The War on Gold and Silver Continues

Trading is hard, and best left for the professionals. Buying can be hard too, particularly after a mini-crash. But the emotion can be removed when you have a set plan to purchase a certain amount of physical metal every month as your savings.

Anyway, the war on gold and silver continues. Perhaps the next battle will be fought next week when options expire. And maybe the central planners will win another battle, but what is clear is that the central planners are losing the war.

There is one other point I would like to mention, Eric: Maybe last week’s quick mini-crash is telling us something important. With both gold and silver - as well as the mining stocks - being so undervalued, the central planners can’t keep downward pressure on the precious metals for days or even weeks like they used to.

In other words, maybe last week was a historic turning point, and that one-day mini crashes - instead of long, drawn out corrections - will become the norm. Carrying this point one step further, maybe sub-$1300 gold is history, just like we will never see $1050 gold again. Given the strong performance gold has put in the past few days, it is possible that another important low was made last week in the uptrends for gold and silver that are now 13 months old.

- James Turk via a recent King World News interview

Central Planners Can Only Push Gold Lower for so Long

This buying of physical metal explains why gold and silver bounced up off their support so quickly, Eric. The central planners can only push the short side so far, and their agents in the select bullion banks that trade for them know when to cover. These guys all know their limits, but we will continue to get the anti-gold propaganda.

For example, the media was quick to tell everyone last week that Goldman Sachs is keeping their year-end gold price target at $1,050. That ‘news’ - coming as it did right after last week’s price slam - probably scared some people and kept them from buying physical metal at those good prices when gold and silver were testing support.

Putting aside the propaganda, we have to remember that these attacks on gold and silver don’t always work. And some - like this last one - are short lived. So if you had money on the sidelines waiting to buy and blinked, you missed the low. It’s another reason why I always recommend accumulating gold on a regular basis rather than trying to trade it.

- Source, James Turk via King World News

Money on the Sidelines is Waiting to Move Into Precious Metals

The experience of the last several years tells us that we will see more attacks on the precious metals like the one the central planners engineered last week. We know from experience that these mini-crashes particularly occur before testimony before Congress by Fed officials, release of FOMC minutes, at month-end during option expiry, and before the U.S. unemployment report.

I am sure the hedge funds that trade gold have these dates marked in their calendars. But regardless, I do know that there is a lot of money on the sidelines waiting to buy physical gold and physical silver whenever we get bargain basement prices like we saw last week.

- James Turk via a recent King World News interview

Gold and Silver Look Ready to Move Higher

"The big drubbing the precious metals took last week is already pretty much forgotten. Both gold and silver stabilized at the support we discussed last Monday, around $1300 for gold and just under $21 for silver. They have since turned around, and look ready to head higher again. Today’s strong close is very encouraging."

- James Turk via King World News

Debasement of Money Drives Gold and Silver Higher

Gold and silver are now back at support, around $1,300 for gold and just under $21 for silver. And the price manipulators are walking away with big day-trading profits. They are covering here at support all the shorts they sold last week and early this morning when Europe and the US were asleep. And because the shorts they put on this morning are traded intraday and mainly off the Comex, no one will ever see any Comex or other exchange report of their huge build up in short selling and the disappearance of these positions later the same day.

It is tough living with the irony of it all. There are record high prices everywhere except the gold price and the silver price. Many stocks, bonds, works of art and real estate in many safe-havens around the world are already at historic highs. But it will change.

We have to put aside today’s drubbing and focus on what’s important, namely, what drives the gold price. It is of course central bank debasement of currencies, which is making gold and silver increasingly undervalued and explains why both precious metals remain in uptrends that began over a year ago. And notwithstanding what happened today, let’s remember that both gold and silver are up 8% so far this year.

- Source, James Turk via King World News

Bank Shorts Orchestrating Gold & Silver Smash

The central planners today won another battle in the precious metal arena, Eric. They got the short sellers to dig in their heels over the past few days, which is clear from the increase in the open interest on the Comex, particularly for silver....

If we look at what happened last week, approximately 21% more silver was sold short on the Comex than was actually mined in those 5 days. The Comex open interest increase in gold was about 88% of all the gold mined those five days.

When comparing how much gold and silver were sold short than was actually mined, it only takes logic to conclude that it was paper selling that stopped gold and silver’s price advance last week. And these results are only for the Comex, which is generally said to represent just 10% of paper derivative trading in silver and gold.

Clearly, the paper sellers were out in full force last week. They were trying to keep gold and silver prices capped. Nevertheless, from Monday to Friday’s close, gold rose 1.6% while silver jumped 2.1%. But these shorts turned the tide in their favor early this morning.

Before Europe opened, the paper sellers were out in full force painting the tape with short selling during the most illiquid time of the day. By the time the metals opened for trading in New York, the spec longs were ready to be flushed out. Also, because precious metal prices today broke below their short-term moving averages, the black-box proprietary traders had to flip their positions from long to short. The selling pressure on gold and silver prices was relentless.

- Source, James Turk via King World News

All You Need To Know About Negative Interest Rates

On Thursday, the European Central Bank (ECB) took the historically unprecedented step of lowering certain of its interest rates below 0%. In a report to our premium subscribers immediately following the announcement, Chris likened the move to the policy equivalent of dropping a neutron bomb.

In the days following, despite the ECB attempting to clarify its stance further, many questions still linger; most notably: What exactly will the implications of this negative interest rate (NIRP) policy be?

We've asked our European correspondent, Alasdair Macleod, to lay things out in black as white as much as is possible. In this detailed podcast with Chris, he explains exactly what steps the ECB is undertaking, what the most probable ramifications will be, and where the highest degrees of risk now lie.

- Alasdair Macleod of James Turk Gold Money, Source, Peak Prosperity

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid: The “Nuclear Solution” to Underfunded Public Pensions

How to Prevent the Manipulation in Gold and Silver

There is a practical way to eliminate the manipulation of gold and silver prices. It is to require that anyone selling short any derivatives contract that provides for the delivery of physical metal must meet margin requirements by having physical silver in a vault, and further that the margin requirement be reasonably high to control the fractional-reserve leveraging.

This step would prevent price manipulations like the one where Barclays Bank was caught and fined. Traders, whether acting for their bank’s account or as agents for government central planners, would no longer be able to conjure up out of thin air London good delivery bars in an attempt to force gold and silver prices lower by making believe that they have physical gold available for sale when in fact they don’t. A reasonably high margin requirement in terms of physical metal imposed on short sellers of physical metal would move price discovery in gold and silver back to where it should be based, which is the market for physical metal and not the derivatives market.

My recommendation is that a 50-percent margin requirement be imposed on short sellers of contracts of physical metal. So if someone sells short a contract obligating the delivery of physical metal, the short-seller needs to prove that he has at least 1 ounce of silver in a vault for every 2 ounces sold short.

This measure will reduce the fractional-reserve aspect of precious metal trading to a reasonable level from the 100-to-1 level, which some market participants have stated is the present ratio of paper commitments to actual physical metal available. Not only will reasonable margin requirements reduce the opportunity to manipulate gold and silver prices with derivatives, it will also offer the added benefit of lowering the possibility of systemic risk like what occurred in 2008.

Now here’s the important point. Fractional-reserve systems are not only fraudulent because of the inability to deliver all commitments; they are also inherently unstable and come with incalculable risks. For this reason I therefore always recommend avoiding paper products, and owning only physical gold and physical silver. When you own physical metal, you are going to be safe when the next 2008-like systemic collapse arrives.”

- James Turk via King World News

Silver Bullion Bars 999 Choose From 10-100oz Pure Silver Trusted Bullion Dealer - Buy Now!