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

• Daniel Gross (Newsweek): The greatest trade ever, November 10, 2009. How hedge fund manager John Paulson bet against the real estate bubble and made $15 billion in a single year.

• abc News: SocGen’s top analyst sees market lows next year, November 9, 2009. Albert Edwards, a top analyst with French bank Societe Generale, expects global markets to hit a new low in 2010, adding that he would not be surprised if the global economy enters another recession next year. Edwards, one of the leading equities bears and a long-term critic of the policies of Western central banks, is skeptical of popular opinion that extreme policy response will safeguard the West against a repeat of Japan’s lost decade of the 1990’s.

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

• Nelson Schwartz (HeraldTribune.com): Inside the global gold frenzy, November 8, 2009. Long considered the ultimate refuge for nervous investors, gold has climbed as the dollar has steadily weakened, budget deficits have expanded in the United States and Europe, and central banks have continued to pump trillions of dollars into weak economies, creating fears of another asset bubble that will ultimately pop. “It’s not that gold has changed, but gold buyers have changed,” said Suki Cooper, a precious-metals strategist for Barclays Capital. “It’s a structural shift we’re seeing on the investing side, from Asian central banks right down to individual investors buying ingots and coins.”

• William Rees-Mogg (Times Online): Which will come out on top: paper or gold? November

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I argued the bull case for gold in my posts over the past few months (see “Gold bullion - regaining its shine?“, “Gold bullion glitters bright” and “Gold bullion - challenging $1,000“. With the gold price scaling fresh peaks and closing in on $1,100, it would certainly seem as if renewed interest in the yellow metal is being stirred up, especially subsequent to the purchase by India’s central bank of 200 metric tons of gold from the International Monetary Fund.

As printing presses are running at full speed to produce ever-increasing quantities of fiat money as governments engineer the greatest asset price reflation in human history - and the US greenback is heading South - the longer-term fundamental case for the yellow metal is arguably positive.

“The gold bug has caught several big hedge fund managers this year including John Paulson of Paulson & Company, Kyle

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Helped by the "first-time home buyer" tax credit and other forms of government assistance, home prices -- as measured by the Case Schiller Composite 20 index -- rose for the third straight month, up 0.97%, but still down 11.36% on a year-over-year basis, and off 29.89% from its May 2006 peak (note below when I reference peak levels they are from May 2006, not from the individual city peaks, which might have been a few months before or after the national peak). Since home prices do exhibit a fair amount of seasonality, I am working with the seasonally adjusted numbers. Most of the press has a habit of tracking the unadjusted numbers, which I feel is a mistake. So realize that the numbers presented here might be different from what you read in the newspaper tomorrow. A total of 16 of the 20 cities registered price increases, ...

I’m moving to China … possibly to live in a bunker. At least that was my inclination after listening to a presentation by Jim Rogers yesterday.

Now don’t get me wrong―Mr. Commodities wasn’t all doom and gloom. In fact, his talk was both informative and highly entertaining. But Rogers doesn’t sugarcoat things―he’s very matter-of-fact about his concerns and projections for the future. And most of them don’t bode well for the U.S.

I’ll be posting an interview with Jim Rogers on the site in the coming week, but for now, I just wanted to offer some highlights from his speech at ETF Securities' mini-conference and the Q&A that followed.

1. The 21st century belongs to China

According to Rogers, the 19th century was the era of the British Empire and the 20th century was the

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The Reason Why Gold Hasn’t Skyrocketed.

With the printing presses in full printing mode, many people are questioning why gold prices haven’t gone higher - much higher.

In my new video, I explain some of the subtle market cycles that are at play right now in this market. These short-term cycles have been the dominant force in gold all year and appear to be still in control of price action.

I believe the longer-term upward trend in gold is very much intact; short-term we could see more of a trading range that has a downward bias. I think when you watch this video you will get a much better understanding about the rhythm of this market.

If I am correct, you will see some amazing opportunities that I believe will be presented to traders in Q4. In fact, if everything goes

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This short update comes to you from Cape Town airport where I am awaiting my flight to Johannesburg, and then to Frankfurt and finally Ljubljana (capital of Slovenia) where I will be spending the next few days with a group of South African business people.

I often argued the bull case for gold over the past few months. With gold having surged by $40 an ounce (+4.1%) to $994 this week, it would certainly seem as if renewed interest in the yellow metal is being stirred up.

As printing presses are running at full speed to produce ever-increasing quantities of fiat money as governments engineer the greatest asset price reflation in human history - and the US greenback is heading South - the longer-term fundamental case for the yellow metal is arguably positive.

The shorter-term technical picture is also starting to look interesting. This is explained by Adam Hewison

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Stocks push the currencies higher…Norway pulls out of recession…Jackson Hole boondoggle…Oil helps rally commodity currencies…And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… We had more rain here last night, but the storms have cooled things off and it is starting to feel a bit like fall around here. Chuck flies off to San Francisco today to speak at the Money Show, so I will be bringing you the Pfennig for the next few days. The dollar has rallied just a bit overnight, clawing back some of the losses which occurred mid morning yesterday.

And what, you might asked, caused the dollar to rally yesterday? You can re-read a bit of yesterday’s Pfennig for the answer: “The data cupboard has been emptied out and is looking to get restocked today… So the only thing besides sentiment moving the markets today will be the direction of stocks…” Yes, Chuck was right on in predicting what would

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The dollar will probably go up. Still, we’d stay away…

Here is Warren Buffett’s view:

“Last fall, our financial system stood on the brink of a collapse that threatened a depression. The crisis required our government to display wisdom, courage and decisiveness. Fortunately, the Federal Reserve and key economic officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations responded more than ably to the need.

“They made mistakes, of course. How could it have been otherwise when supposedly indestructible pillars of our economic structure were tumbling all around them? A meltdown, though, was avoided, with a gusher of federal money playing an essential role in the rescue.

“The United States economy is now out of the emergency room and appears to be on a slow path to recovery.”

This is probably the view shared by most economists and most investors. It is not our view. From where we sit there is no recovery underway…and there

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This morning, MarketWatch tells us there’s been “a broad-based decline” of shares in Europe. Apparently, “capital adequacy worries” over banks are the cause. We presume this is a polite way of saying banks have no money. 

At least the Europeans are owning up to the fact; in the U.S. investors are still pretending that the emperor’s new clothes are real. The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index is down 1.2%, down the second day in four.

Shanghai stocks have also taken a bath. They’ve suffered their worst fall since November. This time, the worry is that the Chinese government will tighten its loosey-goosey monetary policy. According to MarketWatch, “The Shanghai Composite Index dropped 5.8% to 2,830.63, closing below the 3,000-point level for the first time since the end of June.”

Japanese shares are also down, despite recent data showing that the Japanese economy expanded during the second quarter. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Average fell

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