An Overwhelmingly Positive Long-Term Outlook For Precious Metals [View article]
You raise a good point, but your cash cost of $600 an ounce is on the low side. A quick check of recent financial reports indicates it's closer to $700 an ounce for most of the big miners, but some companies are reporting costs of $1,000 an ounce or more and that doesn't factor in the rising cost of replacing reserves, which the big miners have been slow to do.
Also, because gold and silver are monetary metals - hence, different from other commodities these days as more and more people around the world are questioning the sustainability of the current monetary system - there is less of a connection between production costs and the prices in futures markets as, to some degree, futures markets are pricing in the possibility of some very serious problems with the current system.
Why This Isn't Your Father's Gold Market [View article]
Excellent discussion here.
One of the things that has always bothered me about precious metals markets is that there is so much misinformation out there coming from so many people - many of them popular writers in the gold community - that continues to have such a big influence on investors who either aren't very smart or are so set in their beliefs that it is impossible for critical thinking to take place.
Thanks for leaving this comment first - it should eliminate a good amount of confusion for other readers who, perhaps, zipped through the chart and text too quickly.
After looking at the data and seeing how ridiculously tiny the current gold run looks compared to what happened in 1979-1980, I couldn't help but have a little fun with this.
The phrase "housing is not an investment" requires clarification...
Owner occupied residential housing has both an investment component and a utility component and, during the bubble years, it went from its historical mix of somewhere around 50-50 to about 90-10.
Rather than try to explain this, when I say, "housing is not an investment", what I'm really saying is that we've reverted back to the historical norm where housing is much more of utility than something you're going to make money on when and if you sell it in a couple years or a couple decades.
I would normally agree with this statement - "I believe in the big picture you will look back and wish you would have waited a little longer" - but when it actually comes time to buy a house to live in, I think it best to grab an opportunity when it arises (e.g., in our case, a greatly reduced short sale property that was exactly what we were looking for), rather than trying to time the market bottom. Moreover, market bottoms happen in different places in different parts of the country - shortsales and foreclosures are relatively rare in this part of the U.S.
Also, the title has been changed back to the original - this article was never intended to be about timing.
Loan Modification Data: Information in Need of a Pie Chart [View article]
The median back-end (i.e., total) debt-to-income is over 60 percent, of which 31 percent is the first mortgage. In many cases, the monthly payments are now greater for home equity lines of credit and 2nd mortgages than for the first mortgage.
Dunno. It's unlikely that Bernanke will come out and say, "The last three decades have been a credit induced orgy of spending and we need to rebalance the domestic economy by consuming less and saving more", so, he's probably doing the next best thing.
"We've seen the price of gold skyrocket, while the assets in GLD have remained relatively flat. Perhaps that means that investors are gaining exposure to gold via other methods - alternative ETFs, physical coins, gold stocks. If investors were relentlessly buying GLD shares, we'd expect arbs to short the GLD shares to them, while buying gold and creating new GLD shares with the trust. The trust tonnage data doesn't show this."
iShares Silver Trust ETF's Silver Stockpile Not Keeping Pace With Gains [View article]
Inventory levels relative to shares outstanding is a constant (one ounce = one share). Prices move independently of inventory levels and shares outstanding.
Sometimes you see inventory (and shares outstanding) rise when the silver price rises, in which case, you can attribute some of that increase to SLV demand. Other times (like now), prices move much more than inventory (and shares outstanding), in which case, SLV demand has less to to do with the price move.
The part about not knowing what to make of this relationship due to JPMorgan and HSBC being custodians was a reference to the many related conspiracy theories.
iShares Silver Trust ETF's Silver Stockpile Not Keeping Pace With Gains [View article]
The number of tonnes versus the number of shares is a constant - it's one ounce per share +/- a percent or two since the inception of the fund. Look at the data yourself at us.ishares.com/product....
The number of tonnes is being used as a proxy for the number of shares issued and hence, investor demand for SLV. The point of the article is that SLV demand has virtually nothing to do with the rising silver price.
Gold Unexpectedly Moves Higher Against the Dollar [View article]
For the record, by no stretch of the imagination do I consider myself a technical analyst, but, certain patterns such as a head-and-shoulders formation or a wedge pattern (triangle, whatever) are quite reliable signals and should not be ignored.
An Overwhelmingly Positive Long-Term Outlook For Precious Metals [View article]
Also, because gold and silver are monetary metals - hence, different from other commodities these days as more and more people around the world are questioning the sustainability of the current monetary system - there is less of a connection between production costs and the prices in futures markets as, to some degree, futures markets are pricing in the possibility of some very serious problems with the current system.
A Grim Near Term Outlook For Precious Metals [View article]
Why This Isn't Your Father's Gold Market [View article]
One of the things that has always bothered me about precious metals markets is that there is so much misinformation out there coming from so many people - many of them popular writers in the gold community - that continues to have such a big influence on investors who either aren't very smart or are so set in their beliefs that it is impossible for critical thinking to take place.
Did China's Central Bank Buy 139 Tonnes Of Gold In The Fourth Quarter? [View article]
I hope you don't mind if I steal a little of that comment for an upcoming article.
The Gold Bull Market Is Over [View article]
After looking at the data and seeing how ridiculously tiny the current gold run looks compared to what happened in 1979-1980, I couldn't help but have a little fun with this.
Will The Super Committee Sink The Stock Market? [View article]
Why We Just Bought a Home [View article]
Owner occupied residential housing has both an investment component and a utility component and, during the bubble years, it went from its historical mix of somewhere around 50-50 to about 90-10.
Rather than try to explain this, when I say, "housing is not an investment", what I'm really saying is that we've reverted back to the historical norm where housing is much more of utility than something you're going to make money on when and if you sell it in a couple years or a couple decades.
Why We Just Bought a Home [View article]
Also, the title has been changed back to the original - this article was never intended to be about timing.
Loan Modification Data: Information in Need of a Pie Chart [View article]
Bernanke Finds a Flaw [View article]
iShares Silver Trust ETF's Silver Stockpile Not Keeping Pace With Gains [View article]
fridayinvegas.blogspot...
It concludes:
"We've seen the price of gold skyrocket, while the assets in GLD have remained relatively flat. Perhaps that means that investors are gaining exposure to gold via other methods - alternative ETFs, physical coins, gold stocks. If investors were relentlessly buying GLD shares, we'd expect arbs to short the GLD shares to them, while buying gold and creating new GLD shares with the trust. The trust tonnage data doesn't show this."
iShares Silver Trust ETF's Silver Stockpile Not Keeping Pace With Gains [View article]
Sometimes you see inventory (and shares outstanding) rise when the silver price rises, in which case, you can attribute some of that increase to SLV demand. Other times (like now), prices move much more than inventory (and shares outstanding), in which case, SLV demand has less to to do with the price move.
The part about not knowing what to make of this relationship due to JPMorgan and HSBC being custodians was a reference to the many related conspiracy theories.
iShares Silver Trust ETF's Silver Stockpile Not Keeping Pace With Gains [View article]
The number of tonnes is being used as a proxy for the number of shares issued and hence, investor demand for SLV. The point of the article is that SLV demand has virtually nothing to do with the rising silver price.
Gold Unexpectedly Moves Higher Against the Dollar [View article]
The Gold 'Bubble' that Goes On and On [View article]
themessthatgreenspanma...
When the SA editors picked this up, they just captured one of the four rotating images.