Today, Peter Schiff has announced his plan to help struggling Americans. If you do not know who Peter Schiff is, he is an American author, businessman, financial commentator, and a 2010 candidate for the United States Senate. He is also president and chief global strategist of Euro Pacific Capital Inc. and is often quoted in major financial publications and frequently makes guest appearances on internet radio as well as CNBC, Fox News, and Bloomberg Television. He also is the host of the podcast Wall Street Unspun.
Schiff is known for extremely bearish views on the United States stock market, bond market, the US dollar, and the United States economy in general. Recently he has stated that a deflationary period would be good for the US and struggling Americans to be specific.
With unemployment still uncomfortably high, the housing market down, and the consumer price index (CPI) down three straight months, at Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's semi-annual testimony to Congress this week he was very careful to downplay deflation and to assure markets that the Federal Reserve has the capacity to reverse deflation, should it occur. However, Bernanke's comments didn't settle the deflation debate, nor did they convince Peter Schiff that the Fed chairman knows what is going on.
In an Article today, Schiff stated "I don't know where anyone thinks prices are falling,” alluding to rising prices for food, healthcare and energy. He also declared "I don't know where most people do their shopping but I don't see falling prices. To me, prices are rising." While the Fed believes it has prevented a deflationary spiral such as Japan faced in the 1990s from taking root, Schiff sees more government stimulus analogous to feeding an addiction. He states that “we are high on government stimulus; the US needs to go “cold turkey” from more monetary stimulus and government spending
After Bernanke’s testimony yesterday, Schiff stated "It's not that the Fed has done too little, they've done too much, interest rates are too low, they need to be much higher.” He says the federal government is spending too much, they need to spend a lot less, and government stimulus is the source of our problems." Schiff believes the U.S. economy is addicted to government stimulus and is at risk of overdosing. He stated "They're trying to sober up a drunk by giving him more alcohol - it won't work."
Schiff does concur with the view that there will be economic would become weaker if the Fed and Congress force the economy to go "cold turkey" rather than slowly weaning it off stimulus. But the pain would be short-term; however, any short-term pain will be well worth the long-term gain, and may even avoid another Great Depression.
Schiff believes that even though we have been in the worst recession since the Great Depression, at the moment, deflation is non-existent because the government has created so much inflation that they have prevented prices from falling. Schiff stated. "It would have been a relief for a lot of Americans...if things cost less and the cost of living was falling in line with a weaker economy."
Schiff believes inflation is a much greater threat than deflation. In his view the government created inflation by creating too much money, keeping interest rates at zero, and increased spending. The result of this government induced inflationary period is that Americans are soon going to be paying much more for food, clothing, energy, healthcare, etc. However, the prices of financial assets and real estate are not going anywhere but down, according to Schiff.
Authors note: We all know that the US cannot continue to print dollars, just because they have the ink and paper. Since this is a precious metals blog, I feel I should interject with the notion that when paper money is worthless (seems to be heading in that direction), people will fall back to anything of value. PMs such as Silver and Gold will likely be used to purchase goods and services. I know what I am describing is the SHTF scenario, but it always pays to be prepared.
On Euro Pacific Capital, Inc. Peter Schiff wrote: “I have long been an advocate of fortifying investment portfolios with precious metals. Holding actual precious metals is important, but it is primarily a way to preserve capital. I believe that a fully realized precious metals portfolio also includes some exposure to the companies that explore and produce gold and silver.”
In the paragraph above, Schiff is advising holding precious metals as a hedge and investing in mining companies. Of course he would not say “take all of your free money and buy Silver and Gold” because that would be reckless and likely to cause a panic that could precipitate the SHTF. Now, this last statement is not a fact, it is just my thoughts and opinions. I DO recommend buying as much silver and gold as you can. How much? That depends on how much you are comfortable with. Most places of business still want payment in dollars, so do not use all of your money to buy PMs or you might find it hard to pay your mortgage, rent, utilities, etc.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Why It Is Crucial To Your Finances and Future to buy Gold and Silver-Goldwars.blogspot.com
I may have written on this subject before but I cannot stress enough, do not wait! You should be buying precious metals such as gold and silver now. I have stated my point of view, now I give you an other's POV. Kirsty Hogg has written an article in her blog GoldWars on why it is now crucial to your finances and future to buy gold and silver? I urge you to read this treatise as it explains why PMs guard against inflation, why Central banks are manipulating the prices of PMs, and much more. With the National debt at 13 Trillion and counting as the paper flies through the printing presses, our economy cannot hold back the floodgates of inflation much longer. Read it for yourselves, but more importantly, ACT!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
MoMoney beaks down the Gold Chart
I confess that I know squat about the technical analysis of reading charts. When I try to explain things I talk about fundamentals. But for the chart people, Mo Dawoud explains the technical charts for gold , silver, and other commodities on his MoMoney blog. Once a month he posts a update on the gold chart. This month he wrote "Previously, I stated that gold broke the 1,227 resistance and it is now clear for an uptrend until it hit 1,500. Instead, the chart forms another resistance level at 1,250 per ounce. It made three attempt to break the resistance, but it could not close above the resistance level". He still believes gold will break this resistance before the end of the summer with high volume. Furthermore he believes gold will hit 1,500 before the end of the year. The light volume shows that there is no big sell off in gold which indicates that the “big players” are still in the game and that is a good sign for Main Street investors.
