السبت، 31 ديسمبر 2011

2011 was a poor year gold stocks


Throughout 2011 we were reluctant to increase our exposure to the mining sector and only made one purchase which was back in February 2011. We did produce a number of articles questioning the wisdom of investing in mining stocks as we were of the opinion that they were not performing despite the constant mantra that supports this tiny sector.

الثلاثاء، 27 ديسمبر 2011

about 2011 summy og gold and selver interest and opportunites for trading

If you're bullish about the long term for gold and silver, it's mouthwatering to watch them undergo a major correction after taking earlier profits that added to your deployable cash. For a little historical perspective on pullbacks, consider the following charts.


The current 15.6% gold decline, while considered a "major" correction, is not out of the ordinary, particularly following the late summer spike. And after each big selloff, there was a price consolidation phase that in every instance led to higher prices. The message: hold on, and buy the big dips.




Not surprisingly, silver's biggest corrections are larger than gold's. This is also true for the rebounds; they've been quite dramatic. If we apply the biggest three-month recovery of 44.3% to the current correction, that would take silver to $40.63… meaning we probably shouldn't expect $60 silver by year-end.
[There's still time to capitalize on the anomaly in the metals market that will bring amazing profits to those who are positioned for it. This report will help you get started… and offers a special bonus, too. Don't delay – the tide could turn very soon.]
Regarding www.skoptionstrading.com. We have just closed another trade which generated a profit of around 23%, however, we had two trades that were not profitable so the profit on our portfolio now stands at 374.43% since inception.
Please be aware that discussions are taking place regarding an increase in the price for this service for new members, so if you are thinking about joining us, then do it sooner rather later in order to save yourself a fair few bucks by avoiding this additional expense.
Our model portfolio is up 374.43% since inception
An annualized return of 94.38%
Average return per trade of 36.57%
92 completed trades, 85 closed at a profit
A success rate of 92.39%
Average trade open for 48.13 days
 So, the question is: Are you going to make the decision to join us today?
Also many thanks to those of you who have already joined us and for the very kind words  that you sent us regarding the service so far, we hope that we can continue to put a smile on your faces.

 
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US Real Interest Rates Indicate Gold Slightly Undervalued

n this update, we look at the latest trend emerging in US real rates. US real rates continue to fall and as a result we remain bullish on gold.
We have covered the dynamics of the relationship between gold and U.S. real rates before, but for new readers and those wanting a refresher, here’s an excerpt from a previous article:

Gold investors tend to focus overwhelmingly on the relationship between the US dollar and gold, citing that a lower dollar leads to higher gold prices in US dollars. Whilst this may be generally true, there is another relationship that does not get as much attention as we believe it deserves, and that is the relationship gold has with US real interest rates. For the first few years of this gold bull market, it was sufficient simply to acknowledge the USD down, therefore gold up dynamic, but now things have changed. Over the past couple of years gold has rallied when the greenback has been making gains, as well as when it was weakening, therefore investors must now take note of the inverse relationship between US real interest rates and gold, which has been observed consistently over the last couple of years. 
The basic fundamentals behind this inverse relationship are that when US monetary policy is looser, real rates fall and therefore investors buy gold for a number of reasons.

Firstly, lower real rates could imply higher inflationary expectations in the future therefore gold is bought as a hedge against this possible inflation.

Secondly, lower real returns in Treasuries drives investors into risk assets in search of a higher return. This also sends gold higher but it also sends most commodities, risk currencies and equities higher too.

Thirdly, lower real returns on Treasuries reduce demand of US dollars, causing the dollar to fall and therefore the gold price to rise in US dollars.

Finally, looser monetary policy implies that the economic situation is not as rosy as many would like to believe, so if the Federal Reserve acts by loosening monetary policy and driving down real interest rates then that send a message that the economy is in a bad place therefore investors buy gold as a safe haven asset. There are probably many more reasons for this relationship, but we have just tried to cover the main ones.”

We believe the above explanation of U.S. real rates is the key tool for predicting gold movements. Our analysis and subsequent forecasts have been proved correct in the past and our current view is this:

In the past few months we have observed further deterioration in 10 year U.S. real rates to their current level of 0%.

As noted this is a bullish sign for gold. We would expect gold to have risen over this period to about $1800-$1900, but it is currently lagging below $1700/oz. For this reason we currently see gold as slightly undervalued, however not considerably. Any short term weakness will see us adding to our positions.

