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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The low in Far East trading on Monday occurred shortly after the Hong Kong open…and lasted until precisely 4:00 p.m….which was 3:00 a.m. in New York. From there, gold got sold off about $10 in London trading. The low price of the day occurred less than 15 minutes before the Comex open. The rally that began from that point lasted through the entire N.Y. trading session…both Comex and electronic…with gold tacking on about $12 and almost closing on its high of the day. It was a pretty quiet trading session, and there wasn’t a lot of volume

All of the above applied to silver as well.

Open interest changes for Tuesday showed that gold’s o.i. fell another 2,588 contracts to 371,997…on smallish volume of 89,080 contracts. Silver o.i. was down a respectable 2,370 contracts to a total open interest of 103,981…on volume of only 24,042 contracts. Tuesday [at the close of trading]

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I don't typically like spending a lot of time on stories that have more coverage by blogs than actual news outlets, but this one is really too juicy to pass up and it also continues our ongoing conversation about the dollar's prominence as a global reserve currency. Two men were recently stopped by Italian authorities while trying to cross the border into Switzerland with a fake-bottomed suitcase containing $134.5 billion worth of US Treasury bonds. That's right - billion with a B. Let's take just a moment to review which of the United States' various creditors even hold that much US debt. According to the latest data from the US Treasury Department, this is what we have to work through April of this year:

China ~ $763.5 billion Japan ~ $685.9 billion Caribbean Banking Centers ~ $204.7 billion OPEC ~

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It’s not technically a new decade yet. But if the trade of the last decade was to sell stocks and buy gold, then maybe the best trade for the next ten years is to sell bonds and buy energy. Gas, coal, oil, conventional, unconventional, renewable, alternative. You have a whole portfolio of choices.

By the way, last year at the Agora Wealth Symposium in Vancouver, one of our colleagues took the stage to point out that your editor was complete moron. In this particular case, it was for being bullish on gold.

He said that gold hadn’t done much adjusted for inflation since 1980. What’s more, he said, its worth less, adjusted for inflation that it was twenty years ago. How, he speculated, could anyone take the advice to buy gold seriously when it had performed so abysmally?

Well here are the facts. The gold price bottomed in October of 2000 at $263.80.

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Too far, too fast? Currencies give back some ground…Did China send a message? The Mogambo and more! And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… And a Terrific Tuesday to you! I hope your Memorial Day Holiday weekend was grand… We had beautiful days Friday and Saturday, but Sunday and Monday brought the monsoons! Still… I got to spend time with family and friends, and attend a Cardinals game! YAHOO!

Well… Recall on Friday morning, I told you about how we could see wild swings because of the thinned out trading desks? Well, that’s exactly what happened… The Big Dog, euro, traded well into the 1.40 level, up to 1.4050 at one point! The currencies across the board were kicking sand in the dollar’s face and laugh. You may also recall that I said that Friday didn’t seem like a good time to buy given the strength… And that too, has played out with

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Euro at one-month low…  Trichet talks rate cuts…  Riksbank & Bank of Canada this week…  The Mogambo on a Monday! And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

OK… A bad day a the office for the euro and other currencies on Friday, and then last night in the overnight markets… European Central Bank (ECB) President, Trichet, once again deep-sixed the euro with talk of further rate cuts. He did attempt to water down the message by saying that “any rate cuts would be measured 25 BPS cuts” Memo to Trichet… It doesn’t matter what the size of the debasing is, as long as you are going to debase

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“Negative growth,” says newspapers.

Yes, dear reader. Stocks are advancing to the rear…and economies are growing…smaller. How we love these oxymorons! If only we could age negatively…and eat all we wanted and gain minus pounds!

The commentators have it all wrong. Look on the bright side. The world economy is not in a period of negative growth. It’s in a period of positive collapse! That’s why the Great Depression was so great, after all. What’s positive about this depression is that it is clearing away a generation’s worth of mistakes, misallocations of resources and misplaced confidence.

Stocks are down more than 20% this year. The U.S. economy is retreating at more than 6% per year. Britain is walking backwards at a 2% pace. And Japan? Wow…when it comes to negative growth, the Japanese are experts. Their economy is growing negatively at more than 12% per year. If this keeps up, by the time

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Another currency rally….  Bank of Canada cuts 75 BPS!…  A Santa rally?… What Asia thinks… And Now… Today’s Pfennig! OK… Another day of “healing” for the currencies, as the 1.29 handle was achieved and held on to in the overnight markets. Slowly… Like sand through the hourglass, these are the days of currency healing! HA! That show, Days of our Lives, was burned into my brain as a kid, as it was my mother’s fave soap.

The single unit was higher within the 1.29 handle overnight than it is right now, as it has given back a bit of ground on the news that a European Union Commissioner, Buti, said that, “economic indicators point

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Another currency rally….  Bank of Canada cuts 75 BPS!…  A Santa rally?… What Asia thinks… And Now… Today’s Pfennig! OK… Another day of “healing” for the currencies, as the 1.29 handle was achieved and held on to in the overnight markets. Slowly… Like sand through the hourglass, these are the days of currency healing! HA! That show, Days of our Lives, was burned into my brain as a kid, as it was my mother’s fave soap.

The single unit was higher within the 1.29 handle overnight than it is right now, as it has given back a bit of ground on the news that a European Union Commissioner, Buti, said that, “economic indicators point

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It is not as if financial markets are short on action at the moment, and financial pundits and analysts are certainly being served an ample amount of ammunition from which to draw inspiration. With the recent news that Warren Buffet will be relinquishing his coffers of 7.5 billion to support the erstwhile jewel of investment banking Goldman Sachs, it is difficult for market participants to run fast enough to keep up. One thing though which does not seem to be running at the moment (apart from the entire global financial edifice that is) is the market for samurai bonds which are yen denominated bonds issued by foreign entities in Japan. Or more specifically, after Lehman’s default many observers have voiced concern that this might effectively blunt what has hitherto been a very sharp business for both issuers and investors. I ...