We will not be publishing a daily this Friday. I am leaving for Denver on Thursday and have set up a dinner meeting with Ranting Andy Hoffman on Friday. We think very much alike and a face-to-face meeting was inevitable. I made plans a while back to be in Denver on Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the Rock Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF), an annual event I usually attend, as a serious “audiophile.” So as long as I was going to be there anyway, I though it made sense to meet with Ranting Andy – who lives in Denver.
I usually return home from the RMAF with as many new LP records as I can carry. I own several thousand LPs and am continuously adding to my pile. I started buying records when I was in high school in the late 1950s. I am not your “ordinary” guy. I have always marched to a different drummer. I believe in the superiority of vinyl (to CD), tubes (to solid state), analogue (to digital) – and gold and silver to paper. My parents must have dropped me on my head when I was young. I believe that often, less is more, and new is not necessarily better than the old, tried and true – be it in audio or in what we think of as MONEY.
I can tell you this much – I have one of the best sounding audio systems in the world and since 2001 my precious metals portfolio has outdone virtually any of the alternatives. When I put my mind to something, I usually take it to the limit. I have invested a great deal of time and energy into understanding what you have to do to get great sound – and what makes sense economically. You will not find the answer to either of these topics in mainstream publications. I believe that the appreciation of music is buried deep in our DNA. So is the appreciation of gold. Mankind has been programmed to appreciate both. Both have been cherished for thousands of years. Looked at that way, I guess it makes sense for me to spend time checking out the latest audio gear, buying records AND having dinner with Andy Hoffman.
Now, onto today’s more serious commentary.
In todays daily, both Bob Chapman and Ted Butler discuss the same topic.
Chapman writes:
We, via the COT commercial net short position reduction, see the big banks anticipating a strong upward move in both metals. We see such moves in spite of higher margin requirements by the criminal CME, owner of the Comex.
Butler writes:
The ability of the COMEX commercial crooks to go short in unlimited quantities and the ability of these crooks to game the leveraged longs are the precise mechanisms behind the silver manipulation.
Wall Street and the large banks control congress and the precious metals pricing. The ability to borrow endless amounts of dollars (via deficit spending and Treasury sales) is what gives our politicians power. Both Wall Street and government need to perpetuate the dollar and need to discredit gold and silver. There is no government oversight in the gold and silver markets. The big banks (JPM and HSBC) and the CME are allowed to do as they please. Margins are increased in order to favor those of their buddies who are short, and to rape those funds and investors who are long. Butler and Chapman have called attention to these policies for years and nothing is done to stop the abuses.
What does gold want to do – go up or go down? Gold has essentially gone nowhere in the last three days. So you sit there, confused and waiting for a signal and do nothing. That is exactly what they want you to do – nothing. In the meantime you stay in dollars.
Fortunately, we do not have to rely on congress or the CFTC to set things straight. The Chinese and Indians are doing it for them. Every time the Cartel forces prices lower on the Comex, the Chinese and Indians move in with large orders for PHYSICAL gold and silver and the prices revert back to where they were and continue to climb. The free market is working. As Butler points out, it would be better if Comex totally got out of the gold and silver paper markets. All that they accomplish is to put a cap on the price of gold and silver. But as you have witnessed for the last decade, their raids have done nothing to stop the ongoing bull market in the metals and the erosion of paper currencies.
I know that it gets confusing for you. It gets confusing for me too, sometimes, until I step back and realize that all of the back-and-forth movement in the Dow, gold and silver is just “noise.” Nothing much is changing. Up one day, down the next, back up the next. The markets are rather “spinning their wheels” and that makes investors unsure of what to do and what to believe. That is why I am constantly asking you to focus on the Big Picture and to ignore the day-to-day noise of the markets. Just look at the following gold chart and try and make sense out of what is happening.
What does gold want to do – go up or go down? Gold has essentially gone nowhere in the last three days. So you sit there, confused and waiting for a signal and do nothing. That is exactly what they want you to do – nothing. In the meantime you stay in dollars.
A few days ago I wrote that gold has to close above $1,690 for a day or two and then you can feel safer that the recent takedown is behind us. At the close today, gold is only $15.50 away. Silver has to close above $32 and silver is $32.58 right now. Let’s hope that the worst is behind us here too. However, Richard Russell isn’t so sure.