The situation in Europe looks unlikely to improve in the short to medium term. Economic reform is in the works, but this has a long term focus and will not have any effect on the underlying debt issues currently upon us. Any solution arrived at by the ECB will only buy time; the problems at hand will not be resolved long term. In fact recent ECB comments suggest that there will be no monetary easing in Europe in the short term . Comments by Draghi such as “lending money to the IMF to buy Euro bonds is not compatible with the treaty” and emphasis that the ECB’s primary remit is price stability, indicates that talk of quantitative easing in Europe appears to be off the table in the short term. Therefore, whilst we still view the downside in gold as limited, the upside over the short term is now also looking more contained.
The U.S. economy remains timid and additional deterioration in Europe would not help their plight. Further easing in early 2012 therefore, is more than possible.
In August, the Fed promised to keep interest rates at zero for the next two years. On the back of this announcement, gold shot up 15% in a couple of weeks. With the Fed promising to keep interest rates at zero, half the equation is satisfied for real rates to stay low, at least on the short end of the curve. Further expectations of interest rate hikes (of lack of hikes) will dictate what happens at the long end of the curve, and therefore what will happen to key indicators such as the yield on 10 year TIPS.

Given such definite announcements from the Fed, the direction of real rates isn’t the difficult part of the question. The timing is. Real rates could possibly sit at their current level for a year or more, with gold correspondingly standing still. Or the U.S. economy could find itself in further strife even in the coming months and real rates could drop more in the short term. We see the second scenario the more likely of the two, but the actual outcome will lie somewhere between the two. Given the Fed’s August announcement and the U.S.’s bleak economic outlook we do not see real rates increasing any time soon.

Returning to Europe for a moment, we see no positive news coming out of this area of the world for some time. Whilst the impact of the Euro crisis on gold isn’t as direct as the impact of the U.S. economy, the secondary effect of the Euro on the U.S. and hence gold is significant. The most likely scenario is further deterioration in Europe and the global economic outlook will lead to more difficulty in the U.S. triggering further easing, lower real rates and rising gold prices.
Some are predicting the start of QE3 in early 2012, if this eventuates, one would undoubtedly see lower real rates and gold pushing the $2000/oz mark in early 2012. We see QE3 as a very real possibility and any announcement, or hint will have us opening fresh positions. The next month or so could well be the calm before the storm.

The E.U says F.U. to Every Member State

Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the European Union is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free.
Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the European Union is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free.
 Please click here.

 European Parliament, Strasbourg, 13 December 2011

• Speaker: Nigel Farage MEP, UKIP leader, Co-President of the EFD Group in the European Parliament (Europe of Freedom and Democracy group)

• Debate: European Council and Commission statements - Conclusions of the European Council meeting of the 8-9 December 2011 - with José Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy

- 'Blue Card' question: Alyn Smith MEP (Scottish National Party)
Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
So dear readers, what do think the chances are that Britain will still be a member of the European Union this time next year? 

Regarding www.skoptionstrading.com. We have just closed another trade which generated a profit of around 23%, so our portfolio has now generated a profit of 374.43% since inception.
Please be aware that discussions are taking place regarding an increase in the price for this service for new members, so if you are thinking about joining us, then do it sooner rather later in order to avoid this additional expense.


Our model portfolio is up 384.33% since inception
An annualized return of 94.73%
Average return per trade of 36.42%
93 completed trades, 86 closed at a profit
A success rate of 92.47%
Average trade open for 49.25 days

So, the question is: Are you going to make the decision to join us today?

