Latest Investing News Blog Posts

Minted from 1907 to 1933, the Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle gold piece is widely considered to be the most beautiful U.S. coin, the result of a design challenge from President Theodore Roosevelt to renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The coins that survive today run the gamut from low-mintage high-relief proofs in top grades to more common varieties in lower grades. Saint-Gaudens gold pieces constitute the backbone of a basic coin collection and serve as key components in many types of sets. [ Read more… ]

"We think the bull trend should resume in earnest," gold bull Richard Ross of Auerbach Grayson tells CNBC in a Feb. 2 interview along with Peter Boockvar of Miller Tabak. "A retest of $1,900 is in the cards at a minimum ... no doubt." [ Read more… ]

The Texas university system's endowment grabbed headlines last April when it took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bars. The move signaled the potential that more and more large institutions and pension funds might be moving into gold to protect their assets. Now, reports are surfacing of a debate over whether the Texas system should sell off its gold. It's important to note, however, that the "ho-hum" returns noted in the article excerpt below can't be blamed on gold, which was trading well under $1,500 around the time the endowment bought its gold -- in contrast to the more than $1,700 the metal's price commands now. This case illustrates why gold experienced a sell-off late last year: When stock investments don't produce positive returns, portfolio managers sell off their successful investments (read: gold) in order to return profits to their investors: [ Read more… ]

You don't have to be a Ron Paul supporter or an Austrian economist to realize that he is telling the truth about the downward direction of the U.S. dollar since 1913. "People will panic out of the dollar and then you'll see gold at maybe $5,000 or $10,000," the presidential candidate and Republican congressman tells TheStreet in this new video. No fiat currency has ever survived, he notes. A brand-new dollar bill printed last week isn't worth as much as a silver dollar minted 100 years ago. [ Read more… ]

Worried that the Federal Reserve and the U.S. dollar are on the brink of collapse, lawmakers from 13 states, including Minnesota, Tennessee, Iowa, South Carolina and Georgia, are seeking approval from their state governments to either issue their own alternative currency or explore it as an option. Just three years ago, only three states had similar proposals in place. [ Read more… ]

MarketWatch contributor Mark Hulbert's latest column called today's drop in gold before it happened. A surprising drop in the unemployment rate (if you believe the official statistics) shaved about $20 off of gold's remarkable 2012 run. However, sentiment has become overly bullish among traders, and that could signal a temporary but healthy pullback. Nonetheless, it doesn't mean gold's bull has slowed over the long haul, Hulbert says: [ Read more… ]

The gold price may reach up to $5,000 per ounce if the debt crisis gets worse and people begin to panic, predicts Peter Hambro, founder of one of the largest gold producers in Russia, Petropavlovsk. [ Read more… ]

A key long-term driver of the gold market will be emerging demand from pension funds and other funds looking for a diversifying asset, rather than concerns over fiat currencies, HSBC's global head of asset allocation said Thursday. [ Read more… ]

China is the world's fifth-largest holder of gold and seems to be in the market for more. Analysts believe Beijing snapped up around 500 tons of gold in 2011, double what it bought in 2010. [ Read more… ]

Newcrest Mining, the world's No. 3 gold producer, expects gold to trade as high as $2,500 an ounce and retain its safe-harbor status for as long as the world's financial system remains in crisis mode. [ Read more… ]

Two news agencies have reported on UBS gold analyst Edel Tully's bullish presentation to the ETF Securities conference in London. [ Read more… ]

Gold may be sharply below its peak value last year, but a fear that policymakers will allow "a surge in inflation" in the long term is leading Rothschild Wealth Management to like the prospects for gold, and hold it in client portfolios. [ Read more… ]

We think that the current technical action in silver and gold means that the lows in these key precious metals have been put in. And so with a bottom likely in place in the precious metals, the odds are that both metals are in the process of sprouting nascent uptrends as they potentially begin to work their way up the right side of these large consolidations or bases they have been forming since topping earlier in 2011. [ Read more… ]

"Gold remains an alternative currency," head Societe Generale researcher Patrick Legland tells Bloomberg Television in a Feb. 1 interview. "We had some correction in gold. We think now that it's over. And as the story of quantitative easing and the [European Central Bank] putting liquidity into the market [unfolds], we will expect gold to continue to rise and frankly to trade above $2,000, certainly likely in 2012." [ Read more… ]

The head of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines, Yahya Ale-Eshaq, says Iran's gold reserves have set a new record, standing at nearly $17.5 billion. [ Read more… ]

"Honestly, gold has continued to climb," says Kerr Trading International head Kevin Kerr in a Jan. 30 CNBC interview (starting at minute 2:45). "And that's because of the ongoing currency concerns we have in the dollar and the euro, which we all know about, and of course the other tertiary currencies. Investors are tired." [ Read more… ]

Record industrial demand for silver and resurging investor interest is diminishing a supply surplus, driving the metal used in everything from solar panels to batteries into its best start to a year in almost three decades. [ Read more… ]

Northern Securities analyst Matthew Zylstra describes a "perfect environment" for gold in this new interview with The Gold Report: [ Read more… ]

History repeats itself. Weimar Germany battled massive hyperinflation, and many Germans burned their currency because it was cheaper to use it as kindling than buy firewood with it. Those who had gold, however, protected their wealth from currency devaluation. Likewise, reports of citizens in the pariah state of Iran fleeing to gold have made the news. And now Syria is finding safety in gold as its currency crumbles, according to London's Financial Times: [ Read more… ]

Dennis Gartman is getting very bullish on gold. And his new price target is $1,915, sort of. [ Read more… ]

Gold buying by central banks is one of the primary drivers of today's rising gold prices, with major purchases by nations such as Mexico and India making the news in recent years. But even the smaller central banks like Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Mongolia are getting into the act, and they can buy gold without pushing up prices overnight on the world market. For the full report from Dow Jones Newswires, click here. [ Read more… ]

Yes, the past week's surge in gold and silver has been fueled by the Federal Reserve's announcement that it will keep interest rates at record lows well into 2014. But Julian Phillips of GoldForecaster.com reminds us not to count out Asian demand. Speculation that gold buying would taper off after start of the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday has not panned out, he says: [ Read more… ]

More and more investors are realizing that in a world where financial regulators and criminal-justice enforcers have often failed to do their duty in policing Wall Street shenanigans, having physical ownership of at least some of your assets is more important than ever. Witness the MF Global implosion: At least $1 billion in customer funds has gone missing, and no one's been arrested. Whatever you think of dictator Hugo Chavez, Venezuela also has realized that it might be better off housing its own gold than leaving it stored in bank vaults in potentially hostile nations. Its massive gold-repatriation program just ended this week, according to Bloomberg: [ Read more… ]

With silver up 21% compared with gold's 10% so far this year, Blanchard and Company's vice president of marketing, procurement and economic research, David Beahm, was interviewed for a Jan. 30 Reuters article on sizzling silver bullion sales ("Silver coin sales hit record pace, outshine gold"). Sales of the U.S. Mint's 2012 silver American Eagle bullion coin totaled 5.7 million as of Friday (Jan. 27), not far from the record 6.4 million sold in January 2011. Gold American Eagle sales were at 250,000 ounces, twice as much as the monthly average in 2011 but not nearing record levels. Reuters reporter Frank Tang wrote: [ Read more… ]

Investors are loading up on gold and silver coins in what some say could be an early sign of a rally in precious-metal prices. In this case, individual investors may be ahead of professionals. [ Read more… ]

The price of gold is roaring back from its latest temporary correction, sending the bears into full withdrawal. If you sold your gold in December as it fell to $1525 an ounce, you're probably feeling foolish at the incredible $210 rise to $1735 -- a 15% move in no time at all. [ Read more… ]

Fred Hickey, editor of The High Tech Strategist newsletter, declared the 12-year bear market in tech stocks will likely hit bottom this year, and said he remained overweight in his gold exposure: [ Read more… ]

The Year of the Dragon Lunar New Year holiday set a new record for gold buying among the Chinese with the gold buying boom anticipated to last until Feb. 6. [ Read more… ]

This month, the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department reported that China imported 102,779 kilograms of gold from Hong Kong in November, an increase from October's 86,299 kilograms. Beijing does not release gold trade figures, so for this and other reasons the Hong Kong numbers are considered the best indication of China's gold imports. [ Read more… ]

Market practitioners expect the world's central banks to boost their buying of gold this year, but investment demand should remain volatile. Overall, the analysts expect gold's price to rise. [ Read more… ]

After launching the first yuan-denominated gold bar trading in October last year, Hong Kong's Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society said it also plans yuan-denominated silver market. [ Read more… ]

Blanchard and Company, Inc. CEO and Chairman Donald W. Doyle, Jr., makes another appearance on Yahoo! Finance's "Breakout" show in a video titled "Got Gold? 3 Ways To Invest In It Now." Investing in physical gold (as opposed to "paper gold" ETFs and mining shares) takes "some of the risk factors out of the equation," Doyle says. "When you buy physical gold, you're simply buying into the prospect that the price of gold is going to go up." Physical gold investments lack the counterparty risks and other potential liabilities and disadvantages that can accompany exchange-traded gold products and mining stocks. [ Read more… ]

Gold traders are bullish for a fourth consecutive week, betting that the Federal Reserve's pledge to keep interest rates low until late 2014 will extend the metal's best start to a year in more than three decades. [ Read more… ]

Rare coins, especially those in high-grade condition, performed well in 2011, according to various independent analysis by numismatic experts. "Blue chip" coins rose over 10 percent in value last year, according to one tabulation, and the top 100 rare coins sold at public auctions last year brought over 27 percent more money than the top 100 a year earlier. [ Read more… ]

Gold has reversed course, resuming its uptrend on growing concerns over the lack of confidence in paper assets and the prospect of another round of quantitative easing. Central banks remain firmly on the path of printing money to pay off public debts and to keep their banking systems solvent. As bankers print ever more currency, they reduce the buying power of money in circulation. It is this dependency on the printing presses to liquefy the entire western banking system that has caused the central banks' balance sheets to be bloated with sovereign debts and the toxic paper of yesteryear. History shows that inflation always follows monetary expansion. Even with the correction, gold has done better than every other asset, including the dollar, up more than 10 percent last year making its eleventh consecutive annual gain. Having achieved ninety percent of our forecast of $2011 in 2011, we expect gold to reach $3,000 an ounce and end up for an even dozen years in 2012. There's just a lack of compelling investment alternatives.
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The buzz generated by a rumoured deal between the London-listed Russian gold giants Polyus and Polymetal yesterday said it all - the precious metal is back. As gold jumped by 1 per cent to a six-week high of $1,719.89 an ounce and the FTSE-listed miners Petropavlovsk and Kazakhmys each reported strong precious metal figures, the recent disillusion with gold suddenly seemed very far away. [ Read more… ]

Gold has broken to the upside, says Gartman Letter publisher and commodities trader Dennis Gartman, who has made waves recently with his shifting stances toward bullion, most notably when challenged (with two other gold skeptics) by investor Peter Grandich to a $1 million bet on the metal's direction. [ Read more… ]

Big changes could be underway for China's currency this year, as Beijing moves forward with plans to free up its forex rules and increase the use of the yuan in its trade with the world. [ Read more… ]

"You also have to have physical gold and silver in your possession," Altair Ventures Inc. CEO Fayyaz Alimohamed told The Gold Report in a new interview. "We learned a lesson with MF Global. We saw $1 billion of segregated funds in clients' accounts vanish. My understanding is that some of those funds were commingled and used to settle MF Global's liabilities to other financial institutions. There is this whole issue of counter-party risk, which gold does not have. That should be a cautionary reminder to people. You need to have physical cash balances. You need to have physical gold and silver outside of the banking system as a safety net because, as Warren Buffett said, we are in uncharted waters now." [ Read more… ]

Gold's record-breaking rally of the last decade is set to extend into this year and next as monetary policy stays loose and central banks build reserves, a Reuters poll showed Thursday. [ Read more… ]

The Federal Reserve has moved closer to embarking on a new round of its controversial money-pumping after the central bank and its chairman Ben Bernanke highlighted a grim outlook for the U.S. economy. [ Read more… ]

The Fed's meeting this week is a potential "game-changer" for gold investment, according to one expert. With large corporations, investment funds, insurance companies, universities, endowments, and pension funds relatively underinvested in gold compared with previous eras, the central bank's prolonged dollar-devaluing, easy-money policies could open up the floodgates for mainstream bullion investment on a large scale. [ Read more… ]

According to Jonathan Buck at Barron's, a hedge-fund manager "who wishes to remain anonymous" is predicting gold will hit $2,000 to $3,000 this year. [ Read more… ]

What should Apple do with its massive cash hoard? Conventional recommendations range from paying a dividend or buying back stock, to acquiring suppliers. While these are certainly worthy recommendations, it is hardly the unconventional thinking that has propelled Apple to the top of the podium. In addition to these recommendations, Apple should also consider purchasing gold. A relatively small gold position in Apple's portfolio could help the company further offset currency and monetary policy risks to its $97.6 billion stockpile. In November, Apple started accepting Chinese yuan for App Store downloads, but could benefit even more by diversifying into gold. A report by Oxford Economics last year recommends holding at least 5 percent of assets in gold. The report concludes that gold is a good hedge against inflation, as well as deflation. [ Read more… ]

A chart of the gold price fits nicely on top of the expansion of money in the developed world recently, according to Germany's Concept Vermoegensmanagement, which expects both to continue heading in much the same direction. [ Read more… ]

Gold surged 2.5 percent on Wednesday to above $1,700 an ounce, its biggest one-day gain in four months, as the U.S. Federal Reserve said interest rates would likely remain near zero into late 2014. [ Read more… ]

Gold provided the best returns of all commodities in the past five years when adjusted for volatility, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says the rally will continue as options traders signal no change in the metal's relatively low risk. [ Read more… ]

"Add another $200, year-on-year, and I think you have a good estimate of what gold will do over the next five years," AngloGold Ashanti CEO Mark Cutifani predicts in a Jan. 25 CNBC interview in Davos, Switzerland. That easily puts gold over the $2,000 summit. [ Read more… ]

Given a hypothetical choice of investing $1 million in either gold, U.S. Treasuries, or art objects by Pablo Picasso, the third-richest person in India, Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro Ltd., tells Bloomberg interviewers (at minute 3:00): "I'd probably put it into gold bars. ... That seems to be the safest bet today." [ Read more… ]

Many are apprehensive about the coin market for 2012 and rightfully so, but I believe as always good material will do well regardless of the economy. If we get some economic improvement, even ordinary material will gain value. Good material is not necessarily key date coins, although some would certainly be included. Good material is the less common date type coins of the mid 19th and early 20th centuries. It also includes early federal coinage and scarce-date gold issues. [ Read more… ]

Russia, India, and China - three members of the rising economic powerhouse group known as the BRICs (which also includes Brazil) - are allied with Iran and are major gold producers. If petrodollars go out of vogue and trading in other currencies gets too complicated, they will tap their gold storehouses to keep the crude flowing. Gold always has and always will be the fallback currency and, as mentioned before, when currency relationships start to change and valuations become hard to predict, trading in gold is a tried and true failsafe. [ Read more… ]

"Can gold regain its glitter?" asks Wall Street Sector Selector publisher John Nyaradi at MarketWatch. The answer is yes, given global money printing by central banks, not to mention the ongoing debt crisis in the eurozone: [ Read more… ]

There's a common theme spreading across the mining industry. After years of rapid growth in which a lot of money was invested in big, undeveloped projects, the companies who sat back are now scrambling to get their hands on new, undiscovered assets. [ Read more… ]

Iran increased bank interest rates on Wednesday and indicated it would further restrict sales of foreign currency, hoping to halt a spiraling currency crisis after new Western sanctions accelerated a dash for dollars by Iranians worried about their economic future. [ Read more… ]

Hedge-fund manager Eric Sprott has just one word of advice for private investors in 2012: gold. [ Read more… ]

The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it will not raise interest rates until at least late 2014, even later than investors expected, in an effort to support a sluggish economic recovery. [ Read more… ]

India has reportedly agreed to pay Tehran in gold for the oil it buys, in a move aimed at protecting Delhi from US-sanctions targeting countries who trade with Iran. China, another buyer of Iranian oil, may follow Delhi's lead. [ Read more… ]

Gold will probably reach $2,300 an ounce in 2012 and may top $3,500 in three years, Alacer Gold Corp. CEO Ed Dowling said. [ Read more… ]

