In September, the Producer Price Index rose by 0.3%. While this is an acceleration from the 0.6% decline in September, it is well below consensus expectations of a 0.5% increase. All of the price pressures were coming from food and energy. If they are stripped out to get the Core Producer Price Index, prices fell by 0.6% for the month -- a much faster decline than the 0.1% decline last month, and even farther below the consensus expectations of a 0.1% increase for the month. Both food and energy rose by 1.6% at the finished level in September. For energy, though, it was just a partial reversal of the 2.4% decline in September. In September, finished food prices fell only 0.1%. On a year-over-year basis, the total Producer Price Index is down 1.9%. However, last month the year-over-year decline was 4.8%. Thus on a year-over-year basis, the ...

Currencies back off gains…Administration slaps tariff on China…And Yen rallies…Quotes from Davos…And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! I hope your weekend was grand… I was supposed to be traveling back from Williamsburg today, so this is a bonus day for you all! HA! On Friday morning, I told the early arrivers that the currencies were strong, Gold was strong, it was all good, and we needed to close up shop and go home, because it wasn’t going to get an better than that, and that the rest of the day had nothing but disappointment risk! Boy did I nail that one on the head! Let’s get to the goings on.

The currencies added to their gains during the Friday morning, only to see them give the gains back later in the day, as the “boys” in NY all closed shop and headed to the Hamptons. I

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For the first time in a couple of decades, some of America’s most successful, big-name investors are buying gold.

David Einhorn, the hedge fund manager who predicted the downfall of Lehman Bros., recently bought gold for the first time. And then there is John Paulson, the guy who made billions of dollars by correctly anticipating the housing bust and credit crisis.

Paulson just plunked down $1.3 billion for an 11% stake in AngloGold (NYSE:AU). He’s also got a big position in Kinross Gold (NYSE:KGC).

Peter Munk, the 82-year-old chairman and founder of Barrick Gold, also offers up his own anecdote about gold’s broadening appeal. “I have had more phone calls in the past six months than ever before – from people who have $120,000 inherited from grandmother, and from hedge fund managers with millions,” he says. “I am not saying George Soros, but people of that caliber have told me they

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By Gillian Tett

Published: April 9 2009 03:00 | Last updated: April 9 2009 03:00

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A few months ago, Terry Smith, head of Tullett Prebon, the interdealer broker, chaired a panel at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos which was asked to produce one concrete recommendation to fix the global financial crisis.

The top pick? Not anything on toxic assets or fiscal spending. Instead, this gaggle of leading financiers called for a new reserve currency, akin to an old-style gold standard.

“Two-thirds of the world’s assets are denominated in a fiat currency issued by a country whose authorities are taking policy actions which seem inevitably to lead to its debasement,” explains Mr Smith, noting that “it seems . . . the Chinese have now concluded that this is not

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Around these parts, no one can touch Bill Bonner when it comes to taking down New York Times columnist Tom Friedman.  But Friedman’s latest is too much for me to resist.

“What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession?” he asks.

So he’s just now figuring this out.  Well, when the family fortune you marry into shrinks from $3.6 billion to a mere $25 million, I guess it’s natural to start wondering such things.

But since it’s Tom Friedman we’re talking about, it’s also natural to reach the wrong conclusions.

We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more

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I can’t decide if this is a case of cluelessness, stubbornness, or both.

See, I try not to pay attention to the doings of the power elite when they gather each year for their conclave in Davos, Switzerland.  It’s not where they make the big decisions, and as such the gathering is little more than an excuse for sandalistas to show up and protest.

But it was hard to avoid the media coverage this year, given the hoopla over how “the world had changed” since the last gathering.  Still, there was absolutely nothing interesting or revealing about this year’s model, save perhaps for the fact that fewer bankers showed up.

Except… an enterprising reporter for Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper made the most of his assignment at Davos.  Federico Fubini surveyed “60 top central bankers, financial market regulators, fund managers, and industry opinion-makers.”

He first asked whether they themselves “might have contributed,

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I would like to state for the record that what’s happening to the U.S. economy is freaking me out. And I think that if you’re not scared, you’re not paying attention.

That said, there are positive steps you can take to protect yourself and your portfolio — and I’ll get to three of those steps in a minute. But just because I’m worried doesn’t mean things can’t end well. With some luck, maybe President Obama’s economic team can stabilize things.

Then again, maybe not.

The Latest Madness
Out of Washington …

The Fed will probably let hedge funds borrow from its new, Term Asset-backed Lending Facility (TALF) — a program that is expanding to as much as $1 trillion!

The idea is that securities that have no buyers will be sold …

GoldDrivers 2009 - Extraordinary Bullish Outlook For Gold Eric Hommelberg

Gold proves itself as only true alternative for the dollar Confidence in currencies shaken to the core Gulf countries are keen to break away from the link with the US dollar Chinese appetite for US debt in decline Former Bank of England official expects dollar collapse Investors fleeing into gold as US prints trillions HSBC, Citigroup, Merril Lynch, Goldman Sachs all turning bullish on gold Senior gold shares ready to move higher after impressive 100% bull run since October 2008 Junior gold shares waking up - bottomed out in December 2008

This piece is an update on “GoldDrivers

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After Friday’s lousy action in the gold and silver price…and their shares, it was no surprise to me that the boyz hit the price right at the open in Far East trading early Monday morning. They weren’t even trying to hide…it was like a two by four right between the eyes. Every rally was crushed…and once the London p.m. fix was in at 10:00 a.m. New York time, they really went to work on the price. This continued through what was left of Comex trading…and then into the electronic Globex trading after.

Here’s the 3-year gold chart. Hopefully this put the current situation in some sort of historical perspective.

click to enlarge

Silver was similar. Its price was driven down all through Far East trading as well…and it even got smacked pretty good at the London silver fix (noon in

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