11 January 2012

James Turk: "There's Phys. Gold and Paper Gold--The Closer to The Physical the Higher the Price" 2/2

Gold advances/Ted Butler/Greece/Iran/USA now asks to raise debt ceiling officially

Harvey Organ's - The Daily Gold and Silver Report

Gold finished the comex session at $1631.00 for a gain of 23.50 dollars. Silver had a stellar day rising by $1.02 to $29.78. The risk on trade was orchestrated by our elite bankers today as bourses throughout the globe rose. Please be careful if you trade gold and silver against these crooks. There is a lot to cover so first let us head over to the comex and assess trading, inventory movements and delivery notices filed.

The total comex OI (open interest) fell by 3,820 contracts as yesterday we had the orchestrated raid on our precious metals. The new OI rests tonight at 414,044 which I perceive to be in very strong hands. The front options expiry month of January saw its OI fall from 23 to 16 for a loss of 9 contracts. Yesterday we had 10 delivery notices so we gained 1 contract of additional gold oz standing and lost nothing to cash settlements.
The next big delivery month is February and we are 3 weeks away from first day notice. Here the OI fell very noticeably from 215,152 to 203,070. Some rolled and some just quit playing. The estimated volume today at the gold comex was pretty good at 196,924. The confirmed volume yesterday was 165,683 contracts.

The total silver comex OI fell by 1781 contracts from 106,526 to 104,745. We have witnessed that the silver OI has been in this narrow range between 104,000-106,000 for the past month. I would say we are also in strong hands tonight. The front options expiry month of January saw its OI fall from 93 to 57 for a loss of 36 contracts. We had 82 delivery notices yesterday so we again gained 46 contracts or 230,000 oz of additional silver standing and lost nothing to cash settlements. The next big delivery month for silver is March and here the OI fell by less than 1,000 contracts to rest tonight at 56,872. The estimated volume was not bad at 42,308 contracts. The confirmed volume yesterday was quite weak at 33,979.


Inventory Movements and Delivery Notices for Gold: Jan 10 2012:

New FOMC Appointees Express Support for Stimulus

By jturbin

January 11, 2012 11:55 AM EST

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is receiving reinforcements in the form of new dovish members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) this year. And based on recent comments from the new central bankers, gold is likely to one of many beneficiaries of their monetary policies.

John Williams – President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco – and Sandra Pianalto – President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland – made their first public speeches as FOMC voting members yesterday. Both Williams and Pianalto expressed support for the slew of acoommodative monetary policies implemented by the U.S. central bank in recent years.

SilverDoctors: Fitch Tells Euro to Speed Up QE

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Consequences of Collapse: Access to Critical Medicines Is Disappearing in Greece

Mac Slavo
January 11th, 2012
SHTFplan.com

"In the midst of the Greek panic in 2010, for example, as Greece’s meltdown was in full swing and the people scrambled to get out of paper currencies, the price of gold, which was trading for around $1100 an ounce in the global commodity exchange marketplace, soared to over $1700 an ounce on the streets of Greece. In recent months, as Greece implements austerity measures and the unemployment rate sky rockets, its people have lost the ability to engage in traditional commerce because, simply put, they have no tangible income or money to do so. As a result, we’ve begun seeing a barter society emerge all over the country, making it possible for some people to directly exchange labor for consumptive goods and service."

Capital Account: Michael Kazin on the History of Money in Politics (01/10/12)

Senior Natanz executive slain in Tehran, US Navy, Air Force on Hormuz readiness

DEBKAfile Special Report January 11, 2012, 12:09 PM (GMT+02:00)

Forty-eight hours after Iran began advanced uranium enrichment in the fortified Fordo bunker near Tehran, Prof. Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, deputy director of the first uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, was killed early Wednesday, Jan. 11 by a sticky bomb planted on his car by two motorcyclists. It exploded near the Sharif technological university in northern Tehran.
The pair made their escape. Prof. Ahmadi-Roshan was the fourth Iranian nuclear scientist to be mysteriously assassinated in Tehran in two years. The same method of operation was used in a similar operation last year. Iran has blamed them all on Israel.

Tuesday, President Barack Obama received the Saudi foreign minister Saud al-Faisal. Their conversation was shrouded in secrecy, although no one doubts it focused on the conflict with Iran and the urgency of keeping open the main export outlet for the world's biggest oil suppliers, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz. The crisis in Syria must also have featured in their talks.

Shortly before the Saudi minister's arrival, US Navy and Air Force chiefs shed some light on preparations for an imminent operation to keep the Strait of Hormuz open to international shipping.

Goldman, Morgan Stanley both see much higher gold prices this year

Analysts at investment banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, both see gold moving sharply higher in 2012.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) 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.

