To me, is just news, and prove of manipulation either way it goes.
I don't get emotional or take it personal.
When it comes to gold:
Gold (Oct'14) (@GC.2 :CEC:COMMODITIES EXCHANGE CENTRE)
* Data is delayed
http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/%40GC.2
I ask myself
"What is George Soros doing?"
Then I take a look at the IMF and World Bank reports.
Global Financial Stability Report
Moving from Liquidity- to Growth-Driven Markets
April 2014
http://www.imf.org/External/Pubs/FT/GFSR/2014/01/index.htm
IMF Cuts U.S. Growth Outlook, Sees More Scope for Zero Rates
By Sandrine Rastello and Nina Glinski Jun 16, 2014 11:51 AM CT
The International Monetary Fund cut its growth forecast for the U.S. economy this year and said the Federal Reserve may have scope to keep interest rates at zero for longer than investors expect.
The Washington-based IMF now sees the world’s largest economy growing 2 percent this year, down from an April estimate of 2.8 percent. The IMF left a 2015 prediction unchanged at 3 percent, and said it doesn’t expect the U.S. to see full employment until the end of 2017, amid low inflation.
“We see prospects looking up for the U.S. but we also believe that attention must now turn to the kinds of policies needed to lay the foundation for growth that will be sustainable,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said at a press conference in Washington today.
video and more here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-16/imf-cuts-u-s-growth-forecast-sees-scope-for-zero-rates-longer.html
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World Development Indicators
http://data.worldbank.org/products/wdi
Tackling climate change would grow global economy, World Bank says
Findings put to rest claims that the world could not afford to act on climate change
Suzanne Goldenberg
theguardian.com, Monday 23 June 2014 20.00 EDT
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (R) and his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott attend a joint press conference at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada on June 9, 2014. Photograph: David Kawai/Corbis
Fighting climate change would help grow the world economy, according to the World Bank, adding up to $2.6tn (£1.5tn) a year to global GDP in the coming decades.
The findings, made available in a report on Tuesday, offer a sharp contrast with claims by the Australian government that fighting climate change would “clobber” the economy.
The report also advances on the work of economists who have argued that it will be far more costly in the long run to delay action on climate change.
Instead, Tuesday's report found a number of key policies – none of which included putting an economy-wide price on carbon – would lead to global GDP gains of between $1.8tn and $2.6tn a year by 2030, in terms of new jobs, increased crop productivity and public health benefits.
The pro-climate regulations and tax incentives would also on their own deliver nearly a third of the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions needed to keep warming below the 2C threshold for dangerous climate change, the bank said.
The World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, said the findings put to rest claims that the world could not afford to act on climate change.
“These policies make economic sense,” Kim said in a conference call with reporters. “This report removes another false barrier, another false argument not to take action against climate change.”
more here:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/24/tackling-climate-change-would-grow-global-economy-world-bank-says
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UPDATE 1-Paulson holds onto gold ETF, Soros adds gold miners in Q1
Thu May 15, 2014 6:50pm EDT
By Frank Tang
May 15 (Reuters) - Hedge fund Paulson & Co in Q1 maintained its stake in SPDR Gold Trust, the world's biggest gold-backed exchange-traded fund as bullion prices rebounded from their biggest annual loss in 32 years in 2013, while PIMCO dissolved its gold ETF investment.
George Soros raised his stake in Barrick Gold Corp and gold mining companies ETFs, suggesting the big names in hedge funds took advantage of lower gold prices to increase positions in the precious metal used by many as a hedge.
Investors pay close attention to the quarterly filings by Paulson and other notable hedge fund managers because they provide the best insight into whether the so-called "smart money" has lost faith in gold as a hedge against inflation and economic uncertainty.
"Some institutions are stepping up to buy gold this year just like you would expect them to do when they find an asset valued at these attractive levels," said Adam Sarhan, CEO of New York-based Sarhan Capital.
Paulson & Co, led by longtime gold bull John Paulson, owned 10.2 million shares in the ETF worth $1.27 billion on March 31, unchanged from its holdings on Dec. 31, a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed on Friday.
That represents a gain of around $76 million as the price of gold gained 6.5 percent in the first quarter, following a drop of around 9 percent in the fourth quarter.
This marks the third consecutive quarter Paulson has stuck to his stake in the gold ETF.
"It's a plus for the market as big players are still holding onto gold to a degree, but I don't think that's reflective of the market tone," said Bill O'Neill, partner at commodities investment firm LOGIC Advisors in New Jersey.
