This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Mohamed El-Erian and Ramin Toloui (Financial Times): How to fill the gaps left by dollar decline, November 5, 2009. We should expect to see more discussion in the next few years on new types of reserve assets.

• James West (GoldSeek): Gold price is no bubble, November 4, 2009. The price performance of gold recently has all sorts of armchair economists waxing philosophical on the idea that this is the advent of a price “bubble”. While certainly everyone has and is entitled to their opinion, there are other features of humanity that we all possess, and much like many opinions, are best obscured from view. Declaring that gold is in a “bubble” demonstrates complete ignorance of or disregard for

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

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

Gold didn’t do much in the Far East or Europe on Wednesday…but the bottom, if you want to call it that, occurred shortly after the start of floor trading on the Comex yesterday morning in New York. From that low, gold rose steadily…gaining a little over $20 between then and the close of electronic trading at 5:15 yesterday afternoon. In the process, it set another new high for this move.

For the most part, silver’s action mirrored gold. The low of the day was at the London silver fix (noon London…7 a.m. New York). From there it rose, just like gold…closing at a new high for this leg up. And, for the second day in a row, I was underwhelmed by the performance of the HUI.

In the last three days, I’ve noticed that there has been a change in pattern during Far East trading. It’s not a lot, but it’s something

Just like Friday morning, gold blasted out of the starting gate as soon as Globex trading began in the Far East on Monday morning. And just like Friday morning, this price spike ran into a wall of selling that went on for about four hours. Then there was a respite until 3:00 a.m. New York time when another wave of selling commenced that lasted right through London…and until the Comex open. Then the dealers (mostly JPMorgan, I would think) pulled their bids for the third and last time…and the price of gold cratered another $10…for the third and last time. Silver really got it in the neck on the Comex open. There was nothing free market about this…this was the Gold Cartel…pure and simple. The US$ didn’t even start to rise until after all the damage was done, so you can’t blame it on that.

It was encouraging to see both