Banks Retrench in Europe While Keeping Up Appearances


LONDON — Stung by souring loans and troubled government bond portfolios, many European banks are being forced by regulators to raise money to build up their cash cushions against future losses.
That includes Santander, the Spanish banking giant that European regulators say has the biggest capital hole to fill: at least 15 billion euros.
So why, then, is Santander still planning to pay its shareholders 2011 dividends worth at least 2 billion euros in cash and even more in stock? That question goes to the heart of the economic challenge that Europe faces in the year ahead. A combination of government austerity, and the imposition of bigger capital safety cushions that are leading banks to retrench, seem all but certain to plunge the Continent back into recessionless than three years after emerging from the last one.
 But many banks are taking actions that will only intensify the blow. To preserve their allure as global brands, while trying to compensate for their battered share prices, big European banks like Santander remain intent on maintaining rich dividend payouts to shareholders. At the same time, they are selling assets, curbing lending and taking other belt-tightening measures to satisfy regulators’ demands for more capital.
“Our dividend is a sign of our expected future profits,” said José Antonio Alvarez, the chief financial officer of Santander. “Unless our expectations change we try not to cut the dividend.”
Santander, though by many measures the most generous, is not the only bank paying dividends as it scrambles to raise capital.
Its rival, the Spanish lender BBVA, plans to pay out nearly half its profits to shareholders, despite being under regulators’ orders to raise 6.3 billion euros in capital. To a lesser but still significant extent, Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas will also be paying out dividends as they try to take in money to build their capital cushions.
All this is a sharp contrast to the way capital-short banks in the United States slashed dividends to conserve cash during the depths of the financial crisis that followed the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008. The American government also injected cash into the banks, as Britain did with its weaker institutions.
So far, European governments have shown no inclination to do likewise for their banks. And critics say the contrast with the American experience shows how much European regulators are out of step, or even out of touch, with the banks they supervise — with potentially disturbing ramifications for the European economy.
“I do not think Europeans understand the implications of a systemic banking crisis,” said Richard Koo, the chief economist at the Nomura Research Institute in Tokyo and an expert on the financial stagnation in Japan in the 1990s. “When all banks are forced to raise capital at the same time, the result is going to be even weaker banks and an even longer recession — if not depression.”
A paper Mr. Koo wrote on the subject has gone viral on the Web, with many picking up on his recommendation that the banking crisis will not be solved until European governments inject large amounts of money into their banks.
“Government intervention should be the first resort, not the last resort,” Mr. Koo said in an interview.
There is little doubt that European banks need shoring up right now. That fact was made clear Wednesday, when 523 banks tapped the European Central Bank for a record 489 billion euros (nearly $640 billion) in loans. Compared with their American peers, they have been much more dependent on borrowing in recent years to finance their lending binges.
On average, European banks’ loan books exceed their deposits by 1.2 times. In the United States the average loan-to-deposit ratio is 0.70. The upshot is that it will probably take much longer for Europe’s banks to unwind their bad loans and debt than it has for American banks.
The European Banking Authority, after a third round of stress tests in October, has ordered Europe’s fragile banks to raise more than 114 billion euros in fresh cash in the next six months. By June 2012, the region’s financial institutions will need to increase their so-called core Tier 1 capital ratio — the strictest measure of a bank’s ability to resist financial shocks — to 9 percent of assets.
That ratio, higher than the 5 percent preliminary target that the Federal Reserve set for American banks this week, reflects the acute capital strains that European banks are facing.
Regarding www.skoptionstrading.com.  Our portfolio has now generated a profit of 374.43% since inception and we hope to keep it going that way next year.
 
Please be aware that discussions are taking place regarding an increase in the price for this service for new members, so if you are thinking about joining us, then do it sooner rather later in order to avoid this additional expense.
Our model portfolio is up 384.33% since inception
An annualized return of 94.73%
Average return per trade of 36.42%
93 completed trades, 86 closed at a profit
A success rate of 92.47%
Average trade open for 49.25 days

So, the question is: Are you going to make the decision to join us today

World GDP: The recovery fades

20-Dec (The Economist) — THE world’s recovery from recession is slowing, according to The Economist’s measure of global GDP, based on 52 countries. Third-quarter growth expanded by 3.6% across the world, down by 1.5% from the same period in 2010.

[source]

Ties between sovereigns and banks set to deepen

22-Dec (Financial Times) — A few weeks ago, some senior officials at Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi spotted a fascinating fact: for the first time the volume of Japanese government bonds sitting on the bank’s balance sheet swelled above corporate and consumer loans.
Yes, you read that right: at an entity such as Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi, it is now the government – not the private sector – which is grabbing most credit, as the bank gobbles up JGBs, notwithstanding rock-bottom low rates.
More
Welcome to a key theme of 2012. During the past four decades, it was widely assumed in the western world that the main role of banks and asset managers was to provide funding to the private sector, rather than act as a piggy bank for the state. But now, that assumption – like so many of the other ideas that dominated before 2007 – is quietly crumbling. And not just in Japan.
…Whatever you want to call it, then, the state and private sector finance are becoming more entwined by the day. It is a profound irony of 21st century “market” capitalism. And in 2012, it will only deepen.
[source]