Gold prices were still 7.5 percent higher for the year but market watchers said the yellow metal's failure to rally on geopolitical tensions and lackluster physical demand suggested downside risks.
In the second quarter of 2013, Paulson slashed its stake by more than half when bullion prices plummeted $225 between April 11 and 15, a record two-day drop for gold.
Among large institutional investors, PIMCO has dissolved its position in SPDR Gold Trust, marking its sixth consecutive quarterly cuts. PIMCO held 6.3 million shares of the gold ETF in the second quarter of 2012.
Some institutional investors continued to remain bearish on gold investments as the metal's price came under heavy pressure from rallying equity markets and an improving economic outlook.
SPDR Gold Trust held near a four-year low at about 800 tonnes of gold at the end of the first quarter, largely unchanged from its fourth-quarter level.
Institutional investors' massive stakes in SPDR Gold Trust have tremendous influence in gold prices as redemptions of their massive ETF mean dumping the metal in the open market. (Editing by Eric Walsh)
here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/15/hedgefunds-filings-gold-idUSL1N0O127W20140515
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Gold Trades Below Two-Month High as Fed, Demand Weighed
By Nicholas Larkin and Glenys Sim Jun 23, 2014 7:10 AM CT
Gold futures traded below a two-month high as investors weighed the outlook for U.S. borrowing costs to remain low and tension in Iraq against signs of weaker physical demand. Platinum and palladium declined.
Gold capped a third successive weekly advance last week after the Federal Reserve said it will keep interest rates at almost zero for a considerable time. The metal’s 12-year bull run ended in 2013 on expectations that the Fed would scale back stimulus as the economy strengthened.
Bullion is set for its first back-to-back quarterly gain since 2011, in part as escalating violence in Iraq and tension between Ukraine and Russia boosted haven demand. Militants in Iraq seized more territory and U.S. President Barack Obama warned that the crisis may spill over into other countries. There’s still “little physical interest,” Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. wrote in a report today.
The metal gained “on the back of rising tension in Iraq, dovish remarks by Fed Chair Janet Yellen” and technical-related buying, Abhishek Chinchalkar, an analyst at Mumbai-based AnandRathi Commodities Ltd., said in a report today. Demand from China is “unlikely to pick up any time soon. We expect gold to face strong hurdles in sustaining these recent gains.”
Gold for August delivery lost 0.2 percent to $1,313.60 an ounce by 8 a.m. on the Comex in New York. It reached $1,322.50 on June 20, the highest since April 15. Futures trading volume was 8 percent above the average for the past 100 days for this time of day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Bullion for immediate delivery declined 0.1 percent to $1,313.83 in London, according to Bloomberg generic pricing.
more here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-23/gold-drops-from-two-month-high-as-rally-erodes-interest.html
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6/19/2014 @ 5:46PM 8,172 views
Oil And Gold Prices Surge As Tensions In Iraq Escalate
A column of smoke rises from an oil refinery in Beiji, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq. Iraqi officials said Thursday that they have secured this refinery.
With tensions in Iraq escalating to the point that President Obama said he would deploy up to 300 military advisers to the country, investors sent prices of gold and oil surging in Thursday trading. Gold, the classic safe-haven trade, reached its highest point in two months as oil, whose Iraqi production could see pressure if ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) militants move the conflict to the south of Iraq, surged to its highest price of the year.
Bolstered by a drop in the dollar and the Federal Reserve’s reticence to raise interest rates — not to mention the situation in Iraq — gold gained 3.7% in Thursday trading and surged to its highest price in two months. Gold futures, which hit as high as $1,322 an ounce during its regular trading session, settled at $1,314.10 for the day, its highest level since April 14. Spot prices, too, closed at $1,314 an ounce.
Surging even more than gold on Thursday was oil: brent crude hit $115 a barrel, its highest price of the year, as WTI crude oil finished the day at more than $106 a barrel, a dollar short of the 52-week high it hit last week.
The ETFs that track these commodities – SPDR Gold Shares, United States Oil and iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Index — saw gains roughly commensurate with those of the commodities themselves. GLD finished Thursday trading with a 3.5% gain, US Oil closed 0.3% up and the iPath index finished the day with an 0.4% uptick.
Stateside, oil’s increases paired with the impending summer months and summer travel in the U.S. to send prices at the pump for a surge of their own. The national average for one gallon of gas in the U.S. is $3.68, up from $3.60 a gallon this time last year and the highest levels consumers have seen at the pump in June since 2008.