Gold's continuing uptrend makes No. 5 on CNBC contributor Michael Yoshikami's recent list of top trends for 2012. The CEO of YCMNET Advisors had this to say: [ Read more… ]

The World Gold Council (WGC) said on Monday in its quarterly commentary that gold's sharp drop from the August highs around $1,900/oz could bode well for the future, if history is anything to go by. [ Read more… ]

Our central forecast in gold remains constructive as our long-term view targets $2,500 in 2012. Until we see USD weakness and any associated inflationary expectation we may not see gold significantly higher unless there is further geopolitical unrest (Iran, EU, etc. ...). Our core view is that gold will head higher to the $2,500 range driven by consequential USD weakness once the EU crisis dissipates and the US steps into the limelight. [ Read more… ]

Gold prices have been in a powerful bull market for the past decade, a phenomenon usually attributed to investors seeking protection against inflation. But that theory appears to be wrong, according to new research by Boston-based money manager GMO. The firm, led by legendary investor Jeremy Grantham, concludes that gold prices are largely being driven by demand from consumers in emerging markets. [ Read more… ]

China Gold Association secretary-general Zhang Bingnan told the People's Daily newspaper that as long as the five major factors supporting gold do not change, the bull market will not end and the price will keep rising: [ Read more… ]

Check out Japanese investment bank Nomura's new report on gold, excerpts of which are below: [ Read more… ]

"Gold can't be faked," says Mr Zhang with all the zeal of a first time buyer of the precious metal. The 29 year-old advertising clerk, who prefers not to give his first name, has just spent a month's wages, Rmb8,000 ($1,266), on a bracelet, as a gift for his fiancee at Chinese New Year. [ Read more… ]

Gold prices are due to climb in 2012, but don't rule out silver and keep an eye on stocks for good value investments, says David Skarica, editor of The Gold Stock Adviser newsletter and author of "The Great Super Cycle." [ Read more… ]

Jeff Clark of Casey Research's Big Gold newsletter crunches the numbers on gold going back a decade, analyzing how long it's taken gold to rebound after every major correction. He speculates that a new high could come this spring: [ Read more… ]

The Federal Reserve is likely to step in with $1 trillion worth of easing that could be announced as soon as this month, according to a growing consensus of economists who see the recent uptick in economic growth as unsustainable. [ Read more… ]

If anything, gold and silver forecasters are probably too cautious about the outlook for 2012. This is not surprising after the volatility of 2011 which saw record highs for both metals but a collapse later in the year that left gold up 10 percent and silver down around the same amount for the year. [ Read more… ]

Gold ended last year in violent fashion, dropping 21 percent in less than three months. The sudden move, coming as equities rebounded in December, raised doubts among many investors about the sustainability of a trade that has been a winner for 10 years. [ Read more… ]

Legendary investor James Dines "is still bullish on gold," MarketWatch columnist Peter Brimelow notes in a recent article, calling The Dines Letter editor "The Original Gold Bug." According to Dines:  [ Read more… ]

The Wall Street Transcript (TWST) recently interviewed Elizabeth Collins, CFA, the associate director of equity research for the basic materials team at Morningstar Inc. Here are her thoughts on gold: [ Read more… ]

For Chinese shipping executive Ping Bo buying gold is the best way to protect his family's wealth and give his 10-year-old son a headstart into adulthood. [ Read more… ]

Prominent Canadian fund manager Eric Sprott said on Wednesday he was bearish on cyclical commodities such as industrial metals because of the economic slowdown, though he remained positive on gold and crude oil. [ Read more… ]

Bloomberg recently interviewed currency expert and fund manager Axel Merk, who offered these insights on gold and the U.S. dollar: [ Read more… ]

Russian precious metals miner Polymetal expects the gold price to break above $2,000 per ounce later this year around the time of U.S. presidential elections, while its own output is set to rise due to new operations after a flat 2011. [ Read more… ]

Between 1987 and August 2011, platinum closed at a discount to gold on only 123 trading days out of a total of 6,413. In the last third of last year, however, the sight of an ounce of platinum trading at a discount to gold became decidedly more common. However, when the discount hit records above $220, last week, a few eyebrows were raised. [ Read more… ]

King World News recently interviewed respected Wall Street technical analyst Louise Yamada, who suggested that the bear market in stocks could last until 2022. "These cycles do not bottom together again until 2022, technically leaving an outside possibility that this structural bear cycle may become extended and an ultimate beginning of the next structural bull may not manifest until 2022."  [ Read more… ]

The year of the dragon is breathing new life into gold prices. [ Read more… ]

Gold may climb to a record above $2,000 an ounce by early next year as concern about currencies and low interest rates spurs investors to seek a protection of wealth, Thomson Reuters GFMS said. [ Read more… ]

"Each year Coin World provides the Wall Street Journal with a 'Classic U.S. Rarities Key-Date Investment Index' for use in its annual investment scoreboard," reports Steve Roach. [ Read more… ]

Gold and silver will regain their shine during 2012, Commerzbank said in a research note, describing gold's pullback from record highs during the latter part of 2011 as temporary weakness. [ Read more… ]

"The bottom line for gold and the rest of the precious metals complex in 2012 is they are widely expected to perform very well, but volatility will remain very high," says Louis Golino at CoinWeek. "Investors should expect declines of 20% like the recent one, or even more, but the trend line will likely still be up substantially in December." [ Read more… ]

Gold miners expect the price of the metal to continue climbing in 2012, with most respondents expecting a peak around $2,000 an ounce, according to a survey of gold companies by consultants PwC. [ Read more… ]

Gold may climb and copper is the most-favored base metal for 2012, according to Morgan Stanley, which said that investment demand will bolster bullion, while a deficit will benefit the raw material used in pipes and wires. [ Read more… ]

"I think you'll see $2,500/ounce gold," predicts John Stephenson, author of "The Little Book of Commodity Investing" and portfolio fund manager at First Asset Investment Management, in a recent interview with The Gold Report: [ Read more… ]

"A gold and energy bull stumbled badly last year. But it's charging on, in the same direction," writes MarketWatch columnist Peter Brimelow, whose latest article quotes numerous optimistic gold forecasts, including that of Outstanding Investments newsletter editor Byron King: [ Read more… ]

Gold prices are trading below its record highs on the international markets in recent months even though prices have more than doubled since 2007. The Gold Prospectors Association of America (GPAA) is predicting that gold could surpass $2,800 an ounce within the next year. [ Read more… ]

Gold traders are the most bullish in two months after mainland China imported the most metal ever from Hong Kong and investors bought U.S. bullion coins at the fastest pace in more than two years. [ Read more… ]

"For gold to rise 15% from these levels would be nothing," U.S. Global Investors chief Frank Holmes says in a Jan. 12 CNBC interview. Watch the full video to hear Holmes outline his thesis of the "Love Trade" and the "Fear Trade" in gold. Basically, the surging economies of emerging-market nations are driving citizens to buy gold as a sign of their growing wealth, while fear is driving many investors in debt-ridden Western economies to buy gold to protect their purchasing power. And of course, both East and West buy gold as gifts for the loved ones -- hence, the "Love Trade." [ Read more… ]

Did China just overtake India as the world's largest gold consumer? [ Read more… ]

The surge in the U.S. Mint's sales of American Eagle silver coins in January may signal an end to the bear market in the metal. [ Read more… ]

Iran's central bank will increase the rates lenders pay on deposits, as it seeks to control volatility in the gold and foreign currency markets, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. [ Read more… ]

Federal Reserve officials are seriously considering giving the U.S. economy -- and especially the housing market -- an added jolt with more quantitative easing.
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Many investors have reverted to questioning gold again after the yellow metal's two massive 2011 corrections and relative underperformance toward the end of the year. Despite the skepticism, Chinese demand is red hot, hitting a record in November according to the latest data and possibly helping put a floor under prices and fueling a further bull run. [ Read more… ]

"We would expect gold to trade over a wider range and higher than the prior year, say between $1,400-1,700/oz with the potential for some catalyst for the upside to $1,800/oz or $1,900/oz.," Beacon Rock Research founder Mike Niehuser tells The Gold Report. "Demand destruction by higher gold prices may have upset seasonal factors for good and there may be any number of catalysts that may impact prices almost at any time." [ Read more… ]

A stronger rupee boosted gold purchases from India just before the wedding season resumes in India, the world's largest gold consumer. [ Read more… ]

Last November a unique joint venture launched that should excite investors in precious metals and rare coins. The venture, named Certified Assets Management International (CAMI), combines the talents of a veteran professional rare coin dealer and a Wall Street money manager. [ Read more… ]

“We predict that $2,400 is a reasonable target for this coming year,” Blanchard and Company Chairman and CEO Donald W. Doyle, Jr., tells Yahoo! Finance’s “Breakout” show in a Jan. 11 interview. “The principle factors that are pushing gold higher now have really been in place for some time now. … We think that it's inevitable that we're going to see higher prices — and significantly higher prices.” [ Read more… ]

Gold is investors' favorite asset for 2012, and developed markets are preferred over emerging markets when it comes to putting money in stocks or bonds, according to a poll carried out by Japanese investment bank Nomura. [ Read more… ]

"We remain positive on gold and believe a number of key tactical reasons to be positive haven't gone away," Barclays Capital analyst Suki Cooper says in a Jan. 11 CNBC interview that upholds her prediction of $2,200 for this year. Chinese demand is picking up with its Lunar New Year holiday, she notes, and gold recently has been defying dollar strength somewhat. [ Read more… ]

China's gold imports from Hong Kong surged to a record as consumers bought the metal before the Lunar New Year this month and investors sought to hedge against financial turmoil. Bullion rallied to a four-week high Wednesday. [ Read more… ]

One thing I'm fairly certain about is that after 12 consecutive years of increasing value, gold will continue to go higher in 2012. Here's why: [ Read more… ]

Jeffrey Nichols of American Precious Metals Advisors offers a bullish outlook on gold for 2012, citing a range of price drivers, including central-bank buying, Asian demand, and -- even more importantly -- supply and demand: [ Read more… ]

Gold bulls appear to have one very important gal in their corner. [ Read more… ]

U.S. Gold Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rob McEwen said gold companies will seek acquisitions this year as higher metal prices boost their cash reserves. [ Read more… ]

Goldman Sachs is staying "overweight" on commodities as a rebound in demand revives speculation of shortages, with gold a favorite for 2012 as investors seek a hedge against Europe's debt crisis [ Read more… ]

Legendary financier George Soros returned to buying gold in late 2011 after selling it earlier, and is due to reap the benefits later this year when Fed policies will likely weaken the dollar and send the precious metal climbing, Emerging Money reports. [ Read more… ]

Kaana Konya, former financial services advisor and senior portfolio manager at City commodities broker Tullett Brown, recommends going for gold in 2012: [ Read more… ]

Last year was a volatile one for the gold price. It reached a high of more than $1,900 per ounce in September but fell back to less than $1,600. Over the course of the year it was up 8 percent. The recent falls seem to be caused by concerns about eurozone debt returning to the fore. You would think the eurozone crisis would be positive for gold as it is often regarded as a safe haven in times of market turmoil. Furthermore, I believe it will lead to quantitative easing in Europe, essentially the printing of new money which serves to devalue the currency. This should increase demand for gold as a store of value which cannot be debased by governments and central banks. [ Read more… ]

"The possibility exists that gold profits are being used to offset 2011 losses in other areas," according to the respected firm of  Louise Yamada Technical Research Advisors in an analysis posted at King World News. "We would anticipate that gold remains in a corrective trend which could extend for a number of months. We do know that if the equity market were to sell off further, as in 2008, gold could also be expected to decline in tandem. To identify a renewed advance from current levels, an eventual lift through 1,800 would be needed technically." [ Read more… ]

India's central bank has allowed four more banks to import precious metals, a move that would boost competition and help reduce premiums in the world's biggest importer of bullion. [ Read more… ]

Gold will recover from its current malaise and hit a new record high in excess of $2,000 a troy ounce in 2012, according to an annual survey of industry predictions by the London Bullion Market Association. [ Read more… ]

As one can glean from the title, in this comprehensive report by Goldman's Paul Hissey, the appropriately named firm deconstructs the divergence between gold stocks and spot gold in recent years, a topic covered previously yet one which still generates much confusion among investor ranks. As Goldman, which continues to be bullish on gold, says, "There is little doubt that gold stocks in general have suffered a derating; initially with the introduction of gold ETFs (free from operational risk), and more recently with the onset of global market insecurity through the second half of 2011. However, gold remains high in the top tier of our preferred commodities for 2012, simply because of the extremely uncertain macroeconomic outlook currently faced in many parts of the world. The official sector also turned net buyer of gold in 2010 for the first time since 1988, and has expanded its net purchases in 2011." [ Read more… ]

Gold may extend its best rally since at least 1920 as investors seek a store of wealth amid Europe's debt crisis and expectations of slowing global growth and rising inflation, according to Reliance Capital Asset Management Ltd. [ Read more… ]

The bulls point to 11 years of gold price gains and argue that gold's recent massacre was a normal correction. Central bank buying has also been robust, with the official sector buying 344 tons of gold in the first 11 months of 2011. Turkey and Russia comprised the lion's share of buying. [ Read more… ]

HSBC's gold business never sleeps - as one market closes for the day, another elsewhere in the world is opening. [Global precious-metals head Jeremy] Charles's team buys and sells gold for wholesale clients such as central banks, investment funds and major gold producers, with the average transaction exceeding 5 million pounds. [ Read more… ]

An article in Germany's Spiegel (titled "Fearful Investors Stash Money in Luxury Goods" by Nils Klawitter) describes how the uncertainty surrounding the eurozone debt crisis has many Germans fleeing to the safety of hard assets like gold: [ Read more… ]

Here is the 2012 gold-price prediction of Grant Williams, a portfolio adviser at Vulpes Investment Management and the author of the newsletter "Things That Make You Go Hmmm ...": [ Read more… ]

Iran and Russia have replaced US dollar with their own currencies in their trade ties, a senior Iranian diplomat announced on Saturday. Speaking to FNA, Tehran's Ambassador to Moscow Seyed Reza Sajjadi said that the proposal for replacing US dollar with ruble and rial was raised by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Astana on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting. [ Read more… ]

"On the high end of the coin market, business has been brisk in selected areas," numismatist Mark Ferguson writes at CoinWeek. "Investors looking for alternatives to main stream investment vehicles have been buying high-end rare coins, including 'trophy rarities,' in which to park some of their money." [ Read more… ]

Gold will outperform the Dow Jones Industrial Average this quarter, after trailing the equity index in late 2011, as Iranian tensions and European debt woes mount, said Jeffrey Sica, the president of SICA Wealth Management. [ Read more… ]

We are still in the earlier phases of the gold bull market. In 1981, my firm predicted a 20-year bear market in gold (bottom in 2001) and then said that this would be followed by a 30-year bull market according to our cycle studies. The start of the current gold bull market was in 2001, exactly 20 years later. If my 30-year bull market cycle comes true, then there is quite a bit of excitement still ahead. [ Read more… ]

Contrarians are sticking with their bullish forecast for gold, despite being wrong about bullion's direction over the last month. [ Read more… ]

8. Stick with gold
Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategist [Michael] Harnett expects the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and others to pump more money into a debt-laden global financial system, and that development would favor gold. [ Read more… ]

"It's better to bet on silver long-term," says Chris of The Weekly Telegram financial-analysis site. He questions the notion that silver cannot perform well in a deflationary environment by looking at its track record during the Roaring '20s, the Great Depression, and in more modern eras. "We already made the bottoming pattern and we're going to start launching higher, and it's going to be volatile along the way." Buy silver when the Dow-gold ratio is going down, he says. [ Read more… ]

Yesterday we discussed certain events that, in my view, are nearly mathematical certainties. Things like a restructuring of public pensions and Social Security in Europe and the US. Western governments blocking Internet and mobile networks. War. The US government being forced to issue debt in a foreign currency. [ Read more… ]

There are various reasons for holding gold as a long-term investment, whether they are using it as a hedge against inflation, devaluation of a currency or even protection against financial collapse. If one aims to profit from or hedge against a financial collapse from holding gold, holding physical is the most prudent decision. The chance of a GLD collapse or a situation arising in which one cannot access the gold they rightfully own (in GLD), significantly rises during a financial collapse. The end of a monetary system would likely leave a state of partial or even pure anarchy in the financial markets and the rules that once applied in a peaceful society no longer do. If it were every man for himself, it's unlikely one would be able to get hold of the gold owned by an ETF such as GLD. SK Options Trading is a trading operation therefore does not hold positions for the long term, but if we aimed to hold gold in the anticipation of a possible financial collapse, it would be physical bullion and not an ETF such as GLD. [ Read more… ]

