another way to look at the difference in opinions here is that I and S3052 believe in investing countercyclically, ie, selling on the way up before the crowd and buying on the way down.  or should i better say trying to pick tops and bottoms?  most others here believe in trends and momentum.

of course others will just say they are following strong fundamentals which won't change the course or direction of the gold market.  this will take time to play out.

Ben:  no mention of Operation Twist or repos.  if bitcoin didn't like it what will gold do?

No more direct QE was pretty obvious - too much opposition. Calling for fiscal discipline is just lip service unless actions are taken to back it up. Without political backing in conjunction with monetary tightening, there's no action.

Also, saying that the deficit needs to be fixed in a way that doesn't hinder the economy is like telling someone with a dislocated shoulder to pop it back in without causing any pain. Not possible.

What struck me more was the suggestion that they'll do what's needed to assist economic recovery. To me, that says it's going to be more of the same, just not immediately; maybe when the markets have crashed a little further from where they are now, or the crisis in Europe moves to a breaking point.

Of course, that's all verbiage. A liar can keep lying until he's blue in the face and there still won't be a consensus on whether he's telling the truth or not. That's a politician's job, or in this case an economic head - placate the people/markets. It's exactly what happened: treasuries and gold are steady, equities aren't entirely spiraling out of control and the dollar is relatively steady as well - mostly because it wasn't thrown under the bus.

If you look in the right places, you'll see that the story is quite different. A duck might look calm while on the surface of the water (Bernanke speaking), but underneath his legs are kicking like mad to move him around (extreme volumes, open interest and statistical concentrations). The same is going on behind the scenes. Again, I'll defer to Eric De Groot in examining spread trade statistical concentration.

The more spread trades put on, the less investors' fight-or-flight mechanism is certain of which way to go. That means that there will be fewer on-board when the train leaves the station, at least when it comes to position size. Most have either lightened up their long positions, closed out entirely, gone short or taken hedging/spread positions. Where was all the selling coming from during the 23rd and 24th? Was it just longs taking profits or was there a helping hand flooding the market with short positions? What happens when those shorts are covered or take profits?

All this week during the $200 gold decline, I can almost guarantee that commercial trading positions (bullion banks and other big players) have been accumulating on the buy side; frustratingly, we won't know for certain until next week's CoT report. The price will be pushed up and as the current shorts cut their losses, the covering will provide the additional selling for those commercial interests to buy into. As the price rises, existing longs alongside the commercials (like me!) will add to their positions while additional 'dry powder' funds will come in. Momentum buying will carry the price further until the retail suckers pile in (mostly from fear of missing the ride up) and cause another spike high well above $2000/oz.

With that happening so shortly after such a large run-up already, down comes the bullion bank hammer (assisted by margin increases and negative media) and flushes all the doubly-weakened spiders out. Calls of the bubble top will make the rounds yet again after a near-$1,000 drop occurs (~30% or so corrective declines are normal on the way up). This time, enough cumulative froth will have been built up that many will decide the insane volatility and $200 price swings aren't worth it, so there won't be as much resistance on the way down as there was this week (picture a clean left hook followed by a solid uppercut). An outside reversal to the downside will be painted for the remainder of 2011 and the price will rise on a gentle slope until the low-liquidity end-of-year games.

These annual games are shaping up no different from other years, just with a progressively earlier and stronger resistance to their efficacy. It's the market forces that make things happen, not the speeches given at Jackhole or from the White House. Those are reactionary, taking credit by responding to what they can no longer control or hide.

As long as you've still got some physical metal, trade paper all you want. I'm trading paper to get physical.


All of those factors matter. Right now, short-term trading is immensely dangerous. For example, I managed to squeak out 50 pips profit by shorting USD/CHF at 0.8120, but doing so regularly would be a fool's gambit. That type of short-term counter-cyclic trading only presents opportunity once in a while.

