Precious Metals
Poland’s Gold and the Conspiracy Theorists
The price of gold was up enough to buy a bottle of Two Buck Chuck wine, and the price of silver was up enough to buy a wooden nickel (well, not enough to buy a real nickel nickel).
Poland’s gold bars are packaged by employees of G4S International Logistics to be transported from London to Poland. Poland’s gold was originally transferred to London at the beginning of WW II, when Stalin and Hitler invaded and partitioned the country in the late 1930s. For some reason Poland’s post-war communist government left it there – presumably because it was easier to sell in London. [PT]
Photo credit: G4SI
Misguided Incentives
The price of gold subsided a few bucks, and the price of silver blipped a few pennies. Not much action last week, groceries neither pumped into nor drained out of this asset class. Those who look to exchange capital goods for groceries need to find a different asset.
The best-laid plans… [PT]
Incrementum Advisory Board Discussion of 23 Oct 2019
In late October the Advisory Board of the Incrementum Fund held its quarterly meeting (a transcript is available for download at the end of this post). This time the board was joined by special guest Dan Oliver, the manager of Myrmikan Capital and president of the Committee for Monetary Research & Education. Myrmikan inter alia publishes excellent and quite original research on gold which we hereby highly recommend.
Dan Oliver of Myrmikan Capital
Yields and the “Everything Bubble”
Last week the price of gold was up $9, and the price of silver was up $0.18.
This week, our thought turns to a cherished old saw. Gold bugs often tell us that the purchasing power of gold is constant. An ounce of gold could have purchased, they say, a fine toga in Roman times. Just as it could buy a fine suit today.
This magnificent toga will set you back an ounce, pilgrim. Just think of the impression you’ll make. [PT]
Fun and Regret Ex Nihilo
The price of gold dropped last week, but not calamitously. From $1514 to $1459, or -$55. The price of silver dropped. Calamitously. From $18.08 to $16.75, or -$1.33. -3.6% vs -7.4%. Once again, silver proves to be volatile relative to gold.
Silver jumped off a cliff again last week – the chart formation nevertheless continues to look corrective. [PT]
Everybody Has a Plan
Not too long ago, we wrote about the so called Modern Monetary so called Theory (MMT). It is not modern, and it is not a theory. We called it a cargo cult. You’d think that everyone would know that donning fake headphones made of coconut shells, and waving tiki torches will not summon airplanes loaded with cargo. At least the people who believe in this have the excuse of being illiterate.
A few images documenting cargo cults on the island of Vanuatu. Left: a wooden plane made by the John Frum cargo cult, which is going strong to this day and has actually become a political party. In the middle is a ceremonial cross erected by the John Frum cargo cult. According to one of the cult’s leaders, its members consider John Frum their Jesus whom they expect to return one day (with a big load of cargo). Even funnier are the guys to the right, who belong to a different Vanuatu-based cargo cult, the Prince Philip Movement, which worships the Duke of Edinburgh whom it considers a divine being. Apparently members of the Yaohnanen tribe in Tanna saw how much respect was paid to Queen Elizabeth during her visits to the island and concluded that her consort had to be a being from their legends, the son of a mountain spirit and a “brother to John Frum”, who is also widely expected to return one day (with cargo). Prince Philip was long unaware that he is revered as a god, but since he has learned about it, he frequently exchanges gifts with the movement (he usually sends them signed photographs of himself, and they send things like traditional pig-killing clubs and other useful implements in return). What the members of the John Frum and Prince Philip cults don’t know: they clearly have what it takes to become modern-day mainstream economists. A second career path is open to them. Your cargo awaits, brothers! [PT]
The Most Comprehensive Collection of Gold Charts
Our friends at Incrementum have just published their newest Gold Chart Book, a complement to the annual “In Gold We Trust” report. A download link to the chart book is provided below.
As of late 2019 an ounce of gold will get you 115 liters of beer at the Munich October Fest – a 7-year high. Cheers!
Bitcoin Gets Juiced
The prices of gold and silver were up $19 and $0.48 respectively last week. But that’s not where the massive inpouring of groceries went.
When Friday began (Arizona time), Bitcoin’s purchasing power was under 75 grocery units (assuming a grocery unit is $100). By evening, speculators added 25 more grocery units to the same unit of bitcoin.
Bitcoin, daily – shortly after breaking below an obvious lateral support level, Bitcoin did an about-face on steroids and rallied $3,000 from low to high in the space of a few hours. Interestingly, this rally was presaged by a number of subtle technical signals – bullish divergences with several of the major “alt coins” emerged on occasion of the seeming break-down on October 23, while concurrently a stealth rally in BSV that had started a day earlier refused to be derailed by the sell-off. These are the types of signals we tend to follow in the cryptocurrency markets – we consider them to be traces left by the biggest traders in these markets. Both breakouts and break-downs of resistance/support levels always have to be closely examined for divergences. Note that technical analysis is the only sensible approach to trading in cryptocurrencies, as it is impossible to gauge their “fundamental” value. The latter depends on all sorts of assumptions, all of which could be wrong. Clearly though, cryptos remain an excellent playground for nimble traders. [PT]
Ominous Pronouncements
The prices of the metals barely budged last week. It is interesting to note that last week, more than one central banker felt it necessary to say something about a possible next crisis. And at least one of them said something about gold.
Lost as always, and apparently slightly nervous these days… [PT]
Spillage
The price of gold dropped $16, but the price of silver was all but unchanged. Whereas last week we said:
“…the consumer goods stockpile stored in Treasury bonds (to extend our half sarcastic, half tongue-in-cheek analogy) increased this week.”
The 10-year note takes another peek at the wide spaces below its 50-day moving average. [PT]
Respectable and Not so Respectable Assets
The price of gold went up 8 bucks, and the price of silver went up a penny last week. These were not among the capital assets that could be liquidated for greater quantities of consumer goods last week. Nor were equities.
A respectable, mother-in-law-proof speculation: the 10-year US treasury note. [PT]
An Accident in Waiting
The price of gold dropped $20, and silver 43 cents. For reference, $20 was once worth just about an ounce of gold. Dollar was a unit of measure, a weight of gold equal to 1/20.67 ounce of fine gold.
A gold certificate from the time when the dollar still represented a fixed weight of gold [PT]
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Realtime Charts
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