“Oil is the lifeblood of a modern economy. Estimates vary, but each $10 increase per barrel can knock off about 0.2% from economic growth,” Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network, said in a note Thursday. “With U.S. growth currently expected to fall in the 3-percent range, this is significant. Oil prices have risen by about $3 over the last month, and they could be headed higher as the conflict worsens.”
The reason for the price surge in the wake of violence in Iraq is that the country produces a not-insignificant amount of oil, and if Iraqi oil fields are taken over and closed, global oil supply could shrink and send prices even higher. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) recently projected that Iraq would be accountable for 3 million barrels of oil production a day for the second half of 2014, ranking the country as OPEC’s second-largest producer. The somewhat good news is that most of Iraq’s production occurs in the southern part of the country, and with the exception of the Baiji refinery (115 miles outside of Baghdad) — which Iraqi officials say they do have control over — ISIS has not ventured in this territory.
“[We do not] expect ISIS to make much headway in the south, where the Sunni extremist group would be running into the Shi’ite heartland,” wrote Citi analyst Seth Kleinman in a note on Thursday. He noted that investors are on edge “for good reason, as the world would struggle to replace the lost oil volumes if Iraq were to go the way of Libya.” However, he pointed to accelerating exports in the Kurdish region as well as the low likelihood that ISIS reaches the south of Iraq as reason to be less concerned about oil’s future price.
“Iraq’s key oil fields are southeast of Baghdad, and Citi does not expect ISIS to get as far as Baghdad. Some oil companies are removing non-essential staff but Basra operations and exports continue, and continue to make new highs with July loadings set at 2.8 million barrels of oil per day,” Kleinman said.
If ISIS does venture south, however, prices could rise rapidly.
“Given how fast everything has transpired, if this were to spread into the south and impact exports it could be very dramatic,” said Chad Mabry, a director and oil and production analyst at MLV and Company, in a phone interview. “This isn’t hyperbole, it could easily send global markets back into recession with the impact. We could be looking at a significant rise in prices if those barrels were taken off the world market.”
Mabry notes that due to sanctions that have limited production in Iran and violence that has limited production in Libya, “you don’t have much room for error within OPEC anymore because the burden then falls on Saudi Arabia to make up that delta.”
If there’s one bit of good news amongst all the Iraqi turmoil, it’s this: the U.S. has increased its production of oil and energy independence since the start of the last Iraqi conflict (which began in 2003), so the market’s reaction is not as bad as it would have been if this were to have happened even five years ago.
“The U.S. economy is significantly more energy efficient than it used to be, so the effects of price changes are simply smaller,” says Commonwealth’s McMillan. “Energy consumption per dollar of GDP has been cut almost in half since 1970. Although the relationship isn’t linear, any effect from rising oil prices should be materially less than it has been in the past.”
here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2014/06/19/oil-and-gold-prices-surge-as-tensions-in-iraq-escalate/
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6/23/2014 @ 10:40AM
A Gold Alternative? The Swiss Franc
Clem Chambers , Contributor
I’m a contrarian, so it is not surprising I like gold. There are lots of reasons to like gold but the key one is the distrust of inflation, or rather the belief that inflation will become rampant again.
This distrust is on many levels. One obvious one is the disconnect between the official figures and perceived inflation every time one buys the essentials of life. There is meant to be no inflation, but that’s not what our wallets tell us.
There is also the issue of QE and massive developed world deficits and debt piles pushing the investor into worrying about the eventual outcomes of that massive long term liquidity environment. Then you can think about the fact that gold is around its cost of production.
The gold bug story is long. It sounded good when the price rose from $250 to near $2,000 an ounce and it now sounds stale as gold dibbles around below $1,300.
There are negatives too. The new fashionable one is, there is a lot of it in vaults around the world, forget production. Where was that argument when prices rose so far?
For me the big one is physical: gold is hard to own and hold. Who wants a safe deposit box or a secret stashing place for coins and bars? Alternatively, does anyone really trust banks to give you a piece of paper saying you own 10kg of gold and then honor the deal when the balloon goes up? If you hold gold for defence against crisis there is not much liquidity in a gold coin worth, say, $2,000–you can’t buy gas with an Eagle and who wants a ton of silver coins in their basement?
You can buy gold shares, of course, but mining companies make banks look like a monastery of saints by comparison to the chicanery that goes on in resource stocks.
more here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2014/06/23/a-gold-alternative-the-swiss-franc/
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PRECIOUS-Gold hits 2-month high as stocks, dollar retreat
Tue Jun 24, 2014 6:22am EDT
* Gold hits highest since early April, silver at 3-month peak
* Stocks retreat after disappointing German data
* Platinum, palladium shrug off end of SAfrican strike (Updates throughout, changes dateline, pvs SINGAPORE)
By Jan Harvey
LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - Gold hit a two-month high on Tuesday and silver reached its highest since mid-March as a drop in European shares after soft German economic data and a weaker dollar helped the metal build on last week's gains.