For momentum, I'm riding the 11-year gold bull which doesn't seem to be ready to take a major pause quite yet. You're right, it will take time and is the long-term play. Short-term there isn't often enough room for momentum to build, which is why hedge funds are shredding themselves apart as technical indicators keep getting falsely triggered.

Use the appropriate technical strategy for a market as long as you have a solid understand of each respective market's fundamentals; swim perpendicular to a rip-tide, not against it.

If the Bitcoin economy were of sufficient size to be a source of influence instead of being influenced, that comparison might hold. Currently, Bitcoin is still too small of a market to hold its own and continues to be buffeted by capital flows, exhibiting behavior similar to equities at times and currencies (including gold, but more so anti-dollar types - AUD, CHF, EUR) at other times.

There's also the fact that the Bitcoin monetary/unit base is still being rapidly inflated by mining, so the price may have held for a while prior to this major event (Jackhole), but now I think a lot of people are starting to offload somewhat due to their expectations not being met.

Now where are those news stories about BitCon 2011 from the media?

That Joe Smith example was just to explain that the money is from nothing.

The excess reserves appeared when the federal reserve replaced the banks hidden losses (Through their derivatives) with cash, and banks are just leaving a lot of this cash around. What is your explanation to what happens to these excess reserves next?

And that is only part of the story, money has leaked out elsewhere.

if there are any doubts about market manipulation just look at the straight line up in WHR (Whirlpool) stock today.  i don't think i've ever seen such a straighter, unabated rise.  this is why i'm so suspicious of parabolic rises; you don't know when they're gonna pull the rug out.

Stagflation. You are going to be hearing that word a lot from now on.

i was going to launch into a long winded attempted comparison but that one word just about sums it up.

In the '70s, the US was the world's primary free-world economy. The world's primary source of oil had shifted to the Middle East. In the late 1970s, the oil exporting nations realized their power and stood up against American dominance (largely because of irritation at being paid for their real asset of oil with worthless paper no longer tied to another real asset - gold). That triggered a general economic slowdown as the nation's source of energy was squeezed. This led to rather sudden asset and production deflation in the face of money supply that was still rising. As Hugo offered: stagflation.

Over the years there have been several cases of similar resistance (particularly Saddam Hussein), though it wasn't a unified front as during the late '70s. Now we are seeing a global shift to remove the USD as reserve currency and reject American dominance. This is far more troubling, as there is no way for the US to prevent such a massive tidal shift in desire for freedom from the wealth-siphoning effect of the USD. Without being the reserve currency, the US will have to pay with assets instead of dollars.

Gold for oil, and not cheap (sub-$1,000) gold - gold at its real value many times higher than current.

It wasn't the greatest movie, but I strongly recommend Rollover (1981) for a good idea of how the interrelated aspects would cause serious consequences. The action can be seen in this video. Even though it's an old film, the depiction is still very applicable to the current situation.

There is also a much more in-depth explanation from FOFOA, as well as a follow-up with additional clarification. I have to say, I recommend everything from FOFOA. If I'd come across his information (also that of Another, FOA, et al.), I wouldn't have had to discover nearly so much on my own. Make use of the resources offered by him to understand where the world is headed.

With the chart, nothing really stands as support between here and the previous long-term lows of 2:1, then 1:1. Those are the targets for big money. When those ratio levels are reached, they'll start lightening up their positions. That will happen as the little guys who still have some investable wealth have finally decided to get into the game, providing potential for an overrun below 1:1 and putting their own heads in the noose. The rich get richer.

To add to this, the distrust for the dollar comes from before the end of Bretton Woods by Nixon. People did not trust Bretton Woods as they saw it was a fake monetary system. Already at the end of the 40's Saudi Arabia was having problems getting an once of gold at $35 (and remember FDR devaluated 40% just a decade before), and so the USA had to create special gold coins and send them to the arabs as payment instead of the paper dollars. During the 50's and the 60's the price of gold went crazy (well over $35) a couple of times, until the USA could not control it anymore and had to default during the 70's.