagflation in the world’s growth engine; China. A potential war cycle in 2021-2025, stagflation, destructive demographics, surging jewelry demand in India, money printing, and debt… These key fundamental drivers are all becoming a perfect storm for a monstrous ..read more

Gold is looking better than it has for a long time. As we will proceed to see the correction from its August 2020 highs looks to be complete with it shaping up for what should prove to be a massive 2nd impulse wave – and why shouldn’t it with inflation ramping up dramatically in the direction of hyperinflation? On the latest 6-month chart we can see how the corrective phase has gradually stalled out and come to a halt with the current tight bunching of price and moving averages creating a potent setup, especially as upside volume has been building noticeably in recent weeks so that it has driv ..read more

Prices move up and down, in the restless churn of our irredeemable monetary system. There are several schools of thought whose theories attempt to describe, if not predict, the next price move. The Different Theories on What Moves Gold and Silver Prices For example, the Quantity Theory school attempts to relate the quantity (or change in quantity) of dollars, to each commodity. Generally, this theory predicts rising prices based on the reasoning of “more dollars chasing the same or fewer ounces of gold and silver.” The problem is that the new holders of these new dollars are not necessarily bi ..read more