The fundamentals of the economy will dictate when will the price of gold will move above the resistance. If the Federal Reserve decides to continue their quantitative easing (the definition is when the Feds decide to print more money), He believes it will help gold start the uptrend to 1,500 or more. However, He is sticking with his prediction that 2011 will be a great year for gold.
To read more technical analysis on gold or to see the current chart go to MoMoney Blog
Ben Bernanke is Confused about Gold
written by Kevin McElroy
Monday, June 14, 2010
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently expressed some confusion about increases in gold prices. According to a recent story in The Wall Street Journal, Bernanke said, "I don't fully understand movements in the gold price." It seems like Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, formerly of Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), believe that massive deficits and billion dollar gifts to Wall Street bankers should have no consequences. For anyone paying attention to the Federal Reserve's massive bailouts gifted to super-rich bankers, it's small wonder that world investors have started bidding up gold's price - they're sick of working hard for dollars while the Fed gives them out for free to the world's elite financial institutions.
Here's a wake-up call for Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner and President Obama: deficits do matter! Recent polls suggest that deficit spending is now the #1 issue on voters' minds. Willingness to print the dollar into oblivion will continue to be matched by a stronger and stronger bull market in gold. To take advantage of this bull market, Ian Wyatt, the Chief Investment Strategist at Wyatt Investment Research, has written a full report about his favorite American gold company. This company has over $20 billion in proven gold reserves, with a market cap of around $200 million. Even if this company only mines 1% of its reserves, it could double its current share price.
Warning: This is a solicitation from Wyatt Investment Research. I do not work for them, and I receive no type of payment for blogging this. I just thought that the introductory article was very timely and shows how Bernanke, Geithner, and Obama are working to destroy this market. If you want to read the rest of the report you can go HERE.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently expressed some confusion about increases in gold prices. According to a recent story in The Wall Street Journal, Bernanke said, "I don't fully understand movements in the gold price." It seems like Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, formerly of Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), believe that massive deficits and billion dollar gifts to Wall Street bankers should have no consequences. For anyone paying attention to the Federal Reserve's massive bailouts gifted to super-rich bankers, it's small wonder that world investors have started bidding up gold's price - they're sick of working hard for dollars while the Fed gives them out for free to the world's elite financial institutions.
Here's a wake-up call for Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner and President Obama: deficits do matter! Recent polls suggest that deficit spending is now the #1 issue on voters' minds. Willingness to print the dollar into oblivion will continue to be matched by a stronger and stronger bull market in gold. To take advantage of this bull market, Ian Wyatt, the Chief Investment Strategist at Wyatt Investment Research, has written a full report about his favorite American gold company. This company has over $20 billion in proven gold reserves, with a market cap of around $200 million. Even if this company only mines 1% of its reserves, it could double its current share price.
Warning: This is a solicitation from Wyatt Investment Research. I do not work for them, and I receive no type of payment for blogging this. I just thought that the introductory article was very timely and shows how Bernanke, Geithner, and Obama are working to destroy this market. If you want to read the rest of the report you can go HERE.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
This Little PIIGGY: Spain and Gold Prices
Since the economic situation in the EU was either better or less worrisome last weekend, many investors' felt that market trading was less risky. Therefore, traders tentatively sold gold for stocks. Global stock markets posted modest gains encouraged by the U.S. late-day rally on Friday.
There may be more volatility ahead for gold prices as they continue to take their cue from the risk trade. In the short term, a weaker US dollar could boost demand for gold as the dollar-backed commodity becomes an inexpensive purchase in other currencies; furthermore, any significant pullback could lure in any bargain-hunters looking to buy gold at a discount.
