[This story about gold from April 5th, 2009 came right around the time that the late-2008/early-2009 "flight to safety" was rapidly morphing into a "flight to risk", after the yellow metal had briefly topped the $1,000 an ounce mark but had fallen back to under $900 while silver traded for a modest $13 an ounce. It preceded by a few weeks the revelation that the Middle Kingdom had surreptitiously been adding to their stockpile of gold bars as detailed in China nearly doubles their gold reserves and the metal would go on to top $1,200 by the end of the year, after it was revealed that the Reserve Bank of India had purchased half of the IMF's 403 tonnes of gold offered up for sale over the summer.]

ooo

There were two notable reports from across the Atlantic in recent days about the asset that has recently been pushed aside in favor of the blazing stock market, suddenly failing to attract new investors. By the looks of the steady inventory at the big ETFs, few recent gold investors have departed, but the stampede of new investors has slowed to a trickle.

John Dizard of the Financial Times notes that the current condition is just a temporary one:

We are, however, now being set up for the next run in the secular bull market in gold. It won’t feel that way for at least a few months, since the bid will dry up for the metal. Jewellery demand, which is still 70 per cent of the current demand, will continue to be weak. However bumbling the execution, the Treasury’s wall of money is hitting like a slow-motion tsunami.
…
When, though, does all this loose money lead to the inflation the goldbugs need for the next run? For the moment, it is hard to see that on the horizon in the US, since we were talking about the dollar price of gold. However, the Fed has now been reminded very forcefully by politicians and would-be future governors that it cannot withdraw monetary stimulus too quickly. So it will withdraw it too slowly.

(more…)

[You just knew it wouldn't be long before a story about precious metals popped up here, if for no other reason than to look back at the prices of gold and silver from 2006 to see just how they've changed. This story was originally published on April 12th, 2006 when gold was just breaking through the $600 an ounce mark and silver was undergoing a parabolic rise - to about $12 an ounce. And to think how someone could have done over the last five years if they'd sold their real estate and just bought dumb 'ol gold and silver coins...]

ooo

It’s hard to tell if the mainstream financial media is paying more or less attention today, as gold wages an assault on the $600 mark, than it did a few months back when, after repeated attempts, the $500 level was conquered, bringing consternation to economists and glee to gold bugs … that was only four months ago.

Even Jethro Bodine of The Beverly Hillbillies fame, with his limited ciphering ability, could likely calculate the very impressive 20 percent gain in that short period of time (whether Jethro would be able to annualize the increase is another matter.)

And then there’s silver – on a longer term chart it appears to be going parabolic.

(more…)

It’s been an interesting few hours of trading in the precious metals markets as “unstoppable” silver seems to be anything but that on this Friday, meandering around level for the day while the gold price surges almost more than $30 an ounce. Whether or not silver pierces that $50 level remains to be seen, but it doesn’t look like it will happen today.

One of the sloppiest articles on gold in recent memory can be found here in the U.K. edition of Reuters, author John McCrank (apparently his real name) tipping readers off to the quality of the writing by citing Jon Nadler on multiple occasions. Jon’s been wrong about gold for about $1,000 an ounce now, so, it’s hard to take him seriously anymore and it’s a wonder why anyone would call him no less cite his opinions.

The gist of the story is that hedge funds may soon think it’s time to book their profits and begin withdrawing money from the many gold ETFs, thus pulling the rug out from under the price. But, as shown below from the World Gold Council’s latest Gold Investment Digest, flows into gold ETFs have not been a factor for about a year now as the gold price has risen by almost $400 an ounce while total ETF holdings have been about flat.

The Reuters report also flubbed the reference to the University of Texas endowment fund gold purchase when they said that the group had purchased $1 billion in gold bullion earlier this month. See any of the many reports on this significant gold market development and you’ll learn that they doubled their 2010 stake of $500 million a short time ago, but the key part of the story is that they took physical delivery, casting more doubt on the importance of ETFs relative to the gold price.

This looks a lot like one of those 2005-era gold stories where the author doesn’t seem to know or care about the gold market but was tasked with writing an article, so he did so.

Let’s see… Trading volume for the iShares Silver Trust ETF (NYSE:SLV) reached  a stunning 189 million shares yesterday (seven times that of the QQQ ETF) and options trading reached similar lofty heights as the silver price approached $50 an ounce and then fell back, all in dramatic fashion. After hours it was disclosed that the “tonnes in the trust” at SLV reached a new record high at 11,390 tonnes after a massive 240 tonne addition.

It could be another interesting day ahead for the metal. Then again, markets may want to rest up a bit before tomorrow’s big press conference with Fed Chief Ben Bernanke, after which there may be some even bigger fireworks.