David Morgan - Myths and Misinformation in the Silver Market

SilverDoctors: Eric Sprott: Silver Will Become a Currency Again

SilverDoctors: Eric Sprott: Silver Will Become a Currency Again: With the Greek crisis nearing a climax, The Doc spoke with Eric Sprott of Sprott Asset Management this week to discuss the Euro debt crisis...

Silver Update 2/20/12 ECB Exit

Greece updates/Iran/High amounts of physical silver standing in February/

 
Saturday, February 18, 2012

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen:

The boys decided on Friday that a raid was necessary and their motive is to try and quell physical demand for our precious metals.   The global financial scene is rapidly deteriorating and all citizens realize their paper currency is nothing but paper and seek the safe haven of physical gold and silver.  Bank runs are occurring daily especially in the weaker PIIGS nations.  The country welcoming their deposits is Switzerland who then take orders from the depositors to switch to gold and hold that metal as a currency for them.

The price of gold finished the comex session down by only $2.10 to a close at $1724.50.
Silver finished the regular session at $33.20 down 16 cents. The raid drove the price of gold down to $1717 but that was it and brave souls entered the comex and drove the price back to a minor loss.
Silver was the object of the bankers interest again.  It is much easier to whack this metal as players have abandoned the arena and only physical players wishing actual metal are buying silver contracts.  These buyers are actually quite delighted at the opportunity of picking up cheap metal on these "raid days".

Let us head over to the comex where you will see some very interesting developments.First the gold comex:

The total gold comex open interest rose by 2502 contracts from 438,174 to 440,676 contracts.On Thursday you will recall we had quite a reversal on gold and silver as these metals rebounded from their lows to finish slightly up.  The bigger demand for metals caused our OI to rise.  The bankers lick their chops every time they see higher OI as they try to remove these longs from their contracts.  The front options delivery month of February saw its OI fall from 385 to 376 for a loss of 9 contracts.  We had only 2 delivery notices filed on Thursday so again we lost 7 contracts to cash settlements or 700 oz.  It seems Blythe has no other way to settle upon our longs except to offer them cash and a big fiat bonus. The next delivery month is April and here the OI remained relatively constant at 238,397 dropping by a touch higher of 200 contracts. The estimated volume at the gold comex was a miserable 116,731 as many investors are seeking their metal, or playing, elsewhere. No doubt the MFGlobal commentaries of late showing that customers will not receive any of their money is surely scaring people from playing at the comex in the USA.  The confirmed volume on Thursday, the day of the big reversal registered 182,499 contracts but many of those were high frequency day traders.

The total silver comex OI breached its narrow channel by rising 649 contracts to finish the session at 107,270.  No doubt that this rise is surely bothering our bankers as they know the players are serious in taking delivery.  I am pretty sure that this was the reason for another raid in broad daylight. The front options expiry month of February registered a gain of 30 contracts rising from 187 to 217 contracts.  This is the 8th straight day that we have seen a net OI gain in the front February month which no doubt is a signal to all that silver is needed badly in other jurisdictions.  The bankers buy the front month to secure the metal and send it off probably to London to feed needy investors over there. We are now less than two weeks away from first notice in the March silver contract.  Surprisingly the OI fell ever so slightly from 32,232 to 31,030. The players who sold rolled their contracts to May.  The confirmed volume on Thursday, the day of the reversal was 60,903.  Both volumes are very good as of  late.
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Iran names Istanbul for nuclear talks, buttresses Assad with Russia

DEBKAfile Special Report February 19, 2012, 6:30 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iran continues to behave as though it is calling the shots. The first formal announcement of the resumption of Iran-world powers nuclear talks (confirming debkafile’s exclusive) came from its Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Selahi who Sunday, Feb. 19, named the venue as Istanbul, Turkey. Saturday, two Iranian warships got away with delivering arms for Bashar Assad’s crackdown on protest without US or Israeli interference.
They docked at Tartus port Saturday alongside a Russian naval flotilla, symbolizing their joint effort to preserve Assad.
US and Israeli naval craft were entitled by UN sanctions to intercept and search the Kharq supply ship carrying illegal arms and military equipment for Bashar Assad’s army as it sailed past Israel’s Mediterranean coast with the Sahid Qandi destroyer. But they abstained from doing so for fear of a firefight at sea with the Iranian destroyer.
The Egyptian Suez authorities were equally wary of trouble and so did not exercise their authority to search the arms vessel.

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The destruction of savings by inflation

Author: Alasdair Macleod

 

2012-FEB-18

In the past, insurance companies and pension funds have been keen to advertise the benefit of compounding arithmetic for savings. Over the last 30 or 40 years the rate has been lifted by inflation, but to understand the cost inflation brings you have to consider the whole savings cycle: not just the accumulation stage, but also annuity values in retirement. Furthermore, the historical experience of a typical working life should be compared with a theoretical sound-money alternative.
Let us assume a man works for 40 years, during which time he invests a fixed amount annually. This is invested mostly in bonds for a return that gives him a lump sum on retirement. The marketing folk stop at that point, but we shall go on. This lump sum is applied to an annuity to give a fixed income for the retiree’s life expectancy. Let us also assume that $1,000 is invested annually, and we shall use the average return on the 10-year US Treasury bond as our yardstick. The result is shown in the table below under the heading of Paper Money.


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Fitzwilson - Pulling Back the Curtain on the Financial System

40 year market veteran, Robert Fitzwilson, writes for King World News and states that the worldwide financial system is now trapped. He also believes we are looking at tremendous price increases going forward. Robert is the founder of The Portola Group, one of the premier boutique firms in the Unites States, and today King World News was given exclusive distribution rights to the following extraordinary piece:

“Pulling Back the Curtain on the Financial System”

By Robert Fitzwilson, President & Founder of The Portola Group

February 19 (King World News) - As we find ourselves closer and closer to the resolution of the Greek portion of the

European debt crisis, we can see with greater clarity how the next phase of the world’s financial system will unfold. Specifically, we see higher prices for equities, commodities and metals, with stable to declining prices for fixed income. Currencies will continue to oscillate like pistons in an engine, but the downward trend of the last 12 years will continue to persist.

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Pento - CB’s Global Assault to Destroy All Paper Currencies

Today Michael Pento told King World News that central banks are in the process of destroying their paper currencies. Pento, who founded Pento Portfolio Strategies, also said it is incredibly important for investors globally to protects themselves in this environment. Pento had this to say about the situation: “This is the age of a globalized phenomenon, where central bankers around the world view the market forces of deflation as public enemy number one and inflation as the panacea for anemic growth.”

Michael Pento continues:

“There is little doubt that global economic growth is faltering. Most of the developed world is mired in an incipient recession. Japanese GDP fell at an annual rate of 2.3% in Q4. Eurozone GDP dropped 0.3% last quarter and Greece is in a depression—GDP falling 7% as of their latest measurement.

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