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The Goldwatcher
The gold price had been caught in a 20-year bear market when Gordon Brown decided to sell off 400 tons of Britain's gold reserves at rock-bottom prices. That more or less marked the bottom of the ferocious bear market. But that's just the way markets behave. Bear and bull markets do not usually end without a 'grand finale'. In 1979 ...
Onweerswolken boven grondstoffenland?
Toen ik de laatste lijnen van mijn vorige blog schreef (de platte aarde) kon ik niet vermoeden dat een vervolg zich zo snel zou opdringen. Met dank aan Christina Fernandez, el Presidente de Argentina. Ze pleegde zo maar eventjes een staatsgreep op YPF, het Argentijnse oliebedrijf dat voor bijna 60% in handen is van het Spaanse ...
Destroying the recovery ex-ante ?
A funny thing happened this week with a remarkable change of tactics inside the FOMC, the rate decision organ of the Federal Reserve. Whilst almost every one was anticipating some form of new (h)opium to please the bulls, the minutes of the March meeting showed exactly the opposite. Some might argue that these minutes from the FED ...
Gezocht: 20 tot 45 miljoen vaten olie per dag
Na de eindejaarcijfers komen nu ook de presentaties en toelichtingen op gang, en vanuit mijn persoonlijke interessesfeer kijk ik met meer dan gewone belangstelling naar het oliewereldje.Door de dure olie waren de sectoriële resultaten behoorlijk geflatteerd, maar bij de meesten zagen we toch dat het vierde kwartaal iets minder ...
The Chinese Copper "detour"
There's an old Irish joke about a guy who's lost and desperately looking for the road to Kilearney. When encountering a farmer and asking for the right direction, the answer comes straight : "If you're heading for Kilearney, I wouldn't depart from here". Chinaman's dilemma is identical. The detour ...
Automatic Pilot
"I don't trust automatic pilot, I wanna be myself when the fall-out comes..."D. Blanchart - "Living in a cockpit". 2008 was a period where world markets suffered a correlated crash with virtually every asset class collapsing in an unprecedented fashion. Can it happen again ?
Is a new gold-standard part of the solution ?
The gold price continues to climb. On a log-scale, gold (in USD) is on a steady upward trend, with some corrections on the way.This could imply several things (some probably simultaneously): confidence in the banking system remains weak confidence ...
Gold and deflation
Interesting piece of reading from Tocqueville Asset Management 23851330-A-Contrarians-Dilemma
Hedge fund that betted on subprime debacle is now very long on gold
The physical accumulation by private and instituional investors of gold starts to be impressive. One analyst calculated the amount accumulated by Paulson & Co ., the hedge fund manager who betted correctly on the mortgage crisis between 2007 and 2009. He now holds more gold than central banks of ...
Willem Buiter believes gold is worth nothing (zero, nihil)
That's a statement, Willem Buiter in the Financial Times: G old is a six thousand year-old-bubble.
Veranderen westerse centrale banken hun (verliezende) goudtactiek?
Een onopgemerkt nieuws in al het gekrakeel rond jobs in de Verenigde Staten: Europese centrale banken hebben beslist hun goudverkopen bij te stellen . Al jarenlang verkopen de centrale banken hun goudvoorraden om 'te diversifiëren' en te investeren in 'activa met een beter rendement', zoals (Amerikaans) ...
China buys gold that the IMF and others are selling... (update)
As said in previous posts, I question the intelligence of the US Federal Reserve's monetary policy. More generally, I think that the Anglo-Saxon economic and financial policy has been a complete failure . The latest 'aggressive move' includes the complete explosion of budgetary balances and the willingness to print ...
A Golden Bubble
The chart above suggests that gold is in the early phase of a bubble. This implies that the price of the yellow stuff could start to rise more spectacularly in the coming year, to crash back to earth later. Shorting gold therefore would be quite dangerously. National banks around the world have been selling their gold, or leasing ...