Let's put gold's recent price action into perspective. It peaked on September 5 at $1,895 (London PM Fix) and has thus been in decline for about three months. Yet look at the bull market's biggest three-month correction in relationship to the ultimate trend. [ Read more… ]

Deutsche Bank AG has reined in its expectations for metal prices in the year ahead, citing concerns over the worsening economic picture and the potential for a stronger dollar. [ Read more… ]

Barclays Capital said Thursday it expects gold to peak at $2,200 a troy ounce in 2012, although it sees the yellow metal averaging below the key $2,000/oz market at $1,875/oz. [ Read more… ]

Gold's 11-year bull run will probably persist for some time as the world faces global macroeconomic headwinds, said Credit Suisse AG's head of global commodities research Ric Deverell. [ Read more… ]

HSBC has lowered its gold price forecasts for 2012 and 2013 after the market weakened significantly in the final quarter of last year, but said it remains bullish on the yellow metal as a poor global economic outlook and sovereign debt troubles spur fresh demand for bullion as an alternative store of value. [ Read more… ]

Two rounds of quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve since the 2008 financial crisis have helped light a fire under gold prices. Financial analysts have been speculating for months now on when that third round of QE will be launched -- and in what form. Others say that ongoing low interest rates, "Operation Twist," and similar programs already constitute variations of QE. Morgan Stanley is the latest big Wall Street player to predict some kind of QE3 is imminent: [ Read more… ]

Gold may be bottoming, while it will take prices "a least a few months" to reach $1,900 an ounce, Societe Generale SA said. [ Read more… ]

The current gold rally (since 2001) has mostly been during the time when the Dow has also been rising, with the exception of a short period in both 2002 and the end of 2008 to Feb 2009. The best of the current gold rally, since 2001, has been during a time when the Dow was rising as well. Therefore, based on the evidence from the 1930s and 1970s gold rallies, I believe the current gold rally has not yet had its best period - it is still to come. My current fundamental and fractal analysis of the Dow and gold supports this view. [ Read more… ]

Gold had a banner year in 2011, despite losing about 20% of its value in a late-year correction. And the underlying fundamentals point to another strong year for the precious metal. [ Read more… ]

Amir Naghshineh-Pour's Asia Times article shows once again that gold is a go-to safe haven in times of geopolitical uncertainty and rising inflation: [ Read more… ]

While speculators in New York futures are the least bullish in 31 months, the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 44 traders and analysts is for [gold] prices to rally as much as 39 percent to $2,140 an ounce in 2012. [ Read more… ]

According to a note just released by Citi analyst Tom Fitzpatrick, the gold correction "has run its course and a rally is now back on the cards." Granted it is not all smooth sailing - "Gold may drop to $1,550 before turning," but when the turn comes, Fitzpatrick sees it as going all the way up to $2,400. He has the following technical observations: "Only a weekly close below $1,535/oz means corrections may be deeper." [ Read more… ]

Thinking the gold market has seen its best days? Not a chance, if the Fed and the Washington pathocrats get their way. [ Read more… ]

After running all the way up to $1,916 an ounce in the autumn it dropped all the way back to $1,550 as the year ended. So has the great gold bull market, which started in earnest all the way back in 2000, finally blown out? [ Read more… ]

"We don't own any of what we consider the economic metals, but we do own gold, which does well in downturns," portfolio manager Richard Howard of the Prospector Capital Appreciation Fund tells Wallace Forbes in a recent interview. "We also own energy stocks, which we think are the least economically sensitive of the natural resource sectors. In fact, those two areas together are a little bit less than a quarter of the portfolio." [ Read more… ]

Back in 2009 I began keeping track of those financial analysts, economists, academics and commentators who were of the opinion that it was just a matter of time before gold reached a parabolic peak price well in excess of the prevailing price. As time passed the list grew dramatically and at last count numbered 140 such individuals who have gone on record as saying that gold will go to at least $3,000 - and as high as $20,000 - before the gold bubble finally pops. Of more immediate interest, however, is that 8 of those individuals believe gold will reach its parabolic peak price in the next 12 months - even as early as February, 2012. This article identifies those 8 and outlines their rationale for reaching their individual price expectations: [ Read more… ]

In 2009 and 2010, it became absolutely clear that China (with the help of global corporate entities) was developing the skeleton of a new system: a trade network that had the capacity to supplant the U.S. and end the dollar's world reserve status.  [ Read more… ]

"We're looking ahead," notes Bill Bonner of The Daily Reckoning in a recent article. "And ahead what we see is more of the same ... more or less. Gold will eventually shock everyone by rising far above $1,900. When the real crisis hits, the crisis coming in the U.S. bond market, gold will be the money that nobody doesn't want." [ Read more… ]

Gold's nominal record high above $1,920 grabbed most of the headlines in 2011, but Coin Week's Louis Golino notes other opportunities in seminumismatic and numismatic coins in 2011 that collectors should heed going into 2012: [ Read more… ]

"The facts are European economies are declining, and that, stealthily, the European Central Bank has been printing trillions of new euros," TrimTabs Investment Research CEO Charles Biderman notes in a year-end video review for 2011 and a look ahead. "Therefore, to me, the best trade idea for 2012 is to go long gold and short the euro on a dollar cost-averaging trade each and every month. Yes, gold is down 20% from its high and might be going lower, but what I most like about gold for the long term is that emerging-market central banks remain consistent buyers of gold. And it makes sense to me that emerging-market central bankers, given the euro, dollar, and yen printing, that they will be consistent buyers for the foreseeable future." [ Read more… ]

Beware of a "bear trap" with gold, Index Futures Group CEO Jack Bouroudjian tells CNBC in Dec. 30 interview. "It's going to start sucking people in to getting short or thinking that that story is over. That story is not over. If you want to really know that story, talk to people like the Eric Sprotts of the world up in Canada. They will tell you exactly what is happening. The world of currency debasement -- that environment is not ending. We know the endgame in Europe and here in the [United] States. It is force-fed free money inflation, and with that comes the price of gold going up and commodities across the board." [ Read more… ]

"You need some gold," "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer says in a Dec. 30 CNBC broadcast that preaches the importance of diversifying your portfolio. "You need a dividend-paying stock, high yield preferably. You need a growth stock. You need something speculative, and you need something foreign. Cover all five bases and you'll have a portfolio that can win in any market, which is why I'm going to explain what makes all five areas special and teach you how to analyze stocks in each one so that you can fill every position with the best possible names." [ Read more… ]

"The fundamentals have never been better for gold and I think prices are going a lot higher," Euro Pacific Capital chief Peter Schiff tells CNBC in a Dec. 30 interview looking back on gold 's 2011 performance and ahead into 2012. "I still think it's headed higher. I'm not really sure when you talk about the turnaround, I don't think that the correction we've had in the last few months has turned the bull trend. I think we're still in a bull market. I think that trend is going to continue. The question is, is the correction over? I don't think there's much more left in the correction." [ Read more… ]

China's decision last month to channel all gold trading through Shanghai shouldn't damp mainland investors' appetite for bullion, even as unauthorized trading platforms are forced to close, according to analysts.
[ Read more… ]

Sales of the United States Mint's gold and silver bullion coins rose for the month of December 2011, reversing the slow down experienced in the previous month. Annual sales totals include a new record for American Silver Eagle bullion coins. [ Read more… ]

The world's largest hedge fund is pro-gold, according to this Wall Street Journal article ("Bridgewater takes grim view of 2012" by Tom Lauricella) cited by Zero Hedge: [ Read more… ]

"Enough is enough," Grandich Letter publisher Peter Grandich has declared at his blog. "I hereby challenge Mr. [Jon] Nadler [of Kitco] again, this time raising my wager to $2 million -- still not anyone's 'life savings.' I'll increase the bet's target price by $100: that gold will see $2,100 before $1,000. The winnings are to be donated to charity." [ Read more… ]

China should further diversify its foreign-exchange portfolio and make more gold purchases when the metal's price dips but is still at a relatively high level, a senior central-bank official said last month. [ Read more… ]

"Going into next year, however, we still remain favorable on gold and we think that gold can hit higher," Phillip Futures analyst Ong Yi Ling says in a Dec. 21 CNBC interview. "Increased deleveraging in economies will maintain a low interest-rate environment, which historically gold has performed well in. In the event that we actually see greater quantitative easing from the European Central Bank or the Federal Reserve, I think that gold could hit higher and even test a new record high. ... The big figure everyone is looking at is the $2,000-an-ounce level, and I think that level will be quickly tested in the event that we see do see asset purchases and more unconventional monetary policies from the central banks around the world." She goes on to discuss gold's role as a continuing safe haven as well as other price drivers such as strong buying in India and China. [ Read more… ]

Eric Janszen of iTulip.com explains the research behind his decision to invest in gold in 2001, when the price was around $270 an ounce, in this November video titled "The Story of Gold Since 2001, Part I: The Tail Wags the Dog." [ Read more… ]

"Gold is still a currency. The fundamental reasons people have been buying gold for the last 10 years as a substitution to other currencies are still there," H3 Global Advisors director Mathew Kaleel. "We still see gold rising in the face of European problems and a declining euro, which we do see happening in 2012." [ Read more… ]

"Is the bottom in?" Big Gold editor Jeff Clark asks of precious metals. "Let's take a fresh look at gold's corrections and compare them to the recent one." [ Read more… ]

"The outlook for gold is actually quite good next year," says John Wong, manager of investment trust Golden Prospect Precious Metals, in a Citywire interview. "Essentially the prospect for gold revolves around a store of value. And so for me, when you look around the world next year, we still have issues around the euroland which [are] still not yet resolved. There's going to be at some point a flight to safety. We're seeing some of that now to the U.S. dollar, but I think gold will be one of the beneficiaries of that next year. And given that the economy is not very strong, it means that interest rates are likely to stay low. ... As long as interest rates stay low and negative real rates [persist], I think gold will have a good time next year. ... I think $2,500 is an achievable target at some point during the year. Yes, I think it's really possible. ... Given the scenarios we have, I'm quite confident that we might see $2,500." [ Read more… ]

"We do believe that over the course of next year we will see a recovery in gold prices and we're actually maintaining our $2,000-an-ounce price forecast for the second half of next year," Soozhana Choi, director of Asia commodities research at Deutsche Bank, tells CNBC in a recent December interview. "This is largely predicated on global growth maintaining GDP growth over 3%. Under 3% I think is when we're heading into extremely dangerous territory." [ Read more… ]

It's been a somewhat turbulent year for precious metals in 2011, but analysts are predicting that gold and silver prices will make solid gains in 2012 as both move back into favor with investors as alternative stores of value. [ Read more… ]

"If the Italians can't persuade the bond markets to keep them in business, they have another card up their sleeve," Brett Arends writes at MarketWatch. "Few people realize it, but Italy holds the world's fourth biggest stockpile of gold, at 2,452 tonnes. That's even more than France, and more than twice as much as China." [ Read more… ]

Scotia Capital raised its gold price forecasts to reflect ongoing concerns over global debt levels and paper currencies, resulting in gold being the currency of choice. [ Read more… ]

About 80 percent of global mining companies expect the price of gold to move higher next year and a clear majority sees bullion hitting a new record of $2,000 U.S. per ounce, says consultant PwC in its latest Annual Gold Price Report. [ Read more… ]

BNP Paribas on Tuesday cut its gold price forecasts for 2012 and 2013, saying the precious metal could be vulnerable to further episodes of price correction due to uncertainty in global markets.
[ Read more… ]

Gold has so many incontestable positive fundamentals: [ Read more… ]

"Despite all of Wall Street's negative hoopla over gold during the price volatility of the last week, the precious metal still is on track to outperform the Dow Jones Industrial average, meaningfully, for the year," ShadowStats publisher John Williams tells King World News. "That would be the eighth consecutive year of doing so. Irrespective of any recent or future extreme price swings, however, I look at gold as the long-term hedge against all that has started to unfold in the ultimate debasement and destruction of the U.S. dollar." [ Read more… ]

"Lately there's been many many blogs and research reports which make the claim that once gold breaches its 200 dma to the downside, the party is over," the Golden Truth blogger notes. However, "gold has breached its 200 dma to the downside many times over the last 10 years. Ironically, once that has occurred - in each and every occurrence - gold has always resumed its bull trend and powered to new nominal record highs. That evidence is indisputable. Any research that forecasts bad news for gold based on it breaking its 200 dma is unequivocally incorrect and therefore useless to the goal of making money and preserving wealth in the precious metals market. Unequivocally." [ Read more… ]

"If people pronounced stocks dead as often as they pronounce gold, well, the whole world would be shorting equities, "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer says in a Dec. 16 CNBC broadcast. "If gold finishes the year anywhere near these levels, it will have been up for 11 straight years. Talk about the trend is your friend. ... It's still been a terrific year for the precious metals. ... Hey, not much is up this year. ... OK, I'll give it to you: Gold's chart is real bad. Sure, deflation could be upon us. But there have been plenty of times when gold has rallied on deflation. How about the last decade? Remember after the collapse of Lehman [Bros. in 2008], that was highly deflationary and gold took off. And we know that the chaos Europe's heading toward is the best thing that could happen to gold." [ Read more… ]

"Overall, we are bullish on gold prices," Richard Davis, manager of the BlackRock Commodities Income Investment Trust, tells London's Telegraph newspaper. "We think the trend will continue. All the factors which have really driven gold from $250 10 years ago to where it is today remain in place. Investment demand is very strong. Encouragingly, jewelry demand has been very strong this year, much stronger than people thought, and that's again due to China. Chinese jewelry consumption is really growing. So the trend is there in gold." [ Read more… ]

Ani Markova, co-fund manager of the Smith & Williamson Global Gold & Resources fund, explains what she thinks is in store for gold in 2012 in this video interview with Citywire: [ Read more… ]

Let me quickly list the gold's bullish building blocks - and then I'll discuss a few of these bullish factors, in somewhat more detail. You will notice that many of these factors are interrelated - but it is easier, for the sake of this discussion, to think of them as separate and distinct. [ Read more… ]

"Last week was dreadful for the gold bugs. But Asia may be coming to their rescue." Peter Brimelow at MarketWatch wrote. "The most concrete reason for optimism emerged on Friday: It became apparent that the lows of Thursday had uncovered large Eastern physical demand. [ Read more… ]

Economically sensitive commodities such as energy and copper may fall by less in 2012 than the consensus view as large-scale monetary easing and tight inventories lend support, the Bank of America Merrill Lynch said. "Quantitative easing will lend a strong hand next year," said Sabine Schels, head of fundamental commodity research, speaking at the bank's year-ahead briefing in London. "We see cyclical commodity prices falling only modestly." In an outline of the bank's central scenario for 2012, Europe will go into a modest recession and global GDP growth will be around 3.5 percent. The sluggishness of Western economies will prompt large-scale quantitative easing from the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank by next summer, Schels said, helping gold rise to $2,000-$2,500 an ounce. [ Read more… ]

"Gold is up about 16% on the year so far. So no bear market there," Dominic Frisby at MoneyWeek notes. "Look at the fundamentals for gold. Have these changed? No. If anything they've intensified. I won't go on about them here save to say we are going through a generational monetary unravelling and in such a situation you want to own gold. You may well also need your metaphorical tins, guns and bomb shelters at some stage, but I do not have a buy signal on those just yet." [ Read more… ]

While gold prices may be stumbling right now, they are not headed for a long-term bear market - not even close. In fact, it's something our own gold and global resources specialist predicted months ago. [ Read more… ]

Silver is ready to finish a dramatic year near the level it started, and some analysts predict big gains, and heavy volatility, for the white metal in 2012. [ Read more… ]

Wow. Richard Russell's latest newsletter may his most bearish commentary yet. Russell says the greatest sucker's rally in history is coming to a brutal end. He says you should start buying gold and "GET OUT OF STOCKS." Here's an excerpt via King World News: [ Read more… ]

"My opinion is very simple as a fiduciary ... to the extent that you own gold and you are going to own it a long time -- it's not a trade. It costs us about 90 basis points a year to roll it through financial futures contracts," he said. [ Read more… ]

As gold prices dipped below $1,600 on Monday, commodities trader Dan Dicker said it could be time to buy. [ Read more… ]