Spot gold hit a peak of $1,325.70 and was up 0.5 percent at $1,323.80 an ounce at 1007 GMT, while U.S. gold futures for August delivery were up $6.60 at $1,325. Silver was up 1.3 percent at $21.09 an ounce.
Gold posted its biggest weekly rise in three months last week as the threat of escalating tensions in Iraq and the Federal Reserve's lack of commitment to raising interest rates sparked a wave of short covering.
"There are still willing buyers today as there are shorts left, and risk aversion sees fresh inflows," VTB Capital analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov said.
"The greenback is slightly weaker today, while European equities are extending losses from yesterday," he added. "Low volumes and technical trading will prevail this week since there is little else aside form Iraq to drive the market, with hardly any physical flows at the moment."
Gold has been boosted recently by escalating violence in Iraq, where Sunni tribes have joined a militant takeover of northern Iraq. Oil prices were pushed to 9-month highs last week, with a consequent knock-on effect on gold.
Oil slipped below $114 a barrel on Tuesday as concerns eased that escalating violence in Iraq will affect supplies from OPEC's second-largest oil producer.
Supporting gold, European stocks retreated on Tuesday, surrendering early gains, as investors were unnerved by growing signs of economic weakness in Europe.
Germany's Ifo index of business sentiment fell more than expected in June, eating into gains across Europe's major stock markets that had been racked up on merger and
more here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/24/markets-precious-idUSL4N0P523Z20140624
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Gold Euphoria Won’t Last With Yellen’s Rally Fading
By Debarati Roy, Nicholas Larkin and Glenys Sim Jun 24, 2014 2:28 AM CT
After the biggest gold slump in three decades left investors heartbroken, they’re following Taylor Swift’s advice and never, ever getting back together.
Janet Yellen, the one person able to make the lovers reconcile, did her best. Prices surged the most since September the day after the Fed chair signaled last week that low interest rates are here to stay. Traders and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News aren’t expecting the euphoria to last. Volatility in futures is near a four-year low, at a time when trading volumes and open interest in Comex contracts are waning.
Prices will average $1,250 an ounce next quarter, about 5 percent less than now, according to the median of 15 estimates. The analysts were surveyed before and after the Fed’s June 18 outlook, and the forecast was unchanged. Even after a 28 percent plunge in 2013, the bears are emboldened by this year’s records in equity markets, and gold assets in exchange-traded products have shrunk to the smallest since 2009.
“The surge in gold can’t sustain itself,” Donald Selkin, who helps manage about $3 billion of assets as chief market strategist at National Securities Corp. in New York, said June 20. “It was a temporary spike because of a confluence of events: Iraq and Yellen. People will be looking at other areas for excitement. Holdings are down, so people are leaving gold in search of something better.”
Price Outlook
Gold for immediate delivery rose 9.5 percent to $1,315.49 an ounce in London this year, according to Bloomberg generic pricing. Bullion advanced on demand for haven assets as fighting erupted in Ukraine and Iraq.
Prices have slumped from a record $1,921.17 reached in September 2011. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI gauge of 24 commodities gained 5.1 percent since the end of December, while the MSCI All-Country World Index of equities rose 5.2 percent. The Bloomberg U.S. Treasury Bond Index added 2.7 percent.
The median of 15 analyst and trader estimates compiled by Bloomberg by June 18 showed gold will average $1,240 in the fourth quarter and $1,300 in the first three months of next year. By June 20, they were predicting $1,225 and $1,270 for the periods, not swayed by Yellen’s outlook for low borrowing costs and echoing the sentiment of Swift’s Grammy-nominated pop hit, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”
“You’ve had a bit of safe-haven demand and a bit of inflation-hedge demand,” Georgette Boele, a precious-metals analyst at ABN Amro Group NV in Amsterdam, said June 20. “The view doesn’t change on gold, because this is temporary. The other drivers have not changed.”
more here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-23/gold-euphoria-won-t-last-with-yellen-s-rally-fading-commodities.html
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MARK HULBERT Archives | Email alerts
June 24, 2014, 6:16 a.m. EDT
This is what needs to happen for gold to rally
Opinion: The best gold-market timers are bearish, a telltale sign for the yellow metal
By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) — The top-performing gold-market timers aren’t convinced that the yellow metal’s low earlier this month marked the beginning of a new leg upward.
