Gold started the summer doldrums looking strong and has retreated since, but what are its prospects for the rest of the year and beyond? That will largely be determined by the interplay between supply and demand; let’s take a look at the supply side.

Reports of dwindling supply are accurate in some areas; however, the story is not that simple. Unlike most metals that are consumed in industrial use, most of the gold ever mined is still around. Gold is forever. Thus newly mined, refined, and fabricated gold is not all that’s entering the marketplace; there are multiple ways of meeting demand. Here’s a look at each.

Breaking Rocks

Imagine that you could turn back the calendar to late 1848, as word was beginning to spread about the gold discovery at John Sutter’s sawmill on the South Fork of the American River in Coloma, California. Would you have loved gold enough to be

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RT Shares Surge on Better-than-Expected Results On July 7, 2009, Ruby Tuesday’s (RT) shares surged 12.46% and closed at $7.40, in the light of better than expected fourth quarter results, helped by cost cutting initiatives. Earnings per share for the reported quarter increased 3.7% year over year to $0.28 from $0.27 reported in the prior year quarter, beating Street expectation by $0.08. The comparable store sales at company-owned restaurants dipped but at a slower rate, falling 3.2% in the reported quarter, as it improved over the 6.8% decline in the third quarter of 2009, and a 10.8% decline in both the first and the second quarters. Comparable store sales at domestic franchise restaurants fell 6.9%. Guest count was positive in the reported quarter. Management expects comparable sales to fall in the range of 2.5%-3.5% for the fiscal year 2010, an improvement over the 7.9% decline ...

This is the age where politicians get their chance to run up huge debts.  “Politics is about what works,” said Hillary Clinton. At least, we think it was Hillary Clinton. Someone said it. Someone who is an imbecile.

Politics is not about what works, it’s about what you can get away with. And what you can get away with is often exactly what doesn’t work at all.

Our beat is money, here at the Daily Reckoning. We specialize in fraud and folderol. We leave the homicide beat to someone else.

What the US is getting away with, from a financial point of view, in addition to counterfeiting, is very grand larceny on a Super-Madoff scale. It is borrowing trillions of dollars even though it has no way to honestly pay back the money.

Still, so eager are the lenders to part with their money that the yield on the 10-year T-note fell

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div style="text-align: justify;"UBS is out with a major call on span style="font-weight: bold;"RF Micro (NASDAQ:RFMD)/span upgrading the stock to a Buy with a $3 tgt.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"The firm upgrades RFMD to Buy from Neutral for the following reasons: /span1) They significantly raise estimates as recent checks show strengthening momentum 2) With major restructuring measures complete, RFMD is likely to see sizeable margin expansion due to increased utilization, and 3) They expect more positive action to reduce debt burden. Upgrade to Buy amp; raise PT to $3, equal to P/S of ~1.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"March marks the trough in fundamentals; Multiple drivers going forward/spanbr /Checks confirm that March was the tough, and strong momentum during the current restocking phase could support a high single digit (possibly low double digit) sequential growth in June qtr, compared to consensus view of +3% seq for June. Also, impact from recent restructuring ...