In almost three decades in and around Wall Street, I've never seen such widespread distaste and outright hatred of an investment that for almost a decade has greatly outperformed just about every other investment vehicle: gold. I will discuss why I believe this is the case in a moment, but I want to first respond to what I can only describe as one of the "Three Stooges of Gold Forecasting's" latest forecasts that has once again caused near hysteria among gold players and the media that follows it. [ Read more… ]

Citi's FX Technicals group has some blockbuster predictions about the coming year, chief among them is without doubt the firm's outlook on gold, which they see at $2,400 in the second half of 2012 and moving "toward $3,400 over the next 2 years or so." [ Read more… ]

"I think we've seen the absolute worst" of gold's December correction, Country Hedging commodities analyst Sterling Smith tells CNBC in a Dec. 15 interview. "If things were really bad, we'd be getting crushed right now, getting hit hard today. ... We have to remember the nature of the metals market: They fall like an anvil, and normally we see three or four days of severe correction followed by consolidation. Something that we have working for us right now is the calendar. We're coming in to the end of the year, and the markets are going to slow down as we move through the  Christmas and New Year holiday, and that should give the market a little time to catch its breath and investors to calm their nerves  a little bit. ... I think we're probably looking at worst price level maybe $1,570. We set up a range between $1,570 and let's say $1,630, grind around that for two or three weeks. And then we come into the new year. And this is where the big questions are: What are they going to do in Europe? This whole situation -- I think I can speak for every trader -- it's getting tiresome having to deal with every rumor that crops up." [ Read more… ]

Gold will average $2,050 an ounce in 2012 and $1,578 an ounce this year, UBS AG said. This compares to earlier estimates of $2,075 an ounce for 2012 and $1,615 an ounce for 2011, it said. [ Read more… ]

Jon Corzine returns to Capitol Hill Thursday for the latest hearing on the implosion of MF Global, this time before a House Financial Services subcommittee. [ Read more… ]

"For the first time since January 2009, gold closed below its 200-day moving average on Wednesday," Stone & McCarthy Research Associates says in a note. "Today's Chart of the Day puts Wednesday's -2.8% violation of this long-term smoothing line into perspective, by comparing it to the average violation of both the general and upward sloping 200-day average since 1999." [ Read more… ]

Matterhorn Asset Management's Egon von Greyerz has long been pessimistic about the global financial situation, he says in an interview with King World News: "There were two alternatives, a deflationary collapse, which would mean that no bank would survive and that would be very good for gold. The more likely scenario, which I've been predicting for probably ten years, is we would have hyperinflation because governments need to print unlimited amounts of money."  [ Read more… ]

While some headlines are predicting the end of the bull market for gold, many commentators remain bullish on the yellow metal and all agree that more volatility should be expected [ Read more… ]

Gold bugs over the last two weeks have become even more discouraged than they were at the end of November. And that's saying something, since they were already quite dejected. [ Read more… ]

Economist Dennis Gartman announced in his newsletter, yesterday, that he has sold all of his gold. I don't know if it was physical or paper gold in an ETF (exchange traded fund), but it is gone. According to Bloomberg, Gartman said, "Since the early autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere gold has failed to make a new high. ... Each high has been progressively lower than the previous high, and now we've confirmation that the new interim low is lower than the previous low. We have the beginnings of a real bear market, and the death of a bull." Mr. Gartman thinks so much damage has been done to the price of gold and to market psychology that, in his words, "wholesale liquidation, and perhaps forced liquidation, shall be the outcome." [ Read more… ]

This current market "correction" in gold and silver is an absolute gift. I say "correction" because there is no doubt that the Fed/Wall Street is piling on in order to make the metals look undesirable to the unsuspecting. Time and again they've done this over the last 10 years. But to be able to go out and move more of your increasingly devalued U.S. dollars to acquire physical gold and silver at prices that are 15% cheaper for gold and 40% cheaper for silver cheaper than 8 months ago is an absolute gift. [ Read more… ]

Gold prices were getting crushed on Wednesday down as much as 5% on deflation panic. [ Read more… ]

The big question is: what's the outlook for gold now? Well, this is where it gets really interesting. And if you're a long-term gold buyer, it's probably the message you want to hear. [ Read more… ]

The gold bugs will be pleased. Analysts at the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) reckon gold is going to be a star performer in 2012 with a forecast average price for the year of $US1850 an ounce. [ Read more… ]

The U.S. presidential election next year does not hinge on getting the payroll tax cut extended or building the Keystone XL pipeline. [ Read more… ]

"For a few months now I have been worrying that there would be another Lehman moment and have been expecting it before year-end," longtime gold guru James Turk recently told King World News in analyzing the current financial picture across the globe. "I said the failure of Dexia was not the event, and initially I thought MF Global was not big enough to cause it either.  But, Eric, it is now becoming clear that the ramifications of MF Global are earth shaking, and consequently, I think we are already in another Lehman moment." [ Read more… ]

The outlook for gold is bullish for 2012. The European debt crisis, which dominated 2011, will continue to hang over markets in 2012. I'm extremely bearish on Europe. The political and financial systems are inadequate to deal with the serious fiscal and sovereign-debt problems the old continent faces. [ Read more… ]

The President of the Professional Numismatists Guild, Jeffrey Bernberg, predicts the 2012 market for "mega-rarity" coins will continue to be strong and the popularity of modern issues and mid-to-upper range paper money will continue to get collector support during the new year. [ Read more… ]

"The problem is finding takers for currencies like [the U.S. dollar] and especially now the euro," James Midas of the Midas Letter tells CNBC in a Dec. 12 interview. "These things are in the process of complete crisis breakdown, and so even though we're seeing short-term weakness in gold largely predicated by U.S. dollar interests, in the long term you're going to see gold doing what it's been doing for 10 years. It's going up 21% a year; it's going to continue to do that every time a nation announces its only way out of its debt is to print more money. You're going to get a higher gold price, and it's just a matter of time before we pop $2,500 gold."
[ Read more… ]

"The kinds of things that would really suppress gold, that would cause gold to go down, are not really being done," Taylor Hard Money Advisors head Jay Taylor tells CNBC in a Dec. 11 interview. "What needs to be done obviously is the politicians and the people as a whole in the West especially need to bite the bullet. We need to consume less and save more money, and of course in the short run that really would contract the economy, and nobody wants to endure those short-term pains, and so essentially what we're trying to do is print our way out of trouble, which I think is going to get us into deeper and deeper trouble, but nonetheless in the process of course then debase the currency and I think increase the price of gold." [ Read more… ]

"If you're bullish about the long term for gold and silver, it's mouthwatering to watch them undergo a major correction after taking earlier profits that added to your deployable cash," writes Big Gold editor Jeff Clark, employing several illuminating charts in his "Pullbacks in Perspective" article for Casey Research. [ Read more… ]

Asked by a reader "Is gold a good thing to hold to protect against economic collapse?" USA Today financial expert Matt Krantz acknowledges that physical gold, not a gold ETF, is what you want in a clutch situation: [ Read more… ]

Those who were frightened by news out of Europe and dumped gold this week could soon wind up sorry, as a known seasonal period of strength for the metal is right around the corner. [ Read more… ]

I recently checked in with Curtis Hesler, editor of Professional Timing Service, for his thoughts on gold, which is now trading above $1,700. Below is his take on the commodity and his recommendation on how to best play gold: [ Read more… ]

Demand is soaring nearly out of control. Investors can't get enough silver bullion. [ Read more… ]

What do you get when you mix negative real interest rates with stimulative money supply efforts by global central banks? [ Read more… ]

The amount of gold entering mainland China from Hong Kong in October jumped 51 percent on the month to a record 85.7 tonnes, as buyers took advantage of lower prices. Monthly gold shipments to China scored record highs for the fourth consecutive month, bringing the total amount of gold entering the mainland from Hong Kong in the first 10 months to 286.8 tonnes, more than tripled a year earlier, said the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department. [ Read more… ]

The year 2011 will mark the 11th consecutive year that gold bullion prices have closed the year higher than they started the year. Here are the raw numbers, the closing numbers of the price of gold bullion per ounce every year since 2000: [ Read more… ]

"Gold is cheap relative to the idea that you could have a life's fortune on a statement from a clearing agent and find out that you don't have a penny left anywhere," gold guru Jim Sinclair of JSMinset.com tells King World News in a recent interview. "Which should you have had, physical gold or that clearinghouse statement? Gold is cheap because of the condition of other things." [ Read more… ]

Gold "helps manage portfolio volatility - very low correlation with equities historically, but more importantly I think it helps in terms of protecting against inflation," Steve Brice, chief investment strategist at Standard Chartered Plc in Singapore, says in a Dec. 9 Bloomberg video interview. "We still see us as being in an inflationary environment globally. We see reflation efforts coming from the U.K. and U.S., and increasingly we believe that will come from Europe as well. So we still feel that gold can go significantly higher. Our forecast is $2,100, but we could see it go even above that in certain circumstances. ... We see very high debt levels obviously in the Western economies and scant sign of that being turned that around. In that environment you've got a huge incentive to inflate. ... That's just going to keep real interest rates negative and therefore put upward pressure on gold prices." Brice also discusses China's economy, stocks, and investment strategy. [ Read more… ]

Indeed, the platinum spot price has slumped by 26 percent since its high in August and it briefly fell below $1,500 a troy ounce last week. [ Read more… ]

HSBC Holdings Plc sued the MF Global Inc. brokerage trustee to establish whether he or another person is the rightful owner of gold bars worth about $850,000 and silver bars underlying contracts between the brokerage and a client. [ Read more… ]

Britain's luxury jewelers are opening outlets in China, where demand for jewellery is set to grow while appetite wanes in western markets. [ Read more… ]

NEW ORLEANS (December 12, 2011) - Blanchard and Company, Inc. has placed the world's most valuable rare gold coin for a record $7.395 million, adding to its resume and legacy as America's leading numismatic and precious metals firm. [ Read more… ]

While the ride has been anything but calm, the S&P 500 has risen about 3% since the start of September. At the same time, however, the price of gold has seen its price decline by nearly 6%. In a three-month period where seemingly everything that could go right for gold has occurred, the fact that gold has failed to rally has many bulls on the metal scratching their heads.  The confusion is further compounded because of the fact that gold's recent weakness has come at a time of the year when it typically sees its strongest performance. [ Read more… ]

It has been the go-to trade all year long and is still miles ahead of everything except for Volatility (VIX). And yet, in just a few short weeks, gold's brief under-performance compared to the suddenly hot U.S. stock market has tested the conviction of gold owners. [ Read more… ]

"Nothing feels better than giving that special gift to your friends and family!" writes Bix Weir of "The Road to Roota Letters" site. "It is estimated that the people of the United States will pony up over $500B in holiday-related spending over the course of December 2011." However, Weir notes, "Much of this excess spending will be transacted by swapping US Dollars and/or consumer debt for things such as toys, games and electronics primarily made in China. In the 6-12 months following the holiday season most of what is given as holiday gifts will become obsolete and end up in the back of the closets or tossed in trash heaps that keep piling up in the United States. Meanwhile, China will have taken the money from these transactions and invested them in building out their manufacturing capacity or, as is the trend lately, swapping these US Dollars for gold and silver bars to be held as an investment." [ Read more… ]

"The consensus is that gold's going to remain strong for the next two or three years," Avocet Mining chief Brett Richards tells Bloomberg in discussing the outlook for gold prices. "I don't think it would be unusual to see it to go over $2,000 even by the end of the year." Avocet, which operates gold mines in West Africa, began trading on the London Stock Exchange's main market this week. [ Read more… ]

Gold became the surprise victim of the market in September, when investors around the world dumped both equities and commodities because of fears of a global economic slowdown. The precious metal lost nearly 9 per cent of its value in one week - the biggest percentage fall since 1980. [ Read more… ]

"I have a very special stock tip for you," the infamous contrarian investor and longtime gold proponent Marc Faber told Bloomberg in a video interview. "The symbol is g-o-l-d. That is what I prefer to hold. Both the euro and the dollar are long-term undesirable currencies, especially given zero interest rates in the U.S. Equities to some extent become like cash because they become a store of value compared to cash at a zero interest-rates. Paintings become a store of value; stamps become a store of value." [ Read more… ]

While one of the bigger commodity funds out there, in this case Fortress Commodities Fund, has not done too hot recently (down 7.4% in October), which it humbly admits to and says, "The month of October was a wakeup call for us and we are adjusting accordingly," here are some must-read perspectives that lead the Fortress Commodity group to conclude that "We're Long Gold, Short Base Metals, Patient Crude Strength Seller & Buyer Of Corn On Any Real Flush In Prices." Oh, and that it's "macroeconomic outlook remains pessimistic." [ Read more… ]

Gold generated a net $4.8 billion in new investments in November, outperforming all other asset categories, said BlackRock Inc. [ Read more… ]

Gold shipments from Japan, the world's third-largest economy, are at the highest level since at least 1985 as individuals who purchased jewelry more than 20 years ago are selling it amid record prices. [ Read more… ]

Talk about a tag team! A popular holiday gift choice, this classic American Peace & Morgan Silver Dollar Coin Set contains two genuine, uncirculated late 19th and early 20th century American rare silver coins. These coin collector favorites are also sought by investors seeking a safe store of value. [ Read more… ]

Gold has been a conundrum in the past couple of months. For its most ardent fans, it has been a downright disappointment.
Despite the rising sense of alarm in Europe, regular sell-offs in the bond markets and relentless headlines about the demise of the single currency, gold - supposedly a haven against such turmoil - has been mundanely range-bound in a $1,600-$1,800 ... band. [ Read more… ]

The first step is to have physical gold in your possession. By this we mean bullion coins or bars stored somewhere very secure that does not place you at risk. I keep mine in vaults and safe deposit boxes, mainly because I lead a very public life and find it too risky to store it in my home. You may wish to protect yourself similarly. [ Read more… ]

The primary trend in gold is being driven by two major fundamentals: [ Read more… ]

The global financial crisis is giving investors more reasons to love gold. [ Read more… ]

The bottom line is that the money needed to bail out Europe and to fund America's spiraling debt and future unfunded obligations is in the tens of trillions. IT DOES NOT EXIST. It has to be created by printing money in massive quantities, and despite all the rhetoric you will hear against such policies, in the end it's the path of least resistance. Printing money is an invisible tax on savings, much easier to initiate, than, say, raising taxes or cutting back on services and entitlements. [ Read more… ]

Platinum briefly fell below the $1,500 an ounce mark for the first time in six weeks, with the price of the precious metal relative to gold falling to its lowest level in 26 years. [ Read more… ]

Many Greeks are draining their savings accounts because they are out of work, face rising taxes or are afraid the country will be forced to leave the euro zone. By withdrawing money, they are forcing banks to scale back their lending -- and are inadvertently making the recession even worse. [ Read more… ]

"I still think gold is going to be good because the ultimate resolution in Europe is that the [European Central Bank] does print their way once Italy has austerity. Austerity has to pass there. [In] Spain it has to pass. One of the things that has always been a block here ... is that the countries themselves don't want to take the medicine. And we can force the ECB to help lend money to the banks that are ailing by offering these dollar swap lines that [U.S. Federal Reserve chief Ben] Bernanke did. But the idea that we can just say: 'All right, look, these guys are now going to do right after four times doing what's wrong' makes me nervous about the financials." [ Read more… ]

Although gold's always had an inverse relationship with the U.S. dollar, that relationship has been complicated recently by China's preference for gold and the eurozone's debt problems, UBS analyst Tom Price tells CNBC in a Dec. 5 interview. "So you've got this weird dynamic where the U.S. currency relative to the euro is strengthening because its economy is on a more stable footing, but the European market is traumatized at the moment. ... We're screaming bulls at UBS. We've got $2,075 per ounce [forecasted] for 2012, and that's based almost entirely on an uncertain world and the fact that the European economy is really struggling at the moment and that's going to persist. ... It's an annual average, but the first couple of quarters are critical. ... Our view is that $1,700 is a nice low to come in on." [ Read more… ]

"The dollar is probably a fairly decent place to rest," but it's probably not the safe haven "over the decade," Louise Yamada of Louise Yamada Technical Research Advisors tells Bloomberg in a recent interview. On gold, she says: "You're getting a natural repair process taking place. It is holding above the 2008 uptrend, which comes in and intersects at around $1,600 and I think that's a plus. But I would suspect that we probably have more backing and filling - rallies and retreats - over a period of time before we see gold lift again on a sustainable basis. ... I don't think there's rush one way or the other with gold. I think it's in a consolidation. The long-term trend is still bullish, and we can pick up [more] on declines. ... I think that's what you'd want to see from a technical perspective. You really wouldn't want to see it rush off to new highs at this point. ... It's a currency. I wouldn't give up dollar positions and cash to put everything into gold, but it certainly is something that is acting like a strong currency." [ Read more… ]

