Gold isn’t going to $2,000 an ounce. Before you gag on your coffee or suffer chest pains, allow me to explain.

We’re about eight years into the bull market, and gold has breached the $1,000 level twice and has spent weeks trading above the old high of $850. Some observers are now saying that gold’s pretty much had its day and that once the recession is over, it will retreat for good.

However, the four-digit gold price we’ve seen so far is with no price inflation to speak of, no effects of the atrocious increase in the money supply, and despite a rising dollar. What happens to gold when each of those pictures gets turned upside down – high inflation, excess cash jolting the economy, and a falling dollar? After all, gold’s performance to date has been powered only by general anxiety, not by any visible erosion in the dollar’s value.

I decided

Innovative image technology company Mitek Systems Inc. today announced it will exhibit the capabilities of its ImageNet Mobile Deposit in collaboration with the mFoundry mobile banking application on an iPhone at BAI TransPay.

The ImageNet Mobile Deposit allows bank customers to deposit checks from their camera-equipped mobile phone, directly into their banking accounts. This offers the ultimate level of convenience for bank customers, as well as easy access to their funds. The mFoundry mobile banking platform allows for quick account information such as transfers, bill payments and branch or ATM locations, all from the customer’s mobile phone.

“Offering ImageNet Mobile Deposit with mFoundry’s mobile banking application demonstrates the power and convenience of the next generation of mobile banking and payments,” James DeBello, president and CEO of Mitek stated in the press release. “It provides another compelling reason for customers to adopt mobile banking as their preferred way to interact with

Saturday February 14, 2009
Navivest

Four more banks fell victim to the deteriorating economy and were closed by financial regulators in their respective states on Friday.

The banks, Pinnacle Bank, Beaverton, OR, Corn Belt Bank and Trust Company Pittsfield, IL, Riverside Bank of the Gulf Coast, Cape Coral, FL, Sherman County Bank, Loup City, NE were all relative small banks, with assets under $600 million.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures U.S. banks, was named receiver of the banks and it has entered into purchase and assumption agreements with other banks that will now assume the deposits of the failed banks.

Pinnacle Bank had total assets of approximately $73 million and total deposits of $64 million as of December 31, 2008. Its deposits have been assumed by Washington Trust Bank of Spokane, Washington, which also agreed to purchase about $72 million in assets, at a discount of $7.6 million. The

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Further evidence that the small business segment of the economy is undergoing stress. From the ADP National Employment Report:

[Joel] Prakken added, "This month's employment loss was driven by the goods-producing sector which declined 126,000 during October, its twenty-third consecutive monthly decline. The manufacturing sector marked its twenty-sixth consecutive monthly decline, losing 85,000 jobs. These losses were compounded by an employment decline in the service-providing sector of the economy which fell by 31,000, the first loss in the serviceproviding sector recorded by the ADP Report since November of 2002."

"Large businesses, defined as those with 500 or more workers, saw employment decline 41,000, while medium-size companies with between 50 and 499 workers declined 91,000. Employment among small-size businesses, defined as those with fewer than 50 workers, declined 25,000. This is the first outright decline in small business employment reported by the ADP Report since November of 2002, and the largest percentage decline since the economy was emerging from recession

Government bailouts for private banks are having a strange impact on bond markets, says Andrew Gordon. Fed guarantees have investors swapping traditionally safe government sponsored enterprise bonds for corporate bank bonds. This means higher yields on GSEs like Fannie and Freddie. And companies that invest exclusively in GSE bonds - like MFA (NYSE:MFA) and Anworth (NYSE:ANH) - are poised to benefit.

More from Investor’s Daily Edge:

Equities aren’t the only markets acting strangely these days. The bond markets are acting even stranger.

For both bond and equity markets the cause of this strange behavior is the same: Piecemeal government actions in the U.S., Europe and Asia culminating in massive intervention.

The U.S. government is trying to nurse the economy back to health. And like a doctor who has

Anyone looking at the headlines coming in from the Northern Hemisphere in the last couple of days would be forgiven for being a little nervous. I have received many calls from savers asking about our banks.

Even over the weekend the news has got worse. British mortgage bank Bradford and Bingley is likely to be nationalised by the government there after it failed to find a buyer. Dutch/Belgian bank Fortis is in crisis talks about either a forced sale or a government bailout. America’s sixth-largest bank, Wachovia, is hunting for someone to rescue it, although it is possible it could be allowed to fail so buyers can snap up assets in a fire sale.

The US$700 billion bailout of US banks by the US taxpayer looks more likely to pass Congress this week after leaders from both sides of the House re-railed the derailed plan. But many

NY Times, August 24
“The size of the commercial paper market, a crucial source of short-term financing for businesses, decreased 4.2 percent last week, the biggest drop in at least seven years, as investors fled asset-backed debt and opted for the safety of Treasuries….

… The retreat may indicate that the Fed’s decision to lower the discount rate last week failed to instill enough calm to draw back investors. Commercial paper backed by assets led the fall as buyers fled debt linked to subprime mortgages. …