Even though Spain denied rumors last week that it would be the next EU nation to request bailout funds, sovereign debt risk from Spain is waiting in the wings as a gold provocateur. Even though the Spain's yields are on the rise. Bond yields typically rise when a government must sweeten the pot to entice investors to lend the country money. Currently, the yield on Spain's 10-year bond is 4.59% while Portugal's is 5.33%. These levels do not yet compare with Greece's double-digit yield at the height of its' financial crisis, but investors are still worried, and any bad news out of the eurozone would trigger a gold rush as investors buy the metal as a form of money that retains value when paper currencies fail.
Gold bulls are hoping that prices can reclaim and exceed their record high last week of $1,254 an troy ounce. However, gold set that record intraday and settled under $1,250 leaving many analysts wondering if there is any momentum to this gold is bullish movement.
For the Silverbugs and base metal buyers: Monday, silver prices were rising .18 cents to $18.42, while copper was rallying 8 cents to $2.99.
There may be more volatility ahead for gold prices as they continue to take their cue from the risk trade. In the short term, a weaker US dollar could boost demand for gold as the dollar-backed commodity becomes an inexpensive purchase in other currencies; furthermore, any significant pullback could lure in any bargain-hunters looking to buy gold at a discount.
Even though Spain denied rumors last week that it would be the next EU nation to request bailout funds, sovereign debt risk from Spain is waiting in the wings as a gold provocateur. Even though the Spain's yields are on the rise. Bond yields typically rise when a government must sweeten the pot to entice investors to lend the country money. Currently, the yield on Spain's 10-year bond is 4.59% while Portugal's is 5.33%. These levels do not yet compare with Greece's double-digit yield at the height of its' financial crisis, but investors are still worried, and any bad news out of the eurozone would trigger a gold rush as investors buy the metal as a form of money that retains value when paper currencies fail.
Gold bulls are hoping that prices can reclaim and exceed their record high last week of $1,254 an troy ounce. However, gold set that record intraday and settled under $1,250 leaving many analysts wondering if there is any momentum to this gold is bullish movement.
For the Silverbugs and base metal buyers: Monday, silver prices were rising .18 cents to $18.42, while copper was rallying 8 cents to $2.99.
Monday, May 24, 2010
The Small-Cap Investor’s Guide to Gold
A short guide sent to me by email. I thought I would share it.
With market volatility on the rise, scores of investors have been turning their sights to gold. Typically, gold and small-cap investing don’t have much overlap – but that’s not true when it comes to junior mining stocks. These tiny companies benefit from the price increases in gold, but they also offer the value-driven analysis of a typical small-cap. And right now could be the perfect time to buy shares in mining companies – here’s why…
When the proverbial fecal matter hit the fan during the week of May 3, one asset shined above all others. It was the humble yellow metal, gold, doing its part in times of panic and crisis. It held up. On May 7, gold closed above $1,200 for the first time in five months — up more than 2.5% during a week in which U.S. stocks endured a freefall. Just five days later, it hit an all-time high of $1,243.10. And the largest physical gold fund recorded its largest inflows since early 2009.
Of course, buying gold all the time is not really an investment strategy. If you bought gold in the 1980s and 1990s, your return was abysmal. So, as with all assets, there are times when gold is a really good buy and there are times when it is not. Sounds obvious, but many people seem to want to think that gold is an exception to the order of things. It isn’t.
But how do you know if gold is cheap? Well, intelligent people usually advance a couple of arguments.
One is that on an inflation-adjusted basis, gold is 30% less than its all-time high in 1980. Okay, that’s true, but it’s not particularly timely because by that measure gold has been cheap for three decades. And who’s to say that the 1980 gold price is a benchmark we should pay attention to, anyway? By that way of thinking, the NASDAQ is a bargain, too, because it trades at a big gap from its 2000 high. But is it? I think not.
Another point advanced by the “gold is cheap” crowd is the old monetary base argument — that gold’s price tends to track the monetary base over long periods. The monetary base is essentially bank deposits and currency. It’s like the seedlings of inflation.
This argument is a little more interesting. Yet, as the government has added huge piles to the monetary base in the last year or so, the gold price has responded in a muted way. This next chart shows what the gold price would have to be to “catch up” to the monetary base.