Friday's all-important EU summit will dominate headlines and dictate market behavior this week, UBS' precious metals analyst Edel Tully said Monday in a note on gold. The yellow metal is poised to rally in the event of a positive outcome, as its been trading alongside risk assets recently. A disappointing statement could result in a big price drop, sending gold below $1,700. Regardless, Tully sees a 2012 rally looming. [ Read more… ]

Schroders holds the lowest position possible in equities and has extremely high levels of gold and cash, reflecting its concern about recession in the developed world and a failure to resolve the eurozone debt crisis, its chief investment officer said Tuesday. [ Read more… ]

Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi will be rewarding investors who buy reconstruction bonds with half an ounce of gold, an added incentive that could boost the return by nearly six times.
[ Read more… ]

What a dream gift for this holiday season! 500 freshly minted, uncirculated pure silver bullion 1 oz. coins, packed in a heavy-duty storage box and sealed by the U.S. Mint. Includes bulk discount, so it's the best way to buy bullion. [ Read more… ]

"In terms of outlook, there are three opportunities for gold and there are three big threats for gold. The three opportunities are that the U.S. prints money, prints more money; the euro area prints money; and the U.S. interest rates stay low and monetary policy stays very accommodative. Those are the opportunities. The threats are that the U.S .raises interest rates; that China melts down and blows up; and the euro area goes into a debt-deflation spiral. ... I see the opportunities very much being on the upside. ... Can it trade up to $2,000? Yes, it can. Can it trade below $1,600? Well, I would say in the current environment that's very unlikely."  [ Read more… ]

Gold and the dollar are Bank of America Merrill Lynch's top currency trades for 2012 as the U.S. government begins cutting benefits and raising taxes and the European Central Bank purchases more government bonds. [ Read more… ]

"People are coming directly to us," for large gold purchases, AngloGold Ashanti CEO Mark Cutifani told Tekoa Da Silva of Bull Market Thinking in a recent interview. "People who want tonnes of physical gold, people with serious financial muscle ... because they're finding it's very difficult to secure the volume of gold they want. ... That's something we've noticed over the last 18 months, and it's been increasing in the last six months. I think people are finding its hard to get physical gold." [ Read more… ]

What you are about to read should absolutely astound you. During the last financial crisis, the Federal Reserve secretly conducted the biggest bailout in the history of the world, and the Fed fought in court for several years to keep it a secret. Do you remember the TARP bailout? The American people were absolutely outraged that the federal government spent 700 billion dollars bailing out the "too big to fail" banks. Well, that bailout was pocket change compared to what the Federal Reserve did. [ Read more… ]

Goldman Sachs' gold forecast for the next 12 months is: [ Read more… ]

My current one-year view on gold - the metal that is, not the miners - is unchanged. When gold went to $1,920 an ounce it had moved too far, too quickly and got ahead of itself. It needed to correct and now it needs to consolidate for several months more at these higher levels before launching on the next leg up. [ Read more… ]

The global economy is only in the early stages of the current supercycle and elevated commodity prices are likely to remain as developing nations industrialise, new research suggests. [ Read more… ]

Gold's bull market is not over, writes Fiona Bond in a survey of expert opinions on where the yellow metal is heading: [ Read more… ]

"I don't think portfolio managers who have gold want to be selling any gold at the end of the year for window dressing," Adrian Day of Adrian Day Asset Management tells MarketWatch in this Nov. 30 video. "They're selling if they have to, because of margin calls and liquidations, but they're certainly not selling because of window dressing. If anything, they want to show that they have gold on their books, because let's face it: Gold is about the only asset that's really done well this year. It's been volatile, as you mentioned, but gold is always volatile. But it's about the only thing that's done well this year, so I think a portfolio manager wants to show gold on his books." [ Read more… ]

The spectacular bull run in gold prices is unlikely to end soon, with bullion retaining its appeal in 2012 due to the uncertain global economy, analysts and industry officials said Friday. [ Read more… ]

The massive risk-asset rally generated by a global central bank liquidity-bailout on Wednesday pushed gold back onto center stage. The yellow metal just hit a two-week high after having suffered a massive correction from its early-September peak and will average $2,025 an ounce in 2012, according to HSBC's head of precious metals research, Jim Steel. [ Read more… ]

Growth Stock Outlook publisher Charles Allmon, 90, makes some interesting predictions on gold and stocks, according to MarketWatch's Peter Brimelow: [ Read more… ]

The price of silver has been in correction mode since its peak this spring. We don't hear about it every day like we did back then. People don't get as offended these days when you say something negative about the metal. It seems like some of the sex appeal has worn off a bit. So now that some in the trading community have forgotten about it, let's take a look at silver from both a short-term and longer-term perspective. [ Read more… ]

It was three short years ago that the small former British colony of Zimbabwe was spewing forth 100 trillion dollar bills. Since then, courtesy of a few trillion extra percent of inflationary RDA, the country had given up on its currency and replaced it with US Dollars. Now, the country's cult central banker Gideon Gono has made it clear he wishes to avoid another episode of transplant currency hyperinflation courtesy of his counterpart in the Marriner Eccles building and "has warned that Zimbabwe's nascent economic recovery is at the mercy of the United States dollar, which is facing new pressures from the Euro-zone debt crisis." [ Read more… ]

"What I will say is this: Get hold of some gold," Bengt Saelensminde writes in his MoneyWeek article "The Fed gives the plates another spin."
[ Read more… ]

Gold has had a turbulent year, with prices surging to a record US$1921 an ounce before pulling back and trading within a range for the past two months, but where do prices go from here? [ Read more… ]

YCMNET Advisors president and CNBC contributor Michael Yoshikami gives his take on gold in his article "How to invest in a volatile market": [ Read more… ]

Don Coxe, the Bank of Montreal strategy adviser who recommended selling equities in May, says investors should refrain from buying more stocks until it's clearer that the European debt crisis won't cause a recession. [ Read more… ]

HSBC has lifted its silver price forecasts for 2012 and 2013 amid expectations that strong bar and coin investment demand, together with growing interest in silver exchange-traded funds, will push the market higher, the bank said. [ Read more… ]

The Bank of Korea, which controls the world's eighth-biggest foreign-exchange reserves, boosted gold holdings for the second time this year as investors sought safer assets amid Europe's debt crisis. [ Read more… ]

The Blanchard Economic Research Unit's December article is out now, offering up the key principle that rare coins usually post tremendous gains after lagging prices in the gold bullion market. If prices rise as expected, now would be the time to get into rarities while their prices are relatively lower. Blanchard's experts can help you make the right buying decisions: [ Read more… ]

"It's time to take a fresh look at the sentiment picture," noted MarketWatch columnist Mark Hulbert. "One way of viewing gold's sharp correction in the late summer and early fall is that it was necessary to work off that excessive level of bullishness, which stood in the way of gold continuing to rally. Today, in contrast, that bearish slope of hope has given way to a bullish wall of worry." [ Read more… ]

The gold price could reach as high as $2,500 next year, and Europe's debt woes are now "too big to handle," Sprott Asset Management CEO Eric Sprott said. [ Read more… ]

Morgan Stanley said it prefers exposure to gold, silver and livestock in the coming year, as such commodities perform well in a global economic slowdown. [ Read more… ]

My outlook has been consistent that we're heading into U.S. dollar hyperinflation, and the effective purchasing power of the currency as we know it will disappear. If you're living in a U.S. dollar-denominated world, you don't want to be in dollars -- you want to move to protect the purchasing power of your assets, your wealth. [ Read more… ]

"The US Federal Reserve has fooled a lot of people into believing that the grand monetary pump and debt monetization project has been put on hold," writes Golden Jackass publisher Jim Willie in his new article "Perpetual Q.E. Without the Billboard." "The only thing that changed was their talking publicly about it. The money press has been working to the limit, never stopped. The discussion has been kept quiet, but the machinery still makes a lot of shrill noise. The proof is not movement of lips by central bankers, but the data from the monetary aggregate. The data is compelling in calling them out. The conclusion to reach is that Quantitative Easing has become the norm, the foundation policy, the emergency action to prevent implosion of the US banking system. Hyper monetary inflation is the New Normal. The sinkholes are so broad and dispersed that even run of the mill analysts are beginning to see the light. They are concluding more and more than the credit-based system is collapsing. Never does the Jackass rely upon central bankers to inform of events, policies, and actions. They have been dedicated lately to deceptions much like turning off smoke alarms, killing the electricity on fire station monitors, laying off the working firemen, and hoping the public does not notice the raging fires which have been accompanied by grand larceny looting to hide the flames. ... THE ONLY THING THAT CHANGED SINCE JUNE 2011 WAS THE US FED DOES NOT TALK ABOUT THEIR VAST MONEY PRINTING AND DEBT MONETIZATION." [ Read more… ]

Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov gives a resounding endorsement of gold in this Bloomberg interview, in which he was asked: "What's the safest investment: a bar of gold, a pile of U.S. Treasuries or a top-tier Picasso?" [ Read more… ]

Six central banks led by the Federal Reserve lowered the cost of emergency dollar funding for financial companies in a global effort to ease Europe's sovereign-debt crisis. [ Read more… ]

"The Elliott Wave Theory (EW) gives superb results in predicting the gold price. While it is a complicated system with many difficult rules which I explain in simple terms, I have determined that once this present correction in gold has been completed it should undergo the largest and strongest wave in the entire gold bull market. The target for this wave should be around $4,500 with only two 13% corrections on the way."
[ Read more… ]

Private bank Lombard Odier is the latest to crunch numbers to show that gold, despite its current high price, is a good asset hedge for these troubled times. [ Read more… ]

Seven separate sharp stock market corrections of -15% or more have occurred over the last 30 years. The following is the performance of gold during these stock market pullbacks: [ Read more… ]

The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's plans to reform mainland China's gold sector by eliminating smaller-scale gold smelters will support international gold prices in the long run, Chinese gold industry analysts said Tuesday. [ Read more… ]

SocGen has released its much anticipated Multi Asset Portfolio Scenario/Strategy guide titled simply enough "Patience: bad news will become good news" where, as the insightful can guess, the French bank makes the simple case that the worse things get, the stronger the response by global central banks will be. Here is the key quote for those worried that : "A major liquidity crisis should not occur this time, as we think we are on the eve of major QE in the UK, US and (a bit) later on in the EZ." [ Read more… ]

With gold prices remaining extremely volatile over the past few months, investment demand for gold has taken off even as jewelry sales remain subdued. [ Read more… ]

Hard Assets Investor: Since oil and gold are the big headline makers, which will perform better in 2012?
Dennis Gartman: Gold will probably continue to move from the lower left to the upper right on the charts. With the continued problems and the budgetary circumstances here in the United States, along with the political circumstances in Europe that are not going to go away and are probably only going to get worse, we'll tend to put a bid to the gold market, all other things being equal.
[ Read more… ]

Fitch Ratings kept its pristine AAA rating on the U.S. on Monday, but the credit-ratings company downgraded its outlook to "negative" in the wake of the Supercommittee's failure to find $1.2 trillion in spending cuts. [ Read more… ]

Check out Blanchard and Company's 2011 Holiday Gift Guide for a gander at today's featured gift item: an MS64 $20 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle Rare Coin. This high-potential rarity will make it a holiday to remember. Minted from 1907 to 1933, this coin was Teddy Roosevelt’s (successful) attempt to create classic, inspiring American coinage. Have it gift-wrapped in our elegant Wooden Display Box, or inspire someone to build a coin set: place this Saint-Gaudens as a starter coin in our 14-Coin Custom Display Case. [ Read more… ]

Gold prices are heading to $3,000 an ounce according to Cross Border Capital's Michael Howell. In a presentation at the Citywire Cabinet event, held last week at the Merchant Taylor's Hall in London, he said that the US Federal Reserve has embarked on a policy of inflating the US economy out of debt by devaluing the dollar against gold. [ Read more… ]

Gold prices will climb to $1,875 per troy ounce this month -- an 11.2 percent gain in the next four weeks -- and to a 2012 average of $2,000, Barclays Capital Research said Monday in a report. [ Read more… ]

Gold prices and the U.S. dollar have a traditional inverse relationship -- when one goes up, the other goes down. In recent months, that relationship has held up. However, there are times when they are positively correlated, meaning that they rise and fall together. Martin Murenbeeld, chief economist at DundeeWealth, believes that this should be one of those times. [ Read more… ]

The biggest bond dealers in the U.S. say the Federal Reserve is poised to start a new round of stimulus, injecting more money into the economy by purchasing mortgage securities instead of Treasuries. [ Read more… ]

Amid wild celebrations, a first shipment of gold bars arrived home in Venezuela on Friday after President Hugo Chavez ordered almost all the country's foreign bullion reserves be repatriated from Western banks. [ Read more… ]

Gold production in Australia, the world's second-biggest producer, fell by 1.5 metric tons during the September quarter, the first decline in at least two years as mining companies processed lower-grade ore. [ Read more… ]

Central banks across five continents are undertaking the broadest reduction in borrowing costs since 2009 to avert a global economic slump stemming from Europe's sovereign-debt turmoil. [ Read more… ]

"Gold is still very much a safe haven," CEF Holdings CEO Warren Gilman tells CNBC in a Nov. 24 interview in reaffirming his $2,000 price target. "What gold is suffering from is very much being a victim of its own success. It's a commodity that's up 20% in 2011. It's hard to find anything that's up, never mind 20%, in 2011, so I think people are taking advantage of a) its liquidity, and b) its profit potential by selling it and locking in some profits at the end of the year." [ Read more… ]

"The overall picture [for gold] when you are looking at Europe and the U.S. is still very much in place. So I think we are on track for $2,000 per ounce in the next 9-12 months," BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research strategist Michael Widmer tells CNBC in a Nov. 24 interview, in which he conceded that the $300 gold correction in September has some investors leery. [ Read more… ]

My advice: We are moving closer and closer to what I call "survival period" -- the period where the magic of compounding turns into what will be the poison of compounding. This isn't a time for timing. This is a time for action. Reduce your exposure to bonds and all items that provide fixed interest rates. Similarly, reduce your exposure to stocks except the gold miners. Look to expand your positions in inflation-protected assets, especially gold. [ Read more… ]

Gold traders are more bullish after investors accumulated the biggest-ever hoard of the metal, with Europe's deepening debt crisis driving them to protect their wealth with this year's second-best performing commodity. [ Read more… ]

Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Belarus, and Mexico added a combined 25.7 metric tons of gold valued at $1.38 billion to reserves in October, a month after prices rose to a record. [ Read more… ]

The fall in the gold and silver prices may well appear inconsistent with its preserving qualities, but when one takes into account the need for immediate liquidity to protect the investor, it is consistent. Once the immediacy of finding liquidity is satisfied, then we see investors returning to the precious metals as they did after the first strike of the credit crunch in 2007. This time round, liquidity needs are not so pressing as then. [ Read more… ]

The gold price has actually been telling us for the past few years that the world is a scary place, even more than it was during the 2008 meltdown. [ Read more… ]

The fall in gold's price is inconsistent with the underlying macroeconomic conditions and recent events. Specifically, below is a look at several recent events and what they signal regarding gold and the current investment climate: [ Read more… ]

With no end to the eurozone debt crisis in sight, there has also been no end to the stream of possible solutions. The latest involves using gold as collateral. [ Read more… ]

What separates the men from the boys in investing is patience. Jesse Livermore always talked about how very few people kept their position for the duration of a bull market. Most people either sold too early to lock in profits or they sold too early after a shakeout. As I've said, 20%-30% corrections are normal; in bull markets all timing mistakes are forgiven as long as you hold your position. [ Read more… ]

Is the world on the verge of another massive global financial collapse? Yes. The western world is drowning in an ocean of debt unlike anything the world has ever seen before, and our financial markets are gigantic casinos that are dependent on huge mountains of risk and leverage remaining very stable. In the end, this house of cards that has been built on a foundation of sand is going to come crashing down in a horrifying manner. Usually in this column I go on and on about why things will soon get much worse. But today I am going to take a bit of a break. Today, I am going to let some of the top financial professionals in the world tell you why things will soon get much worse. Many of the quotes that you are about to read just might make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Most people out there have no idea what is about to happen. Most people out there are working hard and are busy preparing for the holidays and they are hopeful that the economy will turn around soon. But that is not going to happen. We are heading for another major global financial collapse, and when it happens the U.S. economy is going to get even worse. [ Read more… ]

