With the price of bullion at all-time highs, therersquo;s a raging debate on gold as an investment ndash; is it overbought or can it go still higher? Whatrsquo;s the inflation risk to the dollar? Should we be more worried about deflation? Every Friday we try to address the factors affecting gold in our award-winning Investor Alert, which recaps the week just ended and also looks forward to provide insights on what might lie ahead. Along with gold, the Investor Alert covers energy and natural resources, global emerging markets, domestic equities and the bond market. We encourage everyone with an interest in our key sectors to join the 23,000-plus individual investors who now subscribe to the Investor Alert and the 10,000 investment professionals who receive its sister publication, the Advisor Alert. Signup is free and easy ndash; just follow the appropriate link. To give you an idea of the Investor/Advisor Alertrsquo;s value, here are ...

With the price of bullion at all-time highs, therersquo;s a raging debate on gold as an investment ndash; is it overbought or can it go still higher? Whatrsquo;s the inflation risk to the dollar? Should we be more worried about deflation? Every Friday we try to address the factors affecting gold in our award-winning Investor Alert, which recaps the week just ended and also looks forward to provide insights on what might lie ahead. Along with gold, the Investor Alert covers energy and natural resources, global emerging markets, domestic equities and the bond market. We encourage everyone with an interest in our key sectors to join the 23,000-plus individual investors who now subscribe to the Investor Alert and the 10,000 investment professionals who receive its sister publication, the Advisor Alert. Signup is free and easy ndash; just follow the appropriate link. To give you an idea of the Investor/Advisor Alertrsquo;s value, here are ...

The Australian arm of Citigroup (C) recently priced a new 3-year bond issue at AUD 1.25 billion ($1 billion) guaranteed by the Australian Government. The bonds are priced at 43 basis points over swap and Bank Bill Swap (BBSW) reference rate.

The issue comprises fixed-rate notes worth AUD 450 million (sold mainly to asset managers) and floating-rate notes worth AUD 800 million (sold mostly to banks). Over 30 investors participated in the offer, pushing the final book size to AUD 1.5 billion which was later scaled back to AUD 1.25 billion. Citigroup had set the margin at 43 basis points, the bottom of an initial range of 43–47 basis points, based on strong demand.

About 85% of the notes were sold in Australia and the rest to investors in Europe. In June, Citigroup also sold AUD 1.3 billion of 3-year notes backed by the Government. It plans to

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The base metals were red-soaked on Wednesday. Copper was higher in the late pre-dawn hours, but hit the skids, falling straight through the day to finish barely off its intraday lows at $2.1849/lb., down nearly 8¼ cents.

Nickel mirrored copper, except that it failed to escape its intraday low of $6.2422/lb., down 30 2/3 cents. Zinc dropped to its intraday low, ending at $0.6765/lb., down more than 2 cents. Aluminum was modestly lower, closing at $0.6464/lb., down a quarter-cent, while lead plummeted, shedding 3 cents, to $0.7163/lb.

Tuesday’s cooling-off day turned into a rout for the base metals on Wednesday, as copper led the sector lower across the board, falling the most in six weeks on the rallying dollar and demand concerns.

“With the dollar due for a consolidation period and possibly heading higher, it does make copper vulnerable,” said William O’Neill, a partner at Logic Advisors in Upper Saddle

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The base metals were mostly higher on Thursday. Copper sank from the pre-dawn hours to mid-morning, falling almost to $1.95, but then turned dramatically, retaking all the lost ground and finishing at its intraday high of $2.0155/lb., up a half-cent.

Nickel started up at the New York open and climbed for most of the day, closing at $5.56268/lb., up 4 cents. Zinc also rebounded from its pre-dawn lows to climb to its intraday high of $0.6678/lb., up just over a penny. Aluminum posted a modest gain, adding over three-quarters of a cent, to $0.6769/lb., while lead was down and up to no avail, ending at $0.6517/lb., unchanged.

Copper led the industrial metals’ rebound off their European lows, following the strengthening of the equities markets.