To be sure, with bullion $70 higher now than in early June, it certainly looks as though a bottom of at least some significance was formed at that time. Believers in that story were especially emboldened last Thursday, when gold jumped more than $40 an ounce.
But try telling that story to market timers who have the best records at calling turns in the gold market. In fact, the gold timers who are most bullish today have the worst records.
To bet on gold now, therefore, you have to believe that those who historically have been most wrong will turn out to be right — and vice versa.
The accompanying table provides the supporting data behind this depressing conclusion. When focusing on the top timers, I chose the 25% on the Hulbert Financial Digest list with the best track records; the worst timers are in the bottom quartile for performance. The table reports this best-versus-worst contrast across six time periods, ranging from the past 12 months to the past 20 years.
Notice that, regardless of the time period over which performance is measured, the best gold timers are far more bearish than the worst timers. In two of these performance periods, in fact — the past three years and the past 20 years — the consensus gold exposure level among the best timers is negative, which means they are advocating that clients be short the market.
On average across all six time periods, the best timers are essentially out of the gold market, while the worst timers’ recommended exposure level is 57%.
To be bullish right now, in other words, you have to accept some pretty odd bedfellows.
more here:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-what-needs-to-happen-for-gold-to-rally-2014-06-24
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For more context on this, read the following:
Who predicted the Financial Crisis of 2008?
http://globalistnews.blogspot.com/2014/06/who-predicted-financial-crisis-of-2008.html
UPDATE:
Gold: Don't buy the sucker's rally
By Ben Rooney @ben_rooney June 20, 2014: 1:23 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
They say all that glitters...you know the rest.
Gold prices shot up more than 3% on Thursday, the biggest one day gain since September 2013. Prices were up slightly again Friday, with futures trading at about $1,316 an ounce.
So far this month, gold prices have risen nearly 6%.
While gold bugs have regained some swagger, analysts don't expect the metal to break out of the funk it's been in for the past year.
The recent jump in gold prices comes as turmoil in Iraq has put some investors on edge. Gold and other so-called "hard" assets often find favor in times of political and economic uncertainty.
Meanwhile, Russian forces have been massing on the eastern border with Ukraine, raising concerns about an escalation of tensions in an already volatile region.
"There are a lot of reasons investors should own gold," said Donald Doyle, chief executive of Blanchard & Co., a precious metals dealer in New Orleans. The current geopolitical uncertainty "illustrates the metal's qualities as insurance when governments clash."
Doyle added that investors were also spooked by comments from Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen on Wednesday. Yellen reiterated that the central bank is unlikely to hike interest rates any time soon.
Some investors see gold as an alternative to the U.S. dollar, which they believe is being undermined by the Fed's policies.
But other analysts say Thursday's rally was driven by technical factors, such as "short covering."
The price of gold rose above its 50-day moving average early Thursday, which triggered a wave of buy orders and caused investors who were betting against the metal to unwind their positions, said Carlos Sanchez, a precious metals analyst at the CPM Group.
Investors have been "short" gold for at least a year, meaning they are positioned to benefit from falling prices. Analysts say that's not likely to change anytime soon.
The summer months are historically very slow in the gold market. In addition, demand from China, which has been a big consumer of physical gold, is slowing down.
While geopolitical concerns could help support the metal in the short term, "I still think gold is headed lower," said Sanchez.
That's largely because the stock market continues to hit record highs.
And despite worries about Ukraine and Iraq, investors don't appear to be that scared. The VIX (VIXAUG), a key measure of volatility, is at its lowest point since 2007. And the CNNMoney Fear & Greed Index, which looks at the VIX and six other measures of investor sentiment, is showing signs of Extreme Greed.
Investors fled the gold market last year as they chased better returns in more risky assets. Gold prices fell nearly 30% in 2013. It was the biggest decline since 1981 and the first year-over-year drop since 2000.
Gold hit an all-time high near $1,900 an ounce in 2011, as investors worried about a global economic collapse. But the metal has fallen out of favor with stocks in the midst of a five year-old bull market.
"The fact that the equity market continues to be strong doesn't give traders much incentive to get into gold," said Rob Kurzatkowski, senior commodities analyst at optionsXpress.
Gold will probably continue to trade in the range it has been in for most of the year, between $1,200 and $1,300 an ounce, Kurzatkowski added.
"Gold may just continue to grind here," he said. "There are too many factors underpinning the market for gold to collapse, but there's not enough to spark the metal higher either."
here:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/20/investing/gold-prices/index.html
Commodities
http://money.cnn.com/data/commodities/
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