Though late to the party as usual, the proverbial man on the street - along with members of mainstream media and Wall Street heavyweights - is finally waking up to the decade-long, 700% increase in the price of gold, joining a growing buzz around the monetary metal. From questions whether gold is in a bubble to predictions that soaring prices are just around the corner, one thing is clear: a new phase of awareness for gold is upon us. How far might it move before these troubling times are over? [ Read more… ]

"I (this writer) am nearly certain that prices for CAC-approved coins, on average, are a little higher in 2011 than in the early part of 2010. While John Brush has publicly declared that this is so, my point here regarding CAC-approved coins is based upon information from several sources. Some wish to remain anonymous or have not yet granted permission to be quoted on this specific point. Please, though, read my columns regarding the B&M pre-FUN auction, the Jan. 2011 FUN Convention itself, business strikes that sold on Platinum Night and the Henry Miller collection. Relevant remarks regarding market prices for CAC-certified coins are easily found in these columns. [ Read more… ]

"The vicious decline in gold is signaling the collapse of the current financial order, an order that's based on printing money to cover up problems," "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer said at CNBC. [ Read more… ]

Byron Wien, the investment strategist, has been forecasting the future for decades. But this is the first year that he has officially recommended gold in his model portfolio. [ Read more… ]

Required action from Europe, a shift in Chinese policy, and more monetization on steroids from the Fed is going to catapult the bull market in precious metals like we haven't seen since the late 1970s. [ Read more… ]

"We've got a debt-issue problem, so which means we have a counterparty-risk issue problem," Swiss Asia Capital managing director Juerg Kiener tells CNBC in a Nov. 22 interview. "But on top of that ... we've got an investor-risk issue with the CME [Group] and with COMEX, and with the [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] and CME hardly doing anything as we've been experiencing with MF Global, so moving more and more money out of the exchanges into physical possession [of gold] I think is key, so what I think we're going to have is a two-tier price action between the paper price on the COMEX and basically the physical price, which is basically dictated on the end of the market. ... Structurally, we're going to see more and more money flow into asset-protection mode, which means you've got to have the ownership of the asset, and so gold is probably one of the key issues investors can play. ... I think the most strategic asset from a point of [view of] your money is gold, and I think if you look at the last price movement that you had between 2008 and 2010, it's been quite dramatic. It's been a 100% increase. I think this next round that we're going to go through, this next 12 months, we'll see a similar [move]." [ Read more… ]

Gold will continue to gain on "strong central bank buying," while soybeans and corn are poised to advance on tight supply, according to Hermes Investment Management, which has about $2 billion invested in raw materials. [ Read more… ]

Press TV (via interviewer Max Keiser): The big news coming from China in the past few weeks is that investment demand for gold and silver is up. Give us the numbers.

Dan Collins (of The China Money Report): Yeah, real big news, Max. Shanghai Gold Exchange reported last week, starting with silver, silver demand's up 750 percent for silver forward contracts. The major buyers here are the large commercial banks of China. [ Read more… ]

The MS-63 Peace & Morgan Silver Dollar Set is today's featured product in our 2011 Holiday Gift Guide. These Silver Dollars are American icons - genuine, rare late-19th and early-20th century American silver coins that are perfect for collecting, investing - and gift giving. Two-coin set includes one MS-63 Peace Silver Dollar and one MS-63 Morgan Silver Dollar. [ Read more… ]

The top 30 coins that Blanchard and Company has placed in the past year boast a value of almost $7 million. In contrast, the top 30 coins placed over the same period in 2006-07 — a robust period for rare coins before the 2008 financial crisis — were valued at just over $5.5 million. No longer fooled by paper assets, wealthy investors are looking for alternative investments. And while gold has been a great addition to investment portfolios, ultra-rare coins now offer a better investment opportunity. [ Read more… ]

"Regardless of the price, we recommend our clients to look at gold," Superfund Financial India investment chief Johann Santer told CNBC-TV18. "We don't believe gold would be overpriced at the current level of trading around $1,700 per ounce. Our mid- to long-term price goal is $3,000 per ounce within the next two to three years. We started investing in gold when gold was trading at $470. At this stage, we see with all the reflationary methods that have been taking place around the world that commodity prices, especially, gold being quite a special commodity in my opinion can only lead higher in the next few years." [ Read more… ]

I've told more than one concerned investor that when the gold price falls, they should "come back in three months" and see if they're still worried. The idea is that the daily and monthly gyrations are nothing to fret over, that the price will recover and, in time, fetch new highs. [ Read more… ]

Gold is on the verge of being re-incorporated into the financial system as large financial institutions boost their allocations of the asset, said Shayne McGuire, head of global research and portfolio manager at Teacher Retirement System of Texas. [ Read more… ]

St. Barbara Ltd., an Australian gold producer, said it is focused on reducing costs amid forecasts for the price of the metal to "remain strong." [ Read more… ]

India's gold holdings have surged to an all-time high. The value of gold in the Indian government's kitty has grown by over $19,353 million (Rs 1,00,000 crore) in a short span of two years. The sharp rally in the price of gold has helped bolster the overall value, as has the 200 tonne purchase by the Indian government from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in November 2009. [ Read more… ]

Euro leaders need to issue joint bonds backed by gold reserves and infrastructure to defend the 17-nation currency area, former European Commission President Romano Prodi said. [ Read more… ]

Gold prices will soar to $2,100 US an ounce in 2012, leading a general rebound in commodity prices that will emerge once Europe gets its act together, TD Economics said in a report Thursday. [ Read more… ]

The prices of silver and gold should continue rising as economic uncertainty persists, according to the chief executive of Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp., the biggest U.S. silver miner. [ Read more… ]

Exploring alternative investments in an article titled "Coin investments trump the FTSE," London's Telegraph newspaper reported on a fund that is making a respectable profit by investing in rare coins: [ Read more… ]

"The charts are saying gold is a case of short-term pain for long-term gain," Richard Ross of Auerbach Grayson told CNBC in a Nov. 17 interview. However, "the long-term structural bull trend remains intact." [ Read more… ]

For the past decade, gold has grown ever more prominent in the investing zeitgeist. "It feels like it's America's pastime now," says Stuart Rosenthal, chief executive officer of Factor Advisors, an asset-management firm in New York. But after flirting with the $2,000-an-ounce mark this summer, the metal's price promptly tanked this fall -- at one point, dropping 9 percent in a week. The slump has left some investors in this $1.9 trillion market questioning how much gold should be in their retirement portfolios ... if any. [ Read more… ]

India's gold imports in the October-December quarter may exceed the year-earlier level of 281 metric tons as wedding-season demand is likely to remain firm despite high prices, the managing director of the World Gold Council's India office said Thursday. [ Read more… ]

"We all like our investments to go up, but if you buy gold at $1,700 and it goes to $1,500, buy more because it's on its way to $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 and higher," "Currency Wars" author Jim Rickards tells King World News. [ Read more… ]

The World Gold Council's third-quarter demand report Thursday showed central bank buying reached nearly 150 tonnes, far above most analysts' estimates, but the buyers were not named. [ Read more… ]

Gold will lead a rally in commodities in 2012 as Europe's sovereign-debt crisis continues to roil financial markets, spurring demand for the metal as a haven asset, according to Morgan Stanley. [ Read more… ]

Irish financial expert Eddie Hobbs issues a very stark assessment of the eurozone debt crisis in this recent TV appearance. "People need to be told the truth. The truth is that if Italy fails, we're looking at economic Krakatoa. We're looking at a run on the European banking system. ... You have to have Plan B ready. ... You may have a situation where you have a wave of banking collapses. ... That creates a panic, a huge bank run across Europe which will become a global event which will dwarf what happened after the Lehman Bros. collapse. ... The Plan B is to now recognize that we are at an elevated risk of the collapse of the euro itself as a currency. ...  What I would say to people is if you've got any cash at all, you need to very seriously consider getting that cash out of euro and out of this jurisdiction. ... The ideal safe haven unfortunately despite its price is gold. ... As I speak, anybody that has any access to any type of informed advisor -- in other words, wealthy people are doing this in Italy, they're doing it in Spain, they're doing it in other countries because they are reading the tea leaves exactly. ... The facts are that wealthy people are doing this as I speak -- they're moving their money. Follow the money. Gold would be one safe haven. ... If Italy fails, this is an economic event that we haven't seen in a hundred years." [ Read more… ]

Day after day, everyone asks whether gold has topped out. Nobody ever asks whether the market has topped out. Think about it, we're in a low-inflation, low investor-fear environment, a dollar that appears to have bottomed and is now firming, and still gold holds above $1700 an ounce. This is a remarkable performance aided by heavy buying of gold in China, India, and Asian nations. But what happens when we hit the inevitable inflation; when investors' fears are on the rise. To conclude, gold is holding well in an environment that is not bullish for gold, but in due time, the environment will turn highly bullish for the yellow metal. Do not time your gold purchases. Simply continue to accumulate gold. The skyrocketing phase lies ahead. Maybe 1-3 years ahead. [ Read more… ]

In 2004, the launch of the SPDR Gold Trust exchange-traded fund, under ticker symbol GLD, leveled the playing field of gold investing by allowing for a less expensive option than buying the physical metal. Ever since, many have come to equate GLD with actually owning gold, but the reality is a bit more nuanced. [ Read more… ]

Central banks made their largest purchases of gold in decades in the third quarter, as a sharp drop in prices in September accelerated the shift to bullion as a means of diversification. [ Read more… ]

Gold demand rose 6 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier as Europe's debt crisis spurred investors to accumulate the metal as a protection of wealth and push prices to a record, the World Gold Council said. [ Read more… ]

The Chinese renminbi could pose a threat to the international dominance of the US dollar within a decade, according to an independent commission set up by the US Congress. [ Read more… ]

In reality, the only big winner from the euro crisis will be gold. Here's why. [ Read more… ]

"At the beginning of this month, the G20 met in France to try to find a way to solve the European sovereign debt crisis," Greg Hunter at USA Watchdog observed. "It ended with world leaders in disarray over a way to come up with a solution. At first blush, it appears that nothing of any importance came of the meeting of the 20 leading economies of the world, but that is not the case. It was widely reported the G20 came up with the idea that Germany might put up its gold reserves to back a bailout fund called the European Financial Stability Facility or EFSF. Of course, Germany, with its more than 3,400 tonnes of gold (No. 2 in the world), quickly shot that idea down. End of story? Quite the contrary: The gold story is just beginning to get interesting." [ Read more… ]

Rising production costs have put a floor under the gold price around $1,000 a troy ounce to $1,200/oz -- a level likely to climb as mining costs swell further, according to the chief executive of Canada-listed gold miner IAMGOLD Corp. [ Read more… ]

"Gold had been on an extremely steady uptrend with few notable deviations either up or down until this year," Adrian Day of Adrian Day Asset Management tells The Gold Report. "At the beginning of summer, it moved well above its trend and then we started getting a bit of speculative activity. The gold price reaching $1,950/ounce in August was quite an anomaly in terms of the trend, so it was overdue for a correction." [ Read more… ]

"The monetary aspect of gold is getting more and more important," Erste Group analyst Ronald Stoeferle told Mineweb.com's Gold Weekly podcast. "People don't want to make big money; they just want to preserve their purchasing power and their wealth." [ Read more… ]

The Central Bank of Russia has purchased 90 metric tons of gold to date in 2011 and is on course to buy 100 tons before the end of the year, deputy head of the bank Sergey Shevtsov said as quoted by the bank's press service. [ Read more… ]

China's Shandong Gold Group, the parent of Shandong Gold Mining and a big gold producer, has made a $1 billion offer to acquire Brazil's Jaguar Mining two sources close to the deal told Reuters on Wednesday. [ Read more… ]

The recent bankruptcy of MF Global in the U.S. has claimed a new and unlikely victim. Following the company's collapse, Trends Research Institute founder and longtime gold investor Gerald Celente had his own six-figure gold investment account completely looted by bankruptcy trustees, and he's fighting to get it back. Celente's experience illustrates the risks of buying "paper bullion" that has counterparty risks and depends on an investment firm's solvency. [ Read more… ]

Gold prices will be influenced by the ability of U.S. lawmakers to reduce the federal budget deficit, according to Colin P. Fenton, the global head of commodities research and strategy at JPMorgan Chase & Co. [ Read more… ]

Gold touched a new all-time high in India in rupee terms, although not in dollars as the rupee has fallen back sharply against the greenback. converting to US dollars the price rose $0.59 to $578.60 per 10 grams, driven by heavy purchases across the country for the ongoing marriage season. [ Read more… ]

"Gold has been very strong and now it's consolidating," Leeb Capital Management head Stephen Leeb told King World News in commenting on the latest market action. "I see absolutely no evidence whatsoever that it is going to reverse. Can I say, definitely, it won't go back to $1,600? Of course not. But is $5,000 more likely than $1,400? Yes. Is $5,000 extremely likely? Yes." [ Read more… ]

Silver exports from China, the world's largest, are expected to drop this year as domestic demand from investors is expected to surge. And, in a market that has seen significant price volatility, these reduced exports could bolster prices of the white metal, say analysts. [ Read more… ]

Hedge-fund manager and long-time gold bull John Paulson's move to slash ETF bullion holdings by a third in the third quarter is certainly eyecatching, analysts said Tuesday, but probably not a sign that he was abandoning his upbeat view of the metal. [ Read more… ]

Speaking with Russia Today on Monday, financial commentator Max Keiser predicted gold and silver will be the wildly popular choice among the public leading up to and finishing with a catastrophic endgame of the global debt and fiat currencies crisis. [ Read more… ]

The gold market is trapped in a tug of war between its traditional haven roots and its recent emergence as a risk asset. [ Read more… ]

Investment bank Goldman Sachs on Monday raised its forecasts for gold and silver prices, citing expectations of continued low interest rates in the U.S. and support from the ongoing euro-zone financial crisis. [ Read more… ]

A rugged and alarming week for gold (and other markets). But not all the news is negative. ... The week brought a report described on LeMetropoleCafe on Tuesday as "the crucial gold news for Q4 2011. ... This practically guarantees a strong close to 2011." [ Read more… ]

Gold has just entered its strongest time of the year, embarking on a major seasonal rally. Naturally this is very bullish for not only this metal, but the companies that wrest it from the bowels of the Earth. Gold's well-established seasonality is important for speculators and investors to understand, as it offers many great insights to help fine-tune the timing of precious-metals-related trades. [ Read more… ]

Physical gold will outsell ETFs by 500 percent this year, Standard Bank's Walter de Wet told the 8th Dubai City of Gold Conference. Two years ago the position was completely reversed with physical gold sales running at only 20 percent of ETFs. [ Read more… ]

J.P. Morgan Asset Management's Neil Gregson, who will take over the Natural Resources fund (worth 2 billion British pounds) next year, said investors "have to be alert" to the future direction of the gold price despite renewed eurozone fears prompting a recent rally. [ Read more… ]

The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) last week announced it had successfully sold a 3 bililon euro, 10-year bond in support of Ireland. [ Read more… ]

China's Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. may cut the U.S.'s sovereign rating for the second time since August if the world's biggest economy conducts more large-scale asset purchases. [ Read more… ]

Gold traders and analysts are the most bullish in at least seven years as investors accumulate metal at the fastest pace since August to protect their wealth from a widening European debt crisis. [ Read more… ]

The allure of gold is thousands of years old, but nowadays the precious metal has a youthful look. [ Read more… ]

"There's no main driver of the gold price," World Gold Council executive Jason Toussaint says in a Nov. 10 CNBC interview. "We do like to isolate factors that are attracting buyers to the market. But it is well-varied. ... I think people need to bear in mind that this is truly a global market. So it's not just U.S. investors driving the gold price as we've talked about a couple of times before. India and China, emerging markets are big drivers there. They're not necessarily worried about U.S.-based inflation. They're looking at what's happening in their back yard. So I wouldn't attribute the gold price to any one factor certainly from here." [ Read more… ]

Investors in India are withdrawing from government bonds and national-savings schemes to pour record amounts into gold. [ Read more… ]

China is the world's second-largest gold consumer and gold-bar investment demand is expected to rise to over 270 tons in 2011, nearly twice as much as last year. [ Read more… ]

