Blog

April 17, 2006 – When will the Federal Reserve stop raising interest rates? It is the question everyone is asking these days. The federal funds rate, which is the rate at which banks lend and borrow money for short-term needs, is now 4.75%. As recently as June 2004 the rate was 1%. It seems inevitableRead more

March 28, 2006 – Each week the Federal Reserve reports various measures of the US dollar money supply. One of these, M3, is the total quantity of dollars in circulation. Last week the Fed stopped reporting M3, explaining as follows the reason for their decision: “M3 does not appear to convey any additional information aboutRead more

March 27, 2006 – For more than twenty years the Fear Index has been a reliable and trustworthy guide. I invented it in the mid-1980s in order to show us the major trends in gold, and more importantly, to illustrate gold’s relative valuation in terms of a constantly inflating dollar. It has accomplished those featsRead more

March 15, 2006 – Anybody who has been lending money to the US federal government by buying T-Bills and its other debt instruments received a brutal one-two punch last week. It was hopefully a sobering experience, causing them to question why they would want to hold any US government paper. The Washington Post landed theRead more

March 6, 2006 – Long-term US dollar interest rates rose again this past week, continuing the uptrend that began in mid-January. For example, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note closed the week at 4.68%, up from the 4.36% yield prevailing at the end of the week of January 13th. What’s more, 4.68% is theRead more

February 27, 2006 – On February 22, 2006, a news report was published by Dow Jones Newswires based on a press release issued the same day by Barrick Gold Corp.  The Dow Jones article read in part: “TORONTO — Barrick Gold Corp.’s profit increased by 12% in the fourth quarter as results were helped byRead more

Feb 22, 2006 – Gold and silver have been in a short-term correction for the past couple of weeks. Corrections like the current one are a normal occurrence in bull markets. After all, nothing moves in a straight line. The key point is that eventually corrections end, and the current correction may be ending now.Read more

Feb 10, 2006 – In my previous alerts I explained that precious metal bull markets “are caused by people looking for a safe haven from national currency”. I went on to note that during these bull markets, this “rising monetary demand on the margin will have a greater positive impact on silver than on gold”.Read more

February 6, 2006 – When you follow the markets with as much careful and continuous attention as I do, it’s inevitable that you end up hearing a lot of nonsense.  The trick is to separate the nonsense from the good stuff – to separate the wheat from the chaff. There are no easy ways toRead more

January 23, 2006 – A couple of years ago I read Empire: the Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power by British historian and best-selling author Niall Ferguson.  It was an interesting read, as the book provided not only an overview of the major milestones in Britain’s historyRead more