Few investment/finance topics spark as many strong emotions as gold, for its adherents and detractors are equally committed to their views, and equally unlikely to switch camps.

Adherents view gold as the only real money in a world of constant currency debasements, while detractors don’t see gold as ...

With the financial experts claiming, some gleefully, that gold has "lost its safe haven status" in the aftermath of its biggest tumble in 30 years, many commentators  thought (hoped?) that the dramatic price drop would steer people away from gold ownership. To my eyes, the past week has all the earm...

1.  Staring all day long at the supposed “super top” head and shoulders pattern in place on the HUI index is a good way to create fear, but I doubt it will create any lasting wealth.  It certainly won’t build any gold mines.
2. Markets are ruled by fundamentals, not charts.  The largest institutional liqui...

While gold has been falling since October, China has been establishing itself as the major player in the world market for The Yellow Metal.  The heavy buying from the People’s Republic is taking place at both the macro- and micro-level.  The People’s Bank of China has been buying very aggressively i...

Silver is an appealing way to benefit from growth in China. Due to the concerns about corporate governance in China, a cottage industry has developed for research firms that ferret out fraud in publicly traded Chinese companies, establish a short position, and then release reports detailing the reas...

1. India's central bank just chopped interest rates, in the face of the worst economic growth in 10 years.  “The RBI unexpectedly also reduced the cash reserve ratio (CRR), the share of deposits banks must keep with the central bank by 25 bps to 4.00 percent, which will infuse an additional 180 billion...

1. A number of Western central bankers are issuing strong statements now, highlighting their concerns about actions just taken by the Bank of Japan (BOJ).
2. The BOJ doubled their inflation target, to 2%, and announced they would begin open-ended QE in 2014.  Of even greater importance, they announced the ...

Metals traders have apparently thrown up their hands for the most part and resolved to get to the end of the year (or at least option expiry next week) at something resembling UNCH. As Friday’s tragedy dominated the headlines domestically, there has been little else to stoke volumes or volatilit...

1. The election of the new Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, may be a “watershed” event.  His powerful commitment to unlimited quantitative easing could fundamentally jumpstart the next leg of the gold bull market.
2. Please click here now.  You are looking at EWJ-nyse, an iShares ETF.  It is a proxy fo...

After a fairly coordinated sell-off among risk assets Wednesday and Thursday, metals have staged a bit of recovery only to begin giving it back this morning. Crude continues to drag the entire commodities complex lower and Brent is now down about 16% on the year. Economists tend to view lower en...