Canadian gold miner IAMGold is on the lookout for acquisitions and could put itself up for sale, its chief executive said Friday, adding economic uncertainty could drive bullion above $2,000 per ounce. [ Read more… ]

A new Thomson Reuters-GFMS report, commissioned by The Silver Institute, forecasts silver investment will achieve yet another historically high total this year in spite of a significant level of position unwinding by institutional investors. [ Read more… ]

Last week, the G-20 meetings did not produce an expanded bailout fund for the eurozone. While this may bode well for the long-term solvency of the member-states (moral hazard and all), it has also triggered a market reaction that I expect to help destabilize the common currency. Wednesday's market moves suggested that this development is good for the dollar and bad for gold. Allow me to step back from the stampeding herd to evaluate whether they are, in fact, moving in the right direction. [ Read more… ]

Gold has confounded market watchers by refusing to behave like a safe-haven and instead has tracked equities over the past few weeks, but the escalating European debt crisis could see bullion ditch its risk-asset mantle and return to record highs.
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Technical analysis suggests that the gold bull trend is still intact, Standard Bank's SA commodities research team said Wednesday. [ Read more… ]

Nomura has raised its forecast for gold prices to $2,000 an ounce by the end of 2012, from $1,800 earlier. The brokerage said the low-interest rate environment in the U.S., the European Central Bank's easing monetary policy and the Bank of England's second round of quantitative easing among the reasons for the precious metal's attractiveness as an inflation hedge. [ Read more… ]

Most gold followers know the metal has a seasonal tendency to perform better in the fall and winter than in the spring and summer. Indeed, since 2001, the annual high for the gold price has occurred after Labor Day every year except two (2006 and 2008). Further, that peak was hit in November or December in seven of the last ten years. [ Read more… ]

Imagine a hobby that enhances your appreciation of art, expands your knowledge of history, geography and politics, helps you gain and strengthen organizational skills and provides opportunities for socializing. [ Read more… ]

Well, we told you so. That is, we warned you back in September, after gold prices plunged nearly 10% in a single trading session in the biggest selloff on record in 18 years, that the precious metal wouldn't linger long below $1,650 an ounce. And sure enough, by Tuesday renewed anxiety about what lies ahead for Europe and the euro had propelled gold prices above the psychologically important $1,800 mark once more. That's still below the high of $1,973.70 recorded in September - and gold prices were no safe haven yesterday as the stock market panicked - but there's reason to believe gold will keep buffing its luster. [ Read more… ]

Gold has experienced a healthy correction since it tagged $1,800 recently, but it is really no big deal. As long as gold holds $1,730, the outlook is bullish and it is OK to buy on corrections. I still see $2,000 as a reasonable target heading into 2012. [ Read more… ]

"The question is is how much lower is the dollar going to go in purchasing power?" said Texas Congressman Ron Paul in a Nov. 8 CNBC interview in which he was asked how high gold could go. "And I said to infinity unless we change our ways. Because if you look at the gold/dollar in 1913 when the Fed started, we've lost about 98% of its value. So if we continue to do what we're doing, it could go to infinity. It's the best measurement of the value of the currency. There's no advantage to anybody to have a weak currency. The gold [price] tells us that we have a weakening dollar and a weakening currency, but the whole world does, so it's hard to sort out. So it's going to go up a lot more, which is virtually saying the dollar has a longer way to go down on purchasing power. That's why the middle class gets wiped out and that is why the standard of living is going down for the people. They already know it, and that's why there's people very unhappy in this country and they'd like to blame a few people for all of the problems rather than looking at the philosophy of government, the monetary system, and the spending. Because that's where you can find the answers to our problems." [ Read more… ]

Europe is approaching the end game. Credit markets and other governments know what the continent's leaders won't admit: The euro is failing. Gold, more than the dollar, is set to rocket in value as the crisis unfolds. [ Read more… ]

Last week, this reporter asked the question, have investors revoked gold's safe-haven status? And, in keeping with the volatility that has characterised the global political and economic spheres, the answer seems to change rather frequently. [ Read more… ]

"Gold is in demand much more than platinum - there's a fear trade on," OMNI Trading Academy head Oscar Carboni says in a Nov. 8 CNBC interview. "Gold's hit $1,800 an ounce again; it looks like it'll go higher, especially that Europe's got some uncertainty in its economic house at this moment in time. So we're expecting gold to be buoyant and that platinum-gold spread, I think, blows out again." [ Read more… ]

Is gold about to go through the roof? The price has been creeping up again, after falling by about $200 from its previous record highs of around $1,900. [ Read more… ]

"One thing one should do is buy gold - that's as you know something we have been doing, advising on for quite some time," Tyche associate director Martin Hennecke tells CNBC on Nov. 8 (at minute 7:20). "And that's also what a lot of the Chinese are doing. Perhaps they are also worried about inflation. ... We are most worried about future inflation coming from the major Western countries because we think this major, major sovereign-debt crisis in the major countries- - the United States, France, Germany, and the U.K. -- that's just about to hit. ... The interest yields of those countries are at record lows, and if that crisis blows, a lot of people are going to be moving into gold, and this is going to be very inflationary." Commenting on the recent sixfold increase in China's gold imports from Hong Kong, he notes: "Certainly the Chinese are worried about inflation too and about the Western debt crisis, so gold is something that we still like a lot." [ Read more… ]

Gold and silver prices hit six-week highs as the eurozone sovereign debt crisis took more twists and turns with the Greek elite unable to decide on a new prime minister and the Italians seeing theirs resign. [ Read more… ]

Turkey's gold production increased to record levels in the first 10 months of the year, as the demand for gold has also surged despite the appreciation of gold in value recently, the top manager of the country's state-run mint says. [ Read more… ]

As concerns grow over the eurozone debt crisis, investors are looking again to precious metals. Neil Meader, analyst at GMFS, says in the event of extreme dollar weakness the gold price could hit $2,500 per ounce. The FT's Daniel Garrahan reports on the outlook for gold and the other main precious metals. [ Read more… ]

"We remain very positive" on gold, BlackRock managing director Evy Hambro tells CNBC in a Nov. 8 interview. "It's very pleasing for us to see gold recovering from some of the short-term losses that it had during the summer. The trend line in price remains intact ... demand very robust, production still struggling to grow, central banks look as though they're buying a lot more gold today than they have for the last 30 years, so that trend is definitely in our favor." [ Read more… ]

What's the best time to buy gold on a seasonality basis? Now. Over the past 40 years November and December accounted for almost half of the year's gains for gold. [ Read more… ]

Chinese gold imports from Hong Kong, a proxy for the country's overall overseas buying, leapt to a record high in September, when monthly purchases matched almost half that for the whole of 2010. [ Read more… ]

"With three drivers -- 1) negative real interest rates propelling investors to seek gold for it's perceived "safe haven" qualities, 2) the Love Trade in full bloom, and 3) central banks increasing their holdings in the yellow metal -- happening over the next two months, gold is one commodity that could benefit," says U.S. Global Investors chief Frank Holmes.
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Eventually the Eurozone will sort out its problems, but this may not be for some years yet before any kind of real stability returns - and the European Community itself (The Common Market) may well be a rather different animal by then. [ Read more… ]

Just as the crisis in Greece subsides, a much larger, more serious one erupts in Italy. Italian government bond yields soared to their highest levels since before the establishment of the euro, threatening a vicious circle for the nation's finances. [ Read more… ]

China Gold International Resources Corp, the overseas development arm of state-owned China National Gold Group, the nation's second-largest gold producer, expects to complete its first foreign mine acquisition as early as the end of next month. [ Read more… ]

"In order to be a successful investor, you need to look out 12 to 18 months and try to anticipate events that are more likely than not to occur," Global Resource Investments founder Rick Rule told King World News. "Twelve to 18 months from now $2,500 gold wouldn't surprise me; it's not out of line. But given how wobbly the world is, I think the bias in gold is higher because the bias in fiat currencies is lower." [ Read more… ]

In recent weeks there was some long-expected noises coming out of the gold "bears" quick to pounce on the allegedly "collapsing" sales of gold coins by the US mint. I resisted the temptation to make premature conclusions until the full monthly sales data for October is in. At last, we now can make some analytical observations. [ Read more… ]

Chinese gold and copper miner Zijin Mining Group Co Ltd said Tuesday that it would acquire 45 percent of Gold Eagle Mining Investment Ltd. for 1.44 billion yuan ($226.7 million). [ Read more… ]

Asked by The Gold Report how to weather possible war and hyperinflation in the future, Richard Maybury of the U.S. & World Early Warning Report said: [ Read more… ]

In a fresh sign that rare coins are gaining renewed currency on Wall Street, CoinWeek reported the formation of a new joint venture, Certified Assets Management International, whose team includes a veteran professional rare coin dealer and a Wall Street money manager to assist investors with acquisition and management of numismatics and precious metals. One of its funds is expected to comprise $250 million worth of primarily U.S. coins certified by either the Professional Coin Grading Service or the Numismatic Guaranty Corp. The Stamford, Conn., firm will reveal more details at the Whitman Coin & Collectibles Baltimore Expo on Nov. 17-20. [ Read more… ]

"It's very surprising that gold isn't already over $2,000 an ounce, particularly what's happening in Europe, and to some respects what's happening in Europe has deflected what's actually going on in the U.S.," Baker Steel Capital managing partner David Baker says in a Nov. 6 CNBC interview. "The U.S. is still living way beyond its means and the U.S. needs to get their house in order, so my view is gold should probably be north of $2,000 an ounce currently." Baker goes on to discuss the other drivers for gold, including demand in China and India and buying by central banks. And he also notes that gold investments are underrepresented in large institutional and pension funds, suggesting that prices have more room to run when that trend reverses itself. [ Read more… ]

"Gold's strength is its weakness; it's very liquid, and it's been still one of the big performers of the year," Societe Generale strategist Jeremy Friesen tells CNBC in a Nov. 6 interview. "Back in 2008 you saw gold rally but then cut back as people used it to take some profit, so you always have that risk that people will take their money out of gold because one of the reasons why they put it in is they can take out it quickly when they need it. ... We think QE3 [from the Federal Reserve] is on the table, probably for early 2012. It's interesting that the [European Central Bank] finally cut rates. We expect another cut by September. Hopefully they'll continue bond purchases. ... We should see more monetary easing, and that'll have effects - Japan taking measures to devalue their currency. All of these things are bullish for commodities. ... When you're seeing aggressive monetary policy, gold and silver are going to be the first ones to react." [ Read more… ]

Some of the 80 American gold coins discovered in the garden of a London home where they were buried in fear of a Nazi invasion are expected to sell for a total of around 80,000 British pounds in a sale this month by auctioneers Morton & Eden in association with Sotheby's. The "Hackney hoard" of $20 double eagle coins, dating from the 1850s to 1913, was found by a resident digging out a pond in the garden. The original owner's son, Max Sulzbacher, was located in Jerusalem and explained that his family fled to England to escape Hitler in the 1930s. Some of the family were killed in the Blitz, and his father was never able to locate the coins, which had been stored in a City of London bank vault but later buried in fear of a German invasion. Part of the sale's proceeds will go toward restoring memorials to five family members killed in the bombing. [ Read more… ]

ACE Private Risk Services recently published two reports on investments of passion: "Passionate investing on the rise: Spotlight on asset protection for collectors" and "Survey on passionate investing by wealthy households." The reports say: [ Read more… ]

Other venues are also benefiting from the uptick in demand for collectibles, however, namely online auction site eBay, which redefined the art of collecting when it went live in 1995. [ Read more… ]

Whilst many may argue that gold is an inflation hedge and therefore inflation is bullish for gold, in reality the dynamics at play here are not that simple. [ Read more… ]

Olympic Entertainment Group AS invested between 6 and 8 million euros ($8.2-11 million) in gold during the last quarter to manage its currency risks, Aeripaeev reported, citing company managers. [ Read more… ]

At a time when investors are shying away from the highly volatile stock market, an unusual asset class is gaining traction among young investors in India. Old coins and bank notes some dating back to the early 1900s are commanding a premium among Indians looking for returns and memorabilia. [ Read more… ]

Germany won't let its central bank's gold reserves be used to bolster the power of the rescue fund for indebted euro-area countries, Economy Minister Philipp Roesler said. [ Read more… ]

Italy could lower its debt by selling gold reserves, Gunther Krichbaum, a lawmaker in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coalition, was quoted as saying by the Rheinische Post. [ Read more… ]

Gold traders are the most bullish in three weeks after hedge funds boosted their wagers on higher prices on speculation Europe's debt crisis and slow U.S. growth will spur demand for the metal as a protection of wealth. [ Read more… ]

"The European situation is just impossible for anyone to fathom and I'm scared," MercBloc President Dan Dicker says in a Nov. 3 CNBC interview in explaining why he's bought gold for the first time in four years. "So I'm looking for some safety for my portfolio and the only thing I can find is gold.  ... I think that it ends up in the end with the monster bazooka courtesy of the [European Central Bank] coming in and the [International Monetary Fund] coming in and financing it. And that's the event that I'm sort of shooting for here, and then the moment when it comes out is the time to actually sell the metal somewhere around $2,200. ... The market just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm looking for some safety. I'm trying to find it with some gold." [ Read more… ]

For Asia's millionaires, growing at a whopping pace, gold continues to be a lucrative investment -- and never mind the volatility. [ Read more… ]

I get accused of being a precious metals bull's worst enemy, but that's not necessarily true. Our firm has made a lot of money over the years by trading gold and silver from the long side. And we made a lot of money during the run-up in gold in July and August. But then all of a sudden, we saw some things in silver which were extremely concerning. We felt the silver market had reached a termination point of extreme significance when it came to volume. We looked at the volume figures around the world in futures markets and some of the ETFs. What we saw was that an eight-year supply's worth of silver exchanged hands over a seven-day period. We felt the market was done -- it was topped. And we put out a notice on April 29 that the silver market was dead. [ Read more… ]

"Gold as an asset class retains a lot of fundamental attraction," Ubika Research chief Vikas Ranjan tells The Gold Report. "Any potential for liquidation by some European funds or banks will be counterbalanced by demand and buying from other sources." [ Read more… ]

Beijing's Caishikou Department Store, popularly known as Caibai, is one of the Chinese capital's few malls that are packed even on weekdays when business is much slower at others. [ Read more… ]

Gold prices in euros will rise to a record as Europe's sovereign-debt crisis erodes the appeal of the 17-nation currency and boosts demand for the precious metal as an alternative asset, according to economist Dennis Gartman. [ Read more… ]

Blanchard and Company's vice president and director of marketing and economic research, David Beahm, is quoted in a new article by CNNMoney columnist Paul R. La Monica's new article, "Gold: The hedge against political stupidity": [ Read more… ]

Gold rose to settle at $1,765 Thursday, boosted by a surprise interest rate cut by the European Central Bank and safe-haven buying, as Greece's teetering government added uncertainty to the future of the European Union. [ Read more… ]

Platinum is about 15 times more rare than gold and usually trades at a premium to the yellow metal. But the greater the worry about the economy, the higher gold trades in relation to platinum. [ Read more… ]

"We are still in the early days of gold's run," Dr. Michael Berry, publisher of Morning Notes, tells The Gold Report. "We have had a good pullback down to $1,575. I wanted to see a pullback from the $1,900 level, which we achieved a little too quickly in the summer. I feel pretty confident about gold because one very tangible thing has changed: Many people have lost confidence in paper money. You just can't print this much and not have that happen. I see gold now as a very important asset in portfolios. A few years ago financial planners had no patience for a gold allocation. Now Merrill Lynch will sell you physical gold. I don't think we've even scratched the surface in terms of how many investors are going to own gold in the future. I think it will go much higher." [ Read more… ]

The most accurate forecasters say gold will rebound from its biggest monthly plunge since 2008 and reach a record by March because economic growth is stagnating and Europe's debt crisis is unresolved. [ Read more… ]

Gold is headed into the $2000s. The mess in Europe is incurable and can only be damage controlled by QE. [ Read more… ]

"The obvious refuge has been the precious metals, particularly gold, and we believe that gold is going to continue to appreciate for the following few quarters, but in a very nonlinear, nonsmooth fashion -- dips below as well as above the psychological $2,000 threshold," Citi economist Daniel Ahn says in a Nov. 1 CNBC interview. "The fact of the matter is is that what's driving gold prices right now are low to negative real interest rates, which is reducing the opportunity cost of holding financial assets in favor of holding real assets, and given the again the fairly negative economic outlook, it's difficult to imagine that there's going to be a significant rate tightening. If anything, there's probably more monetary liquidity coming down the pipeline." [ Read more… ]

