Gold

[Daytr]

It was a fairly wild night for markets, however we are getting used to those, with wild gyrations becoming the norm in equity markets in various parts of the world except, for the US market which up until last night had been relatively unscathed, clinging on to record levels in the case of the S&P. That all changed last night & the S&P is now back trading below the previous highs it just eclipsed in the last week or two. Gold was whipped up & down to finally close up slightly, but did trade as high as $1375 at one point. Gold is now in a zone where it needs to earn its stripes to push on. It has had plenty of support from short covering, Chinese New Year & now tensions in the Ukraine & uncertainty over the Chinese economic outlook. By Monday we should know which way the vote went in Crimea & the market obviously anticipates are vote in favour of Russia. My feeling is gold could ease back a little next week until the situation there & reactions are assessed. However I do expect it only to be a dip as there are plenty of other issues out there that could raise their ugly head at any given moment. The US equity markets could also be under further pressure giving gold another boost. I also still don't rule out a change in import duty in India in the coming weeks or months. It is only a matter of time before we are testing the big level of $1420 imo. The Aussie is firmer after what can only be described as a stellar employment number with 47k net part time & full time jobs being created. To put this in perspective, per capita in US the same number would equate to around 750k jobs! I really do wonder if the number is actually correct, as it wouldn't be the first time an error has been published only to be corrected. This will be the last market wrap for a week or so as am heading off on a road trip. Happy trading all!. Cheers Daytr

[Daytr]

Just following the lead of the US market by looks. The market is running scared & the problem is the fear is being generated from several different directions.

[skid]

Holy Mac!
Just read that Walmart is the USAs largest employer at $9.79 hr--Its hard to be optimistic with stats like that.
Apparently the next tier up(basically getting you out of poverty in terms of work)have disappeared.
Unemployment rate goes down= more people working at Walmart folks.
want to know more about Walmarts?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jazb24Q2s94

[Bobcat.]

Any reason why the ASX is down 1.4% today? Miners again?

Last night, China reported its YoY Industrial Production at 8.6% against an expected 9.5% growth. That together with their YoY Fixed Asset Investment figure of 17.9% against 19.4% (forecast) sent a few jitters through the market, and as we know, Australia's resource sector is heavily reliant on China's growth.

[skid]

I wonder how bad things have to get before people start exiting the fringe (more risky)currency's like the kiwi $

[Skol]

Why is gold going up? I reckon (in no particular order):
- geo-political risks / instability
- physical demand from asia
- gold price fixing investigation plus the fallout from the libor fixing (I read the other day that some of the traders involved in libor fixing may face a 30 year jail sentance!)
- established trend up (the trend is your friend...)
- coming fallout from huge global debt burden caused by easy money policies (hasn't occured yet but is coming)
- rising production costs of gold
- institutional and retail investors heading back into gold

call me a conspiracy theorist nut if you want Skol but there are things going on that I have a bad feeling about... I think we could well see a crash much worse than 2008 coming soon. I hope I'm wrong.

I should list all the 'disasters' that were gonna send gold to the moon according to the gold bugs, but I'll list just a few off the top of my head.

Afghanistan
The BP oil rig fire in the gulf.
North Korea
Israel attacks Iran
Iran close the Straits of Hormuz
Fukushima
US debt
Fort Knox is empty
German gold stolen by the USA
Chinese gubbermint buying up the world's gold
Cyprus
Money printing
Spanish unemployment
Euro crash
USD crash
The EU falls apart
Greece
Italy

And what's happened? SFA. lol

[Skol]

Marc Faber says the "bull market is due for a big chop".

Faber is the ultimate contrarian warning, he forecast the USA would collapse economically by the end of 2013.

He makes his money from TV appearances, and if he's so damned smart why isn't he trading on his own account and worth billions?

[digger]

Marc Faber says the "bull market is due for a big chop".

Faber is the ultimate contrarian warning, he forecast the USA would collapse economically by the end of 2013.

He makes his money from TV appearances, and if he's so damned smart why isn't he trading on his own account and worth billions?

If the truth ever hurt this is it.

[corran]

I should list all the 'disasters' that were gonna send gold to the moon according to the gold bugs, but I'll list just a few off the top of my head.

Afghanistan
The BP oil rig fire in the gulf.
North Korea
Israel attacks Iran
Iran close the Straits of Hormuz
Fukushima
US debt
Fort Knox is empty
German gold stolen by the USA
Chinese gubbermint buying up the world's gold
Cyprus
Euro crash
USD crash
The EU falls apart
Greece
Italy

And what's happened? SFA. lol

well something is driving gold higher and I'm not complaining.... my portfolio of goldies is up about 50% this year

[Bobcat.]

Disappointing US economic data overnight (1:30 am NZT) provided more upward pressure on the price of Gold.

PPI (MoM) down 0.1% compared to a forecast of up 0.2%
PPI (YoY) up only 0.9% compared to a forecast of up 1.2%
Core PPI (MoM) (excludes food and energy) down 0.2% compared to a forecast of up 0.1%

My Gold stocks are also holding up nicely although earlier this week I did take profit on a few that spiked.

Discl: I'm also buying BEAR.asx since PM digger stocks are not immune to falling at the start of a Bear market (see what happened in 2008).