The Daily Market Report

Despite Correction, Gold Poised to Register Another Solid Performance in 2011
Bar1
23-Dec (USAGOLD) — Gold is consolidating just above the $1600 level going into the Christmas holiday. The last London gold fix of 2010 was $1405, so barring any dramatic price changes in the last week of the year, the yellow metal is on-track for yet another double-digit gain of about 14%.
That’s pretty impressive given the dramatic delveraging sell-off from the 1920.50 record high we saw in September, which prompted all manner of commentary proclaiming the end of gold’s decade-long rally. More recently — amid another bout of deleveraging associated with rising uncertainty about the fate of European Union — the yellow metal retested the September low at 1534.06 along with important channel support. While much was made of the technical damage done by the recent move below the 200-day moving average, gold continues to display good resilience, underpinned by solid fundamentals.
Monthly Gold Chart
Daily Gold Chart
Those supporting fundamentals are unlikely to change anytime soon as the world continues to seek solutions for an overwhelming level of debt and anemic growth prospects. Thus far, the focus remains on creating more of what is arguably to primary source of the problem. Debt.
Of course someone needs to buy that debt, so we have also witnessed unprecedented — and in some instances “unlimited” — liquidity pumps to perpetuate the now institutionalized game of “hide the debt.” I don’t think that anyone really believes that more debt is really the answer to our global debt crisis, but in staving off a complete economic catastrophe several years ago with massive deficit spending and liquidity schemes, the United States effectively set the tone. Actually, the US was simply following the example set by Japan more than 20-years ago; drive interest rates to zero and hold them there by printing currency and buying bonds with it.
In fact, Japanese debt is fast approaching ¥1 quadrillion! That rather ominous benchmark is expected to be surpassed by the end of Japan’s fiscal year in March. The BoJ’s balance sheet is a startling ¥138 trillion. Meanwhile the Fed’s balance sheet has contracted in recent months, but is still in excess of $2.7 trillion. But perhaps most troubling is the expansion of the ECB’s balance sheet. Despite their persistent assurances that quantitative measures simply aren’t an option, the ECB’s balance sheet has grown by nearly a third, approaching €2.5 trillion. Hey Mr. Draghi, if you’re not engaged in QE, explain that exploding balance sheet.
There are policymakers in Europe, including ECB board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, that favor true — or at least un-obscured — quantitative easing by the ECB to prevent another recession in Europe. Imagine the implications for the central bank’s balance sheet if the objections are ultimately circumvented.
Late in December, the ECB unleashed a wall of money, €489 bln ($638 bln) in 3-year LTROs to 523 eurozone banks. The positive reaction to all this new liquidity was very short-lived. The euro remains under pressure and eurozone spreads have widened back out.
As the FT’s Gillian Tett pointed out in a recent column, the hope was that the banks would use this abundance of cheap ECB money to buy European sovereign debt, much in the same way that US banks plowed the proceeds from mortgage backed securities sales to the Fed into US Treasuries. Basically, the private sector ends up financing the government with funds provided by the government. Being in the middle of this financing cycle results in a potential profit bonanza for the banks.
ZIRP and liquidity. Liquidity and ZIRP. From here to eternity…
There are growing rumblings that the Fed is about to extend their ZIRP guidance from mid-2013 out to 2014 and potentially beyond. I’m sure when the BoJ launched their quantitative measures they were expected to last maybe a couple of years. Here it is 20 some years later and Japan still has 0% interest rates. Do you suppose this is our fate as well?
Some of the major financial firms are predicting lofty average gold prices for the coming year: Goldman Sachs $1810, Barclays $2000 and UBS $2050 to name just a few. We maintain that the long-term uptrend in gold is protected as long as we remain in a negative real interest rate environment. This in fact seems all-but assured for quite some time. On top of that, the ongoing expansions of debt, monetary bases and central bank balance sheets, along with broadly positive supply/demand dynamics — highlighted by robust investment and central bank demand — conspire to underpin gold as well in the new year.
On behalf of everyone here at USAGOLD – Centennial Precious Metals, we wish you a very merry Christmas and a most prosperous 2012.