Gold rises high as physical demand emerges

Author: By Amanda Cooper (Reuters)
Posted: Wednesday , 11 Jan 2012

Gold's break to a one-month high of $1,646.90/oz has given investors more confidence to buy the metal and evidence of strong demand from major consuming nations further supported the market.

LONDON (Reuters) -

Gold rallied for a second day on Wednesday, hitting its highest in a month after a stronger euro helped boost the price above a key technical level and evidence of strong demand from major consuming nations further supported the market.

Gold has risen by 1.5 percent so far this week, in line with a modest pick-up in the euro, which is battling against fresh concerns about the ability of several euro zone nations to fund themselves given sovereign debt yields remain high and there is no immediate solution in sight to the crisis.

The gold price vaulted above the 200-day moving average around $1,635 an ounce on Tuesday, which prior to December's sell-off had marked an important level of support, but since then has acted as stiff overhead resistance.

Fed Dismisses Economic Recovery

By: Michael Pento | Wed, Jan 11, 2012

The Fed is becoming more concerned about the sustainability of the U.S. recovery, just as the economy looks to be gaining momentum. The unemployment rate has dropped from 9.4% in December of 2010, to 8.5% twelve months later. The American economy has added 1.5 million jobs over the past year, according to the establishment survey of employment, while the household survey shows we have averaged a monthly gain of 230,000 jobs over the past six months. Meanwhile, the average work week and hourly earnings also showed improvement in the December Nonfarm payroll report. In addition, Gross Domestic Product has increased for nine consecutive quarters and is anticipated to post just under a 3% annualized growth in Q4 2011, up from 1.8% during the prior quarter.

So what was the Fed's reaction to this ostensibly better news? San Francisco Fed president John Williams told the WSJ in an interview conducted after the December's NFP report release that the central bank will have to buy more mortgage related bonds and that interest rates would not increase for a very long time. Here is his quote, "Unemployment is going to be sustained above a reasonable estimate of the natural rate of unemployment, which is closer to 6.5 percent than the 8.5 percent that we have now. That does make an argument that we should have more stimulus."

Senior Staff Members Are Still Bleeding Out Of Morgan Stanley

Ben Walsh | Jan. 11, 2012, 11:06 AM

Across Wall Street, the New Year continues much as the old one ended: with layoffs.

The latest firm to reduce staff, particularly at a senior level, is Morgan Stanley.

The Financial Times is reporting that three senior members of Morgan Stanley's equities business have left the firm:

Fitch: Italy likely to be downgraded by end of January

There is a "significant" chance that Italy will have its credit rating downgraded this month, an executive at the ratings agency Fitch has said.

David Riley, Fitch's head of global sovereign ratings, cited the lack of a plan to halt the eurozone crisis, coupled with Italy's high debts.

Fitch warned last month that Italy and five other eurozone countries were all at risk of downgrade.

Nation’s Debt Passes Grim Milestone

The nation’s debt has reached a symbolic milestone. With gross domestic product of roughly $15 trillion and total debt of $15.23 trillion, our total debt is now bigger than our economy, as USA Today noted Monday.

What’s more, the Obama administration’s projections put our debt at more than $23 trillion by 2020, well in excess of the projected $22.5 trillion GDP. Analysts agree that the rising debt ratio is not good, but they can’t agree on just how bad it is, and while there’s at least some agreement among economists about how to fix the problem, lawmakers have no such common ground — which is one of the biggest hurdles to actually doing something about the debt dilemma.

'Now silver is your ticket to wealth'

By Gavin Mann
Unless vast reserves of Silver are discovered in the next few years, it is estimated that this precious metal could have less than 20 years supply before it is all gone. this shortage of supply and strong demand within industry is a recipe to one day elevating Silver to being the most valuable precious metal available, and priced even higher than Gold.

Silver is now one of the most sought after, and also now the rarest of the precious metals on the earth today. With approximately 15 years supply of Silver still left in the ground, and with over 1500+ Industrial applications, Silver is now in the spotlight of astute investors to grow, and also protect their Wealth Portfolios for the foreseeable future.

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Silver Update 1/8/12 Challenging Chilton

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Corzine Sued by Montana Farmers Over MF Global Futures Account Money

By Karen Gullo - Jan 9, 2012 10:47 PM GMT+0100

Jon Corzine, former chief executive officer of collapsed commodity brokerage MF Global Holdings Ltd. (MFGLQ), was sued for fraud by Montana farmers who claim he oversaw the misappropriation of their commodity trading account funds.

The lawsuit filed today by three farmers and a cattle- raising operation in Montana seeks to represent a nationwide group of commodities futures customers whose money went missing amid the $41 billion bankruptcy of MF Global, parent of the futures brokerage that is being liquidated. A trustee is looking for $1.2 billion or more in money missing from commodity customers’ accounts.