It's been several weeks since I've written about gold and we have had a wild ride since the $1,910-$1,920 highs in August. At the time as we approached I forecasted a major correction was nigh and we were shorting the rise from $1,862-$1,910 prior to a huge $208 drop that took place over just a few days. We covered our short at $1,725 and then gold rallied back to a double top at $1,920 and then fell back to $1,531. [ Read more… ]

In our opinion we are seeing the beginning of a new move higher in gold and silver. Global monetary policy is not going to be tightening any time soon and there is still room for significantly more easing in Europe and the US. Persistently high unemployment is piling pressure on the Fed to embark on further easing due to their dual mandate and Europe's problems are well known. Whilst we may not see some action for a while from the Fed or ECB, since Operation Twist was just over a month ago and the EU has only just announced the plans for the expanded EFSF, it is likely that we will see easing in 2012. Now is the time to be taking long positions in gold since expectations of future easing will be increasing over coming months, leading to upwards pressure on the gold price. [ Read more… ]

Federal Reserve policy makers raised their assessment of the economy while saying "significant downside risks" remain and refrained from taking any additional steps to ease monetary policy. [ Read more… ]

This might not come as a surprise, but Paul Krugman isn't optimistic about Europe's future. He believes that the Greek referendum on the European debt deal will end with a no vote. But the bigger problem is his belief that the euro was a flawed idea that can only work when the European economy is strong, inflation is strong and credit flows freely. [ Read more… ]

Two monster nukes exploded on the financial landscape. They are the surprise MF Global bankruptcy and the equally surprising Greek referendum on the second bailout package. Kaboom and kaboom!!! I see not one, but two giant mushroom clouds on the horizon, and destruction is headed our way. Anyone underselling these two bombs is on some pretty heavy Prozac. This is a turning point, and the turn is decidedly bad. It's a global financial crash. [ Read more… ]

At 71, Jean-Marie Eveillard is one of the most famous investors of his generation. He had a superb record managing the First Eagle funds and its predecessors for three decades. He now serves as senior adviser to the funds. Eveillard is a value investor but one who has always kept an eye on the big picture as well as on individual securities. Here is an excerpt of my recent conversation with him: [ Read more… ]

"Now we are just on a pure printing-press standard. This will end, this is the end game for that. It could take a year or two.  Maybe if the euro has to implode and they all have to take printing presses back and use them for the people to revolt because in the end the printing press is no panacea, otherwise Zimbabwe wouldn't have collapsed." [ Read more… ]

Diwali, India's festival of lights which also ushers in the Hindu new year, is prime season for gold sales. And gold retailers look to make their biggest profits mid-October and in the wedding season that follows. [ Read more… ]

A slow recovery in global markets means the price of gold may not hit $2,000 an ounce for another next 12 to 18 months, says Randgold Resources chief Mark Bristow. [ Read more… ]

Superpollster Scott Rasmussen has pulled the pin and rolled one of his patented hand grenades under the chair of the Political Class. Rasmussen’s “October Surprise” is contained in a recent poll showing 44% of likely voters favor returning to the gold standard, 28% opposed. That intensifies. If the public knew that it would “dramatically reduce the powers of bankers and the political class to steer the economy” support goes up to 57%. Opposition drops to 19%. [ Read more… ]

"When it comes to buying gold or silver, the best buy signals are found in what we refer to as 'pocket pivots,'" argue Gil Morales and Dr. Chris Kacher of MoKa Investors LLC in a MarketWatch analysis. "These are statistically significant buy signals we have developed and used with great effect in our own handling of the precious metals in 2011 as we ourselves have thus far outperformed the S&P 500 Index over 50-fold as of this writing." [ Read more… ]

John Paulson delivered a speech at the Chinese Finance Association's 17th annual conference in New York. The conference was named "Anchor in the Storm or the Next Bubble to Burst: China at Crossroads." [ Read more… ]

"A funny thing has happened," writes Sizemore Investment Letter exec Charles Sizemore at MarketWatch. "Quietly, under the radar, gold has mounted a comeback, rising over $100 per ounce in just the last week. As a professed gold bear, this makes me pause. [ Read more… ]

At the end of the day, the big Wall Street banks are in even worse shape than they were in 2008 and their balance sheets are more highly leveraged. The only "CHANGE" that 2008 accomplished was the putting in place of the mechanisms for these banks to better hide their fraud and ponzi schemes and the further impoverishment of the middle class taxpayer who has been sold out by the politician(s) that gave him "HOPE," as said politicians ended up shifting the entire burden of Wall Street's nuclear cesspool onto the public. [ Read more… ]

As of Oct. 27, gold spot prices were hovering around $1,747 per ounce. Platinum, on the other hand, was selling for about $1,636 an ounce. [ Read more… ]

"The safe-haven theme is really what happened [with gold] during the quarter and I think what's going to continue to happen," Newmont Mining CEO Richard O'Brien tells CNBC's Maria Bartiromo in an Oct. 28 interview. "So uncertainty with respect to the euro, which leads to uncertainty with respect to the U.S. dollar. What we've seen in just the last little bit is strengthening of the euro but a little bit more weakening in the U.S. dollar. As you know, weaker U.S. dollar, stronger gold price. I think the volatility that we've seen in the last quarter is definitely here to stay. But I also think the upward trend is clearly still there. My prognostication, I think $2,000 [gold] is easily within reach as we've talked about before, if you take the $800 high of 1980 and even just escalate it to today's dollars, that's $2,300, without the pressure of all the other things going on in the world that leads to uncertainty and safe haven as the No. 1 characteristic." [ Read more… ]

"Gold is in a long-term digestion period after the huge run-up," Zulauf Asset Management head Felix Zulauf says at Barron's 2011 Art of Successful Investing conference. "I would give it a few months time to build another base, maybe between $1,450-$1,750 - that should be the platform then for the next move up sometime next year. Investors should be defensive, look to preserve capital and prepare a list of short-sale candidates for the next leg down. And they should buy more gold on dips." [ Read more… ]

Writing in Coins Magazine, Mike Thorne lists the early, or classic, commemorative coins that he considers "particularly attractive": [ Read more… ]

"Gold's move down was overdone, and when the markets realized that the sentiment is changing, they reacted very positively," Phillip Futures senior manager Avatar Sandu says in an Oct. 31 CNBC interview in which he states the case for $1,800-plus gold for the rest of the year. "Over a longer period of time we do expect gold to trade on its own fundamentals. There's a lot of money that is starting to flow back into gold. ... A lot of investors are jumping back into gold" after September's dip from $1,900. [ Read more… ]

The China unit of investment bank JP Morgan has won approval to become a trading member of the Shanghai Gold Exchange, the eighth foreign financial institute to obtain such membership, said the exchange on its website. [ Read more… ]

What do you get when the producer of the world's reserve currency takes on too much debt? Nothing less than the end of the US Treasury-based monetary system. [ Read more… ]

Ben Davies, CEO of Hinde Capital, recently spoke with King World News and reiterated his view that gold is headed up, possibly to $2,000 an ounce by year end. [ Read more… ]

Gold prices have had a spectacular run up from their historic lows in the early years of the last decade. In April 2001 gold prices were hovering around $220-$250 an ounce. With the slowing of central bank selling of their gold reserves and the forward delivery costs of gold changing dramatically, the pressures that had been weighing on gold for almost 10 years were lifted and a 10 year run up in prices started. Some gold analysts are now claiming that the long secular bear market has ended and a bull market has returned. Others are wondering if gold prices have the wherewithal to rise further and if not, is the current stage of gold prices signaling a bubble? [ Read more… ]

"We have a debt crisis that is massive - it's not just Europe, it's the United States, it's every aspect of the United States economy," Taylor Hard Money Advisors chief Jay Taylor says in an Oct. 28 CNBC interview. "We have gone on a debt binge in the U.S. ... and I think ... we've bumped up against the limits globally." [ Read more… ]

Jeff Nielson of Bullion Bulls Canada shares new concerns over the major gold exchange-traded fund, the GLD, in his article "D-Day near for GLD," which he says is coming on Nov. 11. He advises buying physical gold: "We see one enormous difference between units of GLD and real bullion: real gold does not 'evaporate' over time. Of course that difference is rather trivial compared to a much more glaring difference: the 'counterparty risk' to which GLD unit-holders expose themselves." [ Read more… ]

We've been wondering for a while now whether gold was really a safe haven any more, with Old Yeller behaving like a stock or a CDO-squared lately, rather than the anachronistic doomsday hedge Yahweh decreed it to be. [ Read more… ]

A proposal to phase out the $1 bill and replace it with a $1 coin could be gaining currency as the "supercommittee" looks to find ways to save the government money. [ Read more… ]

At the foot of a dimly lit spiral staircase far below Venezuela's Central Bank, workers prepare for an unusual arrival: 17,000 gold bars being shipped back on the order of President Hugo Chavez. [ Read more… ]

Have you heard the good news? Financial armageddon has been averted. The economic collapse in Europe has been cancelled.  Everything is going to be okay. Well, actually none of those statements is true, but news of the "debt deal" in Europe has set off a frenzy of irrational exuberance throughout the financial world anyway. Newspapers all over the globe are declaring that the financial crisis in Europe is over. Stock markets all over the world are soaring. The Dow was up nearly 3 percent today, and this recent surge is helping the S&P 500 to have its best month since 1974. Global financial markets are experiencing an explosion of optimism right now. Yes, European leaders have been able to kick the can down the road for a few months and a total Greek default is not going to happen right now. However, as you will see below, the core elements of this "debt deal" actually make a financial disaster in Europe even more likely in the future. [ Read more… ]

Good news for gold prices in this report from Business Insider: Both the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve are set to ramp up easing measures, if not right away then in the near future. [ Read more… ]

Gold rose 1.5 percent Thursday, fueled by a dollar drop, commodities rally and uncertainty over the details of a deal struck by eurozone leaders to boost their bailout fund and slash Greece's debt. [ Read more… ]

"What happened to Mr. Gaddafi, many speculate the real reason he was ousted was that he was planning an all-African currency for conducting trade," Mexican billionaire Hugo Salinas Price tells King World News. "The same thing happened to him that happened to Saddam because the US doesn't want any solid competing currency out there versus the dollar. You know, Gaddafi was talking about a gold dinar." He also said that "by and large all of [Mexico's] congressman are in favor of monetizing silver" there. [ Read more… ]

Gold has emerged as an alternative asset for investors to help manage risks more effectively, according to Juan Carlos Artigas, a manager of investment research at the World Gold Council. [ Read more… ]

"The Indians, at the margin, buy more gold jewelry than anyone on the planet," Cazenove Capital strategist Robin Griffiths tells King World News. "Diwali is the 'festival of lights' and it's today. This is when they buy the jewelry. Then it is followed by the wedding season when the Indians buy even more gold. So frequently this festival makes the seasonal low for gold. The rise in the last 24 hours is Diwali; it's the Indians doing it." [ Read more… ]

From Agustino Fontevecchia of Forbes: A lot has been said as to what has fueled gold's precipitous rise to all-time highs, from its characteristics as an inflation hedge to providing insurance against a deflationary recession. While the recent, and tumultuous, correction from about $1,920 an ounce to almost $1,500, a 20% correction, shook market confidence confidence, the gold industry came together to express what will fuel the long-term bull in gold markets. [ Read more… ]

Gold miner Newcrest Mining says volatility in global markets and financial concerns in Europe and the United States will likely support a strong gold price in the short and medium term. [ Read more… ]

Gold is up again Thursday, rising to $1,745 (U.S.) an ounce, up $20. That marks its fifth consecutive gain. Earlier this week, when stocks were falling, some observers were pointing out that gold's gains meant that it had regained its status as a safe-haven investment. And now, with stocks on a tear, what exactly is gold telling us? [ Read more… ]

"Gold, as you said, is the safe-haven play" if Europe's leaders fail to strike a debt-solution deal, Adam Mesh Trading Group strategist Matthew Grossman says in an Oct. 25 CNBC interview. "What we saw today was gold go over $1,700 for the first time in six weeks. What that's telling us is that people are starting to get a little worried, a little scared, where we had a lot of optimism in the past couple of weeks that caused a nice equity rally. Now all of a sudden we saw the Dow down, what, almost 200 points today, and we saw people flocking into gold, putting their money into there as a safe-haven play. It's a great hedge. If Europe does not come out with details that are comprehensive, in a timely fashion ... equity markets will probably go down and gold will probably move higher. And so in that respect gold is a smart place to be if you're concerned that Europe's going to be able to get its act together." [ Read more… ]

Gold prices will be supported at higher levels until real interest rates start to rise, which is 2013 at the earliest, the head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Wednesday. [ Read more… ]

"What we will see if the European leaders don't get together and actually come out with some form of concrete plan, I think we will see basically a rise in the price of gold," Fat Prophets analyst David Lennox says in an Oct. 25 CNBC interview. "There will be a flight into the safe-haven factor that gold does carry with it. We can't see -- as we've probably over the last three or four weeks - where investors have flown into U.S. Treasuries. We do think that probably gold, given that we've seen it fall from $1,900 now back into this $1,700 region, we will see I think investors particularly look to gold for that safe-haven factor again. ... We had been calling gold as a theme for some time, and we still do think that over the long term  gold will certainly start to return to positive factors and prices will move higher. We did suggest that perhaps it would require a lot of work in this $1,600 to $1,700 region before we'd see a breakout and that may perhaps be occurring." [ Read more… ]

They're blaming Greece again. This time it's to try to explain why gold soared more than 3% on Tuesday. But if you believe that explanation, how do you account for gold's behavior just three sessions previous? The headline news last Thursday from the European debt front was just as dismal, and yet gold during that day's trading plunged more than 2%. [ Read more… ]

Yesterday was one of those days when you're glad you owned gold. It was up about $50 an ounce on the day. It's rising again this morning. Silver was up over 5%. [ Read more… ]

Twenty-four-year-old Xin Wenting stays up until one o'clock on most days, looking after her gold investment during the ebb and flow of global trade. [ Read more… ]

The European Union is doomed to fail because the divide between the northern and southern countries is just too great, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told CNBC in a recent interview. [ Read more… ]

Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, ordered up another $300-billion (U.S.) in easy money earlier this month, then mentioned, by way of explanation, that we are living through the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression - "if not," he said ominously, "ever." Sir Mervyn's warning was only marginally more sobering than the collective warnings of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney. This is not to mock. These men know enough not to scare people out of their wits unless it necessary to do so. So the question is, what do these people know that the rest of us don't? [ Read more… ]

The Bundesbank's gold reserves may be used as collateral in the event that the European Financial Stability Facility can't meet its payment obligations, Bild reported, without citing how it obtained the information. [ Read more… ]

"We have a somewhat lower view of gold into 2012, closer to an average of $1,800/oz. to $1,900/oz.," Global Hunter Securities analyst Jeff Wright tells The Gold Report. [ Read more… ]

Again gold landed on the trader radar with the precious metal surging above the $1,700 level. [ Read more… ]

Gold rose to a four-week high, topping $1,700 an ounce, as concerns that Europe's debt woes may worsen spurred demand for the metal as a haven investment. [ Read more… ]

Gold could "easily" rise to $2,200 an ounce in the next two years as costs increase and global financial concerns persist, said the chief executive officer of AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., the third-largest producer of the metal. [ Read more… ]

"The implication for gold, given that it is becoming currency in China, given the fact that the Chinese government is doing everything they can to encourage their populace to own it, given that it is the only currency that has a chance of appreciating along with materials over the next three to five years, gold is just something that you've got to own." So declares Stephen Leeb of Leeb Capital Management, the author of the new book "Red Alert: How China's Growing Prosperity Threatens the American Way of Life," in an interview at King World News. [ Read more… ]

Independent investor Dennis Gartman says he is prepared to buy back the gold he sold when he cut his holdings in half last week, adding prices would certainly move upward. [ Read more… ]

Gitanjali Export Corp. said it has launched a gold coins and medallions vending machine to cash in on robust investment demand that is rivaling the thirst for jewelry in India, the world's biggest consumer. [ Read more… ]

At the very core of the global nuclear money reactor are US Treasurys and the dollar. If the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency wanes or even collapses, then the scope and pace of the likely disruptions will be enormous. Of course, we'll be glad to have as much forewarning as possible. [ Read more… ]