One of the most important factors to watch for the U.S. economy and commodities is money supply. Put simply, money supply is the total amount of money available in an economy. This includes bills, coins, credit and all other forms of liquid financial instruments. James Turk, founder of GoldMoney.com, wrote an interesting explanation of the basics of money supply thatrsquo;s currently available on Kitco.com. In it, Turk explains the underlying supply and demand imbalance between the amount of money that is being printed and the overall demand for it. There are a couple different measures of money supply but at U.S. Global, we follow M2 the closest because it is the broadest measure of money currently availablemdash;all money in circulation plus savings deposits and money market accounts for individuals. As you can see from the chart below, M2 spiked in the fall of 2008 as the Fed sought to inject additional liquidity into ...

Gold added about five bucks to its price from the time that trading began in the Far East Thursday…and the London a.m. gold fix. Then from there, it gave back seven dollars going into the p.m. gold fix…and after that, it gained over eight dollars until half past lunchtime in New York. Then a really serious seller showed up taking nine bucks off the price between then and the close of electronic trading in New York. It was pretty choppy trading all around…and it was obvious that every rally ran into serious resistance. The same could be said for silver. But according to the usual New York gold commentator [who is not Dennis Gartman, by the way], volume in gold was heavy…estimated at 140,658 contracts…”which involved a 21.6% surge in the last half-hour. The presence of such determined buyers and sellers during the floor session is unusual.”

Wednesday’s open interest in

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From the first paragraph of my Saturday commentary…”I don’t know what it is about that [one hour and change] stretch of time between the Sydney close and the London open…but if there is going to be a down day…it starts right there a large percentage of the time.” Any questions? Actually, both gold and silver got sold off the moment that the New York bullion banks opened for business 6:00 p.m. on Sunday night…which is very early Monday morning in Far East trading. Shortly before 3:00 p.m. in Hong Kong, gold had almost made it back to unchanged…and silver was actually up a couple of cents when the hammer fell. The bottom for gold came very shortly after the London a.m. gold fix at 5:30 New York time…and in silver, shortly after the Comex open. The ‘rally’ in the US dollar that started at the same time as the precious

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Gold pushed to $990 at the open of London trading on Wednesday, but that was all she wrote, as the metal declined almost $15 from there to the noon hour and then really plunged, selling off to below $965 by the end of the Comex, and finally ending at $962.60/oz., down $18.50. Overnight, gold has poked higher.

Platinum was rangebound between $1240 and $1250 until the noon hour, then it fell off, drifting to a close at $1235, down $4. Overnight, platinum is trending higher.

Silver followed gold’s path pretty closely and with even greater volatility, bursting past $16.20 in late Hong Kong trading, but then swooning by nearly a full dollar before some late buying action on the Globex led it to a finish at $15.31, down 65 cents. Overnight, silver has fallen off. (Click here for charts)

The precious metals were probably due for a hammering, and that’s

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Both gold and silver got sold off gently in Far East trading on Wednesday. This slight downward trend lasted until shortly after 12:00 noon in London…and shortly before the Comex opened in New York. From there, rallies in both metals got hit hard the moment that the gold price broke through $960 and silver broke through $15 respectively. Strangely enough, this occurred about 12:05 Eastern time in both metals. From there, the selling pressure was on…and as of this writing, gold has given back $15…and silver about 35 cents. Silver’s chart is particularly interesting, as it was obvious that sellers had virtually vanished and the price was going parabolic before JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) showed up.

click to enlarge

The usual New York commentator had the following regarding yesterday’s trading…”Obviously the $960 level is being

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With American and British equity markets closed on Monday, there wasn’t a lot of activity in the gold and silver markets either. Both got sold off a tad in Sunday night electronic trading and during Monday in the Far East…but both recovered during European trading hours at, or after, London opened for the day. The highs…such as they were…were after the London close.

On Monday evening a more serious seller showed up in the New York access market, and by the close of Tuesday afternoon trading in Hong Kong, gold had about $17 shaved off its price. That was its low of the day, and a rally ensued in London that lasted until Comex trading began in New York at 8:15 a.m. yesterday morning, when another not-for-profit seller showed up. The New York low in gold was at precisely 9:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. From there, another rally lasted until shortly

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Well, with the US$ down a half a cent, and decent gains in both platinum and palladium, you have to be pretty much brain dead not to have seen the footprints of the Gold Cartel in the gold and silver markets yesterday.

It all started the moment that Sydney closed on Monday afternoon…1:00 a.m. Monday in New York. From that point on, only Hong Kong [and the New York Bullion Banks] is a player. As I’ve said before, the New York banks [or their agents] can, and do, enter the markets whenever they want.

Gold sold off about five bucks with a smallish rally starting shortly after 12:00 noon in London. That lasted until the equity markets opened at 9:30 in New York…and then it was lights out…as gold got hit for $11 bucks. Once London closed for the day, the pressure was on again [both in Globex trading and electronic trading

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Gold tacked on about $10 in early Wednesday morning trading in the Far East. But shortly before London began trading, all the those gains began to disappeared. The low for the day was shortly after Comex floor trading started. From there, a spirited rally began, which went vertical right after London closed for the day…but [as always] there was someone standing there with a hammer to make sure that the rally went no further.

click to enlarge

Silver was up a dime by 3 p.m. in Hong Kong in their afternoon yesterday…when it, too, began the long decline…with the bottom coming at 9:30 during Comex trading. The rally in silver ran into the same seller as gold…and at precisely the same time…and that was it for the day.

Initially, the precious metals shares held up well despite the onslaught…but the

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There was a brief flurry of excitement in Globex trading on Sunday evening’s New York open. Both gold and silver were up right out of the starting gate…silver especially so.

The U.S. bullion banks [the only ones allowed to trade at that time of day] were either going long or covering shorts. This rally continued through the Sydney open in gold…and into the beginning of trading in Hong Kong for silver. At those two points, a not-for-profit seller showed up…or the buying/short covering stopped. Those were the highs of the day in both metals. It’s quite unusual for the not-for-profit sellers/price cappers to hit the metals at two widely separated times like this. Almost without exception, they hit both metals at precisely the same time. I should quickly point out that trading volume in New York on Sunday night…and in Sydney and the Far East early Monday morning….was basically air in

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Alex’s Notes: This quote from James Turk in this article really stood out to me “How bad is it out there that the Fed would take this big gamble to risk hyperinflating the dollar to try saving insolvent banks? What does Bernanke see that he would expand the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet by another $1.2 trillion? What is he not telling us?”

By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch

Last update: 3:03 a.m. EDT March 23, 2009

 

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Last Wednesday’s Federal Reserve debt monetization announcement was the event gold bugs have been anticipating all their professional lives, or at least since the last gold bull market blow-off 30 years ago. They are triumphant — and terrified.

 

Australia’s The Privateer said on Sunday: “On March 18 … U.S. Fed announced plans to begin to buy U.S. government debt

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