QB Partners, a New York-based hedge fund, really likes this argument. QB writes: “The graph shows visually how much U.S. dollar purchasing power has been lost. We think gold is cheap by a factor of almost 7 times.”
If a gold price of $7,000 an ounce doesn’t strike you as implausible or absurd, QB’s next comment might. QB says the chart “does not necessarily imply a target price for spot gold. The gold price could move higher than that if it experiences a blow off top, like all other bull markets tend to do before exhausting themselves.” So, $7,000 an ounce, you see, is just some kind of base case.
Maybe it’s not so implausible. Strange stuff happens all the time in markets. If I had told you on May 6 that Accenture — a $40 stock with a $29 billion market cap — would trade for a penny a share the next day, you would have thought I was nuts. Yet, on May 7 it did just that, if only for a second.
But the gold market is different because it’s so small. Even a small amount of interest in gold will send it up a lot. Just imagine if people decide a small sliver of that tall bar of financial assets should be in gold. We’re talking about some serious pressure on the gold price.
That’s a nice scenario, but I don’t invest in nice scenarios. I invest where I can find value. Speculative upside is a plus. Those kind of stocks give you that added juice on the price of gold. A cheap gold stock is even better – that’s why I’m recommending that my readers pick up gold miners, not just gold itself…
By Chris Mayer
With market volatility on the rise, scores of investors have been turning their sights to gold. Typically, gold and small-cap investing don’t have much overlap – but that’s not true when it comes to junior mining stocks. These tiny companies benefit from the price increases in gold, but they also offer the value-driven analysis of a typical small-cap. And right now could be the perfect time to buy shares in mining companies – here’s why…
When the proverbial fecal matter hit the fan during the week of May 3, one asset shined above all others. It was the humble yellow metal, gold, doing its part in times of panic and crisis. It held up. On May 7, gold closed above $1,200 for the first time in five months — up more than 2.5% during a week in which U.S. stocks endured a freefall. Just five days later, it hit an all-time high of $1,243.10. And the largest physical gold fund recorded its largest inflows since early 2009.
Of course, buying gold all the time is not really an investment strategy. If you bought gold in the 1980s and 1990s, your return was abysmal. So, as with all assets, there are times when gold is a really good buy and there are times when it is not. Sounds obvious, but many people seem to want to think that gold is an exception to the order of things. It isn’t.
But how do you know if gold is cheap? Well, intelligent people usually advance a couple of arguments.
One is that on an inflation-adjusted basis, gold is 30% less than its all-time high in 1980. Okay, that’s true, but it’s not particularly timely because by that measure gold has been cheap for three decades. And who’s to say that the 1980 gold price is a benchmark we should pay attention to, anyway? By that way of thinking, the NASDAQ is a bargain, too, because it trades at a big gap from its 2000 high. But is it? I think not.
Another point advanced by the “gold is cheap” crowd is the old monetary base argument — that gold’s price tends to track the monetary base over long periods. The monetary base is essentially bank deposits and currency. It’s like the seedlings of inflation.
This argument is a little more interesting. Yet, as the government has added huge piles to the monetary base in the last year or so, the gold price has responded in a muted way. This next chart shows what the gold price would have to be to “catch up” to the monetary base.
QB Partners, a New York-based hedge fund, really likes this argument. QB writes: “The graph shows visually how much U.S. dollar purchasing power has been lost. We think gold is cheap by a factor of almost 7 times.”
If a gold price of $7,000 an ounce doesn’t strike you as implausible or absurd, QB’s next comment might. QB says the chart “does not necessarily imply a target price for spot gold. The gold price could move higher than that if it experiences a blow off top, like all other bull markets tend to do before exhausting themselves.” So, $7,000 an ounce, you see, is just some kind of base case.
Maybe it’s not so implausible. Strange stuff happens all the time in markets. If I had told you on May 6 that Accenture — a $40 stock with a $29 billion market cap — would trade for a penny a share the next day, you would have thought I was nuts. Yet, on May 7 it did just that, if only for a second.
But the gold market is different because it’s so small. Even a small amount of interest in gold will send it up a lot. Just imagine if people decide a small sliver of that tall bar of financial assets should be in gold. We’re talking about some serious pressure on the gold price.
That’s a nice scenario, but I don’t invest in nice scenarios. I invest where I can find value. Speculative upside is a plus. Those kind of stocks give you that added juice on the price of gold. A cheap gold stock is even better – that’s why I’m recommending that my readers pick up gold miners, not just gold itself…
By Chris Mayer
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