“The copper market turned right around the same time as the S&P (stock index) started to move into positive territory and the stock market started to

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It was all about gold during Tuesday trading on the Canadian markets, with investors scurrying to bullion as a safe haven against the global economic melt down. For the tale of the tape, the TSX Exchange plunged 3.45%, while the TSX Gold Index surged 4.6% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, fell 0.70%, with the decliners swamping the advancers by a 472 to 336 margin on 161 million shares traded.

It was a rough day for Teck Cominco (NYSE:TCK) after the world’s second-largest zinc producer posted a fourth quarter loss of C$607 million or C$1.28 per share compared to a profit of C$280 million or C$0.63 per share in the same period a year earlier. The debt-heavy miner took a C$844 million writedown in the quarter. Teck ended the session down C$0.48 at C$4.44.

Cameco (NYSE:CCJ), the world’s largest uranium miner posted a fourth quarter profit

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The base metals were all stuck in red mud on Monday. Copper fell during the pre-dawn hours and rallied back into the afternoon, but not enough to erase the losses, finishing at $1.61/lb., down 6 cents from Friday. Except for a modest morning rally, nickel was down straight through the day, closing at its intraday low of $4.6025/lb., down 26½ cents.

Zinc declined until New York opened, but pushed back up from its lows to end at $0.5154/lb., down just over a penny. Aluminum plunged in the pre-dawn hours, and rose for most of the day, but wound up shedding more than 2 cents, to $0.8308/lb., while lead plummeted to its intraday low of $0.5747/lb., down nearly 3¼ cents.

Copper led the industrial metals lower yesterday, as news that Japan is officially in recession simply added to the likely prospect of an extended worldwide economic downturn.

Copper “has further to fall

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The base metals were all off to the races on Wednesday. Copper blasted back over the $2 mark, rising from the pre-dawn hours to past noon before easing a bit and finishing at $2.0678/lb., up 14¾ cents. Nickel followed a similar path, cresting above $6 before pulling back to close at $5.8559/lb., up 61¼ cents.

Zinc was strong, ending just off its intraday high at $0.5375/lb., up nearly 5 cents. Aluminum hit 97 cents before beating a sharp retreat back to $0.9479/lb., up three-quarters of a penny, while lead shot up to $0.6728/lb., up 3¼ cents.

Copper led the industrial metals on a tear yesterday, shooting up the most in two years, as traders became consumed with optimism generated by the Federal Reserve.

The metal is up 25% so far during this comeback week.

The price of copper is also likely to be supported by “supply-side vulnerability,” according to analysts at

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The last two weeks have been the most shocking in my time reporting on global financial markets. I started working for Reuters as a financial markets reporter back in 1992 in Wellington. In the following 14 years I  covered markets, companies and economics in Wellington, Canberra, Sydney, London and Singapore. I was up to my elbows in massive bank takeovers, market booms, dotcom busts and the aftermath of 9/11 when I worked in London for Reuters and FTMarketWatch from early 1999 to mid 2003. I had thought that was as wild as you could get. In Singapore I edited coverage of the SARS crisis throughout Asia and amazing rise of China’s economy and companies. I couldn’t imagine much bigger events or more amazing changes on markets. How wrong I was. These last two weeks make all those things look like mere blips and flurries. Could anyone have imagined two weeks ago that;

The US Treasury and ...

Macquarie Bank runs a "wrap" product by which Australian retail investors can invest in a range of funds and have all their tax compliance done for them. The website describing this product is here. Customers naturally enough carry some cash. The cash has traditionally been managed in a AAA rated fund holding mostly government and quasi-government and other short-dated high rated securities. The Macquarie cash fund behaved quite well - unlike say Macquarie Fortress. But Macquarie has pulled a bait-and-switch. The attached newspaper article tells the story: http://business.smh.com.au/macquarie-finds-1b-under-nose-20080609-2o13.html I have repeated the first part of the article here for your edification: MACQUARIE GROUP just found a cool $1 billion under its bed to address the high price of debt - or actually, under the beds of pensioners and superannuation investors. With little fuss, Macquarie has converted the cash accounts of investors in its super manager and